What Works?

Like I mentioned last week while writing about Frank Church, I've been reading a book called Battlefield America: The War on the American People, by John W. Whitehead, published in 2015. It's well worth a read, although it's very, very depressing. I can't say it takes a right or a left wing slant; it gets angry at both sides. Towards the end of the book, Whitehead lists 10 basic principles that 'We, the People' can, understand, agree with, insist upon and support in our attempt to stop our country's almost finished progression to a police state, an empire. I found the principles interesting, so I thought I'd list them here.

1. 'We must come to grips with the reality that the present system does not foster freedom.'
2. 'Voting is practically worthless.'
3. 'Question everything.'
4. 'Materialism is a death knell to freedom.'
5. 'There is little hope for true resistance if you are mindlessly connected to the electronic concentration camp.'
6. 'An armed revolt will not work.'
7. 'Be wise and realize there is power in numbers.'
8. 'Act locally but think nationally'.
9. 'Local towns, cities and states can nullify or say 'No' to federal laws that violate the rights and freedoms of the citizenry'.
10. 'Understand what freedom is all about.'

I think we agree that we already know all these things; maybe most Americans do, whether they acknowledge it or not. So, where do we go from here?

1932: Bonus Army shacks on fire after the attack on their 'Hooverville' in the Anacostia flats (the Capitol is in the background) by the regular army under MacArthur, from Wikipedia. Bye, Bye, Hoover!

Number 6: armed revolts will not work is true. I think they can work, they have in the past, but not here, not recently. Unarmed, 'peaceful' revolts, like that of the Bonus Army in 1932, work. They aren't actually that peaceful, protesters get hurt, and killed, by those in charge (the police, the army, etc); still such protests can work.

Numbers 7-10, when put together, show what has to be done. There has to be peaceful revolt in large numbers including local actions - over and over. Local towns, cities and states, if they are not completely controlled by those in power, should be/will be protesting against the federal government. And freedom means it is not one side (right or left) against another, but all sides (and there are more than two) acting together against those in power so all can be free. Just a pipe dream? Maybe. Another thing to recognize is that this kind of thing has to happen over and over again throughout time. Even if the 'people' 'win', it will only last - maybe - 40 years (hello 1930's and post-wwii improvements) and then the greedy will gain control and we'll be under their heels again.

Matt Taibbi spoke at a recent rally in DC called 'Rescue the Republic'. He talked about freedom of speech and its history. It's a very good speech, here's a link to it and a transcript on his website.

Walter Kirn also spoke at the rally. Here's his wonderful speech with a transcript, including a bit of folk music (and Simon and Garfunkel - is that folk?). Man, these two songs made me remember my childhood, my parents loved these songs and so we listened to them a lot :-).

As these speeches, and the rally, show, we are starting to come together, we are starting to realize 'we' have to do something, anything, about those in control. Maybe victory won't be in our lifetime, but perhaps the start of the road to victory will be. What do you think might work, if anything?

Thanks for reading this post. Here's the open thread - remember, everything is interesting if you dive deep enough, so tell us about where you're diving!