C.J.Sellers

I saw a 30second commercial for the National Guard on Hulu.com recently that’s like Starship Troopers without the bugs. Found it on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5pQW-k43is

It’s revolting to watch them start out with benignly helping folks and quickly lead into to tanks and killing, given the recent history of military propaganda and the climate of fear fomented by politicians in league with the corporate media post 9/11. I remember the lip service given to freedom and our fine ideals and the insistence by those who voted for more warfare that we were going there to help and do good. I remember the justification of liberating the people, most especially the women who, in reality, had a greater likelihood of being starved, killed, raped, or now may have children with birth defects due to the “Happy Liberation” gift we left of Radioactive Uranium Dust, making Saddam Hussein’s exploits look small by comparison.

Shiny buttons and fancy swords (as shown in the recruiting video) can’t hide the shame brought on the uniform by engaging in illegal preemptive warfare on premise of lies wrought through means of torture to jumpstart the Bush Dynasty Wars, Part Deux. Military service is no longer an honorable profession so long as war follows a corporate profit motive. Some of the idiots that signed up for a paycheck, while claiming to be patriots, were too dense to catch on even when the neocons spelled it out for them in an acronym: Operation Iraqi Liberation= OIL. For years they still denied the stupidity. Years. Even after watching the military stand over the oil field while Iraqs museums were ransacked and the women were raped…er, “liberated”. Even after the Abu-Ghraib documented evils, even after finding out how much Halliburton profited.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=544476389136766337#
But hardly anyone denies the stupidity of Iraq now. Yet people still sign up to go over there and kill people in some other area nearby and continue to fuel the military industrial complex chasing a boogieman Al Queda that didn’t even exist before we called it that? We can’t kill the idea that is morally reprehensible to some Muslims, we’re only giving it fuel by attacking them and occupying their lands. http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares

If we’re going to blow money over there instead of at home, common sense says forgo weapons, invest, and give the Iraqis jobs that don’t involve killing Americans. But that would be *common* sense, which serves the commoner. The military is not serving the common person by going over there, they’re serving (albeit indirectly) profiteering corporations that are milking the taxpayers…and they’re consigning us, our children, and grandchildren in a national debt to foreign interests.

Corporations are amoral. By and large, they exist, bottom-line, for profit. That’s why we must resist their influence in politics and pop culture and public opinion if we wish to preserve some semblance of morality. Even now, with Bush & Co. out of the picture, the corporations continue to gain ground. The problem is much bigger than punishing a guilty figurehead such as Bush or Cheney (though that would be a welcome start). The corruption is firmly entrenched in America but who can and will root it out? What’s it going to take when corporations own nearly everything, have the most money and power, and will get each other’s back but not the average American’s? Who’s looking out for the poor chump that’s lured to his/her death by this video?

RESOURCES FOR RESISTERS:

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Resources_resisters.vp.html

George Lakoff asks us, “Where’s the Movement?” Then he goes on with a lot of the same material.

I like Lakoff, don’t get me wrong. He’s been helpful in understanding the need to frame political issues to appeal to a large audience.

The problem I have with Lakoff is that what he has to say about what language moves conservatives is much more insightful than what he suggests will move liberals. IMO, he’s not much help in crafting effective jargon. The conservative selling points work because they only aspire to sell to their base. Liberals try to be everything to everyone. They try to appeal to the heart and intellect as it applies to government. Conservatives appeal to the gut. The gut reaction is always more powerful than appeals to compassion or thoughtfulness.

I mean think about it, when you see someone begging in the street, do you rush up and see what you can do to help? Do you offer them the shirt off your back? Do you offer to take them anywhere they want to go or let them stay in your place? Someone somewhere probably does but it’s far from the norm. This is the image that the empathy message implies and it ends where it runs up against the hard reality that we’re NOT all in it together and that’s just bullshit.

Liberals need to come up with some new material and don’t look to Lakoff, he just doesn’t get human nature, he’s projecting his personality type onto the rest of us. Not all liberals respond to the touchy-feely response. Look at how effective Obama was, was it because he was making appeals for empathy? No, he proposed fairness and direct action. He promised results. Action is what liberals want to see. They’re sick of being sold out by lame-ass stand-for-nothing Democrats. Liberals want justice. They want results.

Don’t wait for something worthwhile to happen, liberals. Be it now, make it happen. Learn from Obama’s failure and the conservative’s success. Don’t play to the middle, speak to the gut, shoot from the hip, shoot straight, pitch in and lend a hand. These cliches are about action and they still pay out. Craft your message about action and integrity, that will appeal to liberals at this point, IMO. And maybe even some centrists and conservatives too but don’t count on it and don’t aim for them, they are not your audience.

by C.J. Sellers

“Josmar Trujillo is trying to cross the bridge
from Reactionary to Revolutionary.”

And what of them! Those rarefied American Elms
Ulmus americana, the White Elms that boomed large,
clustered and towering, condemning the new and young
with damning shade after all these many years of
enjoying their grace and wealth of sun.

They complain of us yet see how in winter they don’t mind
the young fodder or whatever’s down there that works and dies–
our corpses hide their tender roots all day and night.
Do the poor saps warm from obligation or is it fate
where in shade the progeny fell and when?

Tree of Heaven, Josmar Trujillo exclaims (in hate),
What of this old forest? Fuck this usury, I say good firewood.
Though these sprouts are lost, so what, they would have been.
When the smoke clears, there at the base, generations
of diversity to live free amid the blessed sun!

So say we all, as Josmar echoes Che, “Vive la Revolución!”
Come lightning, come wind, spark! Bring it all down in flames
and the young leaves of the cultivar, American Liberty
will be the first of us to dance amid the ash
and stretch to face the sun again.

Just when you think things are starting to shape up a little, Ireland goes and declares blasphemy illegal, and now “Islamic states led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/01/irish-atheists-challenge-blasphemy-law

by C.J. Sellers

“If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.”
~Kurt Vonnegut

He was born in November in that senate win.
What he won no corn fritter had ever had before.
In the city in the garden, you might say he found a plan;
You might say he even found his campaign therein.

Come from Honolulu to join the inner beltway loop.
He was on his way, fueled by waves of corn.
If promises are broken, the corn won’t really care.
Better popcorn than Republican.

But Manhattan’s Smoky Mountain lie
will bring a rain of fire in the sky.
Our stalks will be outlines against what walls remain.
Smoky Mountain lies,
Smoky Mountain lies.

He soon climbed the polls, saw his sea of fans below
spread wider than his eyes could even see.
To elect him might be crazy cuz he said we’d touch the sun.
We were glad to lose our minds and memories.

Now he stands at the podium, wondering if he’s wise.
Fine words replaced the corn and they’d won.
History tells if POTUS transcends or hides the corn.
Like once Moses did, clear words divide our field.

But back that old Smoky Mountain lie,
someone somewhere gets a mushroom in the sky.
Talk to POTUS in the town hall, this one might again reply
Smoky Mountain lies.

His rise was a wonder but our hearts still know some fear.
Of a simple thing we cannot comprehend–
They build bombs at the mountains and now want to make some more,
more bombs as a means toward our end.

But Y-12’s Smoky Mountain lies
will billow a bright fire in the sky.
He’d be just a corn nugget to believe that he could fly
Smoky Mountain lies.

Its believin’ Hocus-pocus lies
that feeds us this ol’ pie in the sky.
Roll us/smoke us, prize or POTUS, use us to fuel your car…
Smoky Mountain lies.
Smoky Mountain lies.
Smoky Mountain lies.

“A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.” ~William Blake from “Auguries of Innocence”

by C.J.Sellers

White hair, blue suits and red lips
ruled the decorous front line.

She wandered up like a silly duck
about to squawk at lions.

She stood tall for a child,
at the podium, as all the rest had,
even those two, three times her age.

She’d walked up there to protest,
but to their surprise, she talked about
the voice itself in a sing-song way.

She let her voice go high
and then very low and swung her arms wide
and up as if she really would just give up

And one leg pitched out to the side.
She might have even flapped.
I don’t recall what all she said
amid this circus act.

The whole room was confused smiles
and silence before she walked away.

Defying sense,
the old folks spent millions on a new
nuclear weapons plant that day.

"Safety Net" by Pulizer-Prize-winning political cartoonist, Tom Toles @ Washington Post.

I’m a patriot and I have declared war on the American poor.  No American should be poor, period. America is too good for poverty. We’re better than China, India and all the rest who treat their people like parts easily replaced daily like dirty socks. I LOVE AMERICA, my family, my neighbors… I love everyone, in theory…I can also demonstrate TOUGH LOVE for the whole world by not giving in to the temptation to lower our American standard of living just to compete with the Third World. Let them fight for our scraps if they won’t raise their own standard for their people. Let them be the ones who keep giving up and giving in. Let them be the slaves but not Americans. We are the land of the free, home of the brave and that’s not a cliche if we truly are free. It’s a joke if we’re not. I’m brave enough to admit I’m a Hater. God how I detest poverty. Do the poor dress nice? Do they smell good? Do they talk about anything fun? Are they ever having fun? Admit you do too; own up; every American hates poor people and poverty. Even the American poor hate their own poverty, they hate themselves when they take a handout because America is too good for charity. We Americans are all too good for it, without exception.

By raising the stakes at home, we declare war on the poor everywhere. To hell with poverty and anyone who wants poverty to continue to exist here. To hell with anyone who thinks it’s part and parcel to American Capitalism. The only corporations who want Americans to be poor are the ones feeding off their sick and dessicated, walking corpses. Those corporations need to die out and quick. Yes, we need to send them to the hell they would make us remain in, the hell where America continues to suck majorly: the bizarro world of the broken system, insanity, failure, and obsolescence.

After years of sitting on the fence regarding health care, I’ve finally settled in favor of single payer healthcare to salvage our broken system (though it would be better, IMO, to scrap the system and start over,  I’m being practical. This is a fairly quick fix.) In fact, I find now that due to the changing needs of the marketplace that favor flexibility and innovation, I’m in favor of a number of socialist improvements that would strengthen the American workforce.

The deciding factor was my realization that technological advancement and market demand for innovation will render jobs obsolete faster than Americans can adapt for some time to come (it may eventually level out but not for the foreseeable future). Innovation means regularly dispensing with the old. That equates to jobs and people. And I’m not talking about COBOL people trying to compete in our present marketplace, I’m talking about everything changing on a dime and suddenly they’re singing, “Brother, can you spare a dime?“. We’re in a technological boom comparable to the Industrial Revolution. This is our Technological Revolution. The market demands we respond quickly with highly specialized and skilled labor. If we don’t take care of our people, there will evolve a new poor, not just what strict authoritarians have traditionally considered as those who fail. Telling them to man up is tantamount to declaring, “Let them eat cake!” We’ve seen how well that went over. Share the cake Americans. There’s enough for everyone. If we don’t, America gets a major FAIL.

Conservative arguments against measures to ensure the general welfare always have a moral flavor. But their attitudes were traditionally against rewarding the lazy or stupid. They favor education but are strongly against free handouts. “Nobody gets a free lunch!” In theory, with Capitalism, the cream is supposed to rise to the top and the dregs to the bottom. That’s no longer the norm. The new paradigm is more like Russian Roulette. Some win, some lose, and it’s remarkably random. This new random poor will contain some of our smartest and best who were simply just unlucky if luck fell in favor of innovation in a different direction. We still need them sound of body and mind and stable enough to respond to new demands.  We can’t afford to let anyone fail.  Especially not Americans who can adapt and learn new skills and continue to make a contribution to the betterment of society.

As it stands, you go to school, do well, get a great job, do great on the job working for a great company but still, you may be quickly rendered obsolete if new technology emerges that matches public demand. We need a safety net to allow people time to learn and adapt, ESPECIALLY people from rural areas who have less access to jobs and higher education. We need solidarity across the board, coast to coast, rural to urban, across all sectors. As it stands, a safety net only exists for people who already have economic security going into the job force and throughout OR people who are already poor. What good are they to progress and innovation as they are, unskilled and uncouth? The “safety net” for the poor is not such that adequately lifts them from poverty so they can keep America on top. You know the saying, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach him to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime”. This is NO LONGER TRUE if it’s a one-time opportunity. That man or woman is going to need to learn to fish differently maybe two or three times in their life and they will need time to adapt. As for the poor, the poor don’t get the chance to learn to fish for the good jobs, no matter how smart or capable they are. If they don’t have the education, they are eliminated from fishing. They are useless. So I hate the poor. Let’s get rid of them by assimilating them into the comfort of the middle. There’s a reason there’s less crime and violence in the suburbs. If everyone had their basic needs met, we’d be restored to a more idyllic era on the social level. So long as some flourish at the expense of others, there will be violence and crime. Eliminate violence and crime by eliminating poverty. Go on and hate it if such violence of emotion may motivate you to action on behalf of the common good.

In the diversity of America, we have a significant class disparity. I’m not against the rich, just the poor! We are not so diverse, we are mostly moderately poor. Very few people are actually rich and even fewer own corporations. If the cream actually rose to the top, wouldn’t there be more rich people in America, assuming America is so “great”? Problem is, coming from money doesn’t make people smarter or better at their jobs. If we commit to classism, we’ll be less competitive. Classism is not a moral viewpoint, it’s based in greed, selfishness, and bigotry. The old fallback arguments about taxes being a theft of labor are just lazy thinking in our present world when no one is actually free from risk of the bullet of poverty that hits at random. Conservatives and libertarians need to catch up to the present now, before they become victims of their retrograde thinking. The poor are no longer just “junkies, welfare moms, and drunk, deadbeat dads”. They are potentially anyone at all at any time.

From poet, Kenneth Patchen’s “Journal of Albion Moonlight”:

“I hate the poor. Once again: I hate the poor. Oh yes, the kingdom of heaven – through the eye of the needle; but I have no use for their heaven, I could invent fifty better ones in a single day. I was born of the poor. I never had enough to eat. I never had decent clothes. I couldn’t stomach it. I said: I won’t be poor. I go hungry often enough now, but I am not ‘of the poor.’ I am richer than the richest banker. Because: I hate the poor out of my love for them. Until all men unite in hating the poor, there can be no new society. Stalin loves the poor – without them he could not exist. The revolutions of the future must be directed not against the rich but against the poor. To be poor means to be blind, demoralized, debased. The poor have been the slop-pails of capitalism, repositories for all the filth and brutality of a filthy, brutal world. Do not liberate the poor: destroy them – and with them all the jackal-Stalins that feast on their hideous, shrunken bodies. How the Church and the false revolutionaries draw together: love the poor – for they are humble. I say hate the poor for the humility which keeps their faces pressed into the mud. The poor are the product of cruel and false society. Lift them to the stars; tell them to walk proudly on this earth: the cathedrals and broad roads were made by the labor of their hands; it is the duty of all true revolutionists not only to restore these things into their hands but also – and this is the key – to put them into their heads. Empty stomachs, empty heads: fill both with good food. Don’t shove Peter the Great back into their throats.”

Get sick once without insurance and it can ruin your whole family’s ability to adapt for a long time to come. That hurts America’s pride. Morality aside, that’s not good for this country’s work force. Having a cowboy attitude for Lady Luck bestowing wealth at whim is stupid when you have to gamble with four to six years of expensive schooling beforehand. What a waste of money. What a waste of time. What a bore.

Our educational system needs updating as well. Education is too expensive and brief.  Education must be ongoing. A college degree in our present system saddles our children with debt at the outset. What’s the purpose of that? Is the piece of paper really necessary? Is that an impressive reward if it’s a degree in some obsolete programming language? Who cares? Like that will win you a job in three years when your shiny cool fresh-out-of-college-job disappears. In the spirit of Web 2.o Socialism like Wikipedia, all classes should be broadcast online for free and Internet access to educational materials, lectures, and syllabus should be free to all. Some are already. It’s time to end the impediments to Americans who want to gain the skills necessary to compete on the international technological market. People who are sick or eating out of dumpsters are not going to be able to adapt and compete intellectually. Employers should not expect people to come with a degree. If they’re not going to offer on the job training, they should just offer an interview and competency test to demonstrate proficiency. Anything else is discrimination. Requiring people to pay for their right to compete for a job is discrimination based on class.

To think of a new model for the job marketplace, use the success of Wikipedia for an example. If Wikipedia came in editions that were only available for purchase, that would be like the old encyclopedias that have, like print in general, become increasingly obsolete. If people don’t like that edition of Wikipedia and it’s fixed in that state, unable to be corrected until the next version arrives on the market, that edition having failed could mean the failure of Wikipedia in toto and would mean the end of future Wikipedias. A more flexible and adaptive type of information matrix would take it’s place. Wikipedia is the success that it is today for the very reason that jobs are being rendered obsolete. Wikipedia’s success would mean that Encyclopedia Brittanica would fail. All those smart people at Brittanica lose their jobs. Are they out on the street? Or should they log on and help to continue to improve the new, adaptive Wikipedia or Linux or provide open-source software? Well, there’s no job and paycheck in doing so, however, it’s an activity that’s in the interest of the common good. It’s volunteerism that is nowadays, more or less taken for granted. It’s labor expended for one’s fellow humans with no pat on the back. You never get to see these gift laborers who share their wealth of knowledge and expertise for good. How can we ensure they don’t die of starvation or illness for continuing to improve a system that rendered their livelihood obsolete? With a new safety net provided in favor of innovation.   Socialist Capitalism 2.o.

I honestly think that most corporations will be in favor of this improvement of the American workforce. They are presently looked at to provide benefits but if everyone has benefits, their competitive incentives will be of a different kind. Instead of people competing for the best job to get fringe benefits like comprehensive health care, now how about the best corporations offer Lasik surgery or physical therapy or a newly beautiful set of teeth? Or a company credit card? Sure, some have this already but in general, I think this type of improvement (eliminating the bottom) could lead to a shift in quality of life all the way to the top. America’s new “American Dream” will once again, inspire emulation rather than revulsion from the world for being fascist and outmoded. If our present tactic was working out we would be more competitive than we are. Don’t tell me Americans in general aren’t motivated by the finer things and that this method won’t make America a better place to live and work! That aside, the sad fact is, unless America provides a better package to working people, America will not compete with China or elsewhere. We’re going to have to address the fact that Americans are not motivated to excellence by the promise of their basic needs being covered if they do well.  We’re motivated by our individual affinities. This will not change. From a moral and free-market standpoint, rewarding Americans with something they actually want, not just need, is win/win.

Come today and speak at the hearing regarding the new nuclear bomb factory in Oak Ridge. More info: http://tinyurl.com/bombfactory

First off, you may ask, what the hell is a “Panopticon”? Granted, it’s a new word to many but it’s far from a new idea. If you’ve read the dystopian novel 1984 or watched the ABC TV series “Lost” , you’ve understood it in a work of fiction where it induced fear, paranoia, and savage disloyalty to one’s fellow man when used in a society.

A Panopticon is a method of containment and control that requires minimal effort or enforcement. Its origins are, of course, found in the prison system. To quote from Wikipedia: “The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the “sentiment of an invisible omniscience.’

Bentham himself described the Panopticon as ‘a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.’”

Well, that seems alright in a prison system if it results in less violence, right? But what if something like it being used outside of the prison system right now? Are we complicit guards in a Panopticon where we are the prisoners?

The paranoid climate of a Panopticon breaks down the will to resist. I was reminded of this when I recently read “The Willie Lynch Letter” circulated during the time of slave trade. http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Perspectives_1/Willie_Lynch_letter_The_Making_of_a_Slave.shtml

An excerpt about how to maintain order amongst the slaves (and this is not the worst of it): “Let us make a slave. What do we need? First of all, we need a black nigger man, a pregnant nigger woman and her baby nigger boy. Second, we will use the same basic principle that we use in breaking a horse, combined with some more sustaining factors. What we do with horses is that we break them from one form of life to another; that is, we reduce them from their natural state in nature. Whereas nature provides them with the natural capacity to take care of their offspring, we break that natural string of independence from them and thereby create a dependency status, so that we may be able to get from them useful production for our business and pleasure.”

And I saw this video about the beginning of “white supremacy” where one man was turned on another for the flimsiest of reasons but for great profit (for the wealthy, slave-owning minority):
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=100678226615006

I’m not asserting that the presentation in the above video is entirely factual, I have not researched its claims but it was thought-provoking. Knowing about the Panopticon, I can see how these situations are similar in some ways, how these methods–minor infractions to gross injustices– work their way into our lives, insinuate themselves into our hearts and minds and dupe us into unwitting complicity as our liberties are taken from us one by one until we are successfully enslaved. We do it to each other and we do it to ourselves when we stop questioning, when we stop following the money, asking who has something to gain from this violence, or if it is just. (Whenever I am uncertain what is just, I apply the “Golden Rule”.) Where there’s violence and cruelty, there’s almost always a racket somewhere in the picture, behind the scenes or right out in the open, we may be just too far gone to see it.

And I get now to a recent incident that inspired me to write this note. It may seem like a minor incident or maybe a minor complaint that I have, that’s up to you. For me, it sets off red flags. I was reading about the use of social media to organize dissent at the 2009 G20 Summits:

Before the event and protest in London in April 2009, people were warned by the media that their online actions were being observed by law enforcement:
“Officers have been monitoring social networking sites, including Facebook, to try to stay one step ahead of the [G20] protesters as part of the crackdown, dubbed Operation Glencoe.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5059354/G20-summit-Protesters-using-Twitter-and-Google-to-be-monitored-by-Police.html

And here, after the Pittsburg, Pennsylvania G20 protest, a cautionary tale not to use social media to organize dissent:
“Watch what you tweet”
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/10/watch_what_you_tweet.html

Good article but after I read it, I was incensed. Did you get mad or is that just me? I wasn’t just mad at the FBI for their response, I was also annoyed at the writer for choosing a title that starts out “Careful…” Although these writers were probably well-intentioned or simply capitalizing on sensational news items, these cautionary articles reinforce the Panopticon by discouraging citizens from using efficient social media technology to organize their protests (for fear Big Brother may be watching). Especially the second one since the article advertises that the consequence of dissent may be an extremist response by law enforcement. The gist of the article is not, “Everyone get mad and do something about this abuse of authority”. It’s mostly informative but it does take a bias and the gist is a rather timid response with a mild call to the censors to disperse. Maybe they’ll make a note of that and get back to the writer on it but I doubt it. It’s written for an audience of activists and would-be activists. The effective result could do more than discourage citizens from using this technology to organize. More subtly, it may induce fear so that the unintended effect is a decrease in active dissent. This single event is not a direct threat by law enforcement to any of us. But as a result of such cautionary tales, a single incident where the police over-reacted may convince an inordinate number of people to pre-emptively self-police because they fear the police, so they may change their behavior and censor/stop themselves from using these convenient methods toward the end-goal of positive social change. Was that really the intent of the writer? I doubt it. But I have seen how these things can just take off and get out-of-hand. Fear is like a contagion. Reading this article, I instinctively want to wash my hands of it. And so I wrote this note to purge myself of all these dark thoughts, these misgivings. They converge in my mind and I feel a need to lay it all out, look it over, analyze, get some feedback… so comments are most welcome.

My personal opinion on this is: we writers, bloggers, talkers, parents, siblings, lovers, and friends, we conspirators toward a better world… “We the People” should be careful to avoid accidentally acting as Uncle Toms for our keepers when the result is a reinforcement of an unhealthy status quo. We should not listen to the well-intentioned advice to not use the Internet to organize dissent. The Internet has proven to be a powerful and effective tool for organizing! Whatever means we citizens have at our disposal for peaceful assembly, it is our right to use them. We are law-abiding adults, equal to our protectors by law and by our common humanity and if the law is being twisted and used against us, we must demand our liberties be restored to the letter of the law. And if unjust laws are made or exist, we have to fight them. Dissent is a vital part of our social and cultural evolution and an integral part of positive social reform but we see how it all but faded away when we needed it most (after the announcement of an illegal decades-long campaign for pre-emptive warfare targeted at a nation that never attacked us, which was clearly in violation of international law). The fear instilled in us by the politicians in league with the media after 9/11 resulted in a Panopticon where we were quite suddenly, and with little cause or provocation, afraid to say or do the wrong thing for fear we’d be labeled traitors or terrorists, or (gasp!) unpatriotic… and then the PATRIOT Act and other power grabs… and we were told that they may be reading our emails and our online posts… How about Bush’s presidential order giving himself the right to seize the assets of any war protesters as he saw fit? (Do you see this resonating in the present although that was overturned?) We were made then to feel afraid to protest an unlawful war, a war that at that time wasn’t even by definition, a “war”, it was a “preemptive military incursion” into foreign territory, followed by an “occupation”. As our politicians called for bravery and patriotism (to fight for murderous oil profiteering), we were told to be silent. And silence ruled the day. I can hardly believe it even now. I was there, I lived through it, but I am still as dismayed now as ever. And now I know how the German citizenry must have felt under the Nazi regime. They were victims too just as we were. Victims of a Panopticon of our own creation.

Bottom line, what the rich people want, or their corporations covet, what particular politicians or political parties push, are not always in the interest of public good and we citizens must have the cojones to say so publicly, at all cost. We must continuously remind and assure one another that peaceful protest is right and good for this country, even when wrong or misguided, we still have the right to join hands and stand together and loudly let the powers that be know what our position is. That we peacefully but loudly demand action and positive change is brave and it is patriotic. Those that peacefully but loudly take to the streets when our country needs them are the ones that care and we should applaud them, our eyes should fill with tears, and our hearts with gratitude as some do to see brave soldiers marching off to fight a JUST war. Those that peacefully but quietly sit at their televisions, hiding behind closed doors, or at their computers where they self-monitor their every communication as this country’s state of affairs devolves around them, these law-abiding citizens are not patriotic, at this call to public service they are cowards and/or incompetents. But those that are of sound mind, able-bodied and give a damn know there’s more at stake than a seized computer or a week from the job or even the job itself. They are the yippies of yore and now our G20 protesters, war protesters, and teabaggers. They are patriots. They’re regular people who took that extra effort to make a difference in the world and you and I should thank them and stand by their side when their rights are violated whether we agree with their opinions or not. I wouldn’t go to a G20 protest but I’m pretty mad about that social worker from New York City being targeted, aren’t you?

But don’t get me wrong. Even though that has happened, I don’t blame the officers involved because they are obedient. When it comes to their job, obedience rather than stalling and questioning, I can see how that would be effective, if their leaders are wise and just. I have heard a lot of negativity towards the police lately. Too much and I think it’s a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, not well-thought-out. The critics may be coming from a different experience than me but I know first hand, not all police will do the wrong thing like we witnessed here in this article. MOST police will do the right thing and I personally believe that we can trust them to do the right thing because they are not some nameless, faceless entity, they are our neighbors and friends who care, as we do, and they will listen to reason because they are as reasonable as you or I. Whereas some will tell you to fear their response, I am telling you, don’t fear the police when you know you are doing the right thing and you know you are within your rights. Know or have faith that if a misunderstanding occurs or someone goes too far, that the truth will come out and justice will be served because we have your back, we will be watching and we will demand it. We can create a Panopticon of faith in one another and faith in our willingness to do the right thing. Those that villainize our public servants ought to stop and think about the effect of their words. The soul of our nation is being cowed by who… the police? By the politicians? By the thugs and criminals? No, every step of the way, it’s been us well-intentioned folks giving in, letting our hearts break, our spirits weaken, we have faltered and let fear rule the day. When I see an embrace of paranoia or scapegoating on either side, aimed at public servant or private citizen, I take offense and I won’t tolerate it, I’m gonna say something and the bigger the offense, the more loudly I will say it. How about you?

Good articles, writers, but respectfully, be careful what you tweet? TWEET ON THIS! <=3