Embrace the Revolution

As Occupy Wall Street and the many solidarity occupations continue through this fall the rich fat cats smile and tell each other winter will put an end to this temporary nuisance. They don't believe there will be "winter soldiers" in the movement. They think the brutal assault on a combat veteran in a police sweep in Oakland will discourage the families and elderly. They think the mainstream media will grow tired of the story and move on to more important matters like interviews of the Madoff family. They think the police provocateurs will get the hot heads in the occupation sites to act out violently and discredit the movement.

The Tea Party is now whining they didn't get to camp out in city parks and public places like the occupation movement has. Of course, if the group that inhabited Crawford, Texas to protest the presence of Cindy Sheehan and Camp Casey is any measure, it is highly unlikely the Tea Party members would have lasted more than a day without the comfort of their RV's with t.v.s and air-conditioning or heat. They would have missed setting up a grill and gorging themselves with good ole American beef and as many carbs as they could get. And never give a thought to the black brothers and sisters dying of hunger in Africa.

The question for the Occupy Wall Street movement is whether they will sustain the movement during the hard times ahead. The assault on Scott Olsen, who went to war in Iraq two times, is the rebuttal of Wall Street and their indentured slaves in government and the police department. If they are willing to bash the skulls of the troops they so willingly sent to die for their oil and empire, they won't hesitate to bash the heads of those peaceful men and women who have struggled many years to prevent wars and violence.

American exceptionalism tells us we don't brutalize our own but the ugly truth is we do. We, the 99% are disposable to the 1%. They will create the fervor for war and occupation of nations with natural resources they covet. They will promote yellow ribbons and faux parades of appreciation for "the troops" but don't give a damn about the loss of life, limbs and peaceful minds of those troops and their families.

The 1% doesn't care if the VA or any other social program suffers budget cuts as long as their bottom line continues at the 275% increase it has over the past thirty years. The 1% long ago hijacked the America we were falsely told about in school and in the press. That America, that United States, has never existed. It has never existed except for the 1%. Peace and justice for all is a myth. The words look good on a new public building but the truth is what's happening on the streets below the words. On the streets the 99% either toes the line and follows like sheep or is slaughtered like sheep and cattle.

The 99% are cannon fodder. They are indentured serfs to the system and the corporations that really control this nation. After WWII the 1% allowed unions and some Americans to prosper. It took blood and death but they grudgingly gave the serfs some of their scraps. And managed to turn all of us into foolish consumers buying in to a dream that is, in truth, a nightmare.

The 99% allowed ourselves to think we are free, that buying with credit and money we didn't have was good and that we were given all this because God loved us more. We thought we were exceptional. Turns out, we are only exceptional in our excesses much like the Roman empires and the other failed empires of history. Our foolish beliefs have only lined the pockets of the 1%. They now have most of us by the balls and throats in their trap of debt.

Before we begin the revolution, most of us need to acknowledge we were our own worst enemies for believing the lies of the 1%. Too many times we of the 99% still claim we like our lifestyles even as our neighbors dwindle in the destruction of foreclosures and lost jobs. We hated the unions but wished someone represented us when jobs were taken out of country or given to cheaper labor forces in other parts of the country. We demand better education but have vilified the teachers and failed to see the suits in administration hoarding budget monies to maintain their six figure jobs.

We bundle our kids up against the cold, make them wear helmets, elbow pads and knee pads but think nothing of sending them off to wars that are immoral and illegal. No one forced us to do any of this. We allowed ourselves to be conned. We knew our homes weren't worth the amounts the banks told us but went ahead and borrowed money to the max in the foolish belief our homes would always maintain their values. The 1% told us so.

Like all us combat veterans who survived our wars and came to realize we made a mistake in our narrow thinking, so too must all of us 99% realize we aren't going to be able to sustain the way things were before the bubble burst on the foolisn American dream. We need to endorse changing our lifestyles rather than thinking we can go back to being the excessive and destructive consumer driven people. We need to endorse changing our lifestyle to embrace the environment that sustains us. We need to change our interactions with the people of the world and accept we are first citizens of the world and owe our allegiance to no flag or anthem but to one another as humans.

Most of all we of the 99% must throw off the dependency we have on the 1%. The most logical way of getting the 1% to equal and just sharing of wealth and resources is to quit supporting them. Doesn't it seem the 99% has the power to create new ways of assuring hunger and hate don't dominate? Doesn't it seem the 99% can refuse to sacrifice our children to wars and violence? Isn't it time we repudiate a multi-national corporation is human? If they are human, where is the heart? Where is the soul? Where is the compassion and caring?

Over the past few days I have had great hate in my heart seeing the videos and hearing the sounds of Scott Olsen being assaulted. As an ex-combat Marine I realize I am "always faithful" to other Marines. I like to think I feel the same toward others in my world who want to be non-violent and work for change. I could let my anger build up to violence but then I'm no different than the cops who don't care if they kill us or ruin our lives. It's clear, the cops are the storm troopers of the 1%. They forfeit the compassion of the 99% with actions like occurred in Oakland the other night or here in Denver a few weeks ago.

How dangerous is standing in a street with others or sleeping in a park? It inconveniences others? Like the 1% doesn't only inconvenience the rest of us; they brutalize and intimidate us. They steal the legacy of our children. They commit crimes that destroy millions of lives and they continue to smirk in their castles and country clubs. Who is more dangerous; a combat vet seeking a peaceful way to express his constitutional right to free speech or the 1% who have created so much destruction, death, hate and environmental disaster? What magic hold do the 1% have on us that we continue to do only what benefits them?

The hate I've been feeling needs to be expressed in the peaceful but assertive pursuit of justice and change. Revolution is not dangerous to anybody but the 1% unwilling to change. Occupy Wall Street is only the beginning of a revolutionary change in our thinking. And we will succeed only if we remain unlike the 1%. Only if we remain peaceful and thoughtful toward our world.