......fly out into the streets and get our brains beaten out of our skulls, our eardrums busted or have ourselves injured in other ways that would be with us for the rest our lives or murdered, maybe ? What would be the point in that? Does anyone really believe such actions would have helped our cause, would such actions have helped the Iraqi people or anyone else, for that matter?
We did that back in '68 and onward. We were young then. We had lots of ideas and inspiration. Three assassinations later and about all we had was fear, anger and confusion. It was the drugs, you say? How about those of us who never touched a drug 'til years later, if then?
Some of us trekked around the world...the "Happy, Hippie Trail." Others traveled Europe and other regions of the world. I remember a summer night in Paris, a cafe near the Seine, a couple of Americans, a German, two Italians, a Scotsman and several locals. It was 1968 and the big news of the day was that Jackie Kennedy had married Aristotle Onassis. "If "they" are killing Kennedys, I'm getting my children out of here." It was in French. It was read to me by a Frenchman, that morning at another cafe. "wonder who she means by 'they'," I wondered, aloud. "Do you?", asked the Frenchman.
Does anyone truly believe that George W. Bush or Dick Cheney would have hesitated rounding up 60s type protesters and jailing them as terrorist sympathizers or, even, unlawful combatants and traitors? How many would have to be arrested and shipped off to Leavenworth or somewhere, before the arrests would even be shown on the American corporate Teevee News? We might have gotten two or three minutes of air time if we had convinced Paris Hilton to go along just for fun and PR. If we did manage to gain the interest of the press, what would it have taken for the majority of Americans to wake up, another Kent State, or worse?Unlike most Americans, people who opposed the Iraq war, a war crime and all the other war crimes which followed with every fiber of their being paid very close attention to the machinations of the Bush White House and know that the U.S. had been under a high state of emergency since 9/11/01. That meant that our constitutional rights no longer existed in any real way, on which we could actually count, if we found ourselves in a court of law for some reason, like being a party to surrounding the White House with a human chain of non-violent protesters or having a die-in somewhere, like in front of the White House or on the steps of a federal building somewhere.(At some point we found out that the pentagon spooks were actually spying on the Quakers and other really hardcore nonviolent groups. Was it true? With the Bushies we can never be sure. Think the worst, and carry on from there. There really seems to be something amiss with this family. They have been connected to some of the worst bad actors on the world stage for generations. They seem to be completely immune to the official laws, not to mention the laws of common sense, that the rest of us try to live under)
This isn't 1968, Peeps. Most everything has changed since Bobby's brains got blown out, before we could even really come to terms with the fact that John was gone, must less that Martin had just recently been torn from us.We've all changed; those who call ourselves conservative, those of us who call ourselves liberal and the much larger contingent who eschew both labels, we've all certainly changed. I'm not sure anyone really knows what liberal and conservative mean anymore. Certainly the loudest proponents of both ideologies don't seem to know. Then there are those of us who find themselves in a moderate space, during ordinary times, and always see the need for consensus. Seems like at this very time, a time during which we are going to need them, these folks are leaving high office; retiring, getting the hell out of Dodge, maybe? Who is to say that that is a bad or good thing? There will surely come a time, either way, when our nation will call for them to aid their country in her time of dire need. Perhaps they can serve their nation from without better than from within the current corrupt system. Perhaps it is true, that which we fear, even if we cannot yet bring ourselves to admit that we know, that our system is so hopelessly corrupt at this moment in time that it simply can no longer function as it was meant to function. If we admit that know that our system is too corrupt to function at a time like this, then we have to figure out what to do about it. I guess that soon we shall finally see the fruit of our labors back then, in the era of the 60s. I just hope that we will all have the good sense to take a moment to see clearly; as in a moment out of time, in the days after Barack is inaugurated... all of us together. It has taken us 40 years, some of us, who look back now, and say, "There is blame to go around and around again for our failures, meaning the generation who either came of age at that time or our unelected leaders or heroes, both the Left and the Right of our generation...The time, she has come. It's time to get real honest with ourselves and each other. There is also time to see more clearly what the real movement was about and therefore be able to assess both our failures and their results, as well as see, maybe for the first time, the good which has come from it.
Methods of crowd control have changed drastically. The domestic forces which mindlessly defend criminals in high places have, supposedly, non-deadly means of controlling crowds, even if those crowds are composed of people whose whole lives have been about non-violence. I read reports all too regularly that people have been tasered to death. That's just one of the new "non-deadly" crowd control devices.
(We don't want another Kent State to mess everything up again.) My particular favorite; bursting people's ear drums, just for Ss and Gs. Wonder what will happen when the victims of these non-deadly weapons show up at the social security office to apply for disability. Is there a law somewhere that declares: If people are disabled by the acts of the police or federal security personnel, they may not draw their social security benefits nor will they be covered under medicare for their health insurance. Still think the ear bursting machine is non-deadly? If this non-violent protester has no family or friends to whom they can turn for long-term care, while he or she learns to function well enough to hold a job without the ability to hear, he or she might well die in a back ally somewhere; perhaps frozen to death. I guess a crowd control device is not deadly unless it kills right then and there, in front of a camera, hopefully, but at least within the eye sight of a decent person. I still want to know how the government plans to handle a life-long disability, which by it's own admission it used on crowds of people who had committed no violence. (One nutcase or paid/unpaid agitator throwing a rock does not constitute the deaf penanlty for a crowd of 300 hundred. See what I mean about common sense?)
(Is there actually another crowd control device, one that has actually been used in the Gaza strip lately, that uses directed microwaves of some kind, (often, sometime, all the time?) resulting in the "melting" of a person's internal organs, leaving no sign of violence on the body of the person? This sounds too horrible to be true. I hope to God it's not true, but having read or seen what our government has done to it's own citizens in the past, what it is indeed capable of doing, I'd rather not bet that there is no such "crowd control" device.)
When we look back to the history of the Vietnam war and the civil rights era, one of the main incidents that turned people against the authorities was what happened at Kent State, where students were shot and killed on a college campus. Now the military, in the form of the national guard, weren't just killing people a world away, but right here, in the U.S; not only were Americans dying for no good reason in southeast Asia, but on college campuses, where their parents had sent them, Boys and girls alike, believing they would be safe there.
Now, almost 40 years later, of course there would be the obligatory, several-hundred-thousand strong protests, with permits in hand making it all quite legal, who would descend on the National Mall and other well-known protests sites, periodically, mainly to get together and support each other and our supporters back home and
to let the rest of the world KNOW that we had not all completely lost our Collective Mind. Hardly ever were American protests covered by American news outlets and shown in the U.S., but we hoped they would be carried in other countries around the world. I doubt any of us who attended any of those marches and protests were deluded enough to believe that anything we did would change the train wreck known as the Bush administration.
More, it was what was happening out of any lime light that would make the neoconservatives dreams of redrawing the middle east, among other things, begin to crumble.
Certainly it was a world-wide endeavor, yet without the consumer-power of the people living in the belly of the beast, surely the attack on neoconservatives and their sick ideology as well as another battle with American corporate empire would have failed, even before it had really begun.
We could count on the poor and working poor to spend less during consumerist holiday seasons, in year after year of the Bush-Cheney administration; holidays draped falsely in religious garb, as usual. The reason sadly being that as the years went on they simply would not be able to spend money during retails' favorite money-sucking season, known as the Christmas Holidays, which has been growing and growing all my adult life, thanks to the Golden Calf worshippers. (God, don't get me stared on that. This post may not end anytime this this week.)
All it took was activists in the lower middle and upward (often the very wealthy joined as well) and many activist camps, world wide, to join them in a consumer strike, loosely organized, and targeted at the holiday spending season. With each year that passed after the bombing, invasion and occupation of Iraq, retail sales began looking gloomier and gloomier and as more people found out about the movement and joined in, at least to the degree that they could, more people began changing their spending habits in general, all year 'round. Yes, much of this was out of need. Quite a bit was for reasons of protest.
Protest! But protest Smart!
Anyone remember what was one of the the first American Revolutionary Army of Freedom fighters did that helped them win the war for freedom from a monarchy in England? They wanted freedom so much they were willing to use anything they had to secure it. They fought smart, not as they were expected to fight. They were considered by the Brits of the time to be terrorists because they would not play be the rules. They didn't march out onto a battlefield, as was considered "civil, gentlemanly warfare, and get mowed down in numbers they could ill afford to lose. They hid in the trees, behind cotton bails and just about anywhere and from there they fought and won the first American Revolution. They fought smart. Rules be damned, except Washington's rule against torture or even ill treatment of British prisoners of war. Poor man. He thought he was setting a precedent for how a civilized America would treat opponents in war. Two Georges later and that's all blown to smitherines.
I remember an email I sent to a dear friend and fellow global citizen in New Zealand, in reply to one she had sent me. We had been kicking ideas around for quite sometime, since before the war began, as we both knew that war was coming, no matter the hundreds of millions who took to the streets, around the world, in protest of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. We both held out as much hope as we possibly could, for as long as we possibly could, but we knew better. We had seen this movie before, had we not? A re-make or something; different actors and some seemingly different issues just to make it more relevant to the day, still the same movie and neither of us liked it the last time.
Worker strikes were discussed, of course. I doubted that a workers strike would be all that effective in the U.S., as U.S. workers had begun losing political power in the early 80s. Besides, we would be asking American workers to be willing to lose their jobs to stop a war that the Bush administration kept telling us was necessary for the security of the United States and the fact of the matter was, we had just been hit in a very dramatic way and hardly anyone, at that time, had begun to seriously distrust the official story of the events of 9/11, let alone the anthrax attacks.
It was also true that Americans were already fearing for their jobs with good reason, as more and more so-called loyal, patriot, corporate officers were moving their manufacturing jobs off-shore, to places like China, India, the Philippines to name a few. They were also moving their corporate offices to mailboxes in the Cayman Islands and other places where no questions would be asked and no taxes would be paid to the U.S. government by those so-called American corporations.
War Tax Resistance was discussed. Certainly, many uf us, those of us who could, used taxes as a tool of protest. It is certainly a matter of conscious when one suspects, and has every reason to suspect, that horrible crimes, internationally known as war crimes, are being committed against people of another nation, not to mention the domestic crimes against the constitution and, therefore, the people of America.
Of course, payroll income taxes are taken out of worker's paychecks, automatically, so a typical worker would have to lie on official government form in order to use tax resistance as tool of protest. That's called fraud and could bring a lengthy jail sentence.
It was around that time that I came across the idea of a consumer's revolt somewhere on the Internet. I passed the link and idea on to my Kiwi pal and others both in and and out of the U.S. heard from both of us on the topic. The idea went viral before the phrase "went viral" was widely used. It was a form of protest like the wind. No one could see it, but annually, if not more often, we saw the results.
My one concern, in going through with this and passing it on to others was that the working poor and those on fixed incomes (the elderly retired and the disabled) would be hurt first and hurt badly. My Kiwi friend reminded me that the poor are always the ones who get hurt the most when there is any kind of meltdown, especially an economic one. There seemed to be no way of getting at the ultra-wealthy"deciders" without hurting the ones who deserve it the least and are least able to deal with an economic collapse.
Soon it became obvious to me that Americans and people of other nations who really make the world go 'round with their labor and hard earned paychecks were already being hit and hit hard, years before many people in the American corporate electronic news media and press were even mentioning it. The ones who did rattle on about it nightly, blamed it on the Mexicans, who, according to people, like Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan and a large number of Congressional Republicans, were engaged in a well-organized invasion of the U.S., with the blessings of their government. In other words, we were being invaded without an official declaration of war or even a well-armed military force. Bet the Iraqis wish
we had taken that route.
Admittedly, Dobbs and others did mention, more than a few times, that America's corporate types weren't helping by shipping jobs to other countries and refusing to pay taxes in the U.S. I doubt seriously that America's corporate types watch Teevee news. They probably hire someone to do that for them. Even if they did, I doubt that they really gave much of a damn what the people of America thought about them or their decisions. They were, of course, right. Very few Americans even knew who they were.
That has changed quite a bit in just the last year, but it has taken quite a few years to get to this point.Thus, my email to my Kiwi friend carried a thumbs up sign for a consumers' revolt. I had just found out that a cousin of a dear friend who had worked for Delta all of his professional life, after leaving the military where he was a pilot, had, after a few years of a well-planned retirement, gotten a short letter from Delta saying that his pension was no more, as if to say, "You didn't really expect us to pay you all that money you worked for all these years, did you?"
That was the last straw for me.It was becoming more and more obvious to me that all those motives and plans attributed to Osama bin Laden, by our president and others in his administration, were more likely the motives and plans of others found far more close to home than the no-man's land of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Osama, we were told, hated us for our freedoms, our lifestyles and our wealth. He wanted to break the economic back of the U.S. It seemed to me there was little Osama could do about our constitutional rights unless he invaded the U.S. and made us all wear burkas and beards. With what man's well armed army, navy, marine corps and air force did he plan to do that? The U.S. had already, pretty well, bounced back from events of 9/11/01, economically, by December 2002, however, trying to run two wars off a credit card and slashing taxes on the wealthy played right into Osama's plan, it seems.
Since I don't understand Arabic, with the exception of a few words and phrases I have managed to learn, I have never actually heard Osama bin Laden say that those were his goals, but I have certainly heard Neoconservatives and certain Republicans say that they would like to get government down to a size one could drown in a bathtub, or words to that effect. No matter. Even if the drowning of the U.S government in a bathtub were Osama's greatest goal in life, I doubt seriously he could have accomplished it without
a lot of help. He seems to have been getting it from the Bush administration and certain parts of corporate America and we all know who they are, now that they are being flushed out into the public eye by the on-going, world-wide economic collapse, requiring them all to arrive hat-in-hand at Congressional Hearings.
We can't afford to forget the Cheney/Bush pet corporate greedsters in the energy sector either. We sure as hell don't intend to. I had heard from several network buddies, that Bush/Cheney expected to be well out of the White House when the proverbial s--- hit the fan. Oh, I don't think so, I thought, kicking up efforts to explain our efforts to others, off the net. Christian friends of mine, not the Armageddonnites and other fundies, saw it as a perfect reason to really celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, in ways in which they believed the birthday boy would genuinely approve. Some saw it as a way to learn to really keep advent sacred. All found it an opportunity to teach their Christian children a valuable lesson. Some even became extraordinarily talented at all kinds of crafts, not to mention building simple energy and water savers for Grandma.
What may have begun as a protest involving sacrifice, for many became a personal blessing of education and growth.
There is no law, of which I am aware, that says Americans have to consume like mad people and we must admit that our consumerism is a from of madness. As a matter of fact, there is no law saying we have to purchase anything. It is a given that some things are a must, all that which supports life. As a matter of fact, people should have a right to a certain quality of life. Naturally, there are injuries and chronic diseases which affect quality of life no matter what is done for them. Money, should not be the issue, not in what we continue to call the greatest, wealthiest nation on earth. (Does any one really believe that anymore?)
Americans, and others I imagine, could help the planet right now by really taking a look at what having a quality life means. Does it really mean 9 houses, three sailboats and 14 cars, any of which cost more than an average person's house if worth?
Actually, Ive found that a quality life is far more affordable than that. What began as a very loosely organized protest, has taught me a lot about myself, my countrymen, my government (as if I really needed to know any more about that) and what is really important in a quality life.
Did I contribute to the current and getting worse economic collapse. Not much. None of us could have brought about economic collapse, if the system, both on Wall Street and in Washington (Is there really any difference?) were not so corrupt and did not have the burden of so much unethical if not criminal behavior. The system is collapsing under the weight of corruption born of the worst greed I have ever seen, a lust for power the likes of which I hoped I would never see, crimes and other behavior in high places that are beyond reprehensible.
Perhaps we did speed it up so that the persons responsible could stand up and take credit for all of their wonderful ideas which led to this fine mess. Please do, take credit. I notice they aren't doing that, much. As a matter of fact I haven't heard anyone outside of Loonsville say a word about the glorious wonders of supply-side economics, that ever popular trickle down theory, in which nothing actually trickles down except nastiness, racism, lies, hatred and such.
Thus the triumph of the invisible protester? Can't really say at this juncture. I guess it depends on what our goals were. I can say with certainty that people involved in the worldwide consumer strike have many different reasons for joining up and perhaps different goals as well.
Nevertheless we, invisible protesters, will suffer with our countrymen and our brothers and sisters around this world as the economy crashes and things get worse, as they surely will. I do know this: Some things should not stand and the sooner those things are brought down the better for everyone in the long run.. Ordinary people, have far more power than they believe they have. Success is usually a matter of timing. Protest is alive and well. Much can be accomplished, often, by simply doing nothing or by doing what's really in your best interest anyway, not what the Teevee is telling you is in your best interest.
If you really hate the game, find that it makes you feel dirty by merely going to work, feel pressured to spend money you don't have for something no one really needs, stop playing the game. Ask yourself, do you ever expect to actually win this game? I hope not, for you own sake. Just think about what it takes to be a winner. Take a look at the current president, vice president and company. Take a look at that parade of heads of corporations in the halls of congress, hat in hand. Really want to even play with those guys? I know I don't.
Peacemakers and truth-tellers, have throughout history, suffered, sacrificed and, even, were murdered. Our sacrifice, so far, is nothing compared to theirs...at least so far.
Of course, we aren't finished by a long shot. Now, is when the real work begins.
Peace to all.
-- Brad Friedman, 
However, despite 
Arnebeck says that, despite the letter sent nearly five months ago to the DoJ "seeking protection for Mr. Connell and his family from this reported attempt to intimidate a witness," as well as several messages sent to highly-placed DoJ officials, he has yet to receive a reply from the nation's top law enforcement agency.
As to what may have happened to Connell's plane, which a 
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