Not Another Brick in the Wall
by Cindy A. Matthews
"All in all, you're just another Brick in the Wall." --Pink Floyd
2016 was a year of protest in the US. Every week there was some kind of a protest--from Democracy Spring to Ferguson to Standing Rock... 2017 promises more of the same. A helluva lot more. With Trump's narcissistic personality disorder, we're assured of protests from day one.
This is a good thing. It demonstrates that more Americans are awake and aware of what is going on in their government and their society. It demonstrates people care passionately about causes, and they are willing to sacrifice their time, energy and safety (and possibly their lives) to make a better world for all people. It exemplifies the old adage: "When the going gets tough--the tough get going."
But how do we continue to fight the good fight when day after day the forces of the evil empire of oligarchs seem to grow? The wall of the oligarchy's wealth grows higher and higher, until one day it might actually manifest itself in a physical wall, such as the one they want to build along the US-Mexican border. They want to wall all others out and wall us, the slave laborers, in. They want us to become the lowly bricks in their wall of conglomeration and incorporation, to bolster the endless profits which fly into their tax-free, off-shore bank accounts.
We ordinary workers are to become passionless and faceless as bricks, without the means to see the whole structure of the oligarchs' greed and selfishness. Once we're cemented into their "wall of shame," we will become like their stone hearts, cold and unfeeling. We won't ever strive to change our world. We will become dead to its and our own suffering. That's the way the oligarchs like it.
A recent speaker at Our Revolution in Northwest Ohio told us the story of an individual who refused to become yet another brick in the oligarchs' wall. Tish O'Dell lives in a nice suburb of Cleveland, Broadview Heights. This small city is fortunate enough to have ninety fracking wells and their accompanying fracking wastewater ponds full of toxic chemicals. (Yes, that's 90fracking wells and not 9!) Residents reported many illnesses and earthquakes, but no one in government took their side against the frackers. Tish didn't give up. She organized community members, and they protested and worked hard to amend their city charter to ban fracking within the city limits. The charter initiative passed.
Of course, a higher court later struck the amendment down, but its legacy remains. There have been no new fracking wells drilled in Broadview Heights since their charter was amended. The fracking industry knows the people of Broadview Heights won't take another invasion of their town lying down. The people of Broadview Heights have built their own "wall" and together they stand as "living bricks" to prevent further degradation of their town by the oligarchs of the fracking industry.
Better still, other Ohio cities have followed their example to ban fracking. The spread of fracking has been slowed. While it may not be seen as a total victory, it's a battle won in the opening salvo of a war to protect the people's health and safety.
Better still, other Ohio cities have followed their example to ban fracking. The spread of fracking has been slowed. While it may not be seen as a total victory, it's a battle won in the opening salvo of a war to protect the people's health and safety.
In this coming year of protests, keep the example of Tish and her community in mind. Your small steps can make a difference, so get out there and protest and work for change. Start fighting the battle your town, group or organization truly believes in. Build a "wall of resistance" against the greed of the oligarchs.
To quote Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party: "We are the change we've been looking for." That means us. We've gotta change things for the better. Remember what Bernie Sanders said? Not me Us.
Don't let the fascistic oligarchs use you and cast you onto the faceless brick pile of their wall of avarice. Throw your brick of community through the window of their souls. Smash their greed! Expose their corruption! Fight for the greater good! The political revolution needs all the bricks of change it can get.
Be the change, and we'll see you on the front lines.
Be the change, and we'll see you on the front lines.
And now, we take a look across that mythical wall proposed by Trump and what we could learn from our fellow human beings south of the border...
A Look Across Trump’s Wall
by Dirk Droll
by Dirk Droll
a.k.a. Beanstock
| http://bibliolist.com/candidate-financials/ |
Are you dreaming about Trump’s proposed wall on our southern border? In the light of our dying or dead democracy up here in the United States, it can be quite interesting to look south.
While we are held hostage by a bee's nest of corruption, built and upheld by robber billionaires and their utterly corrupt minions in the political and journalistic classes who are part of the gentry and middle nobility in our quasi-feudal society, our neighbors in the south are showing us what can happen when the people get utterly disgusted and angry enough to act.
In recent years, our war-mongering and regime-changing oligarchs were preoccupied elsewhere (especially the Middle East because of its delicious oil--yum!), although one must note our Hillary-supported 2009 military coup of a democratically elected government in Honduras [article 1][article 2][article 3] . Some of our southern neighbors managed to make progress on the path to democracy from which we could learn something.
Two examples: Recently, Guatemala’s corrupt president was forced out of office and jailed, and, at the moment, Venezuela (much decried as a commie country under Chavez in our corporate media) actually has it written in its constitution that the people (yes, the people, not unreliable representatives on a gravy train) can impeach the president and trigger an automatic election. All they need is enough signatures. Imagine that!
If you examine just how much our oligarchs and their wholly-owned government meddle south of our border, one has to essentially look upon Latin American nations as unrecognized states in our union. And, impressively, despite of our federal government’s reprisals, these southern brothers and sisters in our jointly suffered plight make advances towards democracy we could learn from.
Perhaps, instead of Trump’s wall, we should build a highway?
The following related news items will raise eyebrows and blood pressure...BIO: Dirk Droll writes the thought-provoking Beanstock's World blog. Read it and follow him at https://beanstocksworld.wordpress.com/
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/41231-sources-trump-will-ask-congress-not-mexico-to-pay-for-border-wall
From The Guardian:
"In Trump we see a perfect fusion of the two main uses of celebrity culture: corporate personification and mass distraction. His celebrity became a mask for his own chaotic, outsourced and unscrupulous business empire. His public image was the perfect inversion of everything he and his companies represent. As presenter of the US version of The Apprentice, this spoilt heir to humongous wealth became the face of enterprise and social mobility. During the presidential elections, his noisy persona distracted people from the intellectual void behind the mask, a void now filled by more lucid representatives of global capital." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/20/celebrity-corporate-machine-fame-big-business-donald-trump-kim-kardashian
It's time...
We'll be seeing you in the coming weeks in the streets, in the state houses, at the inauguration, on the pipelines routes... The time is now. We are the change we've been looking for. We are the Revolution. Don't become another brick in the wall--smash it! (And be sure to share your stories and photos with us at Our Revolution Continues. We like to know what all you've been doing.)
The following parody of Pink Floyd's The Wall gives us a fuller picture of "Trump's wall" and why we need to stop it before it can be built.
Power to the people--not the oligarchy!
This post first appeared on Our Revolution Continues -- The Bernie, please read the originial post: here
