Many Thanks to Global Voices Online and the ever-present Janine Mendes-Franco for picking up My post about Papá Héroes
This won't take long...
Tunisia. Libya. Egypt. Iran. Spain. Greece. England. Around the world, protesters are coming together, in relatively peaceful demonstrations, to tell their governments and the world that they are fed up with the status quo. The protests We focused on the most--We prisoners of the fascist-leaning U.S. of part of A. and its whorish media--were those of the dictatorships (Tunisia and Libya), but downplayed the protests that happened and continue to happen in Our "democratic allies." Which are also dictatorships.
In essence, a dictatorship is the rule of the nation by a small group that can and does impose its will by force. Now We tend to use "force" to only mean "military might," so that Our classical image of a dictator is a some medal-bedecked stocky half-wit with tanks and guns on his side. But no, the essential dictatorship stems from application of force, and in Spain, Greece, England and the good ol' U.S. of part if A., We have stocky half-wits with banks and laws. And instead of soldiers, the minions and mangy dogs are bankers, lawyers and lobbyists.
These lackeys saw the protests as civilians facing armed forces, the paradigm that ignored reality. That's why the protests were deemed to have "morphed" from "evil dictatorships" to "friendly democracies" in the eyes of Our media and many of Our leaders and pundits, half-wits all. To them, the protests were caused (yes, caused) by social media and the evils of unrestrained technology. The preservers of the status quo--beneficiaries to a greater extent within it than you and Me--saw the toppling of governments and began to wonder if the next to flee would be them. And they should be scared: witness the growth of the once-laughable "Occupy Wall Street" movement. And Let's face it: if there's going to a true terrorist attack in the U.S. of part of A., it will come from within, not without.
Some of the credit for the rising protest movement, and more importantly, its effectiveness, is ascribed to the book From Dictatorship to Democracy, by Gene Sharp. It is a generic, but heavily insightful analysis, of protest, revolutionary and independence movements. It has been banned in several countries. It can be read in a day, as it is barely 100 pages long.
And it applies to Puerto Rico without a shred of doubt.
You can download it here, in English, free: http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf
In Spanish, again free: http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/DelaDict-1.pdf
I provide the URL in case you want to copy/paste to spread it around.
Do We really want to make a change? Let's see how many of Us act in certain ways to make change. And one of those acts would be to read From Dictatorship to Democracy.
Time to stand up and be counted.
The Jenius Has Spoken.
5 comments:
A nice, crisp piece/read. I liked it. Could you expand on/what do you mean here*?
*"And Let's face it: if there's going to a true terrorist attack in the U.S. of part of A., it will come from within, not without."*
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Terrorism, by definition, is the creation or imposition of circumstances to cause fear and panic. It is directly related to how much disruptive/destructive power you can bring to a certain spot at a certain time. But the goal of terrorism is long-term fear--constant dread. Thus who has the power in any nation, the strongest capability, to inflict the largest amount of dread over the widest possible range of population for the most amount of time...if not the domestic government?
Compared to what happened in NYC on September 9, 2000, the U.S. of part of A. government has inflicted greater dread across its population than any half-baked, cave-dwelling hypocrite tossed into the ocean and his sorry minions. Our illusion is that "Terrorism is what THEY do" keeps Us from seeing that terrorism is what We live under...because Our government wants it that way.
The big event I'm predicting will crystallize that truth to the vast majority, but the terrorist act won't be some isolated "outside" force, it will be a programmed extension of what has already happened. Have a nice day!
Words like "terrorism" and "dictatorship" acquire a certain connotation depending on the time, culture and whose side one is when using those terms.
I remember when preacher James Dobson started using the term "crusade" to describe his ministry into the universities in the US. For many people the term is irrelevant but for a member of arab descent the term sends shivers down the spine as the crusades were bloody assaults from the then Catholic empire into muslim territory. The US uses terrorism and a person immediately get an image of a middle eastern guy shouting instead of a marine with an assault rifle shooting the hell out of innocent people in Afghanistan or Irak.
Thanks for sharing the book I'll start reading it immediately.
Prometeo, I read it and it spawned many, many thoughts. Since We've been long on the list of "We should get together, but haven't", this might be the topic that gets Us to sit down and share coffee, beer, hard liquor and/or enough food to make Us dizzy. Much to discuss, I think We have. (Yoda is on Mind, I guess...)
Thanks!
Apropos of My response to Apt Posit, a news report (video) of the damage just one brutal cop can do when the "authorities" look the other way: http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/15572447/officer-accused-of-terrorizing-citizens-still-on-force
Brooklyn Bridge, anyone?
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