Civil Disobedience

[nadinbrzezinski]

(Note I posted this last night in GD... this is for the morning crew)

All politics is local. We have heard this over the years. My fellow citizens I must agree with Monyhan on this. All politics is local. Yet what do you do when faced with the banality of evil? What do you do when faced with those who will do ANYTHING to win? Do we have a recourse to the courts? Do we have recourse to petitions? Can we believe that any of this will help us change our circumstances?

I believe that it is a course of fools to continue to play by the same fair rules that have worked. Why do I believe the time for this is over? Why do I believe the system has completely been short circuited? It is the evidence before us. Today there is no balance in the pursuit of power. For the pursuit of power has become that of any and all means are authorized. This is the time that challenges those who truly love freedom, liberty and justice. It seems that those who have committed the worst atrocities escape the fate that we have been taught to expect.

I am to believe that following the usual course of action will have any effect? This is what I am told. I say to those who say, patience, for one day they will understand and join you, no more. It is time that we all take action. I will not advocate violence for this is exactly what they expect. This is exactly what they would do. I draw from our past, our collective past. I turn your attention to Civil Disobedience, a took used against tyrants and monsters from time immemorial.

Henry David Thoreau once wrote “As for adopting the ways which the state has provided for remedying evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man’s life will be gone.” This is what we are being told, wait until next election, then we will have our just rewards. Only if we choose such and such a candidate we can win. We must wait for men surely will wake up from this stupor and realize that they must vote in such a way, as this is to their own interest. I say to this, we cannot afford to follow the ways that normally we have for they will not lead to our voices being heard

So I ask, will you see that the only way today is peaceful civil disobedience? Some of us have talked to you about boycotts, which again hearken back to our history. Our forefathers first fought the British using boycotts, or have all of you forgotten Boston Harbor? Yes my dear fellows this is indeed one method to pursue. Realize that we will need to do more than just boycotts. We must face the truth, and this is we are at a crossroads. Thoreau wrote at a time when the question was slavery, a great evil sweeping the nation. Also remember, that government’s authority, in order to be pure, has to have the full consent of the governed. Thoreau understood this, and it is high time we pay heed to those lessons, for it is our fate to have to re-fight for justice and well being.

Heed the words of Martin Luther King as well. His was a dream that one day we all would be able to see each other as brothers and sisters. Today some are working hard to prevent that, but Martin would tell us, patience, for this is not yet the time. This time that he spoke off was well over the side of that mountain we now can barely see. It seems we have lost any purchase we had and now we must start our climb once again.

So what should be our means?

Peaceful resistance and extending our hands in friendship to those who like us, see the evil around us. I will warn you to have patience, for the work we enter upon today is not one for the weak willed, but one that may take generations. We may not see the fruit of our labors today, but maybe our children and surely our children’s children. So be strong, and remember, what you do today will influence the future, and will help you to sleep at night. After all many of those who fought against Slavery did not survive to see the Emancipation, but they did not let that stop them. Our fight may be similar in nature and length.

This work we must embark includes bearing witness to the horrors committed as we speak in our name. They are also being committed in the name of an awesome god, who would be horrified by Pharisees who have taken the word, his or her word, and twisted it. We must speak truth to power and we must face that which now stares at us in the face. This is the true Banality of Evil perpetrated by those who have chosen to follow, blindly. They are not unlike the slave holder, who also benefited from an evil system. Nor are they different from those who across the years have become rich from the pain of others.

So how do you make this civil disobedience work? You work locally, to get people of good faith into office and then fight to keep them there. They will do all they can to drive people of good faith from office. They know that they taken over the Temple this way, and they are not about to be driven out.

You only participate in commerce with those who share a similar world view to yours. You do not give your money to the large corporate entities, and YOU FIGHT to keep them out of your back yard. You fight to keep local family businesses in business. You try to revitalize your local town. Mostly you must do as much as you can to resist the State.

You can and should continue to write petitions, Be aware that they will not be listened to. Those who have taken over the halls of government are not interested in you, but only in those who put them there. You must work with the ones who are at the bottom, and you must ensure that what happened over the last four years is not forgotten, and the horrors that are still to come are not diminished. Only when we all agree that we cannot let others walk away from their responsibility, we can have some hope of moral victory. Do not be misguided, for we are fighting truly a moral war. They believe in narrow ends, damned be the weak and the poor.

Yet give up on courts and other regular means. They will be closed to you and me, for they are now the tools of the Pharisees. Yes I know there will be a recount, and yes we may even see history and a victory, but I will advise all of you, this is not defeat just common sense. Make plans for the day when none of the legal means will work. That day is close at hand, closer than any of us believe.

Remember, all politics is local and no government has any moral authority, if it does not have the consent of the governed, and we are very close to this day already. Take heed, for the battle has just begun and steel yourselves. The night will be long, but patriots know what they must do. This is the time when spring time patriots will be culled from the herd, for those who cannot see the long night is upon us will soon retreat.

[havocmom]

1. Also remember to say Hi to Agent Mike

;)
And I do not mean the CIA agent with the balls to be honest in public.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. I suspect Mike is a fan of mine

if you get my drift

Hi Mike, did you complete your homework already and READ the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

Maybe now I should add Gibbon's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire to your reading list as well as The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany.

[havocmom]

3. *snarf*

:D