IF THEY LET YOU DO IT, IT’S NOT A PROTEST. IT’S A PARTY.

Comedian George Carlin had a “bit” he performed called “soft language.” It was about how we have steadily reshaped the language we use in a way that takes “the life out of life” (ex. shell shocked is now post-traumatic stress disorder and people don’t die anymore, they pass away). As usual, he was right on target. This pattern of removing emotion, imagery and passion from our language has reached epic proportions. The problem with this is that language reflects thought and when we change the words we use to describe and explain things we also change how we think about those things. Liberals have embraced this practice to avoid conflict. Conservatives have weaponized the practice to eliminate dissent. The net result is we are becoming sterile, soulless, predictable, easily manipulated pawns on a chess board controlled by those people to whom we have given all our power.

What we now call a protest is a good example of this phenomenon. Getting a permit to assemble or march someplace carrying signs and taking “selfies” is not a protest. It’s a party. A real protest is what Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King did years ago. They committed acts of civil disobedience to challenge government policies and actions they believed were unfair and unjust. They didn’t violate the law. They didn’t assault anyone, or fight with anyone, or destroy anybody’s property, or steal anything from anybody. But they did break the rules. They did things they were not allowed to do and refused to stop doing those things when they were challenged or confronted by the authorities who defended the policies and actions they were challenging. They blocked roads and entrances to businesses, sat down at lunch counters or in the front of buses where they weren’t allowed to be, occupied buildings that weren’t theirs to occupy, and marched down streets they weren’t permitted to enter because they wanted to create a confrontation with the rule makers and the enforcers of those rules. And when the authorities did confront them and ordered them to stop or move, they refused, and then they were blasted with powerful fire hoses, tear gassed, bitten by police dogs, dragged, beaten and arrested. It was the authorities' inhumanity contrasted with the courage and commitment of the people challenging those authorities that moved other people to think about what was actually happening and ultimately changed other people’s minds. And when enough other people had changed their minds, the British left India and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act.

The action taken by Native Americans to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline was a real protest. It was an act of civil disobedience and it got results. It stopped the pipeline. (Donald Trump was elected President shortly after that and he allowed the pipeline to continue because he was an investor in the company that was building the pipeline, but that’s another story altogether.)  In contrast, the Women’s March the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration was not a real protest and accomplished little more that making everyone who participated feel better about themselves, which is sort of what a party does. And it didn’t change anybody’s mind about anything. Neither will signing petitions, leaving telephone messages for members of Congress and ranting on Facebook or Twitter. Publically expressing ones concerns can’t hurt, but it is not going to change a legislator’s vote or a campaign contributor’s donation, not in today’s it’s-all-about-the-money political environment.

The people calling the shots in Washington, D.C. today are the richest Americans and their giant, multinational corporations. They are the new generation of Robber Barons and they only care about one thing – profit. And THAT is their Achilles’ heel, their soft spot, because the only way they can continue to make a profit is if we continue to provide them with our labor and buy their products and services. As things stand right now, they don’t have to pay any attention to us. They don’t care how many of use call our Congressman or assemble in front of the Capitol Building waving signs. These new Robber Barons have bought and paid for the Congress and the President of the United States and they are going to get what they paid for no matter how much we “protest”....unless we give them a reason to care about what we say and want. The best way to do that is to show them that we can and will interfere with their ability to do business and make a profit by interrupting production and shutting down sales; and we will keep doing that until they pay attention to us.

I know my liberal friends are thinking we need to be organizing to get out the vote next November and take back control of Congress, and we absolutely do need to do that. But, please don’t be naïve enough to think that the Robber Barons and their private and political henchmen are going to just let us do that. They have no respect for the Rule of Law. They have made that perfectly clear. They stole the last election and they are already working day and night preparing to steal the next one – by any means necessay – and they have a lot of means at their disposal, from voter suppression, to media manipulation, to intimidation, to starting a war, up to and including staging a terrorist attack and using it as an excuse to declare Marshall Law and suspend the November elections. Don’t put any of that past them. They are capable of doing all of these things and desperate enough to hold on to their power to do them.

I lived under a dictatorship for a time when I was a student in Franco’s Spain and I was on both sides of the conflict in the volatile 1960’s as a police officer and then as an activist. I know what ugly looks and feels like and it’s going to get ugly here in United States before it gets any better, if it ever gets better. We can’t wait for the next election because it may never happen. We have to start letting the Robber Barons know right now that we control their profit and they are not going to see anymore profit until they start listening to us and instructing their lackeys in Congress and the White House to address our needs and concerns. Yes, there will be consequences. Yes, we will have to make sacrifices. But if we don’t stand up to the Robber Barons now, while we are still free to do it, by hitting them where it hurts them the most, in the pocket book, we may not get another chance. They are not going to just walk away from the power they now have. 

The good news is, we gave them that power and we can take it back. In fact, I’ll start the ball rolling with my next post. Watch for it next week.