Michael Dawson: Agreed, but you still have to act based on hope. We don't know that rebellion could happen, but we also don't know that it can't.
*************
My observations during anti-Vietnam War era and even the modern Iraq invasion era make me think that the quiet masses (who are, IMO, conditioned to accept TINA) can and often do erupt in one big passionate NO. During the 1972 Christmas bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong harbours, I was living in East Lansing, Michigan and thinking, rather despairingly, "Nobody is going to do anything." I was thinking of the possibility of a Soviet or Chinese ship being hit..."would they respond with nuclear weapons, if that happened?"
Well, turns out that a lot of others were thinking of the same sort of consequences and when I ventured outside to see if there was any action, I saw people start gathering. Nobody called a demo...people just started gathering in the "centre" of town along Grand River Avenue. To make a long story short, within an hour that main drag--Grand River--was occupied, blocked. Thousands of students and workers were in the street demanding the end of Nixon's insane "bomb them to peace" tactic. Of course the hired defenders of the State came in riot gear, shot teargas and armed with shotguns took up strategic positions on commercial building roofs to protect "democracy", but the streets remained clogged with demonstrators for a day and a half.
A similar thing happened in sleepy Palo Alto during the first Iraq War aka "Desert Storm". As the bombs and missles started falling on Bagdhad, I was sitting in the Oasis having an Anchor Steam--the TV cut from sports to CNN. I thought, "oh my lanta"...nobody will be doing a thing, except maybe the Peace Center folks. So, I reluctantly got on my bike and peddled like hell towards the town hall where the Peace Center people said they'd be, if the bombing ever started.
When I got there...only a few of the usual suspects. "Geesh", I thought "'this town is like a sealed tuna sandwich with the wrapper glued'." Oh well, I resigned myself to once again looking like a fool for being on the streets chanting with the other few, brave souls who were determined to be heard.
Our march of fifty or so, ( being closely monitored by police of course) wound its way through the main streets, I began to notice something. It was growing larger. People were joining it, in droves! Then, we started going through the neighbourhoods, the ever sleepy, TV flickering neighbourhoods and people started coming out of their homes, not to denounce us, but to join us. I'd never seen such a thing in Paly before. A march of thousands ended up about two hours later going slowly down El Camino Real the largest street in town and just like in 1972, people started sitting down and blocking the main arterey in the mid-Peninsula. And this went on till the wee hours of the morning. Of course, by that time, the crowd was surrounded by cops and cop cars.
As it turns out, the same thing was happening in other spots around the Bay area and indded America herself.
So, you never can tell, what is bubbling underneath the surface of that thin veneer of bourgeois civilization nor what will make the masses erupt like magma. Perhaps small "volcanos" like the ones I've witnessed will blow up in the faces of authority. Or perhaps a "super volcano" will erupt in the face of some monumental existential crisis. It's happened before: France, Russia, Spain....I think, it'll happen again.
Best, Mike B)
****************************************************************** Live in harmony with the Earth. Abolish the wages system. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com