William Rivers Pitt wonders what would happen. I figure some people will get shot, but what the hell, it’s still a good idea:
Reports have been coming out of the Gulf for days about British Petroleum blocking access to beaches and animal-cleaning stations, in some instances using private Blackwater-style mercenaries to do so. Journalists as well as citizens have been thwarted in their attempts to see for themselves the extent of the damage being done by the runaway Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Know what I’d like to see happen? I would like to see a thousand people, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, just show the hell up down there and demand access. Citizens and reporters alike, just get down there, link arms, and walk to the beaches and the marshlands with digital cameras and cell phones for instantaneous blogging of what they see, hear and smell. Pile into as many rented, borrowed and begged boats as can be mustered and plow out there to the scene of the crime. Dare the gendarmes to stop us.
One of two things would happen: either the people would break through those unconscionable corporate barriers and show the world what is really going on in the Gulf, or the forces BP has arrayed against the truth would react with violence, which would tell us everything we need to know about what is happening, and would be enough to break that God damned criminal corporation finally and forever. Either way, there would be thousands of people down there to chronicle what is happening, a ready-made army of volunteers who can also pitch in as best they can and begin the epic process of trying to undo what has been done.
Sounds crazy? Maybe, but it is the kind of direct action that has been missing from our national narrative, not just in the Gulf but all over. What would happen if a million people marched on Wall Street, parked themselves in the road, and demanded that every “too big to fail” institution be torn down a brick at a time? What would happen if a million people parked themselves on Pennsylvania Avenue and refused to leave until American military forces are removed from Iraq, as promised?
“What would happen if a million people marched on Wall Street, parked themselves in the road, and demanded that every “too big to fail” institution be torn down a brick at a time? What would happen if a million people parked themselves on Pennsylvania Avenue and refused to leave until American military forces are removed from Iraq, as promised?”
we would all be shot dead, just like they did to the Bonus Army, and then the news would say “they deserved it” and it would be forgotten about within a week.
Sigh…what brendon said. Every time someone says, “We should march, we should protest, that’ll get their attention!”, I remember the Iraq war protests all over the world that got less press coverage than a hundred tea partiers getting together. I remember congress telling the American people over and over that their letters, calls, emails, and faxes are irrelevant because we don’t know what we’re talking about. I remember that the lowliest county sherrif’s department has more firepower in its maintenance shed than the average Taliban stronghold, and is itching to get it out. Maybe you’re right, maybe a really big protest would get the right kind of attention, but I seriously doubt it.
Personally, I’m interested to see what will happen when the first major hurricane hits the gulf and pushes oil up the Mississippi, around the Florida coast, and tar balls start appearing on the beach in Martha’s Vineyard.
Of course. And then Fox News would run a special on “The Threat from Within.”
The supposedly “lowly, third world” Greek peasants know better :
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_greeks_get_it_20100524/
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Here’s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. They know what to do when Goldman Sachs and international bankers collude with their power elite to falsify economic data and then make billions betting that the Greek economy will collapse. They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare—the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it.
Here’s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. They know what to do when Goldman Sachs and international bankers collude with their power elite to falsify economic data and then make billions betting that the Greek economy will collapse. They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare—the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it.
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Yes, the Greeks were brave and true in protesting to retain their pay and benefits. What little I’ve read tells me that their government is corrupt, their businesses in debt, and their tourism industry in dire straits because of the downturn. Let’s see what happens after the German-mandated austerity program.
Also, European countries are not NEARLY as well-armed as we Yanks.
This is the crux of the problem–who, exactly, are you going to throw out? The multinational corporations who own you, your town, and your country? The government that answers to them? The local politician who does what he’s told?