Is Rebellion Possible in this Country?

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Is rebellion possible in this country?

Certainly there have been protests by African Americans against police and prosecutors-who mostly exonerate police who commit blatant murders of black and brown men, women even kids in all parts of this country.

There was the recent resistance by "Greenpeace" activists temporarily halting a Shell oil rig platform from departing Seattle-now heading for the Chukchi Sea in the Alaskan Arctic.

There's growing resistance to fracking operations in different states and localities, opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline being completed, the TTP, Transpacific partnership, the labeling of GMO foods and environmentalists demanding governmental climate change legislation. Then of course there was the occupy movement in 2011 that coined the 1% and 99% and the earlier demonstrations against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

But nothing on the scale of the college student led rebellion against the Viet Nam war or the rebellion of African Americans after the assassination of Martin Luther king in 1968.

I once believed it would take a widespread economic dislocation-as happened in 2008-that would shake the complacency of the American people to demand the government-that is supposed to represent the people- rein in the illegal excesses perpetrated by the self described financial "masters of the universe" who created the economic decimation of so many.

Of course that didn't happen. The financial perpetrators got rescued with bailouts, then got well with near zero interest $billion dollar loans by the FED. Other than a few slap on the wrist fines-even though those fines were a few $billion, it was nothing compared to the multitude of billions these miscreants garnered from the otherwise illegal financial practices they engaged in i.e. betraying pension funds, cities, states, local governments, even countries such as Ireland, Greece, Iceland, who bought the packaged financial instruments backed by sub-prime mortgage loans while being told what they were buying were valuable investments-which the banksters knew were worthless.

That scam should have been the smoking gun. The banks too big to fail should have been broken up, nationalized, the perpetrators held accountable and given jail time, but nothing of the sort happened. Business as usual returned as if 2008 never happened.

But as I read John Whitehead's article [1], "They Live, We Sleep: A Dictatorship Disguised as a Democracy", which he presciently writes, "What most Americans perceive as life in America-privileged, progressive and free-is a far cry from reality, where economic inequality is growing, real agendas and real power are buried beneath layers of Orwellian doublespeak and corporate obfuscation, and "freedom", such that it is, is meted out in small, legalistic doses by militarized police armed to the teeth", he pretty much sizes up why I believe rebellion has not occurred in this country.

The sense from here as I observe a populace mesmerized and obsessed with the electronic gadget before their eyes which Whitehead describes, "Most everyone keeps their head down these days while staring zombie- like into an electronic screen" then writing, "A citizenry that does not think for themselves, obeys without question, is submissive, does not challenge authority, does not think outside the box, and is content to sit back and be entertained is a citizenry that can be easily controlled".

And hardly a citizenry ready to commit rebellion.