i wasn't in Chicago when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, but heard about it from friends and saw on TV how the streets were filled. There were estimates that two million people poured out into the streets-- about the same number that filled Tahrir Square in Cairo Egypt-- the same number that took down the presidency and voided the constitution.
Then, I was in Chicago last night, on July fourth. I watched the fireworks fron the roof of a twelve story building-- not even considered a high-rise in Chicago, where the really high buildings have over 60 stories and are literally in the clouds. But I was high enough to look out and see, all around me, fireworks going off, as far as the eye could see. They weren't up close, overhead, but they filled a 360 degree perimiter, like nothing I'd ever seen before.
Here's a video I took from the roof.
My point is that people come out by the tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions in the USA-- but for spectacles and sports. July 4th, Independence Day, is a day for patriotism. But what do we have to celebrate nowadays? The Mainstream media and the duopolist corporatist party Democrats and Republicans still sell American exceptionalism-- that we are better than the rest of the world. That is becoming more and more of a joke, more and more a symptom of how incredibly stupid Americans are to continue to believe such lies.
Okay, we have a bigger military, and we have more people in prison But as far as positives-- education, science, health, lifespan, quality of life-- we are woefully behind most of the world-- unless you are a plutocrat-- among the one percent or point one percent.
That leaves 99.9% of Americans the dupes, the fools, the idiots who the corporations, run by the one percent, are getting over on.
We need to wake up from their stupors the drugged American fools in the American poppy fields-- the ones where Dorothy and the Lion and the straw man and the tin men all fell asleep.
We are seeing a resurgence of the Arab Spring in the summer of 2013. There is every reason to hope, no, to choose to be a part of an American Awakening, an American summer or autumn, where millions of people go out into the streets, not to celebrate some sports team, not to mindlessly go through the motion of celebrating an independence that has been stolen by corporations and the criminals who they've elected with a thoroughly corrupted electoral system.
We have an opportunity here to catch the wave of awakening, the wave of resistance to the powers that have been-- to get a chain reaction going that can throw out the criminals, the liars and the traitors to democracy and to America.
We can start with the outright liars, like James Clapper, who broke the law and lied outright to a senate committee hearing about spying.
We can go in the streets with people whose homes have been stolen from them by criminal banksters. And we can demand that the justice department people who failed to do their jobs over and over again be not only ousted, but also jailed, for their collusion in a system that is so broken.
In Egypt, they're jailing the Muslim Brotherhood leaders who used the election of now former president Morsi to consolidate their power, at the price of Egypt's interests.
The Egyptian people did not do it with 50% plus one, in a vote. They did it with a petition signed by 22 million people-- less than fifth of the population. They did it with two million people in Tahrir square and smaller gatherings in smaller towns.
They did it with the police and army holding back, not aggressively attacking peaceful protesters-- as Obama and Homeland Security Head Janet Napolitano coordinated and ordered, even considering murdering Occupy leaders.
I don't know if it's possible for peaceful protests with peaceful observance by police and military-- in a police state that the Patriot act and Homeland Security have created-- now-- five years of that done and worsened under a Democrat in the White House.
But seeing a sea of fireworks, in every community of Chicago, seeing skies filled with bright colorful lights, all representing thousands outside, supposedly celebrating the anniversary of our liberation from the British-- that was a sight that exceeded my imagination. It showed how connected we all are in so many ways-- and it gave me hope that just as the Arab Spring inspired an American Occupy rising, that this 2013 Arab Summer could also inspire Americans to get off their lazy, sedentary asses and wake up, even for a few moments, from their TV and Netflix and video game digitally drugged state, that they get out in the streets, even once, to protest SOMETHING-- Clappers Lies, the despicable refusal of Obama's Justice Department, led by eunuch, corpo-prostitute Eric Holder, to prosecute corporate criminals. In efffect, the DOJ has become the protection operation for corporate criminals.
We have a lot of reasons to get out in the streets in the same kinds of numbers as sporting events and fireworks bring people out. Let's ride the wave of energy and true democratic passion that the Arab Summer has created and start taking back the America that used to exist that people go through the motions of celebrating on July fourth.
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