For some time, a few of us have been calling for a general strike against the corporate state. We don’t really have any other options. They have all the guns. They have the army and the police. They make whatever laws suit them. There is no real political opposition. They control the media and they control the ballot box. The people are left with only one option; stop turning the wheels of their money machine.
Some readers told me that this would never happen; bad idea… Yadda-yadda-yadda. Well, low and behold... here it is...
THIS is what we have to do. This is our power. This will have an impact beyond anything else in our near empty arsenal. What is the main focus of the corporate, fascist state? Money and Power and Control; and what does that reduce to? Money.
Why was 9/11? Why the war in Iraq? Why the many, many other examples of vicious enterprise from these hooligans in suits? Money... Money… Money… and when we, the people of the United States… refuse to go to work; refuse to buy anything besides food and water, refuse to go to restaurants and theaters and nightclubs, refuse to buy a car or a house, refuse to take a plane or a train or rent an automobile, refuse to go on vacation, refuse to participate in this psychotic Disneyworld of lard-bodies wallowing in Shake and Bake insta-product, refuse to turn the wheels of the money machine that butchers Iraqis and Palestinians and Katrina victims and the homeless and everybody everywhere who suffers because we, as polite and dutiful hamsters, turn the wheels of their bloodstained industries… when we sit down and say, “That’s it, we’ve had enough.” Then… then… they will have to take notice.
They will howl like stuck pigs and no metaphor intended. The time has come for the millions of unsatisfied customers to say, “I want my money back. I want my country back and I want you OFF MY BACK. When you stop the machine… the money stops. Repeat after me, “When you stop the machine, the money stops.” “WHEN YOU STOP THE MACHINE, THE MONEY STOPS!” and then...
...there is no money for illegal wars… And then… there is no advertising for the media… and then… the stock market has a heart attack... and then... all of the millions of gears across the country and round the world begin to smoke and screech because there is no oil to grease their slide. What is the oil that greases the wheels? It’s money.
Like the millions who share my concern about a world on the edge, I am not a communist. I am not a terrorist. I am not an enemy of my country. I am not a criminal. I am not deluded in what I see and I am not canon-fodder, a slave or a fool. I am a human being just like you. If you can’t organize and strategize and mobilize then you don’t care enough to get what you deserve and you will get what you deserve.
Everywhere I go and everything I read and everything I see indicates more people coming to realize that the world hangs in the balance every day this dysfunctional machine of empire continues.
It’s a well-known fact that if you want to militate against corporate control you hit them in the wallet. Their God is money. The people have no greater power than to withdraw their support from the lampreys who feed on them. Corporations will gladly roll on their backs like the family dog to curry the favor of the consumer. If the consumer walks on them they are out of business.
It isn’t enough to do this for one day. For an entire week, Americans should buy nothing they don’t have to have to knit body and soul together. If that doesn’t force compliance it should be for a month. I guarantee results. You cannot be put in jail for refusing to buy.
There are two possibilities, things will get worse or things will get better. Americans will take the power they possess and act upon it or they won’t. If they do not, then at some point down the road they will be forced to take action because life will have become no longer worth living and it will be much harder and bloodier to accomplish it then.
I’d like to ask every reader of this blog to make this point to everyone you know and meet. Inform them of the 9/11 General Strike. Send them the link. Make it happen.
America can ill afford an economic emergency. She can less well afford to continue to foster a global emergency upon the lives and well being of the world. There is no army of organized terror that can work it’s will upon the world unless America feeds that terror in order to accomplish a corporate agenda. We now know that there was no Bin Laden behind the 9/11 attacks. We now know that hundreds of things that should not and could not have happened happened against every law of coincidence and physics.
We saw WTC7 come down in a classic controlled demolition format. We have seen where the BBC announced that WT7 had fallen 26 minutes before it did. Read this compelling analysis of that event...
...we have seen all the phony Bin Laden’s, the specter of worldwide Al Qaeda and all the devices that this rogue government, at the behest of the corporations, has used to enforce crowd control. There is only one reason for the insane security measures at airports and travel centers around the world. It is about slowly accommodating you to live in a police state. The reason governments move toward the creation of a police state is because what they –and the people behind them want- and what the people want are diametrically opposed.
You only get a police state when the government cannot trust the citizenry because the government seeks to oppress them beyond the limits of their ordinary tolerance. This is why there has to be an Eastasia. This is why there has to be terror attacks and terror threats so that the government that is pressing down upon you can appear to be protecting you.
I constantly encounter people who have put no time into studying what happened on 9/11 and whose looping disclaimer is that ‘they’ couldn’t cover it up when it is prima facie that they are engaged in covering it up all the time. The idea that a government would not conspire against its people is lunacy. Of course governments conspire against their people. That is the nature of government and the reason why checks and balances are needed to keep it honest. History is filled with glaring examples of governments which have conspired against the populace. And when corporations run the government it is automatic that they would conspire because profit has taken supremacy over conscience.
The definition of a fascist state is when the corporations control the government. Do you need a degree in paying attention to see whether this is not the case today? Did you miss what happened at the FCC? Are you unaware of the battle for control of the few over the many? At what point do you decide to see what your denial and fear have denied you?
Become V. We can bring this dog to heel. It gets its food from us. Deny this dog his food and this dog will become attentive and ingratiating. You have to go for the critical, vital area. You have to go for the money. It won’t fix itself people. It will only get worse because that is the nature of the beast. Destiny calls. Don’t keep her waiting.
'Have I Got This Right?' is track no. 2 of 10 on Visible's 2002 album
'911 was an Inside Job'
Lyrics (pops up)
19 comments:
I agree, a general strike/shutdown is about the only recourse left. However, the problem is akin to herding cats. For a general strike to be effective it has to be near universal.
It's a question of timing. About the only effective trigger will the next 911. If the meme is planted now and everywhere that 911-2 is a false flag like 911-1, then a general strike would be an effective outcome: in short, fear needs to have a mechanism to channel it into non-violent, resolute rage against the state: a general strike.
911-2 is too late some will say. Well, I can't think of anything else that will get peoples' attention to bring about an economic shutdown before that occurs. And a 911-2 must occur pretty soon because of the steadily rising dissatisfaction with the state of things. The Ron Paul phenomena is an example of this. The ruling elite want to nip any sense of anger and hope in the bud and replace it with mind-boggling fear.
The analogy I like use is the old non-violent concept of shunning. We can shun our oppressors, economically.
So the memes should be:
911's are inside jobs.
Don't get angry, get even.
Shun the system, shut it down.
Why has religion been allowed to
to stand as the only enity not
under attack?
Les,
Will you come back to the US to strike? Or are you just directing us from accross the pond?
I mean, I have respect for what you are writing, it is very eloquent but are you actually "walking the walk"?
I myself am not decided yet on this one. And cynical about its true potential. And after three years and thousands of both hours and dollars I have dedicated to the cause of stopping the Empire I really find it funny to once again hear that this is the major action that will change things. How about the sea attitude change? How about changing what we do every day? Maybe that's the way to go.
And one more question - don't you think you'd be a lot more effective if you wrote under your real name?
Sincerely,
I'll take that question Mr. Epstein. How are The Beatles doing these days, by the way?
The name on my passport is Les Visible. The name on my drivers license is Les Visible. What real name do you suggest I use; irony and double entendre intended.
Will I come back to strike? I hope you aren't impugning my courage because I did a number of years in your prisons for speaking the truth and just nearly evaded a life sentence in Hawaii in '85.
I am, at last check, apparently not welcome in my home country. If you can work that one out and guarantee my safe passage back out then I have no problem.
I've often offered here to fight both George Bush and Dick Cheney in hand to hand combat for the freedom of the world. I've even offered to let them use knives. I'm confident of the outcome of that particular rondelay. I'm sure they are not. But they are cowards who use bully boys to apply what they would never venture in person mano a mano.
You got a problem with me? Spit it out. Don't play games. I'm going to go on record and say, whatever you are up to, I have seen it before.
Anyone who is honest in their approach feels their way. They don't issue challenges as if, somehow, that right got conferred on them, which, last time I checked, it didn't.
I don't work for you counselor. I don't answer to you. You appear here at my pleasure or not at all. You want to talk to me then learn some manners pilgrim; that New York side of the mouth thing doesn't work here.
I've seen every kind of snide and run up against pretty much what the world can throw at you and then some. Only a fool makes projections about a man he doesn't know as far as walking the walk goes. What walk do you do Mr. Epstein? Where are your credentials? Don't you think you should show me yours before you go asking for mine?
The truth of the matter is that whatever comes out about me would only enhance my right to speak. The jury is still out on you.
Now, Mister Epstein...
Hello Mister Epstein, It's Sollie (Mister Leberwitcz, from Gaza).
I didn't know you knew Mister Visible. He's a nice boy.
I've been telling him about our friend Rabbi Hasham.
By the way when you were over the other day, you know when we were having fun with those rag head kids, well, you know the little girl I hit in the head with a rock – she died. I knew you’d be interested.
Isn’t it exciting, you knowing Mister Visible.
I agree with you though, the people of the USA not buying goods won’t effect our corporate investments, we have so much profit coming in from arms sales, we don’t need American sales any more. And Mister Epstein, I now have shares in Blackwater so I expect a big return from that investment as well. Rabbi Hasham advised me on that one. You should buy shares in security services Mister Visible, you can’t go wrong.
I must go; I’m having some of the boys over from the IDF for a get together.
May the Lord bless your every waking moment.
Sollie Leberwitcz
ps. Rabbi Hashem says buy long on Blackwater.
The clever difference between "The War on Terror" and Vietnam is that no sensible Americans in the 60s and 70s believed that the vietcong would come over to America to murder them in their beds or places of work. This feeling of relative security allowed sufficient compassion for the Vietnamese people, and shame for what the US military was inflicting on them, to develop for a vigorous protest movement to emerge. I hate to be pessimistic, but, although I encounter individual compassionate, angry, and despairing Americans everyday on the net, I have seen no sign of any effective organised protest movement against Bush's even worse crimes emerging. If you can't get them onto the street like you could in the 60s then how can you get sufficient numbers to make an effective general strike?
Needless to say, I hope very much that I am wrong and that it will be a great success.
P.s. Here's an idea that has just occurred to me while writing. Maybe we need a Bob Geldoff figure (the Man himself, perhaps) to mobilize us. (Perhaps, as Al Gore seems to have recently taken on board, we have actually become conditioned to needing some kind of showbusiness razmataz to get us off our backsides and marching.) How about an international "Save the World (from George Bush)" concert?
Aloha! Actually, the very FIRST thing that could be done to bring the "machine" to a grinding halt would be for everyone to get rid of their t.v. sets. Period. Quit watching the very thing that brainwashes the great mass of people into the "walking stupor" that they are in everyday. When the mass of humanity stops being interested in what someone else is doing on t.v.(or myspace,etc,etc), and realizes that EVERYTHING that they need is contained within themselves, and thus become "self-actualized" instead, there will be no need for work stoppages. The machine will just die quietly from lack of interest. Peace! Aloha! MattyC. in Honolulu, Hi.
What a cute idea. Boycott a system that is collapsing, so that even the mass marketers can't afford to keep on their lights.
The problem is simple. We have criminals in the elite, who are sociopathic, and don't care about humans, their lives or the war crimes that they do.
So, enforce the law. Arrest them. Try them. They have names. Don't attack some third party, bc some other individual has chosen to use the US Constitution as a kleenex.
You are far too simple minded to propose a solution, bc you are still thinking that groups are responsible for the actions of a few men and women.
It's time to arrest them. Before they take off to Paraguary where they bought 1800 acres from a corrupt government, tossing out the peasants, and allowing them to dream of a lifetime in luxury, in a country that does not extradite.
ARREST THEM.
BRING THEM TO TRIAL, THE WAY THAT THEY BROUGHT SADDAM HUSSAIN TO TRIAL.
OLMERT TOO. HE POISONED SHARON (NOT THAT HE DIDN'T DESERVE IT SOMEWHAT) BUT STILL. PEREZ WAS BEHIND THE MURDER OF RABIN.
STOP ALLOWING INDIVIDUAL CRIMINALS TO HIDE BEHIND A GROUP, WHETHER IT IS A CORPORATE GROUP, A RELIGIOUS GROUP, OR A GOVERNMENTAL GROUP.
PEOPLE HAVE NAMES, ADDRESSES AND TELEPHONE NUMBER.
ENOUGH OF THIS PHOOEY ANGST.
DO SOMETHING.
I like your way of expressing yourself brother. You seem sincere, more than seem if you know what I mean. I think maybe I've seen two other guys like you in my whole time on the internet but your music is out of this world. Listening to your music is about ten thousand times more enjoyable than what you do here and I like this a lot. You should maybe do something about getting heard. I promise you the world will listen. I haven't heard anything like what you do in twenty years at least. You need to concentrate on the music. That is your biggest strength.
Peter Bourke UK
Arrest them, eh? To quote you, anonymous, "what a cute idea". ;)
If arresting them -- before they head to Paraguay or parts elsewhere like all good fascist fucks before them -- is so darned easy, I say get on it friend! Via con dios amigo!
Why the hell not have a general strike/shutdown? Why the hell not a massive one?
While I do understand how discouraging it is when we protest and we don't get (any) results we hoped for....what I don't understand is the pre-emptive dooming to failure of a general strike.
Some say that it might take another bloody disaster to move people (in one direction or another). Well since I don't have any appetite for blood, and since they may damned well be planning another reichstag/911 anyhow, why the hell not stand up and be counted? It's like Pastor Niemoller said, "and when they came for me..."
Better to at least try and do something (peaceful, massive/passive resistance), than to do nothing. Right?
What's the worst that can happen? That we'll be ignored or ridiculed?
What's the best possible outcome? Imagine...unless you've got no imagination left or none to begin with!
Now, what realistically can come in between the worst and best scenarios? Think about it.
I'll be spreading the word. And also doing my bit.
Thanks LV.
Peace...if we can make it,
annemarie
new essay here
http://zippittydodah.blogspot.com/
Mr Visible,
First off, my apologies for assuming that was your pen name. It jsut sounded like one. And in no way was I thinking you lacked courage.
For more detailed response see below.
Will I come back to strike? I hope you aren't impugning my courage because I did a number of years in your prisons for speaking the truth and just nearly evaded a life sentence in Hawaii in '85.
Well, I can't really speak much to it as your provide no details and I couldn't find any on my own - but I admire your convictions. And there can be resons other that the lack of courage for not wanting to cross the ocean - financial considerations, etc. Like I said, at no point did I believe you lacked courage.
I am, at last check, apparently not welcome in my home country. If you can work that one out and guarantee my safe passage back out then I have no problem.
Well, am I FBI or the State Department? I don't think so. No, I can't guarantee your safety - in the US or in France or in Bulgaria. Hope you stay safe, though:)
I've often offered here to fight both George Bush and Dick Cheney in hand to hand combat for the freedom of the world. I've even offered to let them use knives. I'm confident of the outcome of that particular rondelay. I'm sure they are not. But they are cowards who use bully boys to apply what they would never venture in person mano a mano.
Well, this is a nce kinghthood bit but I doubt that it is of much practical utility.
You got a problem with me? Spit it out. Don't play games. I'm going to go on record and say, whatever you are up to, I have seen it before.
Stop being paranoid. I had a couple of critical remarks, and I have made it. That's all.
Anyone who is honest in their approach feels their way. They don't issue challenges as if, somehow, that right got conferred on them, which, last time I checked, it didn't.
I did not issue any challenges to you. However, as someone acting as a public leader you might want to get used to people asking how you believe you are justified to lead. You issued a call to action. Nothing wrong with that. Nor is there anything wrong with asking you why you believe this is the way to go, and whether or not you are participating.
I don't work for you counselor. I don't answer to you. You appear here at my pleasure or not at all. You want to talk to me then learn some manners pilgrim; that New York side of the mouth thing doesn't work here.
Sure, you can start your fight for the freedom of the world by practicing censorship. That certainly is your right - not that it makes sense.
I've seen every kind of snide and run up against pretty much what the world can throw at you and then some. Only a fool makes projections about a man he doesn't know as far as walking the walk goes. What walk do you do Mr. Epstein? Where are your credentials? Don't you think you should show me yours before you go asking for mine?
I have spent several years as an activist, wrote about 9/11, neocons, empire, took part in some actions, helped the victims of Katrina. I am also a software engineer. What else do you need to know?
I don't have much credentials, I never asked for yours, and I also am not issuing public calls to action. At most, I provide people with information and recommendations.
The truth of the matter is that whatever comes out about me would only enhance my right to speak. The jury is still out on you.
You most certainly have a right to speak. And you also have a right to judge me any way you see fit.
Regarding The Beatles - well, they are not doing much in the real world these days, but they still persist as a symbol, if that makes sense.
Wait, Les, what if you've misjudged Mr Boris Epstein.
I'd hate to think that you two may have become engaged in a sterile, hostile exchange when you there's likelyhood that your confrontation is unwarranted.
I'm not satisfied by Boris Epstein's point by point response to you any more than I am by your first response to him. I think you may not be expressing yourselves here as you may be known to do best.
I do believe that Boris was justified in asking "what are you doing, practically speaking?".
Like you, Les, I'm an expat [french citizen, paris]. There are times when I'm sensitive about criticism of my lack of direct involvement in local US politics, when I criticize the US. I'm called "elitist", "stand-off-ish", etc. Why don't I haul myself off to the US to defend and work to change opinion in my country of origin?
It's a perfectly valid question!
I'll not provide a personal response to that question, because it'd amount to a boring story of poverty.
Out of curiosity I went to Mr Epstein's site and watched a 1'13" movie he's posted, which I found probably the most compelling mini exposé of 11/9, I've ever seen http://www.dogandponny.org/2007/05/open-complicity-anatomy-of-911-cover-up.html.
The film is slow, warning to the the attention deficient, but it spells out what I've thought for some time: if we have evidence of Mossad [documentation of cheering Israelis, etc], CIA, FCC, Norad involvement, it hasn't filtered down to us by chance. We're being manipulated to focus on circumstantial evidence by way of masking the true architecture of 11/9 and the reasons for the destruction that has ensued, as well as the destruction that is programmed to follow it.
Les, contradictions are good, too.
--sijepuis
sijepuis
I haven't got a problem with criticism per se; warranted or unwarranted. It's seldom that I don't post a comment here.
What I'm doing about the situation should be evident by this blog where after a week you can often find as much as seven full pages listing the reposts and references on Google. Ideas have much more impact than impotent action.
But there are several blogs and a variety of other efforts going on every day. In my mind that's fairly obvious.
This isn't to say that I think I'm accomplishing much. I do what's in front of me and hope that it helps in the wider struggle as there are a great many of us working in this way every day.
My problem with the particular exchange and certain other events that happen here now and then have to do with the fact that I see things as Chinese boxes and when something makes me suspicious I find my intuition to be a pretty infailable guide; at least as far as my experience is concerned.
If all of the Israeli involvement was actually a front perpetrated by other serpents deeper in the mix then I would expect some penetrating commentary to that affect by the accused. There's been zip about that all this long time.
I doubt that some as yet, unknown sinister force placed all those dual nationals in the defense apartment or framed Larry Franklin and company. I doubt they set up Silverstein with the WTC's or Zakheim as comptroller and slicked the money out while he was dining somewhere. I doubt that the dancing Mossad agents diguised as Arabs were actually someone yet again disguised as Israeli's. I doubt that world media was dropped into their Christmas stocking while they were trying to help the Palestinians while someone else was actually abusing the Palestinians. I doubt that someone as yet unknown faked the kidnapping of IDF soldiers on Lebanese soil when they were really- sure buddy, on Israeli soil but actually somewhere in Albania. I doubt that someone as yet unknown dropped all those cluster bombs on Lebanon while the Israelis were really trying to stop the fighting. I doubt that some sinister force as yet unknown is really behind smearing Mersheimer and Walt and suppressing the Rachel Corrie play all over the world and do I really need to list hundreds of other strange events that are really being done by some other sinister force as yet unknown?
It smacks of disinfo and I see it a lot. I also don't get into anything with anyone unless I note that they as shimmying around several times already in the attempt to get me to say something in reaction to certain provocation in order to create a certain result.
I've been around long enough to know when someone is fucking with me and usually I know why too. Maybe that's an arrogant assumption on my part. It's always possible. Meanwhile I'm going to trust my intuition which has been my constant gremlin of revelation.
To sijepuis -
And I guess to Les to:
I wasn't trying to fuck with anybody, I wasn't trying to pick a confrontation, I just had a few items worth of criticism which I expressed.
I don't need conflict in my life - there is plenty already and it is not with people who are on my side even though there may be, and often are, disagreements.
If I came across as being hostile - my apologies.
Boris.
Join me here Now
where there are no points of view.
Slip under good and bad
right and wrong
worthy and unworthy
sinner and saint…
Meet me here
where everything is unframed
before understanding
and not understanding…
Meet me here
where silence roars
where stillness is dancing
where eternal is living and dying…
Meet me here
where you are not you
where you are It
and It is unspeakable…
Meet me here
where all points of view
merge into a single point
that then disappears…
Meet me here
before there ever was something
before there ever was nothing…
Meet me here
where everything speaks of This
where everything has
always spoken of This
where nothing is ever lost or found…
Meet me here…
Remember, to give to Caesar what is Caesars.
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