I’m just throwing this up, to keep the ball rolling. It’s been a long day in novel land. Where the men are men, and the Miltonians are nervous. Love the new edition myself. It is going all Michael Chriton on me. In a good way, before Chriton completely sold out to the absolutely looney global warming is a myth crowd.
So planning for Petals for Peace got off to some kind of start yesterday. If you don’t know about it, click the link, catch-up, and get involved. People are powerful. Especially people on the Internet who know as much as you do. Seriously.
So far we have these folks signed up to send a flower or a fax to Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI-08) to protest the war:
Damnit Janet (e-mail me)
James Benjamin (I’ve added you to the newsletter)
And these bloggers who showed some interest (better than no interest):
Street Kid
Dada (wants to go all White Feather on Rogers)
Wbythebay
Man Eegee
SallyCat
DuctapeFatwa
Kamakhya
NorthDakotaDemocrat
blueneck
If you guys are in, let me know. If you have questions, let me know.
So it is getting late. But I suppose I should say this. This is an experiment people. An experiment in power. I just got done watching a re-cap of the Nashville lunch-counter sit-ins from the movie “A Force More Powerful.” Protests like these are powerful. I can’t stress it enough.
And something I’ve seen in the blogosphere in the past year kind of pisses me off. Anti-war people. You remember how we were marginalized at the Big Orange. Remember the great “hippie” debate. Complete bullshit.
I’ve learned something. With the help of all of you. James Benjamin and his talks of solidarity (I’ve read the history of Lech and the movement). ND Dem and his understanding of these tactics. Janet Damnit and the street protestors at Booman (where are you guys) who have been in the battlefield. Manny and SallyCat and Duke and MLR, and their serious understanding of how to make the blogs hum with a message. And from the peace movement people here. And experience. The message is so simple: This government, about which we all complain and analyze and detest — it exists at our pleasure. Without our consent, it will cease to function properly. We can name our terms. If we plan the right action, stay together, and work toward our goal. And frankly, politics is only a small part of that equation.
So once you have this knowledge. Once you’ve seen it, even on the most minor scale. You still have to do something with it. We need to plan. Set our agenda. Build our numbers. And rally our resources to acheive our aims. Either our government will respond or it will cease to function. This is not a dream. It has happened dozens of times on a large scale in this century. To far more repressive regimes than our own. But Bush and the Republicans cannot continue to lie us into war crimes. Cannot continue to destroy our Constitution. Unless we allow it. Have you seen the number of “strongly opposed.” If memory serves, it is like 47 percent of the population. If these people all knew what I’ve learned in the past year, about the fact that they could withdraw their consent to this government and bring it to its knees, we would not be here writing about another Bush fuck-up every day. Serious as a heart attack.
Petals for Peace. Just a small experiment. But if we build a method. Grow a base from the liberal blogosphere, I’m saying we could engage in much more global operation. I’m talking national boycotts. I’m talking general strikes. What will it take for us to come together in this way?