Storming of the Bastille
Today is Bastille Day. The Bastille was a jail in Paris, France that was stormed on July 14, 1789 freeing the prisoners. The Storming of the Bastille was a flashpoint for the French Revolution. A friend from Europe wrote me today saying that it is “a good day to get together with a few friends and tear down a prison.”
That might be true but around here it was a day to celebrate “Bastille Days”, a festival downtown celebrating the French Culture. Two years ago when we tried to march around the Festival on the public sidewalk with a coffin remembering those who have died by the USA ‘endless wars’ we were told we could not march on the sidewalk since we were protesting. Last year we marched around the festival behind a pretend drone educating people about “killer drones”and the billions spent on them. We were met by a group of police officers who followed us around. A few were interested in our literature, fake million dollar bills with information on “Killer Drones” one side, but most, except for one guy who gave us the finger, ignored us. This year we did nothing at Bastille Days.
Last year I thought the Occupy Wall Street movement might be the new storming of the Bastille. There was all kind of Occupy movements, like Occupy Milwaukee, across the country. The slogan of “we are the 99 percent” was catchy and the movement caught fire for a time but it too is fading away. I still have hope the Occupy movement will renew itself but it does not look that way. When they do they take action locally they are ignored by media or dismissed as ‘fakers’ by the police chief.
Today when I was telling a friend about the Million Dollar Move of the Catholic Church out of the North Central section of Milwaukee, poor and segregated to a wealthier parish my friend, a good Catholic, said “there is nothing we can do about it.”
In the 60’s in our struggle to end the war in Vietnam and the Selective Service system there was a major series of “Hit and Stay” actions where a group would storm the selective service offices, take out the IA Draft files, those about to be drafted by military, go outside to burn them and stand around waiting for the police and arrest. There are similar actions today, but less, and they are isolated and ignored by major media.
So maybe some of us need to get together to “storm the Bastille” or our jails and let the prisoners free. I doubt if this act would be ignored but also it might not be a ‘flashpoint’ for resistance and revolution. What place do we need to “occupy” or what records do we need to destroy to wake up America? Anyone for storming the Bastille?
Comments
Yes Bob Yes. What do we focus on that will bring the walls tumbling down.
Gandhiwould say SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER and so it is.
I was thinking the other day that the Peace Movement has become a business.
The movement to end slavery took a long time and was based upon the MORAL issus as well as others issues. For what ever reason we NO LONGER TALK ABOUT THE IMMORALITY OF WAR. why is that????
If we push the concept of the immorality of war then we are criticizing the Military and that takes us back to Vietnam HUMMMMM
I believe there have been a few efforts to reframe our view of WAR
The Drones!!!!! NY Time op ed piece about how drones are MORAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The government is CORRUPT so any effort to think that the way to peace is through them is at best foolish
That leave 9–11 as the only issues that addresses the corruption and the LIES that corruption is based upon. If the LIES were difficult to understand it would be one thing but they are not!!!!!!
We attack the use of the military and not the military Once they have no use then that becomes the next issues which we failed at once already.
They CREATED what they think is the perfect ENEMY and if we do not have the brains to expose that SILLINESS then a POX on our house.
Now with the agents working full time and over time (Chicago or was it Minneapolis) it is sometimes difficult to figure out what to do but if we go back to basics
SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER we may find our way again. The OCCUPY Effort was destroyed by the Dem’s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Except NYC all the Mayors were Dems.
Tom Spellman
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