As winter approaches and officially arrives tomorrow, there's a sense of wanting to reflect upon some of the happenings that have transpired this momentous year.
Though we tend to think the "year" begins on January 1, from here the "year" began on December 17, 2010, the day a fruit seller in Tunisia, Mohammad Bouazizi self immolated himself and in so doing started a revolt by humanity against the forces of repression not just in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain in the Arab world, but also in Wisconsin, where thousands protested against an autocratic governor who aspired to overreach and kill the public unions in his state by eliminating the right to collective bargaining which spurred protests nationwide in solidarity with those in Madison, Wisconsin.
In Greece, massive protests erupted against the government's impending austerity measures, forced onto the backs of the people who were blameless in bringing about the impending fiscal harshness, while those that did create the financial crisis of 2008 which caused worldwide reverberations, were never held accountable, are in league with the IMF, World Bank, the FED and the European Central Bank who are just mere extensions and manifestations of a banking system that serves the interests of the rich, neo liberals whose globalization is most harsh on the dwindling middle class people in Europe and no less so in America.
With the onset of "Occupy Wall Street" on September 17, protests spread across the country in solidarity with it, similar encampments sprung up, all representing the 99% in protest against the 1%, stressing the widening income disparity, unemployment, home foreclosures, crushing college loan debts as well as the gaming of the political system by a plutocracy of oligarchs that have usurped the electoral process to benefit them, the 1% to the detriment of the 99%.
Now in the past two weeks thousands of the Russian people, many from the middle class, have joined in the protests rejecting the outcome of rigged parliamentary elections and the impending re-coronation of Vladimir Putin as the president with no real opposition.
Looking at it all, it feels like a world-wide revolutionary phenomenon with people casting off long simmering frustrations, of being used and taken for granted suddenly erupting into a cathartic open voiced and defiant, "We're here"! A visceral connection of people massing together because what they are feeling is all true, honest and right on the mark. But now out in the open and no longer festering inside and crushing the spirit.
Meanwhile the authorities everywhere react similarly i.e. "What's this; we can't tolerate this; it needs to be crushed".
But this genie of "occupy" is out of the lamp and won't be crushed. It's become an "occupy" everywhere mentality; truly transformational and life changing where people everywhere can easily identify with what the protesters are voicing and demonstrating against.
In a way it shouldn't be considered universal and world-wide; at least not yet. Most of the people in Asia, China, Japan, South Korea, India and Southeast Asia have not erupted in protests over the repression used against them. So it's hardly universal when more than half of humanity hasn't connected with the multitudes in the Arab world, Europe and America.
But could they be next, waiting for the catalyst to happen they identify with and spurs them to openly protest the repression they currently experience but passively acquiesce in and suffer in lonely silence.
Surely, it's just a matter of time. It's only been a year since the Tunisian fruit seller self immolated himself and started it all.
