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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 10/17/11

The Beginning Is Near

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Linh Dinh
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The anti-Wall Street protest has often resembled a street party. In occupied Liberty Park, people banged on drums, danced, performed mime, even dangled donuts to bait cops. Their mood has been merry, which is remarkable considering that they've been sleeping out in the open,
on hard ground, in a compact park, without even tents over them. Food
and money have been limited, and sanitation a logistical nuisance, yet
even a cloudburst in the middle of the night, drenching everyone, was
greeted with cheers. A sign, "THE REVOLUTION WILL BE PLAYFUL."

Critics
have slandered these protesters as idle and frivolous, as muddled
crybabies who would flee from any job application, not that anyone's
hiring, by the way. This rally, then, is just a noisy blight on
America's crooked economic engine. With a first dusting of snow, these
anarchists, hippies, art students, bums and trust fund kids would all go
home to mommy. Third-term billionaire mayor Bloomberg--who says money
can't prolong life?--even moaned that this protest was targeting people
just "struggling to make ends meet," and he was sorta right, of course,
because there's no way Wall Street's end can meet any of our ends.

When
noticed at all, the protesters' frequent meetings have often been
dismissed as pointless and confused. Surely nothing will come of their
callow and cumbersome deliberations. Their decisions can't and won't
matter. America's life and death matters are decided by cynical, rich
old guys in suits, not bongo stroking freaks, so debate all you want,
but there's no way your jejune ideas can inflect, however slightly, this
monster bank-dominated, Federal Reserve-run, two war party system.

With the just released The99%Declaration,
our ruling class has been issued an ultimatum, however. The anti-Wall
Street protesters will convene a National General Assembly in
Philadelphia from July 4th, 2012 until October of 2012, resulting in a
"PETITION OF GRIEVANCES to be submitted to all members of Congress, The
Supreme Court and President and each of the political candidates running
in the nationwide Congressional and Presidential election in November
2012." If these grievances are not redressed within one year, the 99%
"will organize a third independent political party to run candidates in
the 2014 mid-term elections."

This is the best news I've heard in
a while. Finally, some much needed oxygen in this suffocating political
dungeon. These mostly young protesters have stayed clear of any current
politician. Showing more maturity than many of their elders, they trust
neither Democrats nor Republicans. They are not suckered by Obama nor
distracted by Clinton's Usher and Lady Gaga circus. It's incredible,
isn't it, that the man who enacted NAFTA and repealed the Glass-Steagall
act can now go on television to lament that "the American Dream has
been under assault"?

With their rejection of this walled up and
dead end system, the protesters can bring to mind Bartleby, with his
"I'd prefer not to," but this movement is not just a refusal to be
co-opted into a murderous and life-sapping existence. Last week, America
entered yet another war, but who's keeping track any longer? A Yahoo!
headline, "Mysteries of Clinton's Big Concert Solved," and the Cardinals
are amazing, aren't they?

A third, viable political party is
long overdue. Though the moneyed interest will surely bare its fangs
before it gives up even a sturgeon egg from its privileged table, it is
high time we break apart this mad vehicle before it hurls us all into
the abyss.
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Linh Dinh's Postcards from the End of America has just been published by Seven Stories Press. Tracking our deteriorating socialscape, he maintains a photo blog.


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