Well you say you want a revolution

Well you know we all want to change the world... unless it takes more than one day a year.

I found myself at a tea party yesterday, and to say the least it was not what I had expected. To start there was a much larger turn out than I had imagined, around 5,000 at downtown Houston alone and around 1,000,000 total in over 700 cities & towns nationwide. Men, women, and children of all walks of life gathered together to protest the government that ignores and suppresses them. It seems that the media either trying to portray the protesters as either ignorant conservatives being controlled by a desperate republican party or as a small group of fanatics insulated by hangers on. I personally found both views to be complete and utter bullshit. I spoke to and heard from a group of people that are simply tired of being bullied and controlled by their federal government. I found the main theme of the people around me to be disgust with our elected officials and a strong desire to oust them from their positions of power to which they so desperately cling. Yes, the main purpose of these protests were to direct attention to the outrageous taxes that are going to pay for the mistakes of people who show no real signs of changing the way they operate their businesses. However I think the best way to think about it is to compare the protests to taking Ibuprofen, a medicine that treats symptoms of a problem not the cause. Our taxes and the way that the federal government are spending them are merely a symptom, a symptom of control.

It seems people all over the country are waking up to this and are beginning to make their voices heard en-mass. A wondrous thing according to my perspective, but it is not without its faults, of which there are many.

I believe the worst of these faults to be the belief that removing these elected officials, even en-mass and replacing them with new elected officials will do any good on its own. Certainly I believe it would make a show of change and reform, but it would be nothing more than hollow pageantry which would undoubtedly be left to rot in a dark corner after a few scant days or years. I think it will take real and lasting change to policy, personnel, and purse strings. Of course by this I mean the relatively small group of people that control the vast majority of the world i.e. the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations. etc. These are the real organizations that need to be uprooted like so many strangle vines in a garden.

Nearly as bad I believe, is the opinion I heard voiced by many protesters, that these 4/15 protests on their own were going to usher in real and speedy change. I see these protests as merely the very tip of the proverbial iceberg. Surely I view this as real and vital, but I also realize its going to take many months and years to affect real and lasting change. It is because of this, that I fear many people will lose their zeal for the matter simply due to the fact that people don't like long fights against high odds.

I guess the real question is how we fan the fires of social evolution. We need to plan and work to enact our hopes and dreams, and not just in ourselves but in all those around us. One thing is for certain this is not a fight that we can win on our own. And so it is time for us to make our plans, provide our contributions, and do what we can... or rather what we must.

Poster: Z