“Protest beyond the law
is not a departure from democracy;
it is absolutely essential to it. ”
As the new year of 2012 approaches, it is being welcomed by a new resurgence of Civil Disobedience and Civil Unrest as people around the globe have grown tired of tyranny, corrupt governments, restrictive laws, and of being challenged for equal rights. The Mayans, many cultures and doomsday prophecies have indicated that the year 2012 will mark the end of things as we know it. Perhaps they were right, but not in the "end of the world" viewpoint (which it might be), but rather through the unrest of the people who will stand up and cause governments to topple, liberties to be regained, and to demand equal rights no matter who they are or what their religious beliefs may be.
Time's Person of the Year - The Protester!
"When governments fear the people, there is liberty.
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
Stand up for Liberty and Justice, Speak out against corruption and the denial of Human Rights!
This year marks a milestone in that Time Magazine's Person of the Year, isn't an actual person. Instead it is the Protester, the people that have fought for freedom, stood up against corruption, and have changed the 'status quo'.
Once upon a time, when major news events were chronicled strictly by professionals and
printed on paper or transmitted through the air by the few for the masses, protesters were prime makers of history. Back then, when citizen multitudes took to the streets without weapons to declare themselves opposed, it was the very definition of news — vivid, important, often consequential.
In the 1960s in America they marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War; in the '70s,
they rose up in Iran and Portugal; in the '80s, they spoke out against nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Europe, against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza,
against communist tyranny in Tiananmen Square and Eastern Europe.
Protest was the natural continuation of politics by other means.
The two decades beginning in 1991 witnessed the greatest rise in living standards
that the world has ever known. Credit was easy, complacency and apathy were rife, and street protests looked like pointless emotional sideshows —
obsolete, quaint, the equivalent of cavalry to mid-20th-century war.
We can no longer sit idly by as corruption grows, civil liberties are taken away, and basic human rights are denied. If you are enjoying life, it may be within a gilded cage. Our responsibility is to defend justice and make our voices heard in order to affect positive change and create a peaceful world.
'Massive and effective street protest' was a global oxymoron until —
suddenly, shockingly — starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times.
And the protester once again became a maker of history.
Many may not support the current protests happening around the globe, however, they are expressing the very concerns that many of us share - Civil Liberties, Human Rights, The End of Corruption, and The Demand for Accountability. Thus, here's some information about why Occupy Wall Street is growing in momentum and quotes to encourage action, not silence. It's not just the 99% that are speaking out, but also those with respect for justice, such as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in her speech to the United Nations.
Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011
in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the
United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally. #ows is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process,
and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused
the greatest recession in generations.
The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia,
and aims to fight back against the richest 1% of people that are writing the rules
of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.
“I heartily accept the motto,
"That government is best which governs least";
and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.
Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe —
"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it,
that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient;
but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”
“It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights.”
“An unjust law is itself a species of violence.
Arrest for its breach is more so.
Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted
not by counter-violence but by nonviolence.
This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.”
“if we don’t rebel,
if we’re not physically in an active rebellion,
then it’s spiritual death.”
if we’re not physically in an active rebellion,
then it’s spiritual death.”
Perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders, victims: we can be clear about three of these categories.
The bystander, however, is the fulcrum. If there are enough notable exceptions,
then protest reaches a critical mass.
We don’t usually think of history as being shaped by silence,
but, as English philosopher Edmund Burke said,
‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil
is for good men to do nothing.’
No one could make a greater mistake
than he who did nothing because
he could do only a little.
