We are at low simmer right now, even as Summer pops right through Spring with record temperatures after a Winter that pretty much wasn't. I'm not complaining. Its been cold in the streets. It could have been much worse.
It bodes for record heat, and far from the days of opening a hydrant after work, and dancing through its cooling spray? I fear that tempers will flare, and to mix my metaphor horribly it will become the season of our discontent.
To burn a barn, with the object of our jealousy therein; or to plan murder of they in the gilded tower that rejected us? Whether Shakespeare, Steinbeck or Faulkner - the brutal plot of the human condition under jealous and injustice proves time again... Humans don't do too well under pressure.
I feel it in my bones; like a barometric change in the pressure. This summer's heat, this seasons austerities, this rising climate of fear and repression will likely prove catalyst for the bursting of the centralist cyst of humanity that in one fell sweep will cause either an awakening, or a long and ugly battle.
We, the street prophets, the leftists and "doomsayers" have been calling it for years now. What will it take to bring people to the Streets? Apparently, an IDEA, the only idea, an idea whose time has most assuredly come.
Together, we are not alone. Together we shall be heard. Together we can wrest control over our lives again from the hands of the few who care nothing for us. Together, our love of one another and ourselves is more powerful than all the high tech weaponry pointed at us. We are legion.
Ideas like these are inalienable truths.
Truths can be corrupted though.
Herein lies the fear. You put 100,000 people in the street on a 90 degree day in Oakland, or Detroit, let alone Chicago; add an army in impenatrable face shields with their peripheral vision blocked, the sweat pouring out from under their visors blinding them... it is a recipe for disaster. Add to that it is now a Federal Felony to protest?
It may be more than a barn that burns. The discontented may not find their humanity and pull their victims from those flames before it becomes lethal to the beloved humans within. Shots may ring out against those in the gilded towers. All the wrong things may happen for what may have been arguably right reasons.
This past year has been a nudging into the shadows from the darkened abyss of disinformation of our people. Words like "class war," and "1%" have started to adjust their dilated pupils to the light of reality. But when our neighbors' children begin to die in the streets for our freedom, many will be pulled from their solitary confinement into the light with a reflexively blinding shock. There are no jobs. There is no future. The safety nets aren't just being pulled from those "other people," they are being pulled from you.
"Euuuulllllaaaa, Eullllaaaa"
There will be no time for mint juleps on a porch swing; those simpler days made ancient history by foreclosures. And traveling those simple dirt roads made impossible by the tripling of gas prices. There is no safe past for us to retreat into, there is no halcyon left. The Doritos have run out, and dumpster diving is no fun.
I know Occupy pointedly does not choose a point on the Political Compass. It's there nevertheless. Right is about the 1%. Left is about the 99%. It's not rocket science to see that the Left has always been about empowering the people, and the Right has been about keeping the status quo that enriches the top, while stealing your time, labor, health and future to so do. Its common sense, really, mixed with self-preservation instinct. Any movement that is about the empowerment of the people is inherently Left.
I just wonder what it will take for us to admit it out loud?
Make no mistake about it. It is coming. We are coming.
The fall was merely the tremors that predict the quake, and this shall be a long, rolling quake that crumbles the veneer of our political structure; whose fissure will expose the ugliness hidden within. There will be far more than 4 dead in Ohio, I fear. We shall see what our own Government is capable and willing to do to us in order to preserve the ruling class' self-appointed right to just be and live better than us; to preserve their right to let us starve so they may hold onto their disproportionate wealth. It shall become an epic battle of good vs evil; for the banksters, oilmen and empirists have proven themselves capable of war crimes, immune to the very laws they are sworn to uphold... they have shown their faces to the rest of the world who understand the demon they face... we, here, now? Are about to see its true nature for the very first time.
It is a sad irony that the only war ever fought on our soil was a Civil War. It is more frightening yet that the only war that ever shall be fought here, will likely be a Civil War again. The 1% versus the rest of us.
Of course, with every danger comes opportunity. Frightened people love a charismatic leader. History is rife with examples both good and bad of that. Mostly the latter.
The real opportunity here is that humanity may make the next logical quantum leap and realize we ARE the leaders. We are capable of really anything as ONE. We can elect leaders outside the Uniparty system; we can remove them should they not do their jobs. We can make choices for ourselves, thank you, Plato and Strauss be damned. We can think long-term viability, of sustainable futures for generations to come. We can say things like "Socialist" and "in our own best interests" out loud and with pride. We can value competing for the next best idea that will help humanity more than bling. We can value teachers more than hustlers.
We can, and shall jump out of the proverbial froggy boiler, into the streets which are set, for the moment to broil.
Why?
Because we have woken to the fact we love ourselves more than our myths. We love one another and the world more than our soundbytes. We are willing to die for our freedoms, but we would rather live.
I pray that we create laws and lessons that value humans above profits, cherish equality above clannishness, autonomy and respect over control.
Now is the winter SUMMER of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
I wish I could predict the outcome. I wish I could swear we become the Gods to which we should aspire. I wish I could say we won't become human time bombs born of oppression. I wish I could say that Love would be enough to stop Evil.
Truth is? I have no idea what is coming.
The only thing I know, is I will work to shape it and try to work towards keeping the damage to a minimal.
It isn't only global warming, my friends... it shall be a long, hot summer, perhaps the one, the one. The Summer to end all Class Wars forever.
Maybe I can serve a julep or two, when its over, under a covered porch, while the cooling rains restore the world.