Today, April 15, 2011 we will be continuing our opposition to the budget cuts which will, if passed, leave many people in Washington more desperate and hurting than at any other time in the past thirty years.
Too often in our society we are told that we ought to look out for only ourselves. Our sense of real community has been broken down with that constant mantra, and the false representations of community which corporations continually throw at us. Enough is enough! It is time that we stand together in unity and solidarity. “An injury to one in an injury to all.” Our personal well being is tied to the collective well being of our communities. In order to win this fight we must stand together, link our arms and our wills to create a chain so strong that no one will be able to break it.
Too long we have allowed this class war to continue with the rich in constant offensive position, taking and taking what they want, while there has been very little defense from the working classes. G. K. Chesterton said, “Among the rich you will be hard pressed to find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money, you must be dull enough to want it.” We must remember that there will be few if any from the upper classes who do not have a stake in the budget cuts. This is why we are seeing the cuts come to those of us in the more vulnerable sects of society, while the things that meets the ruling classes’ wants and needs go untouched.
In the Seattle worker’s struggles for dignity, justice, and freedom around the turn of the century, Mr. Doodley, a Washington union activist said,”Do not ask for your rights; take them. There is something the matter with the right that is handed to you.” The time we’ve been waiting for is here! People young and old have had enough. In the past 6 years more and more occupations have sprung up. First it began with occupations of Rochester University, then NYU, The New School, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, UC Irvine, Evergreen State College and LSU. Now we are seeing it with the occupations of state capitals, Wisconsin State Capital, Washington State Capital, and today the capitals of California and Hawaii will be occupied. We are not alone!
Mario Savio once famously said while standing on the steps of Berkley, “There is a time when the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to throw yourself upon the gears, upon the wheels, upon the leavers, upon all the apparatuses! And you’ve go to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!” And that’s what this is all about. If we believe that we live in a democracy, then we’ve got to realize that living in a healthy democratic state means people from all classes, all races, all groups of society having a constant say and a stake in what happens. This means we need to be in the streets. As it stands, simply voting every once in a while is no longer cutting it. We need to vote with our bodies in the streets of Washington and the halls of the Capital Building. Let us lift our voices so that we might be heard. Let us no longer ask for our rights, but demand them!
The time has come! the time is now!
Come down to the state capital today at 2pm!
THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!
