Glass Fists

With years of protest and demonstrations, from the opposition to World War One to the opposition to the Iraq war, people power seems to have had an illustrious career in the United States.

However, today it seems our so called people power has dwindled. The United States is still in Iraq, we have yet to sign the Kyoto Treaty (or take any fully-committed stance on our environment), and we still allow for globalization's negative impacts to ravish the third world. Despite the seemingly immense movements that run counter to these policies, they still, after all these years, stand.

In my state of Florida, I recently went to a rally against budget cuts being made on education. It was nice and all, with a good turn out and many passionate speeches being made, but what I realized it lacked was a sense of action. Sure, a sense of urgency was in the air, but so was a languid uncaring and uncertainy for any real, direct action. The teacher's rally, meant to send a clear message to "Mr. Politician" in Tallahassee, the state capital, was actually held on a Saturday. What I realized then is that there could be no real reform of the state's education system if we keep holding rallies on Saturdays. What we need are rallies on Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays - school days! My english teacher, a libertarian who often digresses from our lessons on Dante's Inferno to preach about the injustices of the budget cuts even refused to go to the rally because he knew it wouldn't accomplish anything. He agreed that the only change that could be made to education would be a change that was fought for, not begged for.

If we apply this same lesson learned in the classrooms of Florida to the streets of Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, London, and Paris, we can see that our flags and picket signs do little more than give our ruling class something to chuckle at in haughty contempt. What we need is disruption and direct action - what we need is to make people uncomfortable. Because indeed, this is the only way we will get the real change that America is calling for. Our protests leading up to now have not been in vain, but rather taught us that we have to fight, and not simply ask, for the concessions and rights we, as a people, wish to reclaim from our rogue government. It seems like for two long we've broken our glass fists against the walls we wish to break down. We need to fight with real power, the power of disruption and the power that will send fear through the ruling class.

Direct Action, Democracy in its purest form.