Occupy Here & Now, Not Afghanistan/Pakistan/Bahrain

Occupy Augusta, Maine photo Waterville Morning Sentinel "Arrested occupiers explain stand"

On the one hand I occupy Augusta, Maine, and sleep overnight in a teepee like in ancient times, and my inner voice is  chanting joyfully like the 99% in Oakland did at the very start of their general strike video:

Hella, hella occupy! The system has got to die !

I know in my bones that if the system doesn't, the Earth will. And that is what ultimately matters as far as human life is concerned.

Then, on the other hand, the U.S. Senate proves itself every bit as venal and corrupt as any Roman body of leeches ever was by voting – overwhelmingly, only 7 against – for the U.S. military to be able to detain anybody -- without charges -- on planet battlefield in the war on terror. What rhymes with Indefinite Detention? Could be Extraordinary Rendition. So one more time I write or call my corporate owned so-called representatives, to express displeasure. I could try to occupy their offices, which are now barricaded because my friends occupied them years ago protesting war mongering. Or I could gather with the 99% and make art, not war, and talk about what to do next.

This piece of legislation is horrible, and laws do matter, used as fulcrums for leverage, and you can't let it pass unremarked without the outrage it deserves. But, really -- how much can this surprise us when Bradley Manning has been in jail for one year and five months without a fucking day in court?

Some say, oh, but he was in the military, so that's different. Looks like we're all in the throughly militarized USA now, whether we signed up or not.

The man accused of leaking thousands of files from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the State Dept. all over the globe, the man credited with sparking the Tunisian uprising which ignited Egypt which continues to roll out in great waves of freedom seeking behavior all across the planet will finally have his pre-trial hearing Dec. 16-17 at Fort Meade, Maryland. I will be in the streets for Bradley on that day for sure. (Find out how to join a Bradley Manning support action near you.)

When I contact my senators these days, I never fail to point out something they already know: they don't represent their constituents. Lately I send copies of the Bring Our War $$ Home Penny Poll, showing how people in Maine last election day wanted their federal taxes spent (educations, health care and V.A.) and how that compares with the nearly 2/3 spent on “defense” now. It's a gravy train for drone and other WMD manufacturers, i.e. the 1%, plus salary and benefits for a portion of the working class caught in the maws of the great war machine, forced as National Guardsmen and women to defend the homeland by being stationed in, for instance, Bahrain.

Lynn Redgrave as Mother / photo credit: http://www.veriport.com/galleries/a.htm

Bertolt Brecht wrote "Mother Courage" about the irony of a working class parent losing her three children one by one to the war economy she depended upon to feed them.

We can do better than this. And after reading Truthout's breathtaking interview about the Occupy movement with author Arundhati Roy, I think we will.

As the high school kids say, wait until summer!