On February 7th around 1 in the afternoon members of Fight for Philly, Occupy Philadelphia, Occupy Harrisburg and Occupy Pittsburgh met out on the State Capital steps in Harrisburg to hold a mock funeral for liberty, justice and fairness in our country.
While budgets all across the country are cutting funding for basic education and higher education, social services and other key needs of the people. Theses same people that are writing the budgets for their states and for the federal government are increasing money for police, prisons, and in the case of the federal government the military.
They are instituting laws that cut out civil liberties on an unprecedented scale, calling for mass arrests of protesters if they come into areas and on to property that may have people on them protected by the secret service, to include people out side of the executive office and foreign ministers of whom the secret service was not meant to protect.
They are calling for the arrest and indefinite detention of American citizens with out charge for crimes they may or may not commit in the future. In at least one state it is even illegal to as a journalist film the police “in the course of their duty.” Making it illegal for journalist to do their jobs effectively in that state.
Everywhere we look everyday our freedom is dying all around us and still only a few cry out, why is that? Are these people thinking in line with the old adage “not me,” well its too late because it is you, because they have already come for your freedoms.
You allowed them to do it to minorities, felons and “terrorist,” now they're here for your freedom, because you've become the terrorist. The Constitution has become the enemy, because the 1% have demanded not just more power but all power.
Here in Philadelphia the 1% are moving to make it illegal for good Samaritans to feed those of our community that are hungry and in dire need of food and other life essentials all in the name of the Barnes Institute. In order for them to move Barnes' museum in which Barnes never wanted and even requested in his will not to be moved from it's previous location.
They have kicked out the occupy movement so that the Dillworth plaza could be renovated, while lying to the public about the time table, offering up Thomas Pain Plaza instead to a group that works counter to the spirit of direct democracy used in the Occupy movement and still violated their right to free speech by not allowing them to erect tents, a move to suppress the freedom of expression chosen by Occupiers all across the world.
With all of this said even the long moment of silence given at this mock funeral which, as I watched had the eerie feeling of being a real one for liberty, justice and fairness all across our country and around the world.
Yet, still so few have stood up. Still so few people have the courage to stand up and say 2+2=4 or is it that the truth has become such a revolutionary concept that they are terrified of it?
Has the truth become terrorism, in our current day or are people just being trained from birth to feed on the lies they're told?
Perhaps it's a good thing for federal and state budgets to defund education, when they are the ones destroying it so readily.
Perhaps it is a good thing for the Government to defund social services, maybe then they can be moved back into the communities that know what it is they need in their communities, it would also cut out all of the red tape, and take the reigns back from the bureaucrats and give them back to the people who really care, who are really affected by the situations on the ground and by bad policies created by people who have never even stepped foot in their communities.
It is time for us; that is YOU and I to resurrect freedom, justice, true justice and true fairness.
It is time for communities to say fuck asking for permission to do what we know is right for us and lets just do them!
With or with out your consent because we don't need your consent, you need ours!
We are the 99% and the world we want is the world that will be, come hell or high water, come our blood in the street! It's already being spilled so what's the difference it can be spilled for what is right, for us, for our children and grand children, or it can be spilled for the pleasure of the 1%, it is our choice; that is mine and your, not theirs!
