When the Revolution Begins, 2010

When the Revolution begins, will you get up out of your chair

from in front of your TV, leave your nice warm living-room

and take to the streets, in one angry riot, deserved in every way

by the ones who own us all? 

Do we remember how to be angry now?  Is it all movie-violence

accompanied by buttered popcorn,

worlds in a fantasy, distractions from the pain of real life;

or do we remember how to stand

with the flag clutched in our fists, ripped back with all our might

from the ones who have waved it in our faces for so long

telling us that it stood for something

as they stomped--jumped on it like children playing a game,

making their point--do we remember how to be angry?

Have no Fear of the Revolution

or that it will not come. 

It will come.  When your television has shown you enough lies

when your armchair is tattered, but you've learned

that the cold of your living room is more important than looks

heat turned off for want of money. 

Then we hold our Revolution.  Then we go after money and power;

riot on the streets.  Then the police come, arrest us all

We go to prison for our beliefs. 

When all the poor are locked up there, we have our Equality

There will be none but the thieves of our country,

the ones who act like they own us

to pay for our food, and warm beds, and our health care. 

And so we win at last. 

December 2010

Two months after this poem was written, students from nearby East High School walked past my bedroom window, headed for the Wisconsin State Capitol.  I took the bus to beat them to the top of the hill and took video on my cell-phone.  Like thousands of others, I spread the word of our peaceful, powerful protests by way of Facebook and YouTube.  We spent the rest of the day watching and waiting to see if an ALEC-authored bill pushed through by the new governor, Scott Walker, would be passed by the State Senate.  I cheered alongside my fellow Wisconsinites when we discovered that our brave Democratic Senators had left the state in order to prevent a vote before the People had a chance to learn about the bill and express their opinions.  The protests in Madison were the largest the nation has seen in over a decade, with a crowd of nearly 200,000 in the middle of March.  While under-reported, misrepresented, and suppressed by the mainstream media, the events that occurred right outside my own door touched off a national firestorm of protests against other corporate-protectionist, ALEC-authored bills being pushed on an unknowing public throughout the nation.