The Global Movement: Many Uprisings Fighting For The Same Cause

The current global uprisings are neither ideological nor sectarian in their genesis. Some individuals or isolated groups that articulate their values and principles through the context of particular theologies, or political ideologies, have joined in the uprisings but the uprisings themselves find their roots in a much deeper foundation than religion or organized politics.

This is a movement of individuals whose realities and fundamental needs as human beings have fueled a political event… not individuals who are acting out in furtherance of a political party or the proselytizing of an authoritarian theology. The principles being expressed, defended, claimed, and championed, are the fundamental rights and needs of human beings. These principles can only hope to be expressed through doctrines, constitutions, laws, and political institutions; they are not derived from them.

The nature of these uprisings — from Tunisia to Greece, from Libya to Ireland, and from Egypt to America — is not the product of our attempts to communicate and codify these principles. These uprisings are based on the unadulterated principles themselves. The principles defy the need for articulation. They are intrinsic to our nature.

The most profound ideas are often the most simple. Their purity is unassailable. Equality, emancipation, justice, self-determination, and liberty. While the depth of their nature may be explored by philosophers, they do not require an ideological treatise to convince of their credibility. Intellectualized and litigious political ideologies serve more often to justify the violation of these very simple, yet very profound, principles. It takes a lot of work, and a lot of words, to justify why equality can only be allowed for some, why poverty should be the natural state of the vast majority, and that the sole value of our existence is based on our commodification.

What value we represent to the economy, rather than what value the economy is to us, has become the inversion that the global community is reacting to and endeavoring to correct.

The conflict we face is between the natural state of ‘man’ and the system that has been created by ‘men’. We are the victims of our own ignorance that has defied our evolution and been allowed to mature into self-enslavement. The political structures and economies we have allowed to evolve are vestiges of our ancestral attempts at social organization. They are reactionary, fear based, resource hoarding, population exploiting methods of consolidating wealth and power with the few over the many. They are the products of our attempts to address our insecurities through domination. We have enabled our most fearful and insecure predilections to, over the millenia, establish a primal psychosis as our modus operandi.

The uprising is a call to evolve. A call for emancipation. A call to equality. A call to overcome our fear and embrace the courage and the maturity to share. A call to restructure our fundamentals and base them on an egalitarian system of emancipation that has the quality of life of all human beings as its goal rather than the fear based economy that has the benefit of the few, and the rewarding of the proficient exploiters, as its goal.

The age of enlightenment, which led to the French Revolution, and the American War of Independence, took decades to germinate and grow through world of mouth and manual print media. Modern media has facilitated a new age of enlightenment made exceedingly accessible and instantaneous. These advances have facilitated the establishment of a global community based on shared principles, ideas, challenges, and required action. This community, aided by the tools at its disposal, is immune to the barriers of language, geography, political institutions, and borders. This community did not have to be organized or recruited. It is the natural result of open communication and global information sharing.

Emancipation, equality, and justice are the natural states of human-kind. The absence of these results in only one predictable outcome, revolution. Exploitative, predatory, cannibalistic capitalism, and the political establishments that support it, have been the perversion of that natural state and the cause of our global subjugation. The realization that the only way to ensure one’s rights and freedoms is to stand and fight for the equal rights and freedoms of all has infected the collective consciousness of the planet. The results of empire, colonialism, and capitalism have been exposed as the core of our current dilemmas and the fact that they are a barrier to any solutions has become abundantly clear.

The understanding of the true wealth of our global resources, and the exploitation and waste of those resources for the profit of the few, has triggered an awakening of the global citizenry. The very real potential for shared prosperity and sustainable growth has mobilized the citizens of the world. The gross deficiency of the current system has been exposed and will no longer be tolerated.

Whether you discuss Tunisia, Greece, Algeria, Ireland, Egypt or Wisconsin, the fundamental principles of the uprisings have been consistent; emancipation from the exploitation and disenfranchisement of the masses(the working class, the 99%), and equal rights for all.

Many analysts are warning of the dangers posed by the ‘outbreak of democracy’ in North Africa and the middle East. The fact that the citizens of these countries are no longer willing to accept being exploited is unsettling to the capitalist empire. As a result world governments have unanimously supported a managed transition from obvious, dictatorial, autocratic, and monarchical controls to the corporate and finance controlled ‘democratic-looking’ systems used in the West. Perhaps the illusion of self-government and democracy will be enough to fool them too.

The United States of Arabia

Dictators and Royalty have been living in grotesque luxury while the people are being starved and oppressed by draconian laws. The capitalist empire has criminally supported, and financially rewarded, these individuals and their regimes in order to maintain easy access to resources and cheap labor. The rights of the people of these countries have been violated not only by their unworthy leaders but by the global economic system and all those who support it.

Democratic government in the Middle-Eastern and North African countries that are experiencing uprisings will not be able to allow this continued exploitation. Governments of, by, and for the people will find common cause and common strength in defying the global elite and pursuing economic and social justice. In order to ensure that revolution does not become revenge, and that emancipation does not become a prelude to war, the citizens of the world must unite and support the people of this region in their quest for liberty, self-determination, and equality. It is a war of the oppressed against the elite oppressors in every country. We can not allow them to fool us into thinking that is a war amongst countries and peoples.

Austerity and the European Union

Greece, Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom have all faced growing unrest and increased organization of those unwilling to continue in the role of servants to the financial sector and corporations that have hi-jacked their political institutions and the global economy. The same entities that exploit the resources of the middle-east and North Africa, and prop up the tyrannical governments, enslave the people of Europe in the debt they manufacture.

The people of Europe, like those in America, have become nothing more than the means to service an economy that consolidates more and more wealth, property, and resources, in the hands of fewer and fewer people. As corporations and financial institutions receive bail-outs, and then subsequently post ever-increasing profits, the people of Europe face loss of services, increased cost of living, higher retirement age, decreased access to education, and higher taxes. Work harder, pay more, and get less. As long as the wealthiest one percent are getting richer the system is working exactly as it is designed to.

The American Working Class

Stuck in the cradle of the global capitalist system, the heart of the Empire, and the belly of the beast, if you will, the American working class has only just begun to realize that its exploitation has been masked by the size of the crumbs that it has been receiving from the table of the financial elite. In a land where wealth disparity is greater than that of Egypt, the exploitation of fellow humans living in other countries has allowed for a shared level of wealth that has mollified any resentment. Being treated as the favorite uncles and aunties living in the ‘big-house’ called America has made it easy to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the field-servants living in other countries of the global plantation.

Only now that the size of the crumbs are decreasing, and the cannibalistic greed of the financial elite has unleashed its appetite on all the citizens of the West, including America, has their slumber been disturbed.

Wall Street and the banking system crashed the economy, extorted the people for bail-outs, and are now profiting as America’s working class are forced to pay off those bail-outs, and the interest on the loans they needed to take out in order to pay the bail-outs. Austerity measures are being introduced that will do the same thing to them that they are doing to people across Europe. The people will be taxed more, and more of it will go to the banks and the financial sector. They will receive fewer services in return for the taxes they do pay because more of their money will be used to pay off the financial sector that created the debt in the first place.

A singular uprising is breaking out across the globe. Egypt and Libya have not been separate incidents any more than Greece and Spain are. The corruption of Gaddafi, the European Banks, or the Saudi royal family, is no less abusive than the American Corporate/Financial/Political complex. It is all the same system, and they all survive in concert. The uprising, therefore, is also global.

The unifying desires of the protesters, demonstrators, and revolutionaries, are political empowerment and an economy that serves the people rather than the other way around. The actors and incidentals may be different in different countries and different regions, but the principles are the same.

People are seeking to exist in their natural state, without masters. They are demanding emancipation, equality, and self-determination. They are demanding a share in the product of their labor and resources. They want education, health care, housing, security, food, water, protection from exploitation, commodification and servitude. This is what a peoples government should exist for; it should protect the citizenry FROM exploitation, not manage the citizenry FOR their exploitation.

Another age of enlightenment has dawned. The last one took over decades to disseminate ideas through manual press and word of mouth. The current one is moving at the rate of speed allowed by technology. It’s instantaneous and it can not be stopped. The instant sharing of information and ideas, and the tools for organization and development, have negated traditional forms of suppression.

China, India, Iraq, and Pakistan will all soon join in the revolution of Libya and the uprising in Egypt. Their strength will push each other further along and energize the struggles shaping up in Greece and Ireland… and possibly inspire America and Canada. Popular revolutions throughout Latin America have resulted in stable economies and governments that have resisted the control of the IMF and the World bank. Their example and experience could prove invaluable as the global community evolves.

As long as workers in India are exploited, workers in America will be extorted for concessions. The same is true across the globe. Poor countries are exploited by rich countries and the citizens of every country are exploited by the global elite. Our divisions are used against us for the profit of the few. Unless all people stand united in our common cause we will continue to be used as either leverage or weapons against each other.

Global communication is a reality. It will expand and grow. It cannot be reversed. The global community has identified itself and articulated its common cause. The sharing of ideas, challenges, and plans, will continue to spread and develop. Humans will always seek emancipation, and their natural state of freedom, equality, and self-determination. The means and motivation are there, revolution is the inescapable and natural outcome.