The Veneto region, centered on Venice, helped transform Italy into an industrial power in the 1960s and 1970s. The community of small, family-run businesses that had been the backbone of the region’s success have been hit particularly hard by the economic crisis. Secessionist sentiment is rooted in anger that vast sums of money are appropriated by Rome in the form of taxes.

The movement for an independent Venice gained momentum two weeks ago when a ‘referendum’ found an overwhelming majority of participants were in favour of breaking away.

Inspired by Scotland’s separatist ambitions, 89 per cent of the residents of the lagoon city and its surrounding area, opted for the ‘Repubblica Veneta’ which would include the five million inhabitants of the Veneto region and could later expand to include parts of Lombardy, Trentino and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The poll is not recognised by the Rome government.

“We call on the Venetians and all those who can no longer bear the intolerable oppression of the central state to fly the flag of St. Mark from their homes to show their solidarity with the Venetians and Lombards who have been unjustly imprisoned,” Northern League Senate leader Massimo Bitonci said.

How many times does one hear of a home-made tank?

This is the second time in Italy that Venetian separatists try a take over of San Marco Square to raise awareness of the grim condition they verse in, since the 1990s. Almost 25 years have gone by and nothing changed, if anything their situation has become worse. All articles that I read spoke of the desire of the ‘wealthy region’ to separate, they should have said ‘the once wealthy’ because now it’s the shadow of its former self -hence the tank – wealthy, comfortable people don’t get this kind of ideas in their heads.

Today on the news I heard that the Central Bank of Europe is willing to lend a truckload of millions to Italy to put liquidity back in our suffering society, this is a terrible news, taking loans that can never be repaid by design is not wise, hoping that new liquidity will push banks to lend to micro and medium enterprises is wishful thinking, since the last time they got a loan they used it to play on the markets and kept saying no to lending. Liquidity has not reduced austerity before and it will not now, it will just fatten up the banks a little more – as if we needed that.

We are, broke, unemployed and with people building tanks in the privacy of their homes, quite a telling moment in time I would say, even more if we see that those are not isolated incidents -well, the tank might be, quite far out- but the desire to take revenge on those at the top is quite widespread in our society, it seems a bit odd that we want to take revenge on those that have done what everyone born in this fear filled world driven by survival would have done in their position, try to take advantage of the situation and then who knows, one benefit creates the desire for another until greed takes over and some feel justified to take the whole world for themselves -because they can

And yet, we, the majority of the people, divided by all sorts of ideas, religions and opinions, have failed so far to come together for a solution that could start with drawing a HUGE line to what some can amass in the face of many starving and that line should have always been that, before any game takes place, name it Wall Street, Banking or golfing, everyone should be guaranteed a living, not asked to EARN it, because if people keep removing liquidity from the system to stash it in the Cayman islands or other fiscal paradises, it is obvious that, since the wealth circulating in the form of money is LIMITED, some and then many would have to go without the bare necessities – and there would no longer be chances for earning a living as companies shut down due to lack of funding and credit.

So, I suggest that, building tanks at home is not only silly but pointless, ok, now we have a tank, then what, what is the next step on this very intelligent plan? Take over St. Marco square, yes, we got it until step 2, now we have a tank and St Marco’s square, while we still have 12 % unemployment in total that touches the youth at 50%, we still have 10 million people living in poverty and many more on the way there that can’t make it to the end of the month; having a tank in St Marco’s square is not step 2 of a spell that can be followed by an avra cadavra with our little wand and then everyone is fine, very likely instead the people responsible for such a poorly thought out plan would be taken to jail and judged as traitors mining the safety of the Republic (25 venetians have been arrested already – awaiting trial) and it would not lead to a ‘then they will listen to us’, as some said – they who?

If we can say something about this system which we created in our image and likeness, is the total lack of accountability, this is the purpose of corporations – to have faceless entities running all sectors of our society, yes, they claimed the state of personhood for themselves but they are not accountable in any way, a bit like ourselves, laws upon laws are written to rid every business entity of their accountability, so who would we ‘threaten’ once sitting on the tank in St. Marco’s square?

I believe it is time to become smart, in this we cannot come up with plans that call for violence or revolutions since they never worked, we can’t even do what Occupy Wall Street did, isn’t it a revelation the fact that it failed and brought no practical solution at all? As well-meaning as they were, OWS did not have a plan, they didn’t ask anything specific but for the abuse to end – the how was not written or laid our clearly and whatdoyouknow, some corporations can claim they don’t see leaving people in abject poverty to make money as abuse, it’s just a business practice, hence what is admissible should be very clearly written down and what is required to be given as a Human Right should be spelled out in a way that all can understand and agree to – legalese will be out this time -.

No one was born clearly seeing that everyone’s basic human rights were never recognized, we have instead been indoctrinated into a hierarchical system of Queens and Kings, either by name or wealth, where we accepted that some lives are worth more than others, we thought that having to struggle for a living was ‘normal’ and this is how we came to wanting to fight back, failing to see that in the fighting back there is an abused and an abuser and not 2 parties equally responsible.

We have written a plan, it’s called a living income guaranteed, it lays out the bare minimum that must be recognized to every living being, the right to a dignified living, that includes housing, access to sanitation, access to education, healthcare, the right to our own minds -we understand that the human is programmable and unfortunately we vacated our minds leaving the keys to those that wanted to fill them with desires and dreams that make us nothing so that we can buy stuff to become something, what a cool plan, we claim as well the right to real information to be able to make informed decisions, in alignment with what we can see would work for all and not just for some.

If you understand that building a tank at home is NOT a solution, nor is violence or desire to take revenge on those that did nothing more than what we would have done in their place, read through the #livingincomeguaranteed proposal, consider that we need a plan, consider that this is a plan, the best we could do so far considering all points of awareness in existence at the moment and then join it, be counted as one point of Change, there is the need for a wave powerful enough to break the damn-ation we find ourselves in.

Be a part of it.

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