First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you
Then they fight you.
Then you win.
-- Mahatma Gandhi
It's time. One might even say it's past time. One might even say it's long overdue past time. But actually, the time is perfect. The time is ripe. The time is now.
Something's happening and it's happening everywhere at the same time. The people of Planet Earth are rising up. They're rising up in over 1,500 cities in 82 countries so far. And the rising up has just begun. Something is definitely afoot.
People who are attuned to such things have known this was coming. The ancient Mayan calendar predicted a Great Shift, beginning on Dec. 21, 2012. We are barely a year away. People are hearing the call and the shifting has begun.
Humanity is rising up and throwing off the shackles of oppression, worn for millennia, across the ages, across the continents, across all cultures, races and religions. As in the words of Howard Beale, the enigmatic television anchorman portrayed by Peter Finch in the 1976 movie, Network, "we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!"
Peter Finch won a posthumous Academy Award for his role in the movie, which garnered a total of four Oscars in 1977. Here is an excerpt from one of the most famous scenes in the movie. It could have been written about what's happening in the world today. Speaking is Finch's character, Howard Beale:
"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.
We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad -- worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'
Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot -- I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad.
You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell, 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'"
Humanity is mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!
We are witnessing the birth of a new paradigm for mankind, one that is a game-changer for the entire planet. What is unfolding before our very eyes, ears, hearts and minds, is the awakening of our collective consciousness. We are becoming aware, at a level as never before, of the one truth that connects us all.
Will this movement succeed when so many others that have come before it have failed? Only time will tell. But there has never been the kind of global participation in a single movement like what we're seeing today. With 99 percent of humanity united in a single cause, can change be far behind?
The key word here is unity, for unity is the name of the game. This change is not about further dividing us between rich and poor, have and have nots. The change that is afoot is one that acknowledges a larger truth than the one under which we've lived throughout history. We are awakening to the truth of who we are as humans. The time is ripe for this awakening.
We are not separate. We recognize our true nature as that of oneness. We will no longer allow a system that divides and conquers. We will no longer support those systems which keep us in bondage, either physically or spiritually. Greed, corporate or otherwise, is not acceptable. Pillaging the planet is not acceptable. Bigotry, racism, sex trafficking, genital mutilation and other forms of inhumane treatment are not acceptable. Hunger and lack of clean drinking water are not acceptable.
We are all in this together and we know it. Through technology that connects us in real time all the time, the world has grown small enough for us to see one another in real time. When we saw the Egyptians throw off the oppressive Mubarak regime in Tarir Square last spring it was a win for humanity. That win ignited the hearts and minds of oppressed people throughout the Middle East, sending people to the streets throughout the Arab world, and the Arab Spring was born.
There are those who criticize the Occupy movement for not having a clearly stated agenda with specific outcomes, or any kind of visible leadership. But those who took to the streets of Berlin on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989, and began tearing down the Berlin Wall had no clear leadership either. There came a moment in time when a critical mass of people were all aligned in the same consciousness and the actions that unfolded in Berlin gave courage to thousands across Eastern Europe, who began tearing down the walls of tyranny within their own countries.
This movement is not about "them." It's about "us." For "we" are all "them." None of us wins unless all of us wins. It's that simple. It's that complex. There are those who already know this and they're the ones in the streets.
But we can't stop here. The 99 percent is incomplete. We must win the hearts and minds of the 1 percent who don't yet get the message so 100 percent of humanity crosses the line together.
It will happen. Of this you can be sure. It's only a matter of time.
What is arising in you in response to the Occupy Wall Street movement? Have you taken to the streets? What is your experience?
I'd love to hear your thoughts about this topic. Please feel free to leave a comment in the space below and/or pay a visit to my personal blog and website: Rx For the Soul.
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Blessings on the path.