I have two things to say. One to OWS, and one to TPTB:

[TygrBright]

TO: OWS, and all of the Occupiers and all who support the Occupation

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.

I have tears in my eyes as I type this.

For nearly ten years, I have been sinking into a morass of cynical endurance, certain that the death spiral that has been engulfing my country since 1980 was largely irreversible in my lifetime, and that my grandson's life would be absorbed and darkened by the destruction and the need to rebuild on the ruins.

At times, I'd put on a brave face and grab hard for the remaining shreds of optimism and look wistfully at what I know of human nature and assert that we COULD and we WOULD somehow muster the will to turn back the tide, but it always felt like whistling in the dark. There was no real belief there.

I grew up with people in the streets, marching for justice and equality and for peace and for a society based on the needs of all rather than the wealth of a few. I believed, back then, that justice would roll down like the waters, and righteousness like an everlasting stream, if we, the people, demanded it. I saw what happened when those making the demands were attacked with dogs and fire hoses: They were joined by more. Thousands more.

In those days, Saul Alinsky pointed out to us that in order for the powerless to effect change, two ingredients were necessary. Neither, in itself, would suffice. For the powerless to effect change, the required ingredients were: ANGER and HOPE.

I have been watching the anger grow for some years now.

You, my dear friends, fellow citizens... you have brought hope to the table.

We now have anger AND hope, and you are responsible for the latter. If you had no other purpose, no other goal, it would still be a worthy achievement. You are my brothers and sisters, my children, my grandchildren, my parents and my neighbors and my friends and my heart is with you and in every way I can support you I will. It is time. It is time to put our lives and fortunes once more in the path of the juggernaut, and halt it, and turn it back. I am ready. You have showed the way.

And now, to The Powers That Be:

Do you really, really think you can stop this? Do you honestly believe that the thousands in the streets will just... shut up and go away? Do you really believe that by deploying force you can cow and terrorize us out of sight and out of mind?

Do you really believe that?

Look up the word "denial" in the dictionary, because you have a full-blown, virulent, life-threatening case, my friends.

We are not going away. We will not back down.

We have anger.

And we have hope.

No, we will not turn back the tide overnight. We will not create a perfect world. We will not solve every problem. Ultimately, there will be work left undone, for future generations.

But those future generations, too, will have hope.

Change is not "coming." Change is HERE.

The era of top-down authority is drawing to its miserable, dysfunctional conclusion.

The era of bottom-up authority, the authority of the people to govern ourselves in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity is at hand.

Join us, or get out of the way. We're not stopping.

exultantly,
Bright