Annabel Park Calls Upon The 99% to Stand Up • Aug. 25, 2011

http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/

"We need to get passionate and committed just the way they did in the Civil Rights movement. It has to reach that level where we're so indignant that we'll make sacrifices to fight for our rights, fight for who we are. America is not a plutocracy. Citibank is not a person. We need to say, I AM a person."

"We need to stop the Cycle of Corruption, and put People back in the process...We have to fight laws that create corruption, but it has to be something that's both cultural and deeply personal...We have to stand up and say, 'We're not going to let you take our government."

by Annabel Park

Dear America,

We are in the middle of a great struggle for the soul of our country.

It is easy to read the news each day and become a little more disheartened, if not downright demoralized about our future. Elected members of our government are telling us that we don't deserve disaster relief, clean air, fair wages, healthcare, jobs, or homes. We are not part of the "productive class," and thus the tax dollars we contribute should not be invested in our families or our futures.

Our struggle is often presented as an economic struggle. The top 1% vs the rest of us. In many ways, it is that. But, like many conflicts between people and power throughout history, it is also a struggle for identity, as individuals and as a nation.

The ruling class in America wants to determine what we deserve or don't deserve as human beings. They malign social programs — paid for with our taxpayer money — as "entitlements" that, for some reason, we no longer deserve. In the aftermath of the Wall Street financial crisis, somehow We the People have become less deserving of the fruits of our labor. Instead, our money goes to those who created the crisis — the "money guys" as former Senator Alan Simpson refers to them.

The work we do for a living, our labor, is the foundation of our sense of self-worth as men and women, and as Americans. We should not stand by as our identities are demeaned and devalued while capital is worshiped and praised. More and more, we are being asked to turn against ourselves, against the very people who are the most productive in our society — builders, agricultural workers, teachers, fire fighters, police officers, public workers, and even our veterans — and reward only those who accumulate wealth, media exposure, and power.

The most pernicious aspect of what is happening to America is psychological if not spiritual. The story being told by agenda-based media and corrupt politicians is fraudulent — designed to erode our sense of self-worth. These narratives seek to strip away our dignity so that we don't put up a fight. We are meant to accept the lies and the corruption because we live in a state of fear, because we blame ourselves for our powerlessness, and because we are starting to doubt our sense of reality.

We must recognize how wrong this is and stand up. This struggle is about our dignity, our identity, and our humanity.

In January of 2010, in order to make way for money to permanently replace people in our political process, five Supreme Court justices decided that a corporation is a person, deserving of the same inalienable rights that our ancestors sacrificed so much to defend. The "Citizens United" decision is one of many legal loopholes being used to corrupt our democracy.

We must say to ourselves, in just the way that the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers did, "I AM A PERSON." And, no matter how many times you hear it, Citibank is not a person. Those brave men in Memphis understood that their struggle was about human dignity, and that speaking truth to power needed to start with affirming their sense of self-worth as human beings. I am a man.

As we struggle, we must remember what Martin Luther King, Jr. said in Memphis just days before his death: "I say to you that our goal is freedom, and I believe we're going to get there because — however much she strays from it — the goal of America is freedom!"

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• citizens intervention
• OccupyDC enough is enough
• enough
• march
• rally
• annabel
• park
• democracy
• convention
• washington
• dc
• #oct29
• corruption
• congress
• tea
• koch
• rove
• karl
• brothers
• politics
• debt
• deficit
• jobs
• environment
• healthcare
• peoples
• filibuster

[lindajedwards39]

well done!

[EricBLiar]

"We are in the middle of a great struggle for the soul of our country."

I AGREE!! We are being invaded by illegal aliens!! They have no right to be here!! They are leeching off our nation! Filling our schools with their children without commensurate taxation!! To save our nation we must get these illegals out of our country!!

[ronoda]

FANTASTIC JOB ERIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

;)

[tyroman009]

Basic Mob Mentality: They are different from us, and therefore they are bad. We must get them out of our country....Just like Argentina under the Perons.

[HennyPenny37]

The Coffee Party, the first party of intelligence!

[patchespepper]

Let's go for it!!!!

[spira80]

nicely done!!

And so true...at least in my world...

[FriedDaisy]

It's amazing how few people recognize where the danger to themselves, their way of life and everything they cherish lies.