let's assume a group like Occupy started to gain enough traction that they became a serious threat to the status quo. that is to say, that the current power base started to shift to a form of politics outside the current two party flip flop system the USA has today.
How long do you think it would be before those 'subversive' groups, even as non-violent, would start to receive the same treatment?
There are few of us prepared to stick our heads above the parapet. Those that do, end up fucked. I.e. Snowden, Assange and Manning.
Sometimes I dream about a people's takeover, Fight Club style, where each man on the street reminds those in power who cooks their food, who washes their clothes, who takes care of their children. A subtle collective threat en-mass to fight the power.
Then I drift back off to sleep.
I am the People, the Mob
Carl Sandburg, 1878 - 1967
I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is
done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the
world’s food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons
come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send
forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for
much plowing.
Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is
sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death
comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have.
And I forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red
drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the
People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget
who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then
there will be no speaker in all the world say the name:
“The People," with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or
any far-off smile of derision.
The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.