Can we start a revolution?

Please nobody say its not possible. I agree whole heartedly with:

Bobby said 2 days, 8 hours ago:

With every person I have ever gotten involved in intellectual discussion with, it has come up that there is no hope for our current society. That people are to dumb, and to distracted to care about anything important. I completely disagree.

There has never been a better time in humanity to connect to like minded people.

We need to start with some kind of structure as to the content of the revolution. An editable list taht everyone can add to, any ideas the best format this can be in and where to place it?

Hey,
Have you heard of the movement “Democracia del ria” in Spain?
I find it very inspirational! I love the way how they peacefully protest and talk to people.
It spread all over Europe, even in my city in Belgium. You might learn a few tips from them :)

I hope they will still be camping in my city when my exams are over, I really want to join in!

The wikipedia page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Spanish_protests
The official website : http://www.democraciarealya.es/
Around the world : http://www.thetechnoant.info/campmap/

Keep dreaming!

My Friend and me came up with an idea, if we write Wake Up on every dollar bill we ever get
the money will eventually get circulated and people will find it wonder what it is, hopefully if theres a website we can create for them to see, and allow the word to be spread

The revolution will not be televised~

The way our political system works makes it very difficult for a third party to be viable, but I think a centrist party would be the only real way to start a revolution. The problem with this is that once in power even the most well meaning people can be corrupted. The revolution can’t stop with throwing out our current policy makers, it must also change policy and the way our government works. The main issues with our government are campaign finance and the lobbying power of large corporations and organizations. Changing these will require a large group of ideological people passing bills that will most likely cause them to not be re-elected. One thing that can help change the two party system would be run off elections, where candidates needs to win with a majority and not just a plurality. Some states and localities have already started implementing an instant run off election process where you basically rank the canidates from first to last, other states have actual run off elections. This allows people to vote for third party candidates without feeling that their vote is being wasted (Ralph Nader syndrome…)

I like the idea Cyrus and Tobias have. It’s like the “wheresgeorge” thing and I saw that on a lot of paper money. That really got around. Once a website is established I think people should put the domain name on the bills just like wheregeorge.com did. If that isn’t a good idea due to legalities and/or safety then we would need some way for people to associate the slogan with the movement. Regardless, “Wake up” is going on every bill I use from here on out.
Thank you, Robin, for the links and thoughts. It’s important that we educate ourselves on the movements that are having an impact around the world in order for us to be successful here. We should ALL read up because it will help fuel ideas on how to mobilize and intelligently get shit done.
I’ll do anything I can to contribute to this whether it be assisting with mission statement literature, public disbursement/graffiti, or just rousing like-minded people from other progressive online communities. I’m all in.

And same as I wrote above, goes for a lot of the people writing in this thread. Everyone seems to be throwing around the words “revolution” and “change” without actually defining them. I think people need to start stating their specific grievances with the government/society/economy etc… And I think people need to start sharing what they think would be a good solution. A solution is not revolt, a solution would be like passing this and this law… a revolution, fundraising, raising awareness, these are all the means to the solution or goal.

I think everyone needs to realize that as bad as the situation in the U.S. may seem, in a lot of places where these revolts took place, the situation was a lot worse. So it’s awesome to look at the uprisings that happened in other countries this past month, but everyone needs to realize: THIS is America, not like Tunisia. Different set of problems, different opportunities for getting rid of the problems.

i like the money bill idea. also, i’m always tempted to write witty-cynical remarcs on big ads posters. i truly hate ads, they make me puke inside and i want to invade their manipulative messages and wake up the people who look at them. it’s like iconoclasm for ads, capitaliconoclasm if you will.

in general, the path is pretty clear to me: get rid of advertisement, TV, most movies, most magazines, most newspapers, junk food. get rid of political parties, or for starters get rid of party financing possibilities and party advertisement, especially during election time, and make the US an at least 5-party system. simply randomly assign congress members to one of five groups and call them parties 1 through 5. replace party ads by fixed-length, text-only propositions of laws and regulations delivered to your house/laptop only once per election. change the voting schemes. change the way we live in isolated cells of atomic families. change the way we school, we commute, we use energy. cap maximum earnings at, say 80k a year. fix a true minimum wage. heal the wound of the heart. give us strength to not carry our skills and determination into niche opposition groups where they help a little and life feels cozy, but where we withdraw our potential from the true political arena. buy fair, buy organic, if you can. ditch meat. make public transportation free (as in beer). reclaim the key positions in government, industry and regulating boards. when pema chodron (thanks martijn) says to go to the places that scare you — nothing scares me more than working at saic, rand, or blackwater… set politicians’ salaries to minimum wage or something. make them completely transparent in terms of money. if i were a politician, i’d donate all my belongings and walk from house to house at night and ring folks up to see if i can get a bed and meal at their home. if not, i’m doing something wrong… stop environmental pollution. let the silent valuable people have a voice and dont lend a voice to alienation, greed, and delusion. put an end to loneliness: loneliness in retirement, in singleness, in marriage, in society. give us the feeling that we will still be loved when we show ourselves the way we truly are (but don’t even know for ourselves because we’re too scared of shame and exclusion to even look inside who we truly are). put an end to the concept of nationality, territorial citizenship, and nation states. recycle, buy used, and buy what’s beneficial. speak the truth, and be a light upon your surrounding fellow humans. shine a light on this poor confused world. get rid of compound interest. make any form of interest usury a despicable crime again. most importantly, change the way we let ourselves be governed. and do it gently like aikido, but with unfailing determination. abruptly-rapturing revolutions tend to get messy. go steady, but with the unfailing determination of an arrow. be bold, be gentle, go to the places that scare you. and be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. amen.

Here is a surprisingly useful guide to start a revolution from eHow: http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Revolution

I wanna be invited to the private forum Jordan! XD

I’m not quite sure I see why this should be private… It seems to me that would limit the number of ppl involved… I guess I get the faceless idea… I’m still stuck on protesting things as one of the best solutions…