Resistance Begins: “The 10% solution: I would prefer not to.”
Introduction
Below Taos Friction posts the remarks of great American Leaders that set the tone for the ethical and moral foundations of freedom in civil society. Today citizenship has been transformed into consumerism. The “10% solution” aka “I prefer not to” resolves to spend 10% less this year than last year on Corporate goods: at the gas station, grocery store, the general merchandise emporiums, and all other extractive industries, whether bank, coal and oil companies or the organized but moribund political parties.
The demagogue-elect represent an assault on human rights: retrograde racism, the triumph of elitists who would govern from the right and destroy the historic equity mainlined by FDR in the New Deal. Trump, Ryan, McConnell, the remnants of the Republican party, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s progenitors of Citizens United, perverse transformation of a “corporation into a person.” The Rightwing Congress seeks to privatize Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, just as it has the electoral process. Build walls, not bridges, institute a registry for Muslims and all Americans just as NSA today spies on all Americans and human beings in the world. The loyal opposition or democratic party has yet to emerge from shell shock.
When the police say:
“Where are your papers?”
“Where is your birth certificate?”
Where is your picture identification?”
Say: “I don’t need no stinkin papers.”
Below historic voices say better than I what an American must say.
American Bonafides
Thomas Paine: “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of [humankind] are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested.”
Patrick Henry: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Lincoln: “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Bernie Sanders: “It’s time to get back to work. Our Revolution will reclaim democracy for the working people of our country…Our Revolution will transform American politics to make our political and economic systems once again responsive to the needs of working families.”
Melville: In “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street, “ the scrivener, “in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.”
The Boycott
Nothing rings so persuasively in the ledgers of Corporate America as consumers who shut their wallets and close their purses. Resolve this year to spend 10% less in the halls and malls of Corporate America, the progenitors of Trumpism. For the rich and poor alike can join together in the “10% solution.”
I would prefer not to.
We have met the enemy and “it” “us” and “them” must be rejected. We cannot win with guns and bullets but we can send Corporate America a sign. The more goods you reject, the less you recycle.
Say “I would prefer not to” buy the crumbs from corrupt populists and retrograde TV con artists. Reject Corporate America’s extraction of your dollars just as the First Americans reject the extraction of black gold from Mother Earth at Standing Rock. Standing Rock represents resistance to the assault on “all lovers of [humankind]” and Mother Earth, home to nature’s own flora and fauna.
Say: “I would prefer not to.”
The “10 percent solution” begins with a Boycott at home. Say it loud and clear in solidarity across the color lines as James Brown might sing: “I’m black and I’m beautiful.” Kneel down in the spirit of Colin Kapernick and “Black Lives Matter.” Mutter to yourself and others,“The 10% Solution: I would prefer not to.”