Trouble . . .

. . . coming

Saudi Arabia sentenced a man to ten years in prison for using Twitter to "encourage protests" against the rulers and another to eight years for "insulting" the King and "inciting protests" on Twitter and other social media. The Saudi Justice Ministry spokesman said the men's actions undermine the country's leadership, are hostile to the government and promote deviant ideologies. Both sentences were pronounced days after the country officially declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization. Saudi Arabia further warned that any Saudi or foreigner residing there could be sentenced to heavy jail terms for joining extremist groups or participating in such groups' activities. The Interior Ministry statement also criminalized atheism on the part of Saudis or residents. The nation's ongoing intent is to severely limit freedoms of expression and religion while countering extremism and terrorism and frequently violate internationally-recognized human rights.
(thanks to http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/11/world/meast/saudi-arabia-twitter-jail/index.html?hpt=hp_t2)

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Powerlessness

. . . is power. . .

from  Chris Hedges, Truthdig | Op-Ed truth-out.org

'. . .All we have, as Vaclav Havel writes, is our own powerlessness. And that powerlessness is our strength. The survival of the movement depends on embracing this powerlessness. It depends on two of our most important assets—utter and complete transparency and a rigid adherence to nonviolence, including respect for private property. This permits us, as Havel puts it in his 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless,” to live in truth. And by living in truth we expose a corrupt corporate state that perpetrates lies and lives in deceit. Havel, who would later become the first president of the Czech Republic, in the essay writes a reflection on the mind of a greengrocer who, as instructed, puts up a poster “among the onions and carrots” that reads: “Workers of the World Unite!” The poster is displayed partly out of habit, partly because everyone else does it, and partly out of fear of the consequences for not following the rules. The greengrocer would not, Havel writes, display a poster saying: “I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient.” And here is the difference between the terror of a Josef Stalin or an Adolf Hitler and the collective charade between the rulers and the ruled that by the 1970s had gripped Czechoslovakia.

Those who do not carve out spaces separate from the state and its systems of power, those who cannot find room to become autonomous, or who do not “live in truth,” inevitably become compromised. In Havel’s words, they “are the system.” The Occupy movement, by naming corporate power and refusing to compromise with it, by forming alternative systems of community and society, embodies Havel’s call to “live in truth.” It does not appeal to the systems of control, and for this reason it is a genuine threat to the corporate state.

Occupy’s most powerful asset is that it articulates this truth. And this truth is understood by the mainstream, the 99 percent. . . "

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