-- Download Practice CrimeStop: You Are the New Terrorist as PDF --

You. You enemy of the state. You radical environmentalist. Or worker rights advocate. Or whatever cause you are promoting.

You. You are a threat to order. When you gather, you are a threat to civil order. You may escalate your activities to the criminality you harbour in your mind.

You. You are a threat to unquestioned profitability for the 1%.

Why? Because you think Walmart is a bad employer. And maybe even bad for the planet.

So this is what we do to you:

Brace yourself for this dangerous tweet, then read on.

Seattle paramilitary police surround #Walmart protestors who are armed with balloons and signs pic.twitter.com/GE52QE5RGY#WalmartStrikers

— Viva la causa! (@70torinoman) November 29, 2013

Sending paramilitary police or military in to a legal, civil protest in a democratic society criminalizes dissent. In the good [or something] old days, police showed up at rallies, marches and protests to help stop traffic so we, and our strollers with toddlers and our cardboard signs taped to hockey sticks held high, wouldn’t get run over by drivers annoyed by the stoppage in traffic. Democratic expression was so inconvenient. Now it is a prelude to terrorism.

Now. You are likely anarchists, murderers, rioters, looters, communists, whatever. We can’t take any chances. Riot gear.

You may be hiding a gun in that green balloon. Seriously.

But escalation does something to people’s minds. It increases the stakes. It causes to people to either feel victimized and paranoid [justifiably!], or more prone to match the violent posture of the state. But that’s OK. That’s the goal of the state in forcing the issue.

If you show up to say that Walmart is a bad employer because it pays peanut shells and encourages employees to donate food to their fellow poor employees at Thanksgiving, or because of its sweatshoppery, you are a criminal against the capital order.

If you ever questioned whether law enforcement is in the service of the rich, check out protests these days.

Check out Officer Bubbles. Research the new Orwellian law, Assault by Trespass, whereby resisting removal while trespassing on some property is akin to physical assault of the property owner.

Are you getting the picture?

Do you see how much of a criminal, or potential criminal, you are?

If you dissent, and express that in a legal fashion in a democratic society where you believe you have the protection of the state to express yourself, well…you might be mistaken.

Because you are the new terrorist. You threaten the profitability of the global elite. You threaten their capacity to exercise their greed by calling into question the moral legitimacy of that action. Don’t make the critical error that making people think that Walmart sucks [or Starbucks or McDonald’s, or IKEA or lululemon] is a minor thing. You could be kettled. Maybe you deserve it!

The global elites have gone to great lengths to ensure that you terrorists can’t mobilize. After all, the corporate/state conspiracy to shut down the Occupy Movement wasn’t just paranoid, self-aggrandized delusion. It was real and now, well documented.

It’s really a kind of thoughtcrime, enacted in public. Don’t you see how they can’t let that stand, unchallenged?

And your duty is to practice CrimeStop through self-censorship, not attending rallies, not bringing your toddlers to rallies. You know, all the things that could shake the foundation of your commitment to a stable society [based on greed and exploitation].

So, once you embrace your new role as terrorist, any time a thought emerges in your mind that dissents against the corporate order, call CRIMESTOPpers on yourself. You owe it to society.

So say we all.

Now shut up and get back to work.

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Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Post-partisan eco-socialist. at Politics, Re-Spun

Stephen Elliott-Buckley is a husband, father, professor, speaker, consultant, former suburban Vancouver high school English and Social Studies teacher who changed careers because the BC Liberal Party has been working hard to ruin public education. He has various English and Political Science degrees and has been writing political, social and economic editorials since November 2002. Stephen is in Twitter, Miro and iTunes, and the email thing, and at his website, dgiVista.org.

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