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Activists See ‘Non-Compliance’ as Challenge to Globalists
By Mark Anderson
On April 14, on the eve of the “National Strike,” an Oregon woman who pushed the concept was cautiously optimistic that the mid-April strike would see a respectable number of people cease to patronize “the system,” or at least head in that direction.
When Karen Quinn-Tostado joined this AFP writer’s weekly radio show on the Republic Broadcasting Network, this “kitchen table revolutionary” expressed a philosophy of noncompliance as an alternative to street protests. This is especially important now, amid new reports that the Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team/3rd Infantry Division, reportedly training at Fort Stewart, Ga., may be tapped to control anticipated “civil unrest” just before the 2010 mid-term elections.
Some observers allege the government fears that an economically ruined population—pushed against the wall by job losses, home foreclosures and an expected spike in interest rates—may express serious unrest, perhaps leading to an “uprising” of a broad cross-section of people, or “even violence.”
In the 1960s, the authorities cracked down on some of the large protests mainly carried out by crowds of young people—mainly leftists.
But today, both the young and old, covering a much broader spectrum, are ready to hit the streets in protest. This is all against a backdrop of Wall Street bailouts for criminal corporations like Goldman Sachs. For the American people, it’s been one slap in the face after another—virtually nonstop. Thus, the feds may think something bigger than 1960s-style protests is coming. They may even desire it.
“The government is trying to plant seeds in our minds,” said Ms. Quinn-Tostado, “that there is going to be fighting.”
Her husband Albert does not think the U.S. Army is bluffing, yet they both agreed that a sustained “pulling back” from the system and fewer open protests lowers the likelihood of a crackdown on unruly Americans.
“We need to educate ourselves . . . get storable food, get off the ‘grid’ and not get involved in the big riots they are anticipating,” she added.
The peaceful National Strike that occurred April 15 to April 18 now must continue and become a way of life, she said, so Americans can exercise a new, unified approach of “facing their oppressors.”
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People from about 80 nations have contacted her online, agreeing that the abused common people of the United States and many other nations must turn off their TV sets, stop buying mainstream newspapers, pull their money out of most banks and limit banking to local community banks or credit unions, or withdraw funds from banks altogether. Bartering also fits the bill.
Moreover, the strike means, as much as possible, not buying imports, forsaking companies that offshore American jobs, growing one’s own food or cooperating with others who do so; and generally unplugging from
“the matrix” of the global economy that elevates Wall Street over Main Street—step by step.
A Utah man called this writer’s radio show and related how happy he is to have moved his family to a place where he can raise livestock and get by with far less from the corporate “global economy.”
Americans indeed are indentured to a specific societal structure that enables what Ms. Quinn-Tostado calls the “dominant criminal minority,” which runs the banking system and controls the big media and main political parties, to fleece the people and channel their money and labor into a system that keeps them locked in a maze and enriches the plutocratic ruling class.
This writer bounced the strike concept off unaware fellow church members April 18. One replied, “Stop buying imports? I can’t survive without imports!”
However, the individual did cite a great place, the Little Store on the Prairie in rural Decatur, Mich., where you can buy a host of locally made items and cut one’s dependence on big food corporations.
The strike concept has a certain resonance, but it’s a question of how broadly and quickly it catches on. “This journey has just begun,” Ms. Quinn-Tostado remarked. The strike, she said, also means promoting alternative media to displace the faltering corporate media. Yet the most fundamentally important thing to her is that “the idea of global noncompliance is out of the box.” That, she says, means that an idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by anything—even Army divisions assigned to quell possible citizen unrest.
She stressed that the noncompliance option does not incite Americans toward a confrontation with their government, since such a clash could end badly and may be the very thing “the powers that be” are hoping for, so they have an excuse to crack down on an American populace that is waking up.
Ms. Quinn-Tostado said her favored vision is “empty streets,” not big protests. She feels that standard protests with sign-carrying participants are fine but only go so far, especially in light of “tea party” demonstrations having been partly hijacked by the neo-conservative faction that plays a major role in pushing America’s interventionist foreign policy and permanent wars that are bankrupting the nation.
“It costs a lot of money to be out there protesting,” she noted. “I don’t think you have to be ‘out there’ to be heard.”
Mark Anderson is a longtime newsman now working as the deputy editor for American Free Press. Together he and his wife Angie provide many photographs of the events they cover for AFP. Mark welcomes your comments and inputs as well as story leads. Email him at at [email protected].
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(Issue # 18, May 5, 2010)
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