The Battle of Laptops

There is a new wind blowing and it is one that is fanned by the people instead of the market. This week Turkey joined the movement that protects spaces that belong to the people from the destructive forces of corporate greed. Peaceful protestors in Istanbul met pepper sprays, water guns, and irrational violence from a police force that exists to protect those very protestors. The wind may become a hurricane before it all ends, but one thing is certain: whether it is able to transform the landscape before it vanishes, or whether it will only felt on a superficial level, it will leave a mark on the people it encountered.

Violence has always been the method of choice of power structures that know fully well that their power is illegally obtained, and must therefore be illegally preserved, just as anti-violence has always been the method of choice of those resiting the illegal power structures, for the law and right is on their side.

If protest movements do not need violence to make their point, neither do they need a PR department to become famous. They are usually a welcomed sight as they grow out of a general discontent felt by the people. The violence they meet gains them instant sympathy, while their assailants are left in the murky shades of shame.

People want to identify with the heroes of history, and here is a whole generation of heroes in the making. From US Uncut to Occupy Wall Street, from March Against Monsanto to the Taksim Square, people all over the world are feeling the gusts of freedom in their own communities. And while the corporate minority responds with violence, they show that they have missed the point: this battle is not fought with weapons, it is fought with laptops.

Social media has become the new vehicle of global justice. In an instant, information finds its way around the world, making simultaneous protests around the world possible. No longer dependent on corporately owned media to tell them what to think, people all over the world are forming their own opinions; opinions that are based on truth, instead of lies. And truth is a powerful thing.

The government powers who believe that they must suppress the majority to please a minority are helpless before the truth that exposes them for who they are: the errand boys and yes men of corporations who will chew them and spit them out as soon as they are done with them. Little wonder that they keep such a keen eye on veterans; you just never know when another Manning may finally rip the veil and reveal the whole ugly truth about the American Century that fuels the perpetual war.

So, while the church has put itself to sleep singing hymns, the world is rising to meet its Goliath. And just as David refused to wear the armor of the king, so do the protestors refuse to wear the ideology of their predecessors. This is not about playing along; this is about getting along. And the protestors are doing just that.

Fearless, and organized, the new protest movement is growing. People want to know the truth, and the truth wants to find the people. When the two meet, justice happens.