GOOD CITIZENS

As this year endeth, I think of what sort of people many of us are. Despite the crazies and reprobates who grab the headlines, there are still a very large number of Good Citizens out there. At least, so I believe. What do I mean by Good Citizens?
For starters, I mean those people who are actually repelled by injustice and cruelty across the board, regardless of the race or religious labelling of both victim and perp. I mean those people who are careful to stay inside the law not only because it's less troublesome; they may actually have an understanding of the law as a common benefit to all, whether consciously articulated or not.
This is a time when the Good Citizens need to articulate, to themselves and others, the benefits of law, reasoning and other ways of thinking with one's head as opposed to the heart or, worse, the gonads. They need a good deal less of Going With The Flow and other excuses for not examining things and thinking them out and a good deal more of asking questions and following the money trails!
Another worthy trait which marks Good Citizens is their general detestation of any kind of bullies. Indeed, I think it safe to say that bullies' toadies and Good Citizens are pretty much mutually exclusive. The problems arise when bullies cringe and whimper and do all they can to look and sound like their own victims. This confuses many Good Citizens--as do all the bright and shiny objects which the Corpo Media, at the bidding of their masters who are so wealthy as to make sultans look beggarly, toss in the Good Citizens' general direction. This is done, at least in part, to distract the more venturesome among the Good Citizens (I hope I'm one) from following the money trails. I hardly need say that those masters know those trails lead right to them!
What Good Citizens need to do more of is 1) create longer information strings which lead further back into history and 2) observe less of one's complexion or religious label and watch the patterns of behavior. Some might find a remarkable similarity between the behavior of Southern whites fighting against integration and Arabs repeatedly refusing to make real peace with Israel, for example. They also might gain more understanding of how our society has a 'default' setting for POCs marked 'Guilty for Being Other'.
Of course, once this happens then the REAL fun will begin. Then the benign masks may well come off of 'authority' and the SWAT teams may be on constant duty as it becomes clearer how much of an occupied country we now are. Then Good Citizens will have a serious decision to make: how much does the second word in the designation I give these people mean to them? Because this will be a moment of decision such as sung by Enjolras at the barricades in 'Les Miz'. This will be the time to decide, will you put your lives on the line to stay free citizens and renew that citizenship? Or will you decline into increasingly abject subjecthood? This may be a necessary component of a renaissance of Western civilization and values. Wasn't it we of the West who gave the world the very idea of citizenship as opposed to being simply obedient subjects? Good Citizens need to use their natural anger against bullies and cheats so as to make things difficult if not utterly impossible for such anti-democratic characters!
And when we do, that will be the time to decide: are we ready to put our bodies on the line? Despite the fact that I'm quite capable of writing like Marat, I hope it won't come to bloodshed although the chances of that happening are actually alarmingly good.
Because I know history to some extent, I cannot but agree with the words of Frederick Douglass: "Power never concedes anything without a demand. It never has and it never will."
God bless you all, brothers and sisters, in this coming year of decision.