Senior Emma Gonzalez who delivered an impassioned speech a few days ago following the massacre of 17 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School classmates and teachers, is organizing a March on Washington (March 24th) by students to get the Repugnicants to enact common sense gun laws. I wish them well but if the Sandy Hook Elementary body count didn't change their NRA hearts, I doubt if the march will either.
However, perhaps something that may get their attention is for a nation of high school students to skip school following the march. And not return until new laws have been passed, especially ones that prohibit ownership of automatic weapons and require proof of sanity when purchasing a gun. That would be the single most disruptive act of civil disobedience in history. Bigger than anything Gandhi or Martin Luther King had ever accomplished or envisioned because these "connected" kids will use social media tools to organize and spread the word more effectively and faster than ever before. The effect would be so immediate it would cause our "leaders" to get off their fat asses to actually do something meaningful and patriotic with their lives.*
Of course if students opt for such action, they should expect the "adults" in DC will use every legal weapon they can to make them give up the "strike" and return to school. The simplest strike buster is to threaten them with summer school to make up for the time they missed. They may even threaten to hold back federal funding for the schools which will put pressure on the states and school boards to gang up against them.
But in retrospect when they look back on their lives as teenagers, that nationwide strike they participated in was only a minor inconvenience. They didn't have to worry about losing a job while on strike and worrying about how they were going to feed their family. They didn't have to put their bodies on the line facing down factory goons sent in to beat them up. No, all they had to do was skip class for as long as it took. The smart ones will, of course, continue to study at home and in groups so that when they do return, they can pass any test thrown at them.
For the "strike for common sense" to work, millions of students will have to take that "risk" together, in solidarity. In the end, those who participated can look back proudly because they were part of the first in the history of the world strike by "children" against adults for something bigger than themselves.
Who knows, they might even save America by turning it from the self-destructive path it's on now from inclusiveness toward a tribalism that proudly embraces hatred and the status quo.
*Of course, it's really "all about the Benjamins" which, in the end, is the real reason this would get done. Even the NRA and arms manufactures don't have enough money to shore up their agendas against the pressure Big Business will put on those in DC to get America up and running again.
However, perhaps something that may get their attention is for a nation of high school students to skip school following the march. And not return until new laws have been passed, especially ones that prohibit ownership of automatic weapons and require proof of sanity when purchasing a gun. That would be the single most disruptive act of civil disobedience in history. Bigger than anything Gandhi or Martin Luther King had ever accomplished or envisioned because these "connected" kids will use social media tools to organize and spread the word more effectively and faster than ever before. The effect would be so immediate it would cause our "leaders" to get off their fat asses to actually do something meaningful and patriotic with their lives.*
Of course if students opt for such action, they should expect the "adults" in DC will use every legal weapon they can to make them give up the "strike" and return to school. The simplest strike buster is to threaten them with summer school to make up for the time they missed. They may even threaten to hold back federal funding for the schools which will put pressure on the states and school boards to gang up against them.
But in retrospect when they look back on their lives as teenagers, that nationwide strike they participated in was only a minor inconvenience. They didn't have to worry about losing a job while on strike and worrying about how they were going to feed their family. They didn't have to put their bodies on the line facing down factory goons sent in to beat them up. No, all they had to do was skip class for as long as it took. The smart ones will, of course, continue to study at home and in groups so that when they do return, they can pass any test thrown at them.
For the "strike for common sense" to work, millions of students will have to take that "risk" together, in solidarity. In the end, those who participated can look back proudly because they were part of the first in the history of the world strike by "children" against adults for something bigger than themselves.
Who knows, they might even save America by turning it from the self-destructive path it's on now from inclusiveness toward a tribalism that proudly embraces hatred and the status quo.
*Of course, it's really "all about the Benjamins" which, in the end, is the real reason this would get done. Even the NRA and arms manufactures don't have enough money to shore up their agendas against the pressure Big Business will put on those in DC to get America up and running again.
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