Bleak Beauty Blog

“Blood in the Streets”

As Danny Lyon made a brief speech upon receiving the Missouri Honor
Medal in Journalism, an award also given that night to David Fanning of
Frontline, and previously to Winston Churchill, Walter Cronkite and Christine
Amanpour, Lyon paused and drifted from his prepared text
called “What is the Truth?”

“I just heard the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are spreading,” he said
from the podium.
“I heard they will march on Washington on Oct 15th. You students should go!”
then he paused and said… “I hope there will be blood in the streets!”
“There, I said it ” he added.

Listen to the live audio

For someone to call for “blood in the streets” from a public platform cannot be taken lightly. It was blood in the streets of Boston that began the American Revolution. It was blood in the streets in Washington that resulted from the Bonus Boys March in 1932. It was blood in the streets of Montgomery, a considerable amount of it flowing from the mouth and head of Congressman John Lewis, it was blood in the streets of Selma and in the woods of Mississippi that shook and brought down the dark forces of segregation and created the Voting rights act of 1965. It took seven years of blood in the streets to stop the insanity of Vietnam. Sometimes they just don’t get it.

This was the blood of demonstrators and activists being shed by police
And armed forces employed by the state or federal government, and the British crown.

That is what Jefferson meant when he wrote that the tree of Liberty had to be
watered every generation with the blood of patriots and tyrants. A bronze statue of Jefferson sits on a bench on the campus of the University of Missouri. He is writing something on the writing box he invented. The original obelisk that was Jefferson’s grave marker stands nearby also.

How long has it been since the Tree of Liberty was watered with blood? Too long!
Kent state was over forty years ago. The tree of Liberty is wilted! The Tree of Liberty
is dying. And the trees, the planet, and our grandchildren’s children will die with it.
Let us see what Democracy is made of. Will Democracy go down in history as the form
of government that destroyed the planet for all future people, not to mention future forms
of government?

Now is the time to stand and fight. Demonstrators have occupied a park at Wall Street.
They are not going home. This action has spread to Chicago, to Denver, to Albuquerque.
No one is going home.

The demonstrators are told they have no clear demands. Does the media need a laundry list?

1) Jail the bankers! We jail teenagers that steal $200. Let the children free. Fill their cells with the corrupt bankers and politicians. Turn all the empty prison space into classrooms.

2) Jail Bush and Cheney for starting a war. Starting a war is a crime against humanity. This was agreed to at Nuremberg and all the major Nazi’s were charged with at it. Some of them were hung.
3) We demand the immediate end to the harassment and persecution of Mexicans and the recognition of their moral right to be here to work. The law is an ass! They come to clean our toilets and we jail them, deport them and destroy their families. Immigration to work is not a legal issue it is a moral and ethical issue.
4) Enshrinement in federal law, and if need be in the constitution, the concept that the protection of the planet is of immediate and paramount concern and must override all other factors in determining the law.
5) Creation of jobs that protect rather than destroy the environment and mother earth.
6) Protection and enlargement of the passenger rail road system, and the right of way for cyclists in all urban areas.
7) A pledge by all persons working in the Media to refuse salaries higher than $500,000 a year. How can anymore call themselves a journalist that gets a salary of millions every year? How can they possibly be in touch with reality, which it is their duty to view and describe and report when half the country is being pushed into poverty while they make millions?
8) Individual personal responsibility of all corporate leaders. Find out where they live. Let them come out from under the rocks. Tell them to their face what they are doing and what we think of them.
9) Abolition of the American prison system as it stands.
10) Immediate reviews and interviews inside state or federal prisons by public committees and parole boards with any inmates that have been inside prison for twenty calender years.
11) Replace the media with your own. There is nothing to lose. You have the world to gain. And don’t forget to print and use the bumper sticker “I am the proud employer of an Illegal Alien.”
It’s time to do the laundry.