On Sept. 17, 20,000 people are going to flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens and barricades in a peaceful occupation of Wall Street.
It will not be the first tent city to rise up out of the ashes of the Recession. It won’t even be the first tent city to draw from the homeless ranks of New York. What it will be, organizers hope, is America’s “Tahrir Square” moment, which will define this generation for the next.
“Imagine the dawn of the 13th day of the occupation,” reads the official ADBUSTERS announcement. “You’re tired, not sleeping or eating too great. You’ve been harassed, maybe tear gassed and beaten. Bloomberg is threatening to call in the National Guard, Obama is hemming and hawing, but you are sitting tight because much of the nation is cheering you on. Al Jazeera and the BBC are beaming your struggle to a captivated world and the tension is building for Obama to break his silence. It feels much like it did in Tahrir Square moments before Mubarak caved. You’ve never felt so alive!”
When Egypt erupted in popular uprising on Jan. 25 it was to protest presidential corruption. When it happens here, it will be to protest the federal government’s lack of fiscal responsibility and the millions of tax dollars funneled into extravagant bonuses for the financial giants responsible for the economic collapse.
“The number of voters who feel the government has the consent of the governed – a foundational principle contained in the Declaration of Independence – is down from 23 percent in early May and has fallen to its lowest level measured yet (17 percent)” said American political analyst Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen reports.
Amazingly, this poll was conducted before Standard and Poors downgraded America’s credit rating from AAA to AA+ on Aug. 5. Thus begins a rapidly accelerating downward spiral some of us have seen coming for a very long time, and we just crested the event horizon.
Of course, America doesn’t need to look to Egypt for a precedent for revolution. Ironically, this time England is too consumed by their own revolution to notice, while rioting in response to the economic collapse has spread across the globe to include Israel, Spain and cities as close to home as Philidelphia.
America may have been hoping to substitute a “Tahrir Square” moment for a “9-11”, but the public isn’t biting. Has anyone else noticed the total failure of

the Afghanistan helicopter crash to unify anybody? I am not one of those who believes the assassination of Osama Bin Laden this April was a government conspiracy, but if I was I would not be at all surprised the government would sacrifice a few Navy SEALS to distract people from our economic woes.
All signs point towards a populist uprising in the near future. Someone needs to stir the pot, and yes, I am volunteering.
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote Thomas Paine back in 1776. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
“September 17 could be the beginning of an American Spring,” say the ADBUSTERS, “the moment we the people turn the tables on our would-be corporate masters and start acting like free empowered citizens once again. Are you with us? Bring a tent.”
I’ve already got mine.