Ready to join the revolution

I read the article in the “Law Enforcement Roundup” in your Aug. 11 edition, and I must say that I am appalled at what was said about those “teenagers” and “Marxists” as you so eloquently labeled them. The only thing I felt was credible was the title, “A call for revolution in Whitefish.” 

I was walking around the downtown Whitefish area early Sunday morning when I was surprised to hear the sound of tape tearing, and see five adults hard at work hanging fliers on a single block in the downtown district. I stood in place and watched them for a good 10 minutes before the Whitefish Police Department arrived. 

The police were not able to catch up to the revolutionaries, but they were able to grab the closest person within their proximity (aka me) and continued to hold me for about 25 minutes. The police went into detail about how it is not against the law to hang up fliers; however it is necessary to obtain a permit in the city of Whitefish in order to do so. After the police had threatened to hold me overnight with the charges of obstruction of a police officer (for a “crime” I had not been a part of), I managed to convince the police not to hold me if I went and took down what fliers had been hung.

The police parted ways with me as I slowly worked my way over to the plethora of fliers fluttering in the light morning breeze. I began reluctantly taking down the hard work of these “Marxists” and began sifting through what was indeed hung for the public to read. The fliers that the police department felt were an obstruction contained many positive and informative messages. 

It soon came to my attention that the police’s feathers had been ruffled about fliers that simply read “love yourself,” “Revolution is coming” and “find peace within.” Soon after about five minutes of reading the hundreds of fliers that were hung, I decided to withdraw from my agreement to take down the art, due to the fact that, well, I agreed with all of what I read. 

One flier, which I kept, even read, “We are the new warrior class, the children of tomorrow, here to avenge the theft of the rainbow, to paint colours on the face of gray conformism, to remove the moribund curtains of bourgeois mediocrity, to reclaim the sun.”

I came to the relevant conclusion that the fliers were simply challenging everyone who would take the time to read, to question themselves and their surroundings. I don’t think it takes a scholar to be able to point out the fact that the system we live within is faulty and skewed to only help “the few” thrive. After all, 80 percent of our country’s revenue in 2009 went to the “one percent.” To put that in perspective for you guys, that’s the same as if we got 100 Americans together and ordered a 100-slice pizza. The pizza arrives and then the first guy takes 80 slices... These people were just simply posting what we most already know, and only talk about behind closed doors.

I was able to witness a small portion of the revolution that occurred in Indonesia in 2009 against the Danamon banking system, and it started the same as what I had witnessed in downtown Whitefish (a small group of people putting up informational pieces of paper). But it was what unfolded after they were ordered by local police to cease and not express their sovereign freedom of speech that changed my view on revolution forever. 

Those that make peaceful revolution impossible, make a violent revolution inevitable. We should not be conveying a negative denotation against these adults, but we should be applauding their efforts to further advance the growth of the human race in a peaceful manner. After all, it was not too long ago that if we, the people, as a whole, were not happy with the way that we were being represented, the people would resolve the issue by burning down a capitol building. 

So I ask you, Daily Inter Lake and the people of the Flathead Valley, do you serve a purpose, or do you purposely serve? Are we willing to spend the next millennium in the same system that impoverishes 90 percent of its citizens to live merely a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle? Or are we willing to admit to ourselves that the system we live in has been corrupted by the greed of men? 

I for one have now decided that I am one of these children, and am here to paint colours on the face of gray conformity. So I’d be careful whom you dogmatically stigmatize as “Marxists” or else who knows, maybe they will have found their next “mark.”

Jaeger is a resident of Whitefish.