You have nothing to lose but your powerlessness!

I'm having a rough week -- downright cathartic -- as regular readers may have discerned. One of the things that is happening to me this week is an onrush of pure rage that is at once invigorating and frightening. It's not about what you might think, though.

Yes, there are people in my personal life who are pissing me off mightily, but as they are people I know and love, I am able to forgive them. This is just a bit of wind on the fire of anger that is really consuming me.

Yes, I am mad about the state of the world. It pisses me off to no end that bankers and scumbag politicians keep screwing us over, partying it up as the rest of us toil, flounder or both in a mad scramble to keep ourselves in house and home. This pisses me off. No doubt about it. It too is only an accelerant on the main flames.

You know what I'm really pissed off about? Me. You. Everybody who's sitting around Twittering, Facebooking, shopping, and blogging on the Internet, thinking we're so clever as the world disintegrates beneath our planted asses. How will the next generations despise us? Oh, let me count the ways!

Let's use this Internet thing to get together and spur action in the real world, God damn it! The stimulus funds are going straight into the pockets of health insurance company CEOs, courtesy of your joblessness. Instead of healthcare reform or stimulus, we're getting hosed! Doesn't this piss you off at all? Don't you think we should lean on our representatives and participate in our supposed democracy? We need warm bodies in the streets, people! We need to stop being afraid and start being ANGRY until the powers-that-be either make the changes we need or are deposed in disgrace. Ninety-nine percent of us -- more than 99 percent of us -- are getting doinked daily. Why? Because we're (and I count myself in this) not acting in the real world.

Hundreds of people read this blog every day. How many of you are the least bit interested in connecting, organizing, and effecting desperately needed change in the form, generally, of a more just distribution of wealth that will get money flowing again? I'm not saying we should soak high achievers, but things are so far out of hand. CEOs are grabbing $40 million bonuses even as their companies are tanking and workers are losing our jobs! We've sent $700 billion to bankers and gotten not one job in return. $350 billion in economic stimulus funds have apparently vanished into thin air, judging from the continued hemorrhaging of jobs and businesses.

Isn't anybody ready to say, "Enough! We need to make real change here!" Campaign slogans aren't enough. Are you listening?

Please don't misunderstand me: I'm not advocating communism. If anything, we need to get money flowing to entrepreneurs so that fresh ideas can take hold. If I had one measly million dollars to invest, I'd create 50 jobs this year, 100 jobs next year, and the sky would be the limit after that. Surely I'm not the only one in the country who has ideas but no capital.

That's beside the point, though. I'm not asking you for a million dollars. I'm asking you to get off your lazy rump and take concrete steps each day toward organizing with other people in the real world. We need to get back to government by, of, and for the people. That's all I'm saying.

If you want, you can join this site. I've done a lot of stuff on the back end to make it a pretty cool social networking platform, but people see it as a mere blog, I guess. Fair enough: It is a mere blog because nobody wants to use it for its intended purpose of effecting positive action in the real world.

Fine. But please do something else, OK? Do something!