“Olympus, I don’t have words to describe how I feel right now,” Zeus says emphatically. “And I’m sure I speak for every member of the Prometheus Project when I acknowledge the genius of what you have created. Olympus, you promised you’d be able to create a voice for ‘the people’ more powerful than all corporations combined—and you did. I have to admit, there were times I didn’t think it could be done. But I’m in awe of you. I know that what went on at New Atlantis is just the beginning—and the beginning of the end of the tyranny we’ve endured. You’ve given us hope, just when things were looking the worst for us. Thank God you’re on our side. Pandora, what have you got for us?”
A map of the Corporate States of America appears on the third computer screen. There are two or three green dots and yellow dots on every state. “Congratulations, Olympus. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the reports of pandemonium at New Atlantis. It brought tears of joy. So many people have been hurt for so long. So many people are desperate. Finally, I thought, things may be turning our way. As all of you know, my role in Prometheus is to link all Coopervilles to our secure wireless network. In real time, I was able to send all of Olympus’s data and information to our existing sites. So, even if outside media didn’t pick up the ‘John Galt is dead’ story, we could get it out.
“Notice the twenty new yellow dots that weren’t on the map last week. They are Coopervilles waiting to be cleared for network access. By next week, I hope to be able to report that 190 locations are online and actively participating in our network and in all feeder social media. We will be able to get the word out instantly nationwide to more and more sites to support all of our on-the-ground organizing efforts. Those sites, in turn, will spread the word to their local networks. To start, we estimate we’ll be able to reach upwards of ten million people nationwide. Soon, we will have one of the most powerful communications networks in the world built entirely from the ground up. Mercury will have more to add about how we organize and energize people in place, I know.”
“Thank you, Pandora. I don’t know what we would do without you. If anybody demonstrates the power of one person to reach out to millions, it’s you. You’re one of the biggest threats to the legacy of John Galt, Dagny Taggart, and the whole gang from the valley. Since you’re one of us, I pity anyone you’re up against—not!
“Mercury, are you ready to report?” Zeus asks.
“Gladly!”
A picture of a mob of people inside a shopping mall appears on screen four, then dissolves into another and another—making five pictures in all. “The pictures you just saw made front-page headlines and dominated the TV news across the country. One headline captured it best: ‘Where did they come from? Where did they go? Nobody knows!’ And thanks to Pandora, thousands of people, then hundreds of thousands of people, then millions of people saw them. Those visuals are proof of our on-the-ground strategy and how perfectly it works. When the time comes, everyone will know it isn’t only the captains of industry like John Galt who make the economy work and who have the power to strike and shut it down. Average people, whose rights and very existences have been trampled, control the country too.
“Last week, we held another round of targeted ‘shop-ins’ to bring business to a halt. In Chicago, Philadelphia, Tampa, Des Moines, and Portland, our ‘shoppers’ swamped five malls. Pandora sent the word out to Coopervilles in those cities that Thursday was going to be ‘shopping day,’ and the mobs appeared at exactly 11 a.m. At first, businesses thought they were in for a banner day of sales. But as more and more people arrived, for three hours, stores couldn’t do any business. We chose malls that were near or across from other malls. The ones we targeted were furious, because all their business went to their competitors. The mobs appeared and disappeared like swarms of locusts. No one said ‘John Galt is dead’ or anything that might have sounded political. No one could trace anything to us. The events left the victims totally baffled—and scared shitless. When the time comes, they, and the whole world, will know why they and others have been attacked.”
“Thank you, Mercury. When the time comes, your ground forces will literally be on the firing lines and will be key to our victory. Adonis, what have you got for us?”
Screen five dissolves into a picture of a young man in his early twenties. His red, curly hair extends down his cheeks. He is bare-chested and naturally muscular. “I have nothing new to report now. I continue to be a trainee at the Atlas Fitness Center Headquarters in Manhattan. I’ve been there longer than any other trainee. They trust me. Every day, I learn a little bit more about how the centers do business and how crucial they are to the survival of New Atlantis and Free-for-All economics. They are a cash-cow, providing millions of dollars. I’ve almost seen the secret formula of the Atlas Energy Drink and have picked up bits and pieces of their strategy to ‘drug’ the country on it. I’ve almost gotten copies of studies of the effectiveness of the patented Titan WholeBody Harmony Machine. There’s another ‘dirty little secret’ about Atlas Fitness Centers I’ve heard alluded to, but I can’t say anything until I have proof.”
“I want to thank all of you for this week’s updates,” Zeus says. “I can’t tell you how important your efforts are to our ultimate success. You are the real leaders of a return to what this country used to be— and hopefully can be again. The Prometheus Project is growing more powerful every day. It will prevail. It has to prevail. Its strength is the network of real people you have organized. All of us see the faces of despair on every street corner—husbands and fathers desperate to find jobs to support their families, wives and mothers not knowing how they can feed their kids, barefoot kids begging. You see people looking for relief, not because they did anything wrong, but because they did everything right. They played by the rules—worked and provided for their families. All they ever wanted was enough financial security to be able to see their kids live better than they did. But what have they gotten instead? Bullshit! A kick in the ass! They’ve been treated worse than animals.
“Before we discuss what lies ahead for us—and believe me, there is plenty—I want to remind us all of why we’re in the fight we’re in. I don’t want us to get so wrapped up in strategy and tactics that we lose our souls and wind up no better than our enemies. If I don’t, it might look like we’re simply butting heads and pitting our way of looking at things against other people’s. I believe, and I believe we all agree, that we have the moral high ground in our struggle. Our drug is conscience. We want to put people on moral steroids, not just pump up their muscles and their selfishness. I believe, and I believe we all believe, that somewhere deep inside every greedy, grasping, selfish person is a decent person waiting to get out. We want to help them express their better nature. The only reason to have power is to do good deeds. We are put on this earth to do the best we can so we leave it a better place. Whenever we can lessen the burdens of life, whenever we can help others flourish and realize their dreams, we are acting in the image of God—and man at his best. Every religion that has ever been known to man honors righteous, decent, giving, caring, compassionate people and condemns those who think and act only for themselves. We must fulfill our best destiny. We cannot be for ourselves alone. And we cannot wait for ‘the right time’ to act, for ‘the right time’ is always now. That said, we’ll be relentless in pursuit of truth and justice for all.
“Ever since John Galt and his mafia returned to claim this country as their own, their followers have been drugged on ideas of ruthless freedom. They have turned greed into a national pastime. They treat people like commodities. They dismantled the government, the government that was supposed to represent ‘the people,’ by exploiting crises. They handed over public assets to private interests because they claimed the government couldn’t afford to run and keep them. And once they were in private hands, corporate raiders bled the public of every cent they could. Then, they put their stooges in what was left of government to protect their obscene profits. So, that’s where we are today: On
e nation under corporate greed with injustice for all but the privileged few.
“All we want, all the Prometheus Project wants, is justice for people, average people, the people who have always made this country great. Pay strict attention to what I now tell you, because this is the cold, hard truth of what we are up against. This is the 11th hour. All our planning is going to be tested in a matter of days. President Cooper and his henchmen were shaken to their boots after our attack on New Atlantis. He is desperate to win reelection because he knows that, if Cary Hinton beats him, there’s enough discontent to break the corporate grip on the country, once and for all. So, Cooper has decided to wipe out every last Cooperville nationwide. You heard me: Wipe them out! Those camps are living proof of how Free-for-All economics has failed—and failed miserably. And Cooper’s name on them puts the blame for the failure squarely on him—and him alone. We’ve got him on tape going ballistic when he hears anyone say ‘Cooperville.’ Well, we’ll be letting the whole world hear and see that at just the right time.
“Cooper is clever. Don’t kid yourself. He didn’t get to be president by being Mr. Nice Guy. He’s a shark and a snake—and proud of it. He wants to turn the public against the homeless and destitute, to destroy any compassion others might feel for innocent people down on their luck. He’s given the go-ahead for nothing less than an all-out attack on defenseless human beings for crass political purposes. He doesn’t care what it takes to carry out the mission or how many people are hurt. He wants to crush them, no matter what the cost. As phase one, he has just approved sending in private, undercover security forces to harass everyone entering or leaving Coopervilles in five states. They will infiltrate them and plant drugs and weapons inside and then use ‘suspicion of threats to national security’ to conduct raids and arrest people after finding all the contraband they put there in the first place.
“In the process, they will trample people’s shelters and throw away what few possessions they have. It’s the standard routine of every repressive regime. Anyone arrested will be held indefinitely in stadiums they’ve already designated and set up as mass jails. They’re gonna herd them in there like cattle and let them rot out-of-sight. They’re out to make innocent men, women, and children into public enemies so that bastard can stay in power. They figure that, by targeting and destroying a few Coopervilles, they can instill fear in people in other ones so they’ll simply leave on their own. As usual, they think they’ve got it all figured out. They and their cronies don’t take responsibility for creating the conditions that led to Coopervilles. Now they think they are so clever, no one will pin the blame for their ruthlessness on them. But they’re going to be in for a big surprise.
“We’ve just heard some promising updates. But I hope all of you realize the seriousness of what we are up against, how we are going to be tested—and how much depends upon each and every one of you. Literally, everything we stand for is at stake. All we want is a people’s revolution to take back the country from the Galtian Restoration that has destroyed it. All we want is to see the rights of average men, women, and children restored and the power of corporations and the richest of the rich curtailed. The lives, the hopes, the futures of millions of people are in your hands. The fate of a once-great nation—of the people, by the people, and for the people—is at stake. I trust all of you completely. So I am confident the Prometheus Project is going to destroy Cooper, New Atlantis, and all his corporate cronies before they know what hit them.
“What happened on Saturday at New Atlantis was child’s play compared with what we have planned, and yet it took our enemies totally by surprise and completely shattered them. We dealt a psychological blow at the ultimate symbol of Galtian success, the breeding ground for all of the misplaced ideas that have destroyed the country. So, imagine how they will react when Olympus lets out the stops, hits them on multiple fronts, and invades them without their being able to do anything about it.
“Galt’s strike will be nothing compared to The People’s Strike we’ll lead. Let me begin by stressing five critically important points about our strategy. First, everything we do will be legal. We will not surrender our moral authority by stooping to the level of those who have so long oppressed us. You’ve just heard from Mercury about last week’s shop-ins. Last month in Dallas, Indianapolis, and Seattle, a total of 5,000 ‘shoppers’ also swamped shopping malls and shut them down. For five hours, no stores could do any business. There is no law against shopping. So, when mall management called the police, they couldn’t arrest anyone. Everyone said they were there to shop.
“Once we are fully engaged, we will bring this country to its rotten knees. We will prove beyond any doubt that when enough people— simple, average people—put their feet on the ground at the same time in the same place, they don’t have to say a word. Their presence alone is the ultimate expression of power. The masses are waiting to be roused. They are desperate for leadership to show them the way. There are still good people in this country, people in business and what’s left of government, people who want a return to a country in which ‘the people’ are sovereign. We know who they are and we won’t attack them. But, day after day, relentlessly, we will selectively target every sector of the economy that has screwed ‘the people,’ until we have driven the message home that the rich and powerful can only remain rich and powerful through the will and support of ‘the people.’ Their fragile hold on the economy and on their personal wealth is no match for the collective power of the masses. By striking corporate interests and threatening their obscene profits, we undercut their stooges, like Cooper, who are in government only to do their bidding. Their whole scam will topple like the proverbial house of cards.
“Second, our unbeatable power comes from ‘withholding’: We don’t use our power actively. We don’t stoop to meeting power with power. We become more powerful by not using our power and turning our enemy’s power back on itself. Corporations and big-money interests throw their dollars around, paying people off. That’s their only power. But the people they pay off are insatiable. They can never have enough money to satisfy their greed. Next to our power, they are pikers, small potatoes. Our power comes from ‘negative power, negative capability’—the money we don’t spend, the actions we don’t take. We have more power than all of the corporations in the nation combined by collectively and systematically stopping commerce whenever we band together and choose to do so.
“Third, we will use passive resistance if violence is ever used against us. Our people will never meet physical force with physical force. Nor will they incite others to violence. They will stay silent and go limp. Over and over, as hard as that guiding principle may be to accept, Pandora has made it clear to the network. The minute we meet force with force we lose our moral advantage. We’ve got Cooper on tape telling his henchmen that he doesn’t want to know the details of their plans to destroy Coopervilles or how they are carried out. That’s because if anything goes wrong—if anyone’s injured or killed—he can pretend he didn’t approve of it. He’s a coward through-and-through. So, brace yourself for bloodshed. I pray it doesn’t happen. But we’ve got to be prepared. Cooper and his cronies are ruthless. They see their world coming to an end, so they’ll stop at nothing. But, if we want to win the day, we can never stoop to their level and use force.
“Fourth, we will always be unpredictable. Surprise is the greatest weapon against entrenched power that has grown self-satisfied with its hold on others. They’re caught in a straitjacket of their own making. We’re guerillas. You’ve seen what Olympus was able to do at New Atlantis. Well, there’s much more to come. And they’ll never know where it’s coming from—or when. We can appear and disappear in an instant. We’ll be gone before they ever know what’s hit them.
“Fifth, we will make the opposition look stupid. Laughter can topple dictators more readily than guns. Think of the chaos and embarrassment that would result if fifty pigeons that had been fed castor oil were released during an indoor Cooper campa
ign rally. Imagine the reaction of an audience at an outdoor concert at New Atlantis if manure was dropped from a plane buzzing it. I’m not saying that those exact scenarios will occur—or that they won’t. People present at such occasions definitely won’t laugh, but everyone hearing about them will double over. And no one wants to be associated with an effort that makes them look like fools or wind up under a pile of dung.
“Let the people and the word go out from every Cooperville that it is a new day in this country. All the Prometheus Project wants is to restore the equal rights of every man, woman, and child in this once-great nation. We’ll declare peace when the ‘bloodsuckers’ give us back our fair share of opportunity and prosperity—instead of the crumbs they think they can throw us. They have stacked the Supreme Court with their corporate-leaning toads. They have been whores for banks and investment houses. They have left average people defenseless against predatory insurance companies. They have removed all consumer protections, so individuals are powerless against ripoffs. Talk with real people everywhere and they’ll tell you they’ve had enough— too much. The day is coming sooner than anyone might think when we will rise up—and be able to declare victory.
“Enough from me,” Zeus says. “If you have a question or comment, please press Star-1 now. Yes, Mercury?”
“I just want to say that Pandora has put the word out to all Coopervilles and our entire network to be on the lookout for spies and provocateurs. We know for an absolute fact that New Atlantis is out to infiltrate us. Anyone who has any information about plots against us should immediately communicate with her. Don’t hesitate, even if you think it’s trivial.”
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