THE STREETS ARE WAITING. IF NOT NOW WHEN?

Kendrick Lamar said, ´The revolution will not be televised.´ Well, apparently it won't be attended either.

WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYONE?

While our democracy crumbles brick by brick, most Americans are scrolling through TikTok, binge-watching the latest streaming series, or arguing about celebrity gossip. Our rights are being sold to the highest bidder - the billionaire elite - in broad daylight, and we're... what? Waiting for who? The Canadians, the Mexicans, the Europeans to handle it?

And the streets are empty…

The question bounces inside my head: Why aren't we flooding the streets? Why aren't we SCREAMING until our voices give out? Until we are dead tired?

THAT POOR FROG IS US!

You know that metaphor about the frog in slowly heating water? That's us. The water is nearly boiling now, and we're still floating there, getting comfortable and just waiting for our end to come.

What the hell happened to us? Are we so comfortable we don't even recognize the horrible reality outside our doors? Is it the endless social media dopamine hits, plus the endless hustle just to stay afloat Two, three jobs just to get by?

Oh man, we've been masterfully distracted, haven't we?

´By whom?´ you might ask. By the tech elites who designed those distractions and are now busy rewriting the rules of society. The same billionaires who built the platforms where we get lost scrolling up and down. Yes, the same ones buying senators, gutting regulations, signing executive orders, taking away our rights and thus ensuring the system works precisely as they want.

And what do we do? We keep watching, and tweeting and liking and sharing.

But we don't march. We don't organize. We don't shut shit down.

The Illusion of Powerlessness

"What difference would it make?" I hear people say as they chew on a Big Mac. "They're too powerful now." And they take a sip of their coke.

Is that what we've become? A nation that wrote rebellious dissent into its founding documents, now is convinced that we should just give up?

Have we completely forgotten that every significant social change in American history came because people - ordinary, everyday people - decided the status quo was unacceptable and took to the streets?

Civil rights didn't advance because politicians suddenly grew consciences. Women's suffrage wasn't granted out of benevolence. Labor protections weren't gifted by kind-hearted industrialists.

They were TAKEN. They were DEMANDED. They were WON through disruption and persistence and courage and blood and tears and marches and broken windows and broken bones and teeth!

The Rage Against The Machine Paradox

The irony cuts deep: We blast "Killing In The Name" through our AirPods on the way to jobs we hate, nodding along to Zack de la Rocha's roars against the very system crushing us... then we clock in and keep our heads down.

We've turned revolutionary anthems into workout playlists.

We've commodified resistance itself.

"It has to start somewhere, it has to start some time

What better place than here? What better time than now?"

These lyrics should be our battle cry, not just something we scream along to before returning to our sheepish lifestyles. 

If Not Now, When?

Seriously—WHEN?

When they've finished dismantling voting rights? When healthcare becomes even more explicitly a luxury for the privileged? When the wealth gap looks less like a gap and more like a canyon? When the planet has warmed beyond habitability? When AI has replaced your job and the billionaire who owns the AI owns you too?

At what point do we decide that enough is enough?

The playbook is being run right before our eyes. And it´s called Project 2025. (You could read it right here, if you gave a shit about anything.) History has seen this movie before - consolidation of power, erosion of rights, capture of institutions. We know how this ends. And yet we stand by, hoping someone else will fix it, someone else will stand up, someone else will take the risks.

The Streets Are Waiting

The streets are empty, but they're waiting for us.

And yes, protest is inconvenient. It's disruptive. It's uncomfortable. It might mean missing work. It might mean confrontation. It might mean sacrifice.

But what's the alternative? To surrender the future without even putting up a fight? To someday tell the next generation, "Sorry we gave away your democracy, your climate, your economy - we were busy binge-watching and arguing online"?

The power hasn't gone anywhere. It's still with the people. If only we would use it. But power unused might as well not exist.

So I'll end with Mr. Zach de la Rocha´s powerful voice once again yelling at you and the world to wake up!

"It has to start somewhere, it has to start some time

What better place than here? What better time than now?"

Thanks for reading. Abrazos.

Diego Rojas