Paper Shields

There is nothing a human being won’t lie about.
We’re pathological about it.

We are conditioned to believe that the survival of a democracy is guaranteed by the act of pushing a button or meticulously filling in a circle on a piece of cardstock every few years, or by holding a cardboard sign in a designated protest zone.

That’s a lie.

In the cold calculus of control, a vote is a sedative, designed to convince the governed that they aren’t partners in their own subjugation. A sterile gesture, a whisper that carries no weight because it threatens nothing without a mechanism of consequence.

Democracy dies when the supremacy decides the laws protecting your body are optional. That happened years ago, America. So, if you believe shouting into a megaphone or marking a box will stop a lunatic autocrat, you're a victim in waiting.

You don’t get a lunch break and there's no clocking out of a revolution. A revolution ends when the first canister of tear gas isn’t fired to disperse the crowd, but to blind the oppressors. It ends when the riot police do their fucking job and protect the people, not the elites.

We’re not talking about senseless measures here. It doesn’t make one a bad person to defend themselves, their family, pets, their property. No. We’re talking about the visceral, ugly violence that kicks your door off its hinges.

From Haiti to France, and from Russia to the Arab Spring, even in your country once as well America, to fight fascism and authoritarianism, they knew there was no escape, without crossing the line between decency and sanguinary cruelty. They all wrestled with what they must do, and with what they were capable of. They didn’t choose violence, violence chose them.

Out west, people demand justice and liberty, then do nothing but rely on a ballot to protect themselves, their families, and their country. If you can’t imagine yourself having the ability to do whatever it takes to those who intend to harm, maim or kill you and your family, then you’re no use to your country, and you’re worthless to your family.

It’s a hard truth, but power fears power. Your government has a monopoly on violence: drones, armored vehicles, tactical charges that turn bedrooms into debris fields. If your citizenry possesses nothing but hope scribbled on a ballot America, you’re not a resistance or any kind of political force; you’re livestock.

When the supremacy stops counting votes and starts counting bodies, your sign becomes a toothpick, and your ballot becomes kindling. Because the only reason you can afford to believe in the sanctity of the vote is because, somewhere in the shadow of history, men and women were willing to do what had to be done. They didn't just vote for liberty; they fought for it.

This ain't make believe. Virtue doesn't prepare you to be as ruthless as the thing you’re fighting, and democracy isn't secured, or defended, by people who think a sticker is good enough.

Pacifism in the shadow of fascism is not a moral high ground; it's a delusional, desperate attempt to apply a fair game's rulebook to an opponent whose already wiped their ass with it. Offering a peace hand to a supremacy that views your very existence as a burden to their wallets is mistaking a predator's patience for empathy.

Passive resistance in a fascist state requires the oppressor to possess a conscience, and by refusing to meet eye with an eye, the pacifist doesn’t break the cycle of violence; they simply volunteer as fuel. Paralysis does not equal purity, and keeping your hands clean by the grace of inaction is a signed confession of inferiority for a fascist.

The machinery of hate does not cease once it has consumed the marginalized, it pivots toward those who chose to remain silent, machinery the authority will use to bulldoze your safe space to make room for another fucking ballroom

This isn’t a threat, it’s simply how most people in the pre-Revolutionary War era were wired when the threat came ashore. They didn’t meet the oppressors with cardboard signs or songs, and they didn’t put it off until the next election.

It’s an absurd belief that the supremacy will stop at the welcome mat of your neighbor.

So, when your front door shatters, what will you do when you realize the only thing standing between your family and a mass grave is your ability to cross that line?

We are Project Blackbird, and we are not for sale...