I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

The headlines this morning blithely assert that retired generals are calling for Rumsfeld's resignation. The American populace as a whole disapproves of the job Bush is doing. And yet, it seems so little is changing. Over lunch with a friend, she sighed that she wanted to move to Canada, mirroring a lot of exodus strategies I have been hearing lately.

Is it a Passover thing?

No. It's a disenfranchisement thing.

Immigrants protest. Yet as angry and disatisfied as we all are, do we protest?

My friend sighs that she feels helpless in the face of the direction the country is taking. She doesn't know how to stop it. She voted - that didn't help.

Protesting garners news coverage, but changes nothing, it seems.

How do we change our government? How do we change our direction? Smart mobs? Nice idea, but not visibly happening. Blogging? Ineffective - too disperse a forum, and you need a large readership, a following, to make an impact. Protests? Too hard to organize, requires port-a-potties, and permits...forget it. Letter-writing? Who reads them? Petitions? Same problem. Phone calls? Good luck getting through. The high paying lobbyist is the only one whose call gets answered.

So what is one to do? Well, follow the students, I think.

Here in Southern California, hordes of middle school, high school, and college just walked out of schools, jobs, and onto the streets to protest the immigration bill, with disastrous consequences. Rather like the brave students in the recent release of Sophie Scholl (a must-see film whose symptoms of an oppressive German regime echo resoundlingly like today), it is the students that are trying to change things. Those of us who are older may indeed be angry, but we are apparently sulking largely in silence about things.

Admit it, are you? Maybe you bitch to friends, on your blog, whatever. But aren't you doing this largely alone?

Students, on the other hand, are socializing with one another and are staging protests and school walkouts to get themselves heard.

Wow. A walkout.

Let me ponder that for a moment.

What about a really big walkout? I mean a massive walkout?

Like nationwide?

Organized by internet? What if email and blog storms spread the word like wildfire, that on a certain date, everyone who wanted to openly protest our government's handling of things would walk away from whatever they were doing and walk into the street as one body? What if the newspapers got wind of it, and waited anxiously on corners to see who would turn up, cameras at the ready, hushed voices speaking into microphones, as people began emerging onto the street at the appointed hour? Helicopters would be flying overhead, filming it, sending the broadcast round the world that the people of the US have Had Enough, and are willing to stand up against their government.

Imagine it: everyone who didn't agree with what our administration is doing in Iraq walks out onto the street at the appointed hour, in complete solidarity. Waitresses would leave counters, clerks would leave their desks, office drones would walk away from their computers, and firemen would abandon their posts. Doctors would walk away from rounds, and grocery clerks would leave inventory in the aisles.

Traffic would stop because everyone would step forward onto the street as one, united in making our statement that this is our government, our country, and our destiny, and we want things to change now. We will make things change, now. This is but the first step.

What would that feel like? What would it be like, to step perhaps with a bit of trepidation out of your everyday life for a moment, and step forward in unison with others...not knowing who would be there. What would those other faces look like? Take a look around in your mind. Would the mailman be there, smiling back at you? The policeman? The writer next door? The janitor? The cashier at the corner store? The little old retired lady down the street?

Wouldn't it be great to find out they felt the same as you? That they too were ready to stage their own one-person revolutions? All we really have is our voice, and our self-determination. Aren't we ready to use it?

Why continue sulking in silence, wondering what to do? Why continue to feel trapped, and linger in the futile zone of apathy?

Let's organize a moment of solidarity. A moment is all it takes to find out just how many of us there are, how many of us are so deeply disatisfied, longing for a huge change. In a moment we could find out just how powerful we are - millions of one-person revolutions, all happening simultaneously, all standing together to send a huge message.

All it takes is one of us to start it. Then another to start posting it. Spread it. Get it going.

Aren't you ready to be your own one-person revolution?