You've heard the story about the 'Catholic terrorist' Guido Fawkes and the English parliament. You know what they did to him when he was ratted out by informers. And unless you've been living under a rock these past years, you've heard about V for Vendetta, the Wachowski siblings' movie adaptation of Alan Moore's comic book icon. Even if you haven't watched it yet, then you've almost certainly seen the lead character V's legacy in footage and images from demonstrations across the planet's capital cities in recent years:

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I don't think it's an overstatement to say that this revolutionary movie has inspired a generation to 'rise up'. It has certainly been a fitting prop! Britons traditionally celebrate today with a bonfire in commemoration of Fawkes's death and continuity of the status quo. What most don't realise is that they are celebrating a crime by the elite against the people.
After Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, English Catholics who had had a rough time under her reign had hoped that her successor, James I, would be more tolerant of their religion. Alas, he was not, and this angered a number of young men who decided that violent action was the answer.

One young man in particular, Robert Catesby suggested to some close friends that the thing to do was to blow up the Houses of Parliament. In doing so, they would kill the King, maybe even the Prince of Wales, and the Members of Parliament who were making life difficult for the Catholics.

To carry out their plan, the conspirators got hold of 36 barrels of gunpowder - and stored it in a cellar, just under the House of Lords.

But as the group worked on the plot, it became clear that some innocent people would be hurt or killed in the attack. Some of the plotters started having second thoughts. One of the group members even sent an anonymous letter warning his friend, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th.

The warning letter reached the King, and the King's forces made plans to stop the conspirators. Guy Fawkes, who was in the cellar of the parliament with the 36 barrels of gunpowder when the authorities stormed it in the early hours of November 5th, was caught, tortured and executed. [...]
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The story of the Gunpowder Plot is an interesting one. It is generally accepted that it would have been unlikely that the conspirators could gather 36 barrels of gunpowder and store them in a cellar under the house of Lords without the security forces of the day getting suspicious. Furthermore, there is serious doubt about whether the letter mentioned above was in fact genuine. In fact, it is believed today to have been fabricated by the King's officials. Historians suggest that the letter was simply a tool for the King's officials who already knew about the plot from the very mouth of one of the plotters.

As a tool for the king's men, the letter was ideal. It made it easy to explain how the King found out about the Plot and stopped it just in time before his untimely death. At the same time, the letter was vague enough to give the officials all the latitude they wanted in falsifying confessions and to pursue their own anti-Catholic ends. In fact, we could go further and suggest that the entire plot was a set-up, a 17th-century 'false-flag', if you will.

So while the British today misguidedly celebrate the execution of a man whose main aim was to liberate them from injustice, the mask that has come to represent that man via the movie V for Vendetta is today a symbol of that same desire to liberate the ordinary citizen from the grinding, relentless death machine that is civilization in the modern age.

Our modern-day elite would have us believe that ours is the Age of Peace, where only a few outposts of recalcitrant barbarians remain (Russia, Syria, Iran, North Korea and the like), refusing to join us on our forward march towards ever greater feats of civilization, instead seeking to impose a violent global caliphate of some Islamo-communist persuasion or other, defiant to the bitter end. 'Why do they hate us?' our Great Leaders wail. 'Why do they resist our benevolent overtures? Look at our overwhelming military superiority, our unparalleled feats of technological innovation and the extraordinary generosity we extend to those less fortunate than us.'
"The people should not be afraid of their government. The government should be afraid of their people."

~ V
All the while, their most ardent believers and Authoritarian Followers beat us over the head with police batons, grope us at airports, strip search us for the pleasure of humiliating us, taser us because they can, cheat us through Austerity Measures, send us off to fight their wars, tick names off kill lists with the help of Predator drones and bomb countries from 40,000 feet in an effort to 'free' them. We live in a global empire that has so successfully disguised its true function - to cultivate and harness human suffering for the benefit of its elite class - that most are totally oblivious to the source of their suffering: the calculated maneuvers of psychopaths in power. A few thousand or so Adam Sutlers and Peter Creedys - vile card-carrying members of 'The Party' by virtue of being psychopaths of various shades - is all it has taken to bring this planet to the edge of oblivion.
Mr. Creedy: Die! Die! Die! Why won't you die? Why won't you die?

V: Beneath this mask is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy. And ideas are bulletproof.
On this day we remember the tyranny of history and in doing so we remember the tyranny surrounding us today. We remember the slaughtered innocents, the crushed rebellions, the wars for profit. We remember Gaddafi's Green Resistance in Libya, whose efforts to lift his people out of persistent poverty instead of allow Western corporations to exploit their resources were considered far too dangerous for a continent that exists only to be exploited by 'The Party'. We remember the thousands of victims of Western-backed terrorists in Syria, whose horrific deaths have been pinned on the one man normal Syrians look to for protecting them from marauding death-squads armed, trained and funded by a cabal of warmongers in the US, UK, France, Israel, the Gulf monarchies and elsewhere.
"How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense."

~ V

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We remember the countless millions of victims of the CIA and other death-dealers of 'The Party', kidnapped off streets everywhere in broad daylight and disappeared in black bags. We remember ourselves, the billions serving indefinite terms of indentured slavery under an economic system that will discard us like a used battery when it's done with us. We remember the billion-plus people on Earth starving needlessly right now because the few at the top have decided they are 'useless eaters'.

We remember the victims of false-flag terrorist attacks like 9/11. Ancient history to some, let's not forget that this, the single most traumatic televised event in the modern era, was the catalyst for this dystopian future we are creating for ourselves. We remember that at the heart of the spider's web banking system is the lie that we must work for money and money not work for us.

We remember because we choose not to forget. We choose not to forget because no man or woman is an island, no matter how hard 'The Party' tries to convince us to see the world through its eyes.

Global revolution begins with you

Will protest change anything? En masse, perhaps, but even the large crowds we've seen in capitals across the world in recent years are nothing 'The Party's' security forces can't handle. You want to 'protest peacefully', but they want to turn the protests, and you, violent because then they have you where they want you. Revolutions have generally been bloody affairs, where the currents of hunger resulting from sudden increases in food prices, rising unemployment and environmental calamity meet and boil over into unrestrained violence against brothers and sisters.
"What usually happens when people without guns stand up to people with guns?"

~ Inspector Finch in V for Vendetta
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We know voting doesn't change anything because the outcomes are either predetermined or they're insufficient to affect change: 'The Party' always wins. Vote for Brexit and the EU remains intact, possibly with the UK still in it, and certainly remains a key outpost in the 'eastern half' of the 'Atlantic Alliance'. Vote for Trump or a third-party candidate and the US government (the real, 'continuity' government) remains intact, and becomes possibly even more malignant than it was before.

We can't fight fire with fire by storming parliament because history (some of it very recent; Euromaidan, for example) tells us that that won't do anything other than introduce a new regime that skilfully usurps the revolutionary energies.

But what if we can use those energies for something else; to work on ourselves, to overcome our fears by facing them head on, day to day? What is the one thing that is on your to-do list today that you are reluctant to do, that you keep putting off because you believe the lies you tell yourself about how 'I can't'?

No matter how mundane it is, or seems to be, accomplishing that one thing you are putting off because you won't confront your fears, then the next thing, and the next, and so on, is the most truly revolutionary thing you can do for yourself and others.

So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of 'The Party' remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow this Fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to watch V for Vendetta, take a good look at what is happening the world over, then step up and do your part to creatively channel the energies being unleashed in these dark and interesting times.