Ten years ago, I was a rebel. I was radicalized by the Sermon on the Mount, Liberation Theology, Social Justice activists, and the words of Shane Claiborne, David Ruis, Dr. Scott Bartchy, Walter Wink, Dorothy Day, and James W. Douglass, to name a few.

At the time, there wasn’t as much to protest or rebel against. President Obama had authorized the execution of an American citizen and his teenage son without due process. That was disturbing, to say the least.

I remember Jeremy Scahill at The Intercept had just written a book about Black Rock, and another about our Dirty Wars in Afganistan and Yemen, killing innocent civilians, massacring entire villages and covering it up.

I remember John Perkins writing his book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman and exposing our new American corporate colonialism designed to steal resources from Third World nations, impoverishing them and driving economic chaos, deadly poverty and fueling our eventual immigration crisis at the Southern Border.

I remember watching Michael Moore’s documentary Capitalism: A Love Story and becoming outraged to hear about multi-billion dollar corporations (including Wal-Mart) taking out “dead peasant” life insurance policies on 350,000 of their own employees so they could cash in on their death without compensating the families.

I remember being outraged, angry, and feeling, mostly, powerless to do anything about it.

So, that’s why I created two little local movements of my own to provide some sort of vocal outlet and to gather more voices to increase the volume on all the injustice and evil that was going on all around us.

The first thing I created was called Pacifist Fight Club. You can probably dig around on the interwubs and find our little blogspot website where other people like Greg Boyd, Chase Andre, Crissy Brooks, Deshonna Collier-Goubil, Brandt Russo and others hosted a few local conferences, and wrote a lot of radical blog articles, and did all we could to raise awareness about the suffering of the poor, the beauty of creative non-violence, and the need to find common ground with those who disagree.

The next thing I created was called Truth Grenade. It was also a little blogspot website where I posted anonymously to call attention to the corporate greed and predatory activities of companies like Apple, FoxConn, and my employer at the time, Ingram Micro. (This is why I posted anonymously).

My little tagline was: This is the Truth Grenade, and we are pulling the pin.

This was the closest thing I’ve ever done to risking my own skin, and my family’s well-being. Sometimes I would email my youngest son, David, on my personal email account and ask him to post things on the Truth Grenade blog for me so it wouldn’t be visible to our company IT department.

I didn’t want to lose my job, but at the same time, I felt like I had to do something; say something, to point out all the evil being done by American corporations – supported often by Conservative American Christians – all around the world in the name of Democracy, and Capitalism, and yes, in the name of Christianity.

That was over ten years ago. All of that seems very tame compared to the world we’re living in now.

Today, our President is a Fascist. American citizens and immigrants with legal status are being arrested without warrants, thrown into dark vans, and literally flown to gulags in El Salvador without due process.

This is like nothing I ever imagined before.

So, if I was disturbed and motivated to do something then, imagine how I feel today when I see sitting Judges being arrested by the FBI for defying the illegal actions of ICE agents.

Imagine.

Hopefully, you don’t have to try very hard to imagine the outrage, and the fear, about what America has become.

The Dictator is in the White House.

The people are being sent to the concentration camps.

Judges are being ignored.

Due process is out the window.

The Constitution is irrelevant.

Congress is powerless to respond.

The Time Is Now.

If you were ever going to do something, do it now.

If you were ever going to speak up, do it now.

If you were ever going to protest, do it now.

If you ever going to write that letter, or call your congressman, or attend that town hall, or do anything…do it now.

This is why we started The Quollective. This is why your support is necessary.

This is our time – right now – to do and say and speak and write and protest and everything we possibly can to stop this fascist narcissist from turning this nation into his personal kingdom.

The Truth is in our hands. Pull the pin.

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