IF the above is something the government doesn't want people to know, then I'm doing my part!

Anonymous 2015 - The November 5th Documentary
The text under this video states "... Million mask march, please Re-upload this Documentary and share it with the world. Expect us on November 5th 2015." And (throwing up my hands in a gesture of surrender) let me say,  OK, OK, mild-mannered, non-confrontational coward that I am, I am  Re-uploading this and sharing it with the world. I am NOT going to take on a million dudes who wear Guy Fawkes masks and who glower at the world menacingly (for good causes, or not) and besides, this Anonymous stuff, is damn interesting! 

First, I think I better give a little background. Like? Like, who WAS Guy Fawkes and what's the deal with November 5th? By the way, this is British stuff; these are references to British history and not something we know about in the US. Hell, we don't even know (or much care) about our own history, let alone history that happened long before our country was born.

Actually, it's pretty complicated, but the skinny is that Guy Fawkes led a conspiracy to blow up Parliament on its opening day (November 5th, 1605) and kill King James 1. This failed attempt was to be accomplished by setting off barrels and barrels of gunpowder which had been placed in the cellars below the building. Why? These were Catholics who were about to give the King his payback. Catholics had been repressed in England for a long time and when King James took the throne from the truly repressive Queen Elizabeth 1, it had been hoped that he'd give them some freedom of religion. But, NO..!  November 5th has ever since been a national event in England known as Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire night... in our times, it amounts to fun bonfires in the streets, fireworks, much drinking and partying. Good times!

What's all this celebrating about? I think that in the beginning it was a celebration of the plot having been foiled and the safety of the Crown and Parliament restored. But that was back when people believed in "The System" and "The Government" and (as simplistic as it may seem) that the Order of Things was just. Fast forward a few centuries and we've all come to believe that the world is a very corrupt place and that the "Little Guy" constantly has the wool pulled over his eyes by the "1%" who control everything and who want even more... or something like that. So now, it's more likely that Guy Fawkes Day is a celebration of the act of a righteous, ballsy guy whose rebelious "You better watch yer back, Mr. High and Mighty Bad Guy, 'cause we're on to you, you can only push us so far, we ain't taking no more of your crap!" behavior is taken as a model of what the people of the world need to do to set things right.

So just what, you may be wondering, does any of this have to do with Anonymous and its efforts to straighten out the world? Following an article from ABC News, in order to connect that dot we can look to the 2006 movie "V for Vendetta" an adaptation of a popular graphic which "...concocted a finale in which a whole movement of discontents wearing Guy Fawkes costumes watch the Houses of Parliament burn." Further, the article explains that "In 2008 the Fawkes mask was appropriated by the hacker group Anonymous as its public face." 

Where does one go to find Anonymous and listen to its message? YouTube of course! And this is one of the things I really love about YouTube. THIS is where revolution in our times takes place!  Go to the ANONYMOUS channel (I mean the one by that name. I point this out because it appears to me there are other channels claiming to be the Anonymous channel. And, frankly, it's hard to tell which is the real thing because, well, after all, the whole idea here is that the originators of these messages are, well... Anonymous)... At any rate clicking the "About" link leads to the following:

" 539,499 subscribers • 7,435,460 views
Joined Jan 17, 2012

Description

Anyone and everyone with a voice is anonymous, its not a group or movement, 
anonymous is an idea, an idea of exposing corruption within the system... 
YOU ARE ANONYMOUS! Help by spreading this information,and facts the government
doesn't want you to know. 
WE ARE ANONYMOUS.
WE DO NOT FORGET. 
WE ARE LEGION. 
EXPECT US.

OK, OK, guys... IF the above is something the government doesn't want people to know,
then I'm doing my part! 

Here we have another  video that is prominently displayed within the bosom of this channel. 
And this is some pretty heady stuff. I mean, just look at the title "Anonymous - We can Change the World"

I'm not quite sure what I think about this one. My feelings? Ah, I have more of a handle on that. It's a blend of Unsettled, Confused, and Inspired and Encouraged. And that's not an emotional recipe I often come across.

Is this genuine? I mean are these people playing or are they really taking on "___________?" Or are they giving themselves a good time, posing as bad-ass rebels in a world in which clearly defined villains are so hard to come by that they are most often conjured up from our fears and our misperceptions? I mean, here we have a video citing real actions by the government, giving real quotes by government officials, detailing how basic Civil Rights are being trimmed. And that's all good, conforms to well established traditions of journalism, reminds me of America's Founding Fathers posting self-published Broad Sides on walls, giving opinions about governmental tyranny, and doing it anonymously in the lead up to the American Revolution. And yet, if we, The People, are so truly facing the revocation of our rights, how is it that a message like this remains and racks up additional views from folks like me without being yanked by the oppressor?






Interesting, too, that this video, posted under the name Anonymous Official, that is about Anonymous, takes on the trappings, the production techniques of a Hollywood movie about a phenomenon like Anonymous. For me, that just makes it all the harder to figure out who put this one together and what its being up on the web means. And maybe that's the very clever point of it. And I suppose all of these questions are inevitable in the world in which we live, and less face it, it's a world that very much needs an Anonymous or something very much like it going by another name. And what a great idea it is, that a group of concerned humans might endeavor to re-assert the sort of rights and liberties that America's founding fathers conceived and fought so hard for, and to do so by adopting and using for all its worth, the single resource meaningfully available for this purpose in a time in which governments have become so powerful and almighty. Is YouTube the Kentucky Long Rifle of our times?