Revolution-- Or the real change this country needs

I saw the Edward Snowden documentary, Citizenfour, last night. I didn't even realize it was watchable out of the theaters, but after it won the award last week, it got out and about. Now, most of the things he talked about, I was aware of. 1, because I watch and listen to the news constantly and 2, I've been following his case since he first came out. I was just amazed at how far it went. How far the gov't was willing to go to do the things they were doing. And not only was I amazed at the lengths this gov't will go to suppress us, but it also reminded me how politically active I use to be. And how, in between all my health stuff and life stuff, I lost a lot of it. I'm still "active" online. Like signing petitions (which I believe is useless) and on facebook (which is also a bit useless, but I do it anyway), simply because I know if I went to every protest, like I use to, one of these days I might get hurt. And getting hurt now is different than it use to be. It also took me back to my childhood. When I was a little girl, my dad (who was Palestinian) would watch the news and always cried when he saw what was going on in Palestine. And he would tell me, all the time, if you see something wrong, you fix it. You don't leave it wrong. I know he didn't mean as a political activist, but hearing his words, I applied it to every aspect of my life. I mean, yes, I've made mistakes. I've taken the wrong road. There have even been times when something was wrong and I didn't fix it. Luckily, over time, I began to do more of what he wanted of me. And I'm sure (I hope) he's watching me from heaven, happy at what I've accomplished and where I'm going in this life. And it reminds me of all the political stuff I've done. Nothing illegal. Nothing wrong. Nothing crazy. Just standing up for people's rights. The last protest, like many of them, I was the chant leader. It was when I worked at FUREE, running a youth program in downtown Brooklyn. That was in 2008. And every protest gave me a rush. It made me want to really, truly change things. But nothing ever changed. Because we were simply trying to reform rather than revolt. Reform doesn't work. I thought in the beginning that it could. I thought it was possible. But the more I saw it not changing, the more I realized it wasn't ever going to. It wasn't until I saw Occupy Wall Street folks (cue the NSA watchers watching-- I know you are) and constantly watched everything going on that I thought something would change. But the people "leading" it didn't know Community Organizing 101: Clear asks and goals. There were none and some of them got into violent altercations in some states. My friends suggested that I don't go because it may not be safe. Then the Arab Spring happened. In recent years, other than protests in Greece and South America, that was the first time I saw real true revolt in an organized way. First in Tunisia, then Egypt. Even more so than Palestine. I thought that their protests would bring real change. They did change leaders and their gov't structure but unemployment and poverty are still super strong and hasn't let up at all. Can we honestly have a real true revolution? I don't know. I'm hoping eventually. And I'm hoping too many people won't die. I'm all for peace. And non-violent tactics. Unfortunately, we are dealing with people who don't want to avoid the violence. I guess only time will tell. Or the aliens will. ;)