The phrase comes from a British nursery rhyme (popularized in the graphic novel V FOR VENDETTA, and its subsequent film adaptation) about a man infamous in British history and annually remembered on a national holiday: Guy Fawkes.
Guy Fawkes was a central figure in The Gunpowder Plot, in which several pro-Catholic British subjects, unhappy with the direction the country was headed under the Protestant rule of King James, decided they were going to stockpile barrels of gunpowder underneath Parliament, blow up the King, and replace him with his Catholic daughter, Princess Elizabeth (not one of the two Elizabeths of any note).
To make a long, traitorous story short, on November 5, 1605, Fawkes was discovered underneath Parliament, amidst what I would imagine was a "crapload" of gunpowder. He was arrested and tortured. He confessed, gave up his accomplices, and was found guilty of high treason. On his way up the scaffolding to be hanged, he jumped off the platform and broke his neck, thus avoiding his execution. Noble to the last.
Every year since, on the fifth of November, British subjects have celebrated the King's escape from The Gunpowder Plot by setting bonfires. Later, it became customary to burn effigies, usually of the Pope, but more recently of political figures the public disagrees with.
My point is, we've come a long way as a society, as far as civil disobedience is concerned.
Whatever you think about Occupy Wall Street and its message, you have to respect the fact that they're merely flooding the streets with clever signs, and not strapping C4 to the walls of the New York Stock Exchange.
They've been referred to as "anti-capitalist" by Herman Cain, Republican Candidate for President, head of a pizza chain I've never heard of and the GOP's current "black friend." Mitt Romney, perpetual Republican Candidate for President and member of a certain Utah-based church that funneled $22 Million to support an out-of-state gay marriage ban, has called the protests "dangerous" and "class warfare." Meanwhile, both unconditionally support the Tea Party.
We live in a country where the political discourse about our problems has become Black and White, when what are needed are solutions bathed in Grey. We talk, but don't listen. Each side has static talking points and static viewpoints, which gets us nowhere in an ever-changing world.
Whenever a significant portion of the American citizenry has something reasonable and non-hateful to say (whether they be Tea Partiers or Occupiers), and they're merely asking for someone to listen, we owe it to them and to our country to sit down and have a discussion with them.
If you put Tea Partiers and Occupiers in the same room for long enough, I bet there'd be quite a bit that they agree on (poster board and glitter decorating tips aside). But our political leaders tell us to listen to only one viewpoint, the viewpoint that benefits them politically, and, more often than not, financially.
There's so much more that unites us than divides us.
Guy Fawkes and a bunch of other limey traitors forgot that on November 5, 1605.
We'd all do well to remember.
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