The fall and decline of an empire can take many years, but certain "benchmarks" (as imperial courts have been known to call them) can measure the progress in one year alone. Take, for example, the year 2010.

This year opened with the United States Supreme Court claiming further power to rewrite the U.S. Constitution, specifically by further opening up elections to the highest bidder. The year closed with congressional elections that cost more than before and in which money spent by third parties to influence the elections was more decisive than before. Election advertisements, in the view of myself and many others, also became uglier, baser, and more hateful than before, while the positions advertised moved a big step rightward. These were all trends that could be measured in previous years as well, and which we will probably see advance further in years to come, barring a change of course.

Just under two weeks ago the WikiLeaksIsDemocracy statement was sent to several leading intellectuals, community organizers, activists, and people from varying political perspectives by Linda Schade. The hope was to begin building a serious, contemplative, engaged community—both nationally and internationally—who are not only concerned about preserving the U.S. Constitution, but understand the consequences of its unraveling as well as the importance of the information being published by WikiLeaks.

Nowhere is this unraveling more apparent than in the WikiLeaks case. Constitutional protections of Freedom of Speech, the Press, and the right of people to peaceably assemble are now in the cross hairs of a United States executive branch run amok with its de facto monitoring of innocent civilians, wars of aggression and other overreaches too numerous to cite here.

A dozen years ago, before 9/11, before Bush Jr. or the war on terror, Bill Clinton, then in the midst of impeachment hearings, bombed Iraq over a four-day period. Shortly before this act of national distraction, I read an article in the Chicago Tribune discussing, with the knowing, amoral inanity of the mainstream media, the international implications of the pending action.

For me, the article was immortalized by the following pull-quote from an anonymous Jordanian official, which crystallized the cynicism of geopolitics and the way nation-states function: “Look, nobody here likes Saddam, but people will not be happy when they see Iraqi babies dying on TV.”

The article was in no way critical of the quote, which seemed to be delivered up merely for our sophisticated consumption. The idea, or so it struck me, was to coyly bring readers into the know so they could pretend to weigh, as important officials do, the troublesome public relations components of an act of war before committing murder in the name of national security.

A curious turn of events is taking shape in Latin America, one that demonstrates at least two levels of international change. The leaders of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have stated their recognition of a Palestinian state within the 'green line', the 1948 armistice line between Israel and the Palestinians.

You say protests are outmoded because the corporate media ignores them (unless they're corporate sponsored). I say the corporate media is outmoded because it ignores protests.

The coming year is going to see intense resistance to the plutopentagonocracy from volunteer representatives of that majority of Americans that opposes its agenda. We are not going to ask for the media cartel's approval or permission. We are going to continue developing our own communications systems, which are already working well.

If we abandon the work of protest and resistance, those acts will soon be criminalized. If we abandon the work of self-communication we will each come to believe that the rest of us support that criminalization. There is another way.