Why She Laughed at My "Let's Remove the Rich from Power" Sign

This happens all the time, and the reason is very important for us to understand

As readers of my Substack know from my earlier report here, since April of this year I have been handing out stickers that have this image:

to people at the entrance of my local CVS drug store in Brighton, MA (USA). I stand with a sign like this (this photo was taken several weeks ago by a person who asked if she could post it on Instagram, and did so with my thanks.):

I’ve handed out more than 3,000 stickers and the response is overwhelmingly positive. People say things such as “Perfect!” and “I agree!” and “I support what you’re doing” and “Absolutely!” and “Amen to that!” and so forth.

But some people (not a lot, but some) respond by saying things such as, “Good luck with that” and “Not gonna happen” and even recently one person said, “It will take bloodshed” (to which I replied, “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but my website is about why we can prevail nonetheless”) and another person (only one has gone so far) said “They will kill us all!”

While almost everybody would love to remove the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor, I have discovered in conversations that very few think that goal is possible.

Which leads me to a conversation I had yesterday (September 20, 2025) at the CVS. A woman saw my sign, stopped, and then did a quick laugh, like a chuckle. She was friendly, and waited to hear what I would say to her. This is what I said, and at every point I made she nodded her hear and smiled in agreement. I said:

“I noticed you laughed at my sign. I think I know why. You think that removing the rich from power is a hopelessly impossible dream, and it’s funny that somebody seems to think it is really possible. Right?” [She said yes.]

“Lots of people laugh at the sign the same way you did. Here’s why people think it is impossible even though—as I see everyday that I stand here with the sign—people overwhelmingly would love to remove the rich from power. But people don’t know that in wanting to remove the rich from power they are part of the vast majority and not a hopelessly tiny and hence weak minority. The reason they don’t know they are in the vast majority is because the rich censor the idea in the sign; that idea of removing the rich from power never appears anywhere in the mass media or alternative media, never in any newspaper or magazine; it is never uttered on any radio station. Have you ever seen that idea expressed anywhere other than on my sign?” [She said no, she had not.]

“Because people never see or hear the idea expressed anywhere, they conclude that hardly anybody else wants to remove the rich from power and that therefore they better keep their mouth shut about wanting that because if they spoke out loud people might think they were crazy or even dangerous.” [She smiled in agreement that this was true in her case, and she said so.]

“My aim in standing here with the sign and the stickers about my website is to help people learn that they are not alone in wanting to remove the rich from power. I want people to know that it really is possible to remove the rich from power. Here’s why. It’s not by voting because the rich were not elected and thus cannot be un-elected. But here is how.

“Because most people do want to remove the rich from power it is possible—not easy, but possible—to build a very large—hundreds of millions—revolutionary movement with that explicit goal, a movement that is large and determined enough to make a critical mass of soldiers in the military (who want to remove the rich from power the same as civilians—they didn’t enlist in the military to keep the rich in power but for other reasons [She said, “That’s true.”]) believe that if they refused orders to attack that movement and went over to its side then they would be going over to the WINNING side, and therefore they would not be at risk of being severely disciplined—even shot as a traitor—for refusing orders.” [She completely ‘got it’ and even began completing my sentences a bit here.]

“This is how the rich lose power. When the rich no longer have a military force that obeys their orders, then they’ve lost their power and they’re just like ordinary people.” [She completely understood. Most people do; it’s not a complicated idea, but it is a censored idea.]

She then said to me, “Can I ask you a question?” I said “Sure.” She said, “Did you deliberately color coordinate your shirt and sweater because it works perfectly?” I said, “Thank you. But no, I didn’t think about it at all.”

I can’t make this stuff up! This is what it’s like doing revolutionary work on the street in Brighton, MA. Believe me, it’s not scary.

A friend told me he admired me for what I was doing on the street because “It takes nerve.” Nerve? Well, not exactly. .)

I encourage readers of my Substack to have these kinds of conversations with your neighbors. This is how we begin to build the egalitarian revolutionary movement. The task is NOT to persuade people to want to remove the rich from power! NO! They already want to do that. The task is to persuade people that it is POSSIBLE to remove the rich from power, that it is a goal worth devoting time and energy to accomplish by doing what it takes (building an explicitly egalitarian revolutionary movement) to get the ball rolling so that one day—maybe not in our lifetime, but so what?—it can really happen.