Dec 11 2010

All Is Not Quiet In the Halls of the Dead

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

(Cross-posted at Wild Wild Left)  

A revolution is coming.  Europe is a powder keg and the fuse is burning.  The scenes of fire and fury in the heart of London, the riots in Athens, the mass protests in Ireland and Italy are only a preview of what’s coming next.  I’m not advocating revolution, revolution is a beast no one wants unleashed, but a revolution is coming.  It won’t be requesting permission from high and mighty pundits or media scribblers or presidents or prime ministers or anyone else to come pounding on their doors with a message, a message from the dead, a message from the dying, a message from the abused and betrayed and forgotten, a message written in pain on the parchment of time and stained with the blood of the innocent.  

It’s coming.

Revolution lurks no longer in the halls of the dead, it lingers no more in the rooms of ruin, its coming, it knows the way, it doesn’t need directions, it’s been here before, it marched with Cromwell, it crossed Concord Bridge, it bled at the Bastille, it stormed the Winter Palace of the Tsars, it remembers why, it remembers how, it knows who the guilty are, it knows who the enablers are, it knows where they live, it knows where we all live, and it’s coming.  

         

The same conditions that triggered revolutions in the past and toppled corrupt governments are evident all across Europe–in Greece, in Italy, in Portugal and Spain and Ireland and Britain, they’re evident here in this land of bankers and blackmail, where citizens have become hostages, where day has become night, where ignorance has become strength, where the propaganda never stops blaring from the loudspeakers of NewsCorp, GE, and Disney/ABC.          

The corrupt systems of oppression that ignited revolutions in the past are different from the corrupt system that oppresses us, but the consequences are the same. The faces of the political and economic elites are different, but their abusive agenda is the same.  The names of the oppressed are different, but their contempt for the government and intensifying anger are the same. The fuse of revolution is burning more slowly here than in Europe, but it’s burning and it’s going to keep burning because the outrages never end, the lies never stop, the corruption keeps spreading and the patience of the people keeps wearing thinner and thinner, as jobs keep disappearing and the cost of living keeps rising and families keep suffering and anger keeps intensifying.        

I’m not calling for revolution, no one on the Left is calling for revolution, but that doesn’t matter. Revolutions become inevitable when government abuses of power become pervasive, when corruption becomes entrenched in the system, when leaders betray the people time and time again, when conditions simply cannot be tolerated any longer.

I don’t know if revolution is a year away, or five years away, or ten years away, or twenty years away, but it’s coming.  I don’t know where it will start, but it’s coming.  I don’t know if it will be bloodless or bloody, but it’s coming.  I don’t know whether it will make things better or make things worse, but it’s coming.  It’s coming because the fascist Right is on the march and all the elected leaders of the Left do is shine their boots for them.  

The fuse of revolution is going to burn faster as conditions keep getting worse and the economy keeps tanking and homes keep being taken away and healthcare costs keep escalating and politicians keep taking turns blaming the victims.  If you aren’t ready for what’s coming, get ready, because it’s coming whether you want it to or not, its coming and there will be no stopping it. Charles I was a fool, Louis XVI was a cretin, George III was deranged, Nicholas II was delusional, but they were founts of wisdom and pillars of integrity compared to the current “leaders” of Europe and America.  Berlusconi.  Sarkozy.  Cameron.  Obama.  Walking, talking, carnival-barking conmen for the Corporate Crime Traveling Circus, that’s all they are.    

Revolution.

It’s coming . . .

It will blow corrupt governments away, it will blow the profiteers away, it will blow the bankers away, it will blow the corporate criminals away, it will blow the false values of the past away, it will shake the West to its foundations, it will shatter its hierarchies of power, it will be the death of corporate capitalism and the painful birth of a new age.  

That’s the message I see written on the walls of reality.  

That’s the message I’m passing along.

         

46 comments

Skip to comment form

  1. Walking, talking, carnival-barking conmen for the Corporate Crime Traveling Circus, that’s all they are.

    • Edger on December 11, 2010 at 22:09
    • #

    am calling for revolution. There is no other way.

  4. Icelanders may have pointed the way.  Their movement charted a course of growing militancy and resolute resistance that lead to fundamental changes in the prevailing political doctrines and institutions that goes far beyond mere “reform”, while avoiding the destruction and upheaval that a classic 19th century revolution would have on the most vulnerable in our highly complex, interdependent 21st century societies.  Whether such an approach can “scale up” from such a small nation  to the larger nation-states is still an open question.  However, the rigidity of our present hegemony is such that all the traditional reformist paths have been rendered essentially useless.  We must learn from every successful effort wherever it may emerge, and see if we can transfer its effectiveness into our own circumstances.

    As it happens, I believe it’s the psychic atmosphere  of social atomization that is part and parcel of the neoliberal project that is the greatest challenge we must overcome.  A recent letter from a Polish housing activist sums it up with a cogency I’ve never seen elsewhere:

    In the context of the current, widespread social atomization, a really

    obscene situation has been created. People in general act as if this

    situation is their own personal tragedy. This is part of the

    internalization of the dominant neoliberal logic; if somebody cannot

    pay their rent, then it is not the system at fault and certainly it is

    not the fault of greedy landlords and speculators, or scummy

    politicians would would rather redecorate their offices and spend

    public money on bonuses for their cronies then on public housing. The

    neoliberal logic places the blame on the individual: if you don’t have

    enough money to buy your own flat, it is your fault and you should

    suffer the consequences. On top of this internalized message, there is

    the implication that people who ask for public housing are something

    like freeloaders and, unfortunately, people are often made to feel as

    such by politicians and public housing officials. But the most

    decisive factors are the feeling of social powerlessness, that nothing

    can be done, and the lack of motivation to engage oneself in this type

    of activism with neighbours. The latter is also fueled by years of

    collective resentment that has pitted people against each other,

    rather than the system that is hurting them. We unfortunately

    encounter cases where neighbours show a lack of solidarity to each

    other, for example because they are convinced that their neighbour is

    in debt because of some personal defects.

    All of these elements have made it very difficult to build a stronger

    and more effective response to the housing issue. In the situation

    were we have had to start from nothing, we have to realize what a huge

    success the tenants movement has become on the bleak social landscape

    of our city. This is however in relative terms; in absolute terms, our

    mobilization power is several hundred people out of hundreds of

    thousands. So we see that all of this is just the tip of the iceberg

    for us. But we must never get discouraged as it takes this building

    process to reach more people are greater proportions.

    So many people are at risk of eviction. In countries where there are

    more developed social movements, it might seem amazing that the whole

    city is not on strike. But we are in Poland. One of the only countries

    where mass privatization of education and health care has not been met

    by mass protests (or any significant protests at all for that matter).

    It is the only country in Europe which had strong growth during the

    crisis period but despite this, workers massively accepted reductions

    and pay cuts rather than strike. Such a social vacuum is hard to

    explain and even harder to understand if you have not experience it

    yourself.

    There’s our greatest challenge.

  5. http://www.stansberryresearch….

  6. All is not dead in the halls of the quiet!

    They are beginning to awaken.

    You can hear them if you listen carefully!

    • RUKind on December 12, 2010 at 08:07
    • #

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

  8. We can amp this thing up!!!

    IF YOU SUPPORT ASSANGE, PLEASE READ THIS:

    The Australian government is getting a LOT of pressure to support Assange and deny anything the US asks for. If you support Assange, send a message to Australia’s PM asking her to make sure he is not extradited to the US.

    The pressure on the Australian government is working. After the open letter to Aussie PM Julia Gillard was published online last week, by 200 famous Aussies, and thousands of support comments were left on it by other people, only then did the Aussie Foreign Minister come out in support of Assange. The pressure needs to stay on them, so PLEASE spend a minute and send Julia Gillard a polite message.

    http://www.pm.gov.au/PM_Connec…

  9. Excellent way of putting the inevitable — thank you, as always!

    The thing is that if something does not happen, people will be walking amongst dead bodies on the streets — the world over!!!!!!!  

    • RUKind on December 13, 2010 at 03:14
    • #

    I’ve had double posts here but I’ve never seen that happen before. I never even clicked the “Post” button. It just went off on its own.

Comments have been disabled.