Looking back, it seems like I heard a lot of the R-word this year. I heard it all the time from Chris Hedges. I heard it from Naomi Klein. I heard it from people like Moyers.
2013 seems to have been the year when many sage people began talking about the need to revolt, the necessity and inevitability of revolution.
It wasn't like they wanted to topple some particular tyrant and install someone else in his place. It wasn't that sort of revolt they were after. No, their call is more akin to someone yelling "jump" or "duck" or "fire." There's a definite "save yourself and, more importantly, your kids" message in their call for revolt.
The system is broken but not by accident. Corporatism has captured the government of the United States and is spreading beyond its borders. Corporatism wouldn't stand a chance if it had captured only the Republican party, if the Democratic Party remained a stalwart of democracy. It needed them both and it got them both and, with that, it began squeezing the life out of democracy in America. It picked up their Supreme Court along the way to make the job easier.
Who needs democracy when you can watch Duck Dynasty and exercise the hell out of your constitutional right to buy a 30-round magazine for your AK or AR-15? If corporatist America transforms into Amerika it will have no trouble finding 'brown shirt' recruits from that crowd. Just tell them that the dissenters are fixin' to take away their guns and point them in the direction you want them to shoot. Can you picture it? I can.
Isn't that a hell of a thing to have running through your mind with Christmas Eve just a few hours away?
Update - Dana has provided a link to a thoughtful, upbeat end to this piece.
Update II - From Marie @ a Puff of Absurdity. David Suzuki's take on one of my regular rants, exponential growth. It's a novel way of looking at it and it will shake your sensibilities.
Merry Christmas
12 comments:
You may be right Mound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBEGpUBRIYk
Thanks, Dana. As you could probably tell I wasn't happy with the way this piece ended. That clip was a great fix so I simply added it in.
Season's Best, eh?
It IS an exciting time to be alive. Yet another call for revolt - from David Suzuki. Merry Christmas, Mound!
With all the calls for rebellion, Mound, perhaps it will be a happy new year.
Happy Solstice!
Mostly I feel pretty hopeful about things. I am hearing messages like Dana's clip quite a bit. Thanks to both of you for sharing it.
Merry Christmas, MoS. to you and your readers.
.. I look at these images .. and I think about many things.. such as much needed social revolution ..
the empowerment of people & the need to properly harness and control those elected to enact our wishes, needs and dreams.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/18/the-moment-nasa-indians-drag-colombian-soldiers-from-hilltop/
Corporatism, government and their military put those soldiers at the top of the hill.. to control and oversee the local 'peasants'
This is exactly where we are in Canada today.. except we have not yet gone up the hill to drag the soldiers, the military, the government or the corporatist down.
There are so many ways to perceive those images in relation to Canada today.. And we should forget the simplistic idea of using elections.. Stephen Harper's legacy is already.. that elections are a game.. where political parties like The Harper Party 'groom' the electorate.. step by step.. massage them, lie to them, manipulate the process.. in every subtle or overt way possible..
How did an asshat like Rob Anders survive a riding revolt against him? The 'Party' simply changed the rules and squashed the uprising.. that's just one manipulation out of thousands. The spying by NEB & CSIS on environmentalists? Another. Prorogue? No Problem.
Too many caribou losing habitat & dying off? Simple. Airdrop strychnine to poison wolves. F-35's being challenged for unmanageable costs? Simple. Lie, obstruct, suppress facts. Science becoming a problem? Burn the science library books & pretend you digitized all of them.
Duffy, Wallin a prob? Can them & deny every single fact that arises. They need to be dragged from the hill MOS.. Parliament Hill.. Forced to leave, vacate, go spend more time with their families or friends or stockbrokers..
As one Nigel Wright once said ..
'I fear this will end very badly'
and so it should.. and very soon
Merry Christmas Mound..
from the flatlands of Ontario
Thanks for your excellent, brilliant work
and the same to all the others
who see & feel & breathe Canada the way you do ..
Thanks, Marie.
The Suzuki clip was a dandy bookend for the clip from Dana's link so I embedded it above.
The reality Suzuki addresses is heretical to the ideology of corporatism that has come to control our politics, even in Canada. The term "mortmain" comes to mind - the dead hand of perpetual, inalienable ownership and control.
It's not even that the corporatist types don't see what's coming, they do. It's that their attitude is, yes something must be done, just "not yet." It's when you get locked into that "not yet" fixation that you find yourself unable to change.
Just ecologically, leaving climate change out for argument's sake, we've already gone past several tipping points. The evidence of that is everywhere from the collapse of global fisheries to deforestation, desertification; air, soil and water contamination of all forms; the utter exhaustion of renewable resources. It's a problem that's severe and growing ever faster. A few years ago we reached "overshoot", the date on which we consume a full, annual supply of the earth's renewables, by late October. This year overshoot happened in late August. We either have to tame this beast or it will kill us - just not yet.
I think some sort of upheaval is coming, Owen. I never thought guys like us would live to see it. Apparently I was wrong.
Hi, Karen. I so hope your optimism bears fruit. Merry Christmas.
Hey, Sal. Thanks for all your thoughtful comments and a very Merry Christmas to you.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
Merry Christmas, Mound!
Thank you for your amazing work with this blog. I learn so much and feel inspired. Most importantly, it's good to know there are so many like-minded folk trying to change the status quo.
Best wishes for a far better year for all in 2014.
Ah, B.Y., Merry Christmas! You've become something of a stranger. Perhaps I've been remiss in mentioning how much I have appreciated our exchanges over the years. You have truly been a font of much encouragement. I can't overstate how much the engagement with people like you and Lorne, Owen, Sal, Dana and a half dozen others gives me a reason to keep searching for this stuff and writing about it.
Thanks
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