Revolution: The Wrong Kind And The Right Kind (Carolyn Baker)

[Tace]

July 15, 2010 (CarolynBaker.net) -- Lately I've been encountering articles and news stories touting the need for revolution in the wake of a gansterized U.S. financial system and a government that has itself become a criminal enterprise.

I sense that many bloggers and their readers are salivating with anticipation that someone or something will light the fuse of a revolutionary cannon that will eviscerate the present system and replace it with something more just and humane.

I share their enthusiasm for profound, bone-marrow transformation of the status quo. Jefferson really was right when he proclaimed that the United States needed a revolution every twenty years. Many of us who were activists during the Vietnam War era were determined to pull off a revolution that would destroy the military industrial complex, institutionalized racism, and the entire capitalist agenda.

Today's visionaries and activists cherish similar hopes, yet I fear that they do not yet grasp the kind of revolution that the planet seems to be asking for. And unlike the revolution we envisioned four decades ago, this one must be in response to the planet and the earth community. From this perspective, I believe there are two kinds of revolution in front of us: The kind that is inappropriate and the kind that is both useful and critical for planetary survival.

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[Newest Reality]

1. Carolyn has always

lent an inspirational heart aspects to her contemplations and what she relates publicly.

Now, nobody is going to do this, so it is a rhetorical statement, but where would you be if you could throw everything you know, (what is culturally induced in various ways) out and be done with it? Well, I assure you that you won't do that. You have far too much invested in that to consider it and it has the potential to devastate you. Hopes, dreams, beliefs and aspirations seem so normal that you consider them life itself and might even identify with them so completely that there is nothing else.

However, let that idea stand as a sort of contrast to immersion. Don't think of it as either evolutionary or revolutionary because it will not get you anything or anywhere at all. Across the spectrum of human institutions and methods of all types, people are presented with problems that create solutions. That's the fuel for wanting, regardless of what is wanted. There are needs that are very immediate and direct, corporeal, visceral and natural.

So, this will have no value to you. How could you do anything about it when you are immersed in and thrive on the very systemic movement of cultures that rely largely on assumptions and control in the first place? Anything that would run counter to that or question it in its totality would be truly more dangerous than any movement, violence or weapon. It would be dangerous to those who encounter it. That is the underlying fear that drives the redirection of what we are and, no matter how we complain or speak of outrage, we have become it and anything to the contrary is rationalization and fantasy.

If you realized that there was nothing at all you could do about this, rather than thinking so, then, something might actually happen. Right now, it is all a matter of feeding the movement we are in and expecting it to stop functioning the way it does.

[Warpy]

2. The first revolution will be attempted and might be successful

at least in the short term. However, the second revolution will happen as a matter of course, in fits and starts, as the wealthy become impoverished and the poor sustain themselves the way they always have.

Western wealth is unsustainable, as is the unlimited growth it requires to maintain the illusion of progress. Eventually, the retreat from the edge of disaster will become obvious to everyone. It's already obvious to some of us.

Both revolutions are inevitable. The first will become a vain attempt to hold onto what we have and the second will eventually overtake it.

[SteveM]

3. Is this cross-posted in...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=548896&mesg_id=548896

I posted some comments above.