La Comédie Noire
25th February 2010, 04:21
http://www.counterpunch.org/bageant02242010.html
I liked this essay from Counter Punch (a word I use loosely here it's more like a vague rant) until:
In all likelihood, you the reader are younger than I. Possibly less cynical and surely less tired. You may believe yet that violent overthrow of such a monstrous system is still possible.
A year or so ago, I still believed that. Events in the world and at home have since convinced me otherwise. Maybe the system could have even been changed from within forty years ago. If it could have been and was not, then that most certainly is the greatest failure of my generation. The Sixties were a critical point at which important choices were offered us as a people. A the time, a minority realized revolution was still possible and warranted. Violent revolution, if necessary. But as a generation, we were no better at acting in unselfish concert than yours. As Chris Hedges recently pointed out, violence today only assures the survival of the most violent, criminals of one sort or another, petty or international. Beyond that, the state now has the technological capability to inflict the most violence in every case, and therefore win. Realistic thinkers say aloud that what is so far advanced can no longer be stopped or turned around by revolution, violent or otherwise. Most other thinkers on the subject secretly suspect the same.
Capitalism is unstable as hell, like an unbalanced dreidel that keeps tilting ever more wildly off center until it falls over or eventually hits the wall. We can now see the wall from here: Massive ecological collapse and species extinction.
Same argument that has been beaten into our heads since we were four "A better world would be nice, but it's just not possible humans are evil and will be punished for messing with nature." Except this "informed progressive" just phrases it differently " A better world would be nice, but people are too lazy to rebel and even if they did the state's too powerful and besides it's too late! Ecological destruction is imminent!"
And from yet another article:
Still, millions of Americans do grasp at The Audacity of Hope, a meaningless marketing slogan of the publishing industry if ever there was one. At least it has the word Audacity in it, something millions of folks are having trouble conjuring up the least shred of these days. And there is good old fashioned "Hope" of course -- that murky, undefined belief that some unknown force or magical unseen power will reverse the national condition -- will deliver us from what every bit of evidence indicates is irreversible, if not politically, then economically and ecologically: Collapse.
Funny he doesn't distinguish between fake hope and real hope.
Naturally, the bunny and cupcake set of Americans are still oblivious, or at least pretend to be, but even at the more inchoate and private level, there is a growing awareness that things are going very wrong, and doing so on an incomprehensively massive and complex scale. There is the feeling that even if what is happening could be made comprehensible to the majority of humanity, to all those people just trying to keep afloat on the planet, from Zimbabwe to Flint, Michigan, overall it is unstoppable.
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2008/04/the-audacity-of.html
He too believes in unknown forces and magical powers, they just happen to be malevolent in his book.
Yeesh guys, I guess we better just give up and indulge in the corporate trough, I mean there's no way to beat it right?
Does anyone else see how this view could be useful to the ruling class or is it just me?
I liked this essay from Counter Punch (a word I use loosely here it's more like a vague rant) until:
In all likelihood, you the reader are younger than I. Possibly less cynical and surely less tired. You may believe yet that violent overthrow of such a monstrous system is still possible.
A year or so ago, I still believed that. Events in the world and at home have since convinced me otherwise. Maybe the system could have even been changed from within forty years ago. If it could have been and was not, then that most certainly is the greatest failure of my generation. The Sixties were a critical point at which important choices were offered us as a people. A the time, a minority realized revolution was still possible and warranted. Violent revolution, if necessary. But as a generation, we were no better at acting in unselfish concert than yours. As Chris Hedges recently pointed out, violence today only assures the survival of the most violent, criminals of one sort or another, petty or international. Beyond that, the state now has the technological capability to inflict the most violence in every case, and therefore win. Realistic thinkers say aloud that what is so far advanced can no longer be stopped or turned around by revolution, violent or otherwise. Most other thinkers on the subject secretly suspect the same.
Capitalism is unstable as hell, like an unbalanced dreidel that keeps tilting ever more wildly off center until it falls over or eventually hits the wall. We can now see the wall from here: Massive ecological collapse and species extinction.
Same argument that has been beaten into our heads since we were four "A better world would be nice, but it's just not possible humans are evil and will be punished for messing with nature." Except this "informed progressive" just phrases it differently " A better world would be nice, but people are too lazy to rebel and even if they did the state's too powerful and besides it's too late! Ecological destruction is imminent!"
And from yet another article:
Still, millions of Americans do grasp at The Audacity of Hope, a meaningless marketing slogan of the publishing industry if ever there was one. At least it has the word Audacity in it, something millions of folks are having trouble conjuring up the least shred of these days. And there is good old fashioned "Hope" of course -- that murky, undefined belief that some unknown force or magical unseen power will reverse the national condition -- will deliver us from what every bit of evidence indicates is irreversible, if not politically, then economically and ecologically: Collapse.
Funny he doesn't distinguish between fake hope and real hope.
Naturally, the bunny and cupcake set of Americans are still oblivious, or at least pretend to be, but even at the more inchoate and private level, there is a growing awareness that things are going very wrong, and doing so on an incomprehensively massive and complex scale. There is the feeling that even if what is happening could be made comprehensible to the majority of humanity, to all those people just trying to keep afloat on the planet, from Zimbabwe to Flint, Michigan, overall it is unstoppable.
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2008/04/the-audacity-of.html
He too believes in unknown forces and magical powers, they just happen to be malevolent in his book.
Yeesh guys, I guess we better just give up and indulge in the corporate trough, I mean there's no way to beat it right?
Does anyone else see how this view could be useful to the ruling class or is it just me?