(note: i am supposed to do an unsolicited progress report thing to self but let me offer this space for john lennon. the tragedy happened thirty two years ago. let me plug: if you want to humanize him, venerate him with understanding, you may heed the call of the lachrymologists. more info about the project [here], about the group [here]. tomorrow or the day after, i shall plug things that have been, are ongoing and will [hopefully] be. sighs.)
**11:21AM.12.09.2012UPDATE**
unearthed something from the olde blog. copypasting it in semi-full here:
TA: No ruling class in the whole of history has given up power voluntarily and I don’t see that changing.
YO: But violence isn’t just a conceptual thing, you know. I saw a programme about this kid who had come back from Vietnam – he’d lost his body from the waist down. He was just a lump of meat, and he said, ‘Well, I guess it was a good experience.’
there. see [the full john lennon interview at kasamaproject].
JL: He didn’t want to face the truth, he didn’t want to think it had all been a waste…
YO: But think of the violence, it could happen to your kids…
RB: But Yoko, people who struggle against oppression find themselves attacked by those who have a vested interest in nothing changing, those who want to protect their power and wealth. Look at the people in Bogside and Falls Road in Northern Ireland; they were mercilessly attacked by the special police because they began demonstrating for their rights. On one night in August 1969, seven people were shot and thousands driven from their homes. Didn’t they have a right to defend themselves?
YO: That’s why one should try to tackle these problems before a situation like that happens.
JL: Yes, but what do you do when it does happen, what do you do?
RB: Popular violence against their oppressors is always justified. It cannot be avoided.
YO: But in a way the new music showed things could be transformed by new channels of communication.
JL: Yes, but as I said, nothing really changed.
YO: Well, something changed and it was for the better. All I’m saying is that perhaps we can make a revolution without violence.
JL: But you can’t take power without a struggle…
TA: That’s the crucial thing.
JL: Because, when it comes to the nitty-gritty, they won’t let the people have any power; they’ll give all the rights to perform and to dance for them, but no real power…
YO: The thing is, even after the revolution, if people don’t have any trust in themselves, they’ll get new problems.
JL: After the revolution you have the problem of keeping things going, of sorting out all the different views. It’s quite natural that revolutionaries should have different solutions, that they should split into different groups and then reform, that’s the dialectic, isn’t it – but at the same time they need to be united against the enemy, to solidify a new order. I don’t know what the answer is; obviously Mao is aware of this problem and keeps the ball moving.
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