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2011-06-14

Calling all Rebels

Vatic Note: This is a must read. Beautifully done....Talk about "sychronicity" I had a commenter on one of the articles who made it clear that we could do nothing about our situation and we should just go for ourselves and forget about trying this initiative.   It truly got me thinking about that and asking myself,  "am I wasting my time"?  I don't know about anyone else, but usually, answers come, whether you believe in God or the Universe or some higher power, such questions lately are being answered very quickly and in ways you least expect.   I fell on this gift below right after that discouse between us happened and I had my answer.    Please read it and understand why we, as humans, have no choice in these matters.... we must rebel as its in our very nature to do so. 
 
Title:   Calling all Rebels
By:     http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/calling_all_rebels_20100308/
Date:   03/08/2010,  Source:   Truthdig.com

By Chris Hedges

EXCERPT (with minor corrections)

The French moral philosopher Albert Camus argued that we are separated from each other. Our lives are meaningless. We cannot influence fate. We will all die and our individual being will be obliterated. And yet Camus wrote that “one of the only coherent philosophical positions is revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his obscurity. It is not aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. That revolt is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it.”

“A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object,” Camus warned. “But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object.”

The rebel, for Camus, stands with the oppressed—the unemployed workers being thrust into impoverishment and misery by the corporate state, the Palestinians in Gaza, the civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, the disappeared who are held in our global black sites, the poor in our inner cities and depressed rural communities, immigrants and those locked away in our prison system. And to stand with them does not mean to collaborate with parties, such as the Democrats & Republicans, who can mouth the words of justice while carrying out acts of oppression. It means open and direct defiance.



The power structure and its conservative & liberal apologists dismiss the rebel as impractical and see the rebel’s outsider stance as counterproductive. They condemn the rebel for expressing anger at injustice. The elites and their apologists call for calm and patience. They use the hypocritical language of spirituality, compromise, generosity and compassion to argue that the only alternative is to accept and work with the systems of power. The rebel, however, is beholden to a moral commitment that makes it impossible to stand with the power elite.

The rebel refuses to be bought off with foundation grants, invitations to the White House, television appearances, book contracts, academic appointments or empty rhetoric. The rebel is not concerned with self-promotion or public opinion. The rebel knows that, as Augustine wrote, hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage—anger at the way things are and the courage to see that they do not remain the way they are. The rebel is aware that virtue is not rewarded. The act of rebellion defines itself.

“You do not become a ‘dissident’ just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career,” Vaclav Havel said when he battled the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. “You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society. ...

The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public. He offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin—and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.”

Those in power have disarmed the lower classes. They do not argue that the current system is just or good, because they cannot, but they have convinced the lower classes that there is no alternative. But we are not slaves. We have a choice. We can refuse to be either a victim or an executioner. We have the moral capacity to say no, to refuse to cooperate.

Any boycott or demonstration, any occupation or sit-in, any strike, any act of obstruction or sabotage, any refusal to pay taxes, any fast, any popular movement and any act of civil disobedience ignites the soul of the rebel and exposes the dead hand of authority. “There is beauty and there are the humiliated,” Camus wrote. “Whatever difficulties the enterprise may present, I should like never to be unfaithful either to the second or the first.”

“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop,” Mario Savio said in 1964. “And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

The capacity to exercise moral autonomy, the capacity to refuse to cooperate, offers us the only route left to personal freedom and a life with meaning. Rebellion is its own justification. Those of us who come out of the religious side have no quarrel with Camus. Camus is right about the absurdity of existence, right about finding worth in the act of rebellion rather than some bizarre dream of an afterlife or Sunday School fantasy that God rewards the just and the good.

“Oh my soul,” the ancient Greek poet Pindar wrote, “do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.” We differ with Camus only in that we have faith that rebellion is not ultimately meaningless. Rebellion allows us to be free and independent human beings, but rebellion also chips away, however imperceptibly, at the edifice of the oppressor and sustains the dim flames of hope and love. And in moments of profound human despair these flames are never insignificant.

They keep alive the capacity to be human. We must become, as Camus said, so absolutely free that “existence is an act of rebellion.” Those who do not rebel in our age of totalitarian capitalism and who convince themselves that there is no alternative to collaboration are complicit in their own enslavement.

They commit spiritual and moral suicide.



The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

3 comments:

  1. Americans have enslaved themselves through their own greed and self-interest. Honorable candidates are few and far between because citizens do not demand them. Both major parties seek to buy elections through false promises. Usually, the one that spends the most wins.

    This is a spiritual war that began in the Garden of Eden. For the unbeliever, there is little hope.

    Kc

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks , VATIC . Good post , definitely count me in ! Anyone with a moral conscience today would have no choice but to be a rebel ! My poem touches on the same call :
    WE , THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM !
    By Boldarn June 13 , 2009
    Information is knowledge , knowledge is power !
    Mankind , awake from your plastic dream in the final hour .
    Before Globalization turns life on earth into life of horror .
    New World Order Politics :
    Cleverly designed under political correctness ,
    Forced upon you by the Military-Industrial-Complex .
    YOU pay for their weapons of mass destruction :
    Designed to be consumed by the ill informed masses
    In all parts of life : Toxic chemicals and pharmaceuticals
    You are told to trust to be safe and for your benefit !
    Any damages are blamed on “ Climate Change “.
    A designed socio-political society
    Arrests the truth and leaves the global terrorist free :
    AGENDA 21 - population control plan by the NWO,
    Is putting the final links into the chain
    For the upcoming global slaughter !
    Its urgent time for mankind to raise its consciousness,
    So there can be a planet to experience life in Freedom and Peace !
    Only People Power can defeat the Beast !
    Overruled are the laws of the living dead ,
    We adopt universal laws of TRUTH instead !
    Freedom fighters globally unite
    In histories most important Freedom Fight !
    Ignorance , greed and complacency
    Are the biggest threat to all life and humanity .
    All the lies are exposed for all who care to see ,
    The truth is the only way to set mankind free .
    To awake and join the FREEDOM REVOLUTION ,
    Is this planets only future resolution !
    Rising to challenge or overthrow destructive and harmful politics of a nation,
    Is not treason - but the duty of its population !
    HUMBLY MUST WE STAND BEFORE NATURAL LAW AS
    THE ONLY TOTALITY!
    MAY THERE BE PEACE ON EARTH IN FREEDOM !
    Quote by John Lennon :
    I believe that Peace can only be got by peaceful means ,
    not by violence .

    ReplyDelete
  3. I understand your comments, indeed I do, but our purpose here is two fold and does not preclude anyone from using violence for rebellion at all, just not our choice at this point. Also remember, its illegal to call for sedition thus the reason for the comment above. Given our purpose here, we are not ready to be shut down for it.

    Our purpose is to educate because without knowledge, ignorance and tyranny rule, and second, to do as our founding fathers did which was to attempt through other means to affect change globally in a manner that is effective.

    Remember, countries can call for war but if none of their people show up to fight it, NO WAR. same with a lot of our issues and it worked for India back when they were literally occupied by a highly well armed and trained superior force, the British.

    Now, having said all that, bottom line the time may come were the only choice we have is violence, but what this process I recommend, does, is give everyone a clear conscience that we did all we could do short of war and that makes it a TOTAL AND PASSIONATE COMMITMENT if and when that has to happen. As I said, we are going to be united as a nation and not divided, so if my way doesn't work, I can assure you I will be there to cover someones six.

    I am a damn fine shot. Most women are.

    ReplyDelete

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