What Would It Take For You to Join A Revolution?

I believe the best before date on society is getting close. Soon our children will not be able to dream, only obey.

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Clear examples of a kind of repression I'd never seen before in this nation. It struck me that we had to rise up and be counted - that if we didn't, we might never have another chance.

You've never seen that kind of repression before? What do you mean by that because it's pretty normalized in Canada that police can take out whomever they wish so long as business and media agrees that the folks being taken down are "bad".

The only thing that was different about the G20 was that people who do not usually experience the realities of Canada experienced them in passing. Just to put things in perspective, if all of the g20 protesters had been native people there would have been no scandal and the cops would have used much more force. There would have also been violent vigilante militia out attacking them, who the cops would have done as little as possible about. If you don't believe me look at almost every encounter between police/RCMP/CF and native protesters.

With respect to the OP, many people don't get to decide when to "join the revolution" their life is by its very nature revolutionary. That article is a sloppy piece of crap written from a perspective of privilege. I'm happy to have people like the author wonder when the revolution will begin so that they dont gentrify the shit out of the actual revolution(s) occuring right now in front of their nose.

I'm not sure what standard you are using as 'mass movement'. The one that makes sense is that it is majoritarian in its reach. Which doesnt mean that a 'majority' are involved. Just that the movement(s) are solidly based in a majority.

In that sense the movements in North America up until WWII were indeed mass movements. [Spawing industrial unions, farmer movements, the CCF and other labour and labour/farmer parties, the Communist Party and organizations close to it, etc.]

A Harper majority might get me in the streets - but I live in a community of just 100 people who might think I was nuts for doing so.

Boom Boom - your remark (get me in the streets) also leads me to question what is revolution? There are many different tactics that are used that have varying impact in different political climates. For instance, a general strike like what we see in Egypt or Greece would not be as effective in Canada where there tends to be a hegemonic notion that "order" is more important than anything else.

There was also a hegemony of 'order' in Egypt.

Joe Hill, murdered by mister pig for his activism, famously said "Organise, organise, organise!' and, regardless of what mister pig's doing, what Joe Hill said is the only thing FOR US to do- after all, YOU are not a double agent, agent provacateur, a weaslel, snake or a rat! Everyone else might be, you YOU aren't. That's what the revolt in Egypt is up against- the pig knows exactly how to push buttons, pull strings -he's butchered nearly 400 people in less then 3 weeks, and his pals in western media barely mention the deaths  (they're stuck with possibly appaling the 'herd' too much with the number 400, but eager to frighten the herd at same time....'what to do?' what to do?' is question running through their lizard like rightwing brains, and now Hosni is history, along with junyer bush and oldlman thatcher kissinger etc...) If anyone listened to ezra levant on CBC radio yester day, you detect the reactionarky rights' confusion- for the people, but against too much democracy(?)...'what to do?'

hahaha. the poor jackasses!

i have a poster that says " 'Stevan Harper wipes his ass with Canada' and that's why our publicly funded service organizations such as CBC,CSIS, the CSBA, CRTC,  RCMP and so on are now 'brownshirt' organizations."  I might post a bunch of the posters come springtime, but then...why? What difference will posters make? Is our society worth getting into trouble with mister pig over? I mean, the pig LIED about who created the Iron Curtain/Cold War and we all grew up blaming Stalin/USSR for the pig's Cold War, when the 'revolution' was itself  the intended victim the entire time! And, NO ONE seems astonished by mister pig's slight re-adjustment of history, in real time, right out in the open. The pig even admits it was after the liberals/anti capitalistist activists all the time by going after communism! They brag about it! Now the USSR is gone, and we celebrate with movies like 'the kings speech' (george 6th older brother was forced to abdicate in 1936 because Edward8th was a pure nazi and, well, that just wouldn't do...the nazis were killing children already!)

Grey Owl was a wonderful person- he really wanted to be an 'Indian' and...well mister pig neutralised him by pointing out he was, ahem, an upper class English gentleman. Yet! he was truer to his cause then was,  say, Lawrence of Arabia, who basically aided/abetted the imperialost destruction of the Arabian society he claimed he loved! Grey Owl. like Joe Hill,  represented what was good in this western culture, imho, yet they're all but ignored by mister pig and his lying brats in the media (Grey Owl met george 6th, and little princesses Elizabeth and Margaret!). Meanwhile the nazipooh ezra levant is being interviewed by jian Ghomeshi on CBC's 'Q' as balance to some guy speaking for the Egyptian 'revolution' (levant says Al Jazeera, the mideast news network  said '8 million protestors' which shows how big liars they are-as if anyone heard '8 million' figure  before the rightwing creep said it on CBC!)

We really gotta start marching with signs around the Front Street CBC HQ....i betcha 66 percent of Canadians HATE mister pig, and all harper's doings.

I've found a Soviet era political dictionary which, provided the categorical statements/claims about their own regime are treated with the healthy scepticism that they deserve, gives some useful definitions.

Revolution, Bourgeois

Revolution, National-Liberation

Revolution, Popular-Democratic

Revolution, Socialist

Revolutionary Situation

Ivan Frolov did a good job of editing a Philosophical Dictionary around the time of Gorbachev. The following is a good summary of the orthodox Marxist view from Frolov ...

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Revolution, Social, a turning point in social life, signifying the overthrow of the obsolete and the establishment of a new progressive social system, an instrument and means of transition from one socio-economic formation to another. In contrast to the theorists of the liberal bourgeoisie and opportunism, who regard social revolution as fortuitous, (Marxists claim) that revolutions are a necessary, natural result of the development of class struggle in antagonistic formations. S.R. completes the process of evolution, the gradual ripening in the womb of the old society of the elements or prerequisites of a new social system. [Frolov goes into the contradiction between the new productive forces and the old relations of production here ...]

The basic problem of every social revolution is the problem of political power. Revolution is the highest form of the class struggle. During revolutionary epochs the broad masses who formerly stood aloof from political life, rise to a conscious struggle. That is why revolutionary epochs greatly accelerate social development. Revolutions must not be confused with so-called palace coups, putsches, etc. The latter forcibly change the top governing section, replace individual persons or groups within the same class in power. The problem of power does not exhaust the content of Social Revolution.

The last point should be in BLOCK letters 10 feet tall. Every genuine revolution has an accompanying cultural revolution in which the culture of the ruling/dominant group is replaced by the culture of the formerly ruled/dominated social class. In making this point, we see the absolute critical importance of cultural matters.

And so on. I hope this has been useful for some babblers.

Lard Tunderin Jeezus wrote:

I wasn't in the streets during the G20. The protests planned struck me as scattergun, unfocussed and ineffectual. But I attended multiple protests about police actions thereafter.

So what took me into the streets?

Clear examples of a kind of repression I'd never seen before in this nation. It struck me that we had to rise up and be counted - that if we didn't, we might never have another chance.

Exactly the same thing happened with me in Toronto at this time

What a tough room! I thought the article was quite good - especially for someone who's never been published before. It was in fact a lot better than most of the crap that gets posted around here.

Kelly Coote is obviously in the process of being radicalized by objective circumstances and is starting to "feel the pain" that leads to revolutionary consciousness. 

The dismissive comments of babblers about this writer and this article simply reflect the critics' own sterile detachment from the class struggle that goes on constantly out there in meatspace.

There are people up here in Northern Ontario living in near third world conditions all their lives. Boil water advisories, homelessness, alcoholism and poverty are common themes in the north. Toronto and Ottawa are cities where our youth migrate to looking for a better life. 'Meatspace', that's a good one.

If there were a revolution in Canada today, what would it look like? How might it succeed?

Here's what we have learned from the Egyptian revolution:

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2084-...

I've been in a revolt for the last 40+ years, and nobody is joining me.

Revolution doesn't have to be tumultuous, even though that may be the norm. I think most in Canada would agree that this parasite state has to be changed. Not just the current (foreign) gov't, but the basic ideology and structure surrounding governance, which is "Gov't is god." But, what are you going to change it too? Nothing will improve until there is a plan to take us from what we have now to "justice", "democracy", or whatever it is you think you want. If we were starting a new gov't system, what would it be, starting at the most basic guiding principles.

This was what I was hoping to discuss, but I don't know if it should be a new thread.

For eg., the attempt to criminalise opposition to the atrocities in Palestine is a very fundamental betrayal, and a violation of the most basic absolute right of all people in Canada, which is freedom of thought. The state does not define my opinion, no matter what they say, or what laws they make and abuse to help their friends. Canadians are being forced, by law, to condone, promote and finance atrocities, and we are not even "allowed" to recognise them as atrocities.

It's not that issue, per se, which I'd like to discuss, but this is the best example of how the traitor state has taken control of our political and social opinions. I want to discuss how this came about, and what we can do to stop further traitorous acts by gov't, where foreign "authority" is being imposed on Canadians. How is it they can do what they're doing. Does anyone else see this as treason? How can the people be protected from such abuses, which usually involve selective interpretation and application of laws.

Fidel wrote:

There are people up here in Northern Ontario living in near third world conditions all their lives. Boil water advisories, homelessness, alcoholism and poverty are common themes in the north. Toronto and Ottawa are cities where our youth migrate to looking for a better life. 'Meatspace', that's a good one.

Its not just the youth. I retired and left Northern Ontario with as much haste as I could muster. I was born and raised there and my job was there, but there is a world south of Parry Sound.

Behold, the voice of the comfortable and privileged.

Snert wrote:

I've been revolting for even longer.

You can't be all that repulsive if you're an NDPer. Come on!

Lard Tunderin Jeezus wrote:

I wasn't in the streets during the G20. The protests planned struck me as scattergun, unfocussed and ineffectual.

What? Perhaps THIS is why people don't feel a desire to join a revolution. Perhaps it is because when people spend months and months organizing, working with communities, pouring countless hours and untold energy into facilitating marches, rallies, education, childcare, food, billeting, etc.... when we see cross movement solidarity unlike anything this city has seen (in my lifetime, at least), we still end up with back-seat, peanut gallery activists chiming in after the fact to tell us that our work is "scattergun, unfocussed and ineffectual" THANK YOU, oh wise one. You, who sat on your ass well the rest of us were on the streets, why don't you tell us how to start a revolution. Oh? What's that? You have nothing useful to add? I thought so.

Cytizen H wrote:

Oh? What's that? You have nothing useful to add? I thought so.

Ok, I'll bite. What you were engaged in was a little festivity carried over from the sixties that has never amounted to anything more than a worn out ritual pretending to confront power. It is here that one consigns oneself to the designated protest zones negotiated between the organizers and power itself, where a thrown rock or a paving stone may very well bring down the wrath of both of these collaborating entities. The skit of protest involves being corralled by the organizers into phalanxes of riot police, where they get to demonstrate their arbitrary violence irrespective of any provocation they may encounter. After the curtain call, and if one has not been temporarily detained as part of the theatrics, a return to the regular programming follows a round of bows and applause for everyone involved. All that has been provided to power is an opportunity to exercise its brutality in crowd control and surveillance techniques.

Cytizen H wrote:

I think that the amount of disparate people fighting different battles and for different causes  who managed to come together and work together is evidence of that reach. I believe this was a major success for the movement and if it can continue, despite the naysayers, we will keep gaining strength until real change is achieved.

Forty years ago in North America we were doing this with bigger numbers, much more frequently, and in far more places concurrently.

Leaving aside the smaller numbers and considerably greater work and fossil fuel burning travel it takes to get those smaller numbers, the anti-glob movement got rolling to much fanfare more than a dozen years ago. The only way you can see increasing strength is with 'measures' that look only to what is going on within the charmed space.

I'm not going to put it down like LTJ and Slumberjack- but thats partly a question of style and of not knocking people's work. There is a substantive point even if its not expressed in the most helpful manner.

And the G20 events are evidence only of reach and participation within our ghetto walls.

LTJ's point is a valid one about what it all looked like to most Canadians- very much including people who largely share the values of participants in the events. Consider this: the number of people joing in the protests would be FAR outnumbered by the number who observed the protests, largely shared the values expressed, but did not like the protests and/or did not understand what they were about.

My Cat Knows Better wrote:

How can we even discuss the critical mass required for revolution when the average person in this country can't get up the energy to go and vote.

Because voting - unlike revolution - has nothing to do with social, political, or economic change, that's why. And that's one reason people don't vote. 

I thought it was a good article. it's written by an ordinary person, trying to work things out: Why don't people seem to care? Why do things "flare up" at certain times and places? What's behind (and before) such flare-ups? 

(There are a whole lot of "new society in the shell of the old" people here. From that perspective, such questioning probably seems to miss the point. Hence the dismissals, I suppose.)

We won't have to wonder where it all went.  The same reactionary system has that answer covered as well.  It's the foreigners.

Merowe wrote:

Mr.Two-Two I think your analysis is excellent and far too uncommon. Very few Canadians are ready to face the reality you describe but after mulling the rightward drift of recent years I can only conclude that it represents the fears of the elite and middle classes - that their obscenely large share of the global pie is about to be contested. A siege mentality, combined with sociopathic levels of denial, has taken hold. Our ears stopped absolutely against global warming, and billions poured into waning or obselete technologies. Build walls, build prisons, build armies! Our gated nation-community needs defending against the foreign hordes. We are not preparing for the future - we are turning from it in childish denial, and confirming our increasing global irrelevance in the process.

 Someone is going to point out in a minute that there's poverty in Canada, too. "We" are not all - to borrow your terminology - "middle class". I would further claim that there is a difference between those who actually own and control things and the great mass of the people, however many flat screen tvs they may have. 

The great "middle class" has "stuff" but no power. That's the problem in a nutshell. Does that make "us" global aristocrats? No. It makes "us" (or you) the servants in Versailles, given special privileges and special treats, convinced to identify with the aristocrats inside rather than the starving mob outside the gates. The question is, with whom will these people identify? Which side are you on?

I don't claim there will be a revolution in Canada. We live on the edges of a dying empire.