Listen to a reading of this article: Rise, like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number! Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you: Ye are many—they are few! ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley The video footage coming out of Sri Lanka right now has been the recurring nightmare of every ruler throughout history.
It's far worse than that. There have been an entire series of color revolutions where a set of elite puppet masters manipulated people into "rising up like lions" only for them to meet the new boss, same as - or in many cases worse than - the old boss. France 1789, Russia 1917, Arab "Spring" 2010, Ukraine 2014, and the list goes on. There's a saying, "those who refuse to be governed from within shall be governed from without" and we've spent the last century learning that lesson.
All true as far as it goes, but will you please address the following?
The few times this has actually happened, a few talented, motivated, charismatic leaders have risen to the top or the forefront of the mass movement. Others do not have that particular passion or interest or talent; they do not want to be burdened with power. They simply want to live their lives in non abusive conditions.
The leaders take over the palace, put on the deposed leader’s finery, loot his (usually) treasuries … and become him. it may take a few years, but meet the new boss, sane as the old boss. If not worse.
This seems to be an archetype in the collective human psyche even deeper than propaganda. You’ve said it yourself: mass enlightenment or forget it. What are the odds?
Put psilocybin in the water supply? (Only mostly tongue-in-cheek.)
As much as I love the thought of people rising like lions, there is something much deeper going on in the world right now. Problems are never solved at the level of consciousness with which they were created in the first place.
That's exactly why the Justin Trudeau Liberal party had to shut down the truckers with the emergencies act. They literally saw the people rising up against them. We were so... close...
While inspiring, it does nothing at all. Give us Barrabas they shout and they get Barrabas. That will be the end result as it always has been. It will not matter so long as the oligarch, actor, sports star, CEO, gets another bigger or better yacht. A talking head supports one and the other talking head supports another. Confusing reality.
The children are getting smarter so they make them dumber.
Instill fear, hate against another group. Play it over and over. Bomb the poor guy. That guy in Pakistan who is fighting for his piece of dirt.
Take a tour someday of Miami harbor and the people humanity idolize. JLo. To hard for the drooling masses to say her name?
A small yacht to get to the bigger yacht in multimillion dollar mansions. All because they can memorize a few lines. Depp and Herd was a shitshow for the ages. How many people give a shit about suffering people. More people know about the courtroom play. People starve.
And it will never change. Wasn't this the Philipines not so long ago?
Love the poem. It inspired me to get a couple of punches in before they start kicking my ass again.
I cheer on the brave citizens of Sri Lanka who have stormed the Presidential Palace. Yet when unarmed American citizens questioning a presidential election were allowed to enter our Capitol, many have been subjected to inhuman conditions and have been rotting in DC jails for over a year without the benefit of trial. But they are Hillary's deplorables, so are getting what they deserve.
These articles are always hard to square with the ones where Caitlin talks about greater consciousness and connection to a field of infinite love being the way out of our current mess. Violent revolutions always play into the hands of the rulers, if one properly understands our rulers not as specific people, but the patterns of domination, power-over, trauma, and violence that have enslaved humanity for thousands of years. These patterns are the true barrier to progressing to the next evolutionary stage, where humanity steps into its latent nature as manifestations of divine, unconditional love.
Non-violence is not meekness. Love is strength.
This isn't to say this article is entirely wrong. You're correct to state that the ruling class fears the majority, and a lot of the narrative management and propaganda is there to keep people from realizing that together, we are strong, that we needn't comply with our ruling systems. That our greatest joy is found in freeing ourselves.
That said, the true rulers of humanity (the emergent structures of domination) are not at all threatened by violent revolutions. The elites in power are, sure, but one must realize even they are puppets of larger powers that can only be confronted by unconditional, universal love (which does not mean complacency!).
This is the truly revolutionary message that religions and governments have been attempting to suppress for thousands of years. Not some nonsense about rising up like lions to ransack a capital, which itself serves to inflame hatred, a force the powers that be are experts in harnessing for their ends.
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "Poverty is the parent of crime & revolution". Aristotle said that a couple thousand years ago & it was true then and even more so now. Bring on the revolution. #EndTheEmpireOfLies
All political problems of bad socio-culturo-economic effect are curable in *willing* clients by massive super doses of English leveler-commonwealthman literature, John Locke, Algernon Sidney, John Milton--Areopagitica; "Cato", John Taylor of Caroline--Tyranny Unmasked; Frederic Bastiat, Herbert Spencer, Franz Oppenheimer--The State; William Graham Sumner, Ludwig von Mises, Louis Bromfield--A New Pattern for a Tired World; Frank Chodorov, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Garet Garrett, John T Flynn, Zora Neale Hurston, even Robert Welch--the original pointed text of The Politician & The Blue Book of the John Birch Society; & Sophia Totterman--yes, the notorious "Soph" herself.
If the direst political issues people debate consist of innocuities such as how far apart to put lamp posts, whether the governor gets a line veto, may a politician subject to term limits seek a full last term if he entered office to finish a predecessor's term & if any one jailed for contempt of a domestic subversion investigating body can be required to prove nominal grasp of Henry Hazlitt's book Economics in 1 Lesson for a lower fine the polity is spared tumult & agitation over any statist contrivance regarding matters smart people already know are beyond political jurisdiction per natural right imprimis.
I confidently anticipate the cry "O mean police riot junky, that is HARD & neglects children--how so ever benignly for their ultimate own good--treats our pet under served constituencies as self responsible adults with volition & agency, hurts the en-VIRRN-ment, lets us get away with living well instead of nannying poor doltish non-westerners & validates the paradigm of crass flinty egoists & individualists who would make us look bad by actually living the demanding stoic virtues of hardihood, perseverance, self reliance, stark realism, intent focus, persistent striving, excellence & valor.". I have heard more than my share of it since fall 1968 in second grade.
So far from being the start of any thing significant the roil in Ceylon is a symptom of a carefully planned cause already activated for purposes that if at all tracking Miss Johnstone's hopes & aspirations they are quite unintended & may even be judged counter productive by the activators. I will believe such events are locally spontaneous & worth taking prima facie after the end of the western implementation of the will of the Bank of England.
That's great but everytime I see something like that happening I have to wonder if it's because the government has done something the U.S. Neocons don't like and was inspired by their National Endowment for Democracy. It also looks a little like D.C. on Jan 6th, 2020. Of course it could just be because Sri Lanka is collateral damage from one of the neocons other schemes.
"Religions that have been around for thousands of years because the powerful endorsed and promulgated them are full of passages extolling the virtues of obedience, poverty, meekness, and rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's. From the moment we are born our heads are filled with stories about why it's good and right to consent to the status quo and why it would be wrong to take back what has been stolen from us by a predatory ruling class..."
Can't miss the allusion, though if this description does purport to characterize Christianity, it's about as accurate as the Western media's illusion of a heroic Ukraine.. In truth, were men to actually know, understand, and apply Christian principle and power in their lives, we wouldn't be writing about a governing elite being able to brutally lord over the masses.
What we're seeing today is a Mt. Sinai redux.. where God's people were given a choice of men to believe.. either 2 that faithfully followed Him, and 10 that were cowards, and unbelieving. Guess who 100% of His people chose.. Same deal today, (remember the churches that closed on command in 2020?..) and God gets the black eye because of the frailties of men.
Like the prophet said..'Is there really anything new under the sun?'
It's far worse than that. There have been an entire series of color revolutions where a set of elite puppet masters manipulated people into "rising up like lions" only for them to meet the new boss, same as - or in many cases worse than - the old boss. France 1789, Russia 1917, Arab "Spring" 2010, Ukraine 2014, and the list goes on. There's a saying, "those who refuse to be governed from within shall be governed from without" and we've spent the last century learning that lesson.
All true as far as it goes, but will you please address the following?
The few times this has actually happened, a few talented, motivated, charismatic leaders have risen to the top or the forefront of the mass movement. Others do not have that particular passion or interest or talent; they do not want to be burdened with power. They simply want to live their lives in non abusive conditions.
The leaders take over the palace, put on the deposed leader’s finery, loot his (usually) treasuries … and become him. it may take a few years, but meet the new boss, sane as the old boss. If not worse.
This seems to be an archetype in the collective human psyche even deeper than propaganda. You’ve said it yourself: mass enlightenment or forget it. What are the odds?
Put psilocybin in the water supply? (Only mostly tongue-in-cheek.)
As much as I love the thought of people rising like lions, there is something much deeper going on in the world right now. Problems are never solved at the level of consciousness with which they were created in the first place.
That's exactly why the Justin Trudeau Liberal party had to shut down the truckers with the emergencies act. They literally saw the people rising up against them. We were so... close...
While inspiring, it does nothing at all. Give us Barrabas they shout and they get Barrabas. That will be the end result as it always has been. It will not matter so long as the oligarch, actor, sports star, CEO, gets another bigger or better yacht. A talking head supports one and the other talking head supports another. Confusing reality.
The children are getting smarter so they make them dumber.
Instill fear, hate against another group. Play it over and over. Bomb the poor guy. That guy in Pakistan who is fighting for his piece of dirt.
Take a tour someday of Miami harbor and the people humanity idolize. JLo. To hard for the drooling masses to say her name?
A small yacht to get to the bigger yacht in multimillion dollar mansions. All because they can memorize a few lines. Depp and Herd was a shitshow for the ages. How many people give a shit about suffering people. More people know about the courtroom play. People starve.
And it will never change. Wasn't this the Philipines not so long ago?
Love the poem. It inspired me to get a couple of punches in before they start kicking my ass again.
Good article.
Ian Welsh correctly teaches the masses that, whatever else the rulers do, they must keep the security services obedient and on-side.
Once they stop following orders, the regime will imminently fall.
Absolutely! Makes one wonder if the People of Sri Lanka spend as much time as Americans ONLINE and/or in front of the TV...
I support the People of Sri Lanka! And ALL the People of Earth. We want DECENT LIVES!
I cheer on the brave citizens of Sri Lanka who have stormed the Presidential Palace. Yet when unarmed American citizens questioning a presidential election were allowed to enter our Capitol, many have been subjected to inhuman conditions and have been rotting in DC jails for over a year without the benefit of trial. But they are Hillary's deplorables, so are getting what they deserve.
Unfortunately one of the patterns that emerge from history is that whatever replaces what has gone before tends to be just as bad if not worse. A case of the oppressed becoming the oppressor. Read this classic from PAULO FREIRE: https://ia600204.us.archive.org/24/items/PedagogyOfTheOppressed-English-PauloFriere/oppressed.pdf
These articles are always hard to square with the ones where Caitlin talks about greater consciousness and connection to a field of infinite love being the way out of our current mess. Violent revolutions always play into the hands of the rulers, if one properly understands our rulers not as specific people, but the patterns of domination, power-over, trauma, and violence that have enslaved humanity for thousands of years. These patterns are the true barrier to progressing to the next evolutionary stage, where humanity steps into its latent nature as manifestations of divine, unconditional love.
Non-violence is not meekness. Love is strength.
This isn't to say this article is entirely wrong. You're correct to state that the ruling class fears the majority, and a lot of the narrative management and propaganda is there to keep people from realizing that together, we are strong, that we needn't comply with our ruling systems. That our greatest joy is found in freeing ourselves.
That said, the true rulers of humanity (the emergent structures of domination) are not at all threatened by violent revolutions. The elites in power are, sure, but one must realize even they are puppets of larger powers that can only be confronted by unconditional, universal love (which does not mean complacency!).
This is the truly revolutionary message that religions and governments have been attempting to suppress for thousands of years. Not some nonsense about rising up like lions to ransack a capital, which itself serves to inflame hatred, a force the powers that be are experts in harnessing for their ends.
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "Poverty is the parent of crime & revolution". Aristotle said that a couple thousand years ago & it was true then and even more so now. Bring on the revolution. #EndTheEmpireOfLies
That's great but were the U.S. neocons and the NED lurking in the background anywhere?
All political problems of bad socio-culturo-economic effect are curable in *willing* clients by massive super doses of English leveler-commonwealthman literature, John Locke, Algernon Sidney, John Milton--Areopagitica; "Cato", John Taylor of Caroline--Tyranny Unmasked; Frederic Bastiat, Herbert Spencer, Franz Oppenheimer--The State; William Graham Sumner, Ludwig von Mises, Louis Bromfield--A New Pattern for a Tired World; Frank Chodorov, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Garet Garrett, John T Flynn, Zora Neale Hurston, even Robert Welch--the original pointed text of The Politician & The Blue Book of the John Birch Society; & Sophia Totterman--yes, the notorious "Soph" herself.
If the direst political issues people debate consist of innocuities such as how far apart to put lamp posts, whether the governor gets a line veto, may a politician subject to term limits seek a full last term if he entered office to finish a predecessor's term & if any one jailed for contempt of a domestic subversion investigating body can be required to prove nominal grasp of Henry Hazlitt's book Economics in 1 Lesson for a lower fine the polity is spared tumult & agitation over any statist contrivance regarding matters smart people already know are beyond political jurisdiction per natural right imprimis.
I confidently anticipate the cry "O mean police riot junky, that is HARD & neglects children--how so ever benignly for their ultimate own good--treats our pet under served constituencies as self responsible adults with volition & agency, hurts the en-VIRRN-ment, lets us get away with living well instead of nannying poor doltish non-westerners & validates the paradigm of crass flinty egoists & individualists who would make us look bad by actually living the demanding stoic virtues of hardihood, perseverance, self reliance, stark realism, intent focus, persistent striving, excellence & valor.". I have heard more than my share of it since fall 1968 in second grade.
So far from being the start of any thing significant the roil in Ceylon is a symptom of a carefully planned cause already activated for purposes that if at all tracking Miss Johnstone's hopes & aspirations they are quite unintended & may even be judged counter productive by the activators. I will believe such events are locally spontaneous & worth taking prima facie after the end of the western implementation of the will of the Bank of England.
..
That's great but everytime I see something like that happening I have to wonder if it's because the government has done something the U.S. Neocons don't like and was inspired by their National Endowment for Democracy. It also looks a little like D.C. on Jan 6th, 2020. Of course it could just be because Sri Lanka is collateral damage from one of the neocons other schemes.
"Religions that have been around for thousands of years because the powerful endorsed and promulgated them are full of passages extolling the virtues of obedience, poverty, meekness, and rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's. From the moment we are born our heads are filled with stories about why it's good and right to consent to the status quo and why it would be wrong to take back what has been stolen from us by a predatory ruling class..."
Can't miss the allusion, though if this description does purport to characterize Christianity, it's about as accurate as the Western media's illusion of a heroic Ukraine.. In truth, were men to actually know, understand, and apply Christian principle and power in their lives, we wouldn't be writing about a governing elite being able to brutally lord over the masses.
What we're seeing today is a Mt. Sinai redux.. where God's people were given a choice of men to believe.. either 2 that faithfully followed Him, and 10 that were cowards, and unbelieving. Guess who 100% of His people chose.. Same deal today, (remember the churches that closed on command in 2020?..) and God gets the black eye because of the frailties of men.
Like the prophet said..'Is there really anything new under the sun?'