I found this video by Peak Crackers, to be an unusually empathic and prescient analysis and prognosis of where we are, where we’re going, and how we will get to the other side of goddess-only-knows what calamity approaches.
Via zengardner.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qz9d2WanMM
Meanwhile, I think Chris Hedges is right, we need a professional class of “revolutionists” to lead the way. Ones who have dedicated their lives to knowing when, how and why — and the way need not be violent, just effective and strategic.
However, once again, I’d like to counsel Chris Hedges to focus on accelerating open-sourced and open-hearted networks of locally-based solutions a bit more. He might not feel quite so hopeless . . .
Why We Need Professional Revolutionists
November 24, 2014
by Chris Hedges
Excerpts:
There are environmental, economic and political grass-roots movements, largely unseen by the wider society, that have severed themselves from the formal structures of power. They have formed collectives and nascent organizations dedicated to overthrowing the corporate state. They eschew the rigid hierarchical structures of past revolutionary movements—although this may change—for more amorphous collectives. Plato referred to professional revolutionists as his philosophers. John Calvin called them his saints. Machiavelli called them his Republican Conspirators. Lenin labeled them his Vanguard. All revolutionary upheavals are built by these entities. [See a list of some of these groups, with links to their websites, at the end of this article.]
The revolutionists call on us to ignore the political charades and spectacles orchestrated by our oligarchic masters around electoral politics. They tell us to dismiss the liberals who look to a political system that is dead. They expose the press as an echo chamber for the elites.
The revolutionist is a curious hybrid of the practical and the impractical. He or she is aware of facing nearly impossible odds. The revolutionist has at once a lucid understanding of power, along with the vagaries of human nature, and a commitment to overthrowing power.
. . .
There is nothing rational about rebellion. To rebel against insurmountable odds is an act of faith. And without this faith the rebel is doomed. This faith is intrinsic to the rebel the way caution and prudence are intrinsic to those who seek to fit into existing power structures. The rebel, possessed by inner demons and angels, is driven by visions familiar to religious mystics. And it is the rebel alone who can save us from corporate tyranny. I do not know if these rebels will succeed. But I do know that a world without them is hopeless.
