Chat between me and Ishan about revolutions and shit

ISHAN: Must be some hench fucking tax rises...

ALEX: The problem is that in order to pay for the economic crisis, the greek government (along with the rest of europe) has decided to massively slash public spending - basically, they want to put the costs onto the workers and the poor, despite the fact that we had nothing to do with causing the problem. We need to fight back in the same way when the cuts happen here.

ISHAN: Hmm. It is pretty fucked up. Would be nice to have more diplomatic ways of solving this issue though.

Diplomacy > guns

But it's easier said, than done.

ALEX: The trouble is, there is no chance whatsoever of diplomatically appealing to the state not to do this. In Britain, for example, the three major parties all agreed that they would do the same thing the Greek government is doing now in Britain; worse, in fact. Historically too these crises have happened over and over again and every time the poor are forced to pay.

I think we should take a step back and look at the whole picture - if we can see that the rich keep causing financial meltdowns and that the governments of the world unfailingly prop them back up by making the poor suffer, why on earth should we be begging them to stop as our strategy? If someone repeatedly punches you in the face with no sign of letting up, there has to come a point where you stop tolerating it. The greeks have decided to stop tolerating it... let's hope they win. :)

ISHAN: It's alright talking about revolutions and shit, but what comes after that? Will the nation truly come together as a whole to sort the problems out, or will we appoint some awesome badass to fix our problems? Or will we just end up fighting like hooligans on the streets, mindless zombies of people that are rioting for the sake of "fuck you i won't do what you tell me, hand in the air, fucking la revolucion" riots.

What does that say about our nature?

ALEX: Well, what comes after that is a better world. Just like the mass movements that destroyed slavery and won civil rights, just like the mass movements that won women's liberation, the right to vote, public education and healthcare, living wages, and everything else.

It's not really a case of the nation needing to come together as a whole - there is a clear divide in our country and in the world between the rich elites who contribute nothing to society and get everything in return and the rest of us who contribute everything and get told to work harder and for less money. It's us that need to come together and put a stop to the system that does this to us. We can run society just fine without them - in fact, we already do. Tesco doesn't run as a shop through the magic of it's CEO, it runs as a shop because the workers there make it so - but the CEO gets all the profit and all the power. That's what needs to change.

As for mindless zombies rioting for the sake of it, if you can show me where this has ever happened on anything like a large scale then maybe it would be something to worry about. As far as I can see this idea we all get sold that revolutions are just orgies of violence is a flat-out lie.

ISHAN: I should have said that better. Talking about the people who would just riot for the sake of rioting know what I mean? Cuz there are a shitload of people like that. Counter progressive shit bro.

I definitely think it's a possibility, but I think, the chaos, will be more than substantial to piss a lot of people off, and cause a lot of havoc for a lot of people (if we do something as extreme as taking over parliament).

Mass protests would be bad ass, just not violent ones, if you catch my drift?

ALEX: About the rioting for the sake of rioting point: Again, I don't think this idea of revolutions being way-layed by some faction of hooligans stands up to any scrutiny. If we look at a specific example, say the french revolution in 1792, we can see that it didn't happen like that. There was an insurrection against the king which resulted in his arrest, the confiscation of church and aristocratic property, the scrapping of the old feudal obligations, establishment of universal male suffrage, and so on. An absolutely huge step forward from what had gone on before. This was a violent movement; it had to be, because obviously they were opposed by the french army. And yet, no mystical crowd of purposeless hooligans arrived at any point to muddle the movement up. If you know of a time when it has happened like that then that would be interesting, but as far as I know it's a fairytale that any large group has ever revolted just for the sake of it.

The violence point is related - if the french revolutionaries had lay down their arms and talked about flower power they would have just been killed by the king's forces and everyone would have had to return to their old miserable standard of life. That isn't right. Obviously any violence is terrible, but pacifist movements rarely succeed.

ISHAN: I see that. Just like Italian Unification, but the people were actually oppressed, repressed, suppressed, and any other -essed you can think of right? Is something such as raised taxes enough to call for violent protest? Like sure if we meet violence towards us, we gawna blow dem mo fuckas off this planet, just personally, it seems so ridiculous for blood to be spilled for something like that.

BUT I AGREE. If we do nothing, and think world peace will just happen, we're wrong.