J.J. Krupert Top 13 Countdown - June '11 #11: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron

Them (D)s and (R)s just barely did pass whatever it was they did to buy off the credit wolves, but the promise of financial armageddon is still there, thankfully. I was really hoping nothing would get agreed to and shit would blow up, even though it would mean tough times for most folks - including me as sole provider for a family of five. But honestly, fuck it man, it's got to happen sooner or later anyways, and we've lived as Americans under this guise of freedom where we are indebted to a new-fangled country store all our livelong lives, and we just roll it back into company scrip, get a little cut off the top, and we blow it on some new shit to bedazzle us into oblivion for the time being. It can't hold, and it won't hold, no matter what finagling them (D)s and (R)s pretend they put together in their pretend different ways. We, as people, would be better off long-term if the shit just hit the fan, and we're forced to struggle through chaos and insanity for decades until something new takes off. Sure, short-term, a lot of us would struggle in ways we have not previously imagined, and a lot of motherfuckers would get hurt and probably die, over the petty petty politics of accumulating pretend wealth. We can't all get rich if there's a finite amount of wealth, which is what the whole wide world was pretending we was doing, and the capitalism system tried to flaunt it could achieve. But that center can't hold.
At the same time, we can't all get poor either, even though that might be the pretend result of what happens in the coming months/years. But if the "we all getting rich" throwing money in the air like we all are extras in the "Luchini" video is smoke and mirrors, then the "we all are fucked" doom and gloom is smoke and mirrors too, from the other angle. We will get by, if we adapt and survive to thrive. You don't need all this shit, bro, trust me.
So that brings me to the popular misconception that somehow new social media is some sort of anti-authoritarian vanguard of revolution, or awakening people to the truth. Guess what though, bro? The Revolution won't be digitized either. All this electronic foundation you build upon, the lights go out and it's gone, as soon as the battery power of our assorted handheld "revolutionary" devices die out. And I don't see no one accumulating smart phone batteries in 5-gallon buckets like military rations. So very simply, once the power is out, your digital revolution is snuffed. Straight up. Not to mention that your bullshit is tracked with a precision that 1969 FBI salivated over.
I don't know man, revolutions always seem to be more about the feeling good about being different part of things than actually fucking shit up and bringing about actual change. Like Gil Scott-Heron fans - and I warn you, I'm about to blaspheme in ways that will make the type that eats a type of soul food made of barbecue tofu cringe with disagreement - but Gil Scott-Heron had some good thangs going on, but came across as soft to me, like a character on Sesame Street, singing about red, black, and green liberation jumpsuits outside of that corner grocery store to Maria and Oscar the Grouch. I mean, I get it, and really love the spirit behind this song right here, but I think the whole thing about the reality of revolution was lost inside the grand notion of listening to Gil Scott-Heron while eating at cafes that serve couscous while discussing kemetics with your likeminded friends. And there's nothing wrong with that, in a consumer culture sense. And in a consumer culture sense, I'm certainly a thousand more times appreciative of that than some dumbass jocking the latest mindless "reality" TV rap anthem jibber jabber. But it's still not a bonafide revolution.
I don't think those types of people - the Gil Scott-Heron lovers - can get behind a true revolution, and I think this simply because of the pot lucks I've been to over the years. I'm talking pot lucks where, for the most part, people of righteous minds bring righteous dishes in handcrafted bowls with wooden spoons of organicky couscouses and brown rices and foreign vegetable spicings, but in small servings. When there's a Revolution, you've got to feed an army, and an army ain't fed with three tablespoons of rice pilaf with curried chick peas per person. I roll to pot lucks with enough to feed my whole goddamned five-person family in the car, never less, often more, and it might be shitty meat from the shitty grocery store down the road. But it's my shitty grocery store in my shitty little town, and I take those ingredients and I spice it and flip it and cook it up. I can work my way around a kitchen, as can the ol' lady, as well as the kids, as much as we've shown them this far along in their cultivation. But you've got to have that "feed an army with the shit at hand" mentality to throw down in the coming times. It ain't all organic on this earth. Shit's gonna burn, and it gonna vibrate in your pocket on your robot phone when it's actually burning. The 1s and 0s are already gonna be cut off by the (D)s and (R)s.
And hey, bring that righteous mind with you though. Once it all goes down, in a bad way, and starts to grow back up, then we can try to heal the land, bring the plants back the way they're meant to nourish and handle our own meat animals and give them the appreciation that'll pop back up in our bellies and muscles and minds. Shit's gonna get ugly, but it's gotta get ugly before it can be truly pretty again, because mostly what we're all doing nowadays is putting make-up on an old whore and pretending she's still tight.
STEAL "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"
NEXT: the main ingredient in brown sugar pie!