The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

[TexasTowelie]

By Carol Morgan

It was strange. On Tuesday, November 5th, 200,000 people marched through D.C. and thousands of others did the same in 800 cities across the world. The mostly youthful and clamoring hordes protested against worldwide government corruption in the Million Mask March.

Yet…as volatile and inspiring as it was, no mainstream news network uttered a peep or wrote a word. Thousands upon thousands of citizen journalists posted pictures and videos. Protestors felled by water cannons in Turkey, teargas in Lisbon, arrests in Washington. The energy was contagious. Throughout the day, I searched for establishment media's accounts, and nothing… The MSM focused on Kanye West’s bad choice of couture and drama within the NFL.

Why? Are they afraid it will encourage others to join or is it because sports and celebrity pop culture garners more attention and revenue? It made me wonder what other events they ignored.

From 448 days in 1979 Iran to Tiananmem Square and the Ukraine and more recently, the Arab Spring, we see the timeless truths in Crane Brinton’s 1938 academic work: Anatomy of a Revolution. He simplifies the process of revolution into a series of predictable steps: financial breakdown, organization of the discontented to find a solution, demands by the dissenters that threaten the existence of the governing, leading to government force and its failure and finally, the attainment of power by the revolutionaries. Sadly, it's the same human narrative over and over. The revolutionists become the establishment and another splinter group renews the conflict.

Dr. Brinton summarized it simply: “Revolutions are born of hope rather than misery”. He must have taken his lead from Trotsky who once claimed that if poverty was the cause of revolutions, the world would be in a constant state of revolt because most of the world is poor.

In my mind, it’s more like dry kindling and a random spark. If you look at past insurgencies, a series of repeated governmental wrongs led to a final saturation point and the lighting of the fire. The spark could be Brazil’s transporation fare increase, the face-off with tanks in Tiananmen Square or the self-immolation of the Tunisian fruit vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi.

In the end, with few exceptions, revolutions are always bloody and violent affairs and those who romanticize that notion don’t realize the real consequences. Revolutions require discipline and sacrifices and I really don’t believe Americans are up to that; they have too many comforts and conveniences to lose. And then there’s the predictable results that the revolutionaries become the tyrants, where, as W.B. Yeats once wrote, “Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again, the beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.”

In the midst of my morning’s mind-odyssey, I recalled an old song from the early 70’s by Gil Scott-Heron entitled: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. He borrowed the slogan from the Black Power Movement and connected it to pop-culture and consumption to reiterate that lasting change occurs within. The crux of the tune is this: Changing your mind comes first, then changing the way you live. No one’s going to be able to capture that transformation on film. Just like the tank-man or the fruit vendor, it will just be an inner spark and the realization that you’re on the wrong road.

Perhaps, rather than a revolution, we simply need to look inward and assess our contribution to the chaos in the world. Maybe there should be fewer revolutions, but more personal epiphanies. And that is something we can’t experience via television.

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Carol Morgan is a career counselor, writer, speaker, former Democratic candidate for the Texas House and the award-winning author of Of Tapestry, Time and Tears, a historical fiction about the 1947 Partition of India. Contact her by email at [email protected] follow her on Twitter @CounselorCarol1, on Facebook: CarolMorgan1 and her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org

http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2013-11-08/revolution-will-not-be-televised

[frazzled]

1. 200,000?

The Washington Post said it was "a few hundred." (The pictures would seem to corroborate that; but who's a girl to believe?) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/05/protesters-at-the-million-mask-march-in-washington-d-c-were-upset-about-a-lot-of-things/

At any rate, even if the revolution were televised, I doubt anyone would watch it.

[TexasTowelie]

2. Probably a typo.

The crowd looked more like 200.

[bvar22]

3. It wasn't televised in Venezuela, Bolivia, or half a dozen other Latin American countries either.

They have accomplished nothing short of near bloodless Ballot Box Revolutions in countries where the RICH owned 100% of their Media too.
They have successfully taken their governments back from the hands of their 1%,
and have given us the Blue Print.

When the American Working Class & Poor realize WE have more in common with each other than we have in common with the RICH1% and their mouth pieces in Washington,
we can have change too.

VIVA Democracy.
Spread the Word.
That is how they did it in Latin America.