Um, You're Soaking In It!

So not too long ago I found this little article about political revolution, and the seven steps to getting there. It's four short web-pages long, and fairly interesting if you have a passing interest in these things. If not, you should skip the rest and watch the gjoddang octopus video I last put up, cause meng, it's pretty fjucking awesome! (the soundtrack is also particularly soothing too)

Anyways, if you're still here, we'll go explore a little deeper into the Fjords, hoping for some gjood stuff.

Today's post goes something like this.
I was thinking about back in the day (as I was someone old enough to watch it happen on my teevee) when the Berlin Wall came down. Man, that was a sight. It was a symbol for we idiots in the West, about everything that was wrong with the Soviet Union, and Communists, and all the stuff that made societies and economies work. And the thing is, no matter how you looked at the world -politically- before then, it all changed.

And by that I mean...when I was a young lad, I remember rootin' for the Mujaheddin to defeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I remember gleaning out of the (pre-internet totally broadcast/press news) that we (in the U.S.) were actively supporting the native Afghan rebels, and enthusiastically wanting them to win. When the Soviets rolled out of Afghanistan, I literally felt like the forces of good had won, had, with our help, defeated the bad guys.

'Course, in those times, for those of you who didn't live thru it, (or did but were uber small) the common narrative that stretched thru everything was, the United states had 10,000 nuclear missiles, and the Soviet Union had like 50,000. (The reason being (so they explained) ours were so much more accurate, they needed 5x as many to make sure they took out the target they were shot at. 'Course, we all know you hit a major city with a nuke missile, it really doesn't matter where you hit it.) But anyway, this is all background crapola.

If there were to be a war, no matter who launched the first strike, and who launched the counterstrike before the first strike hit, the whole planet, well, life on the whole planet would be changed in such profound ways that I would not even be capable of this narrative, unless it was with twelve people gathered around a campfire after we had killed an 8-legged deer, and people were asking to hear how the world was...before. And, why everyone had five eyes, that fin, six breasts, and three testicles that were sterile. But that's a different story.

The Soviets were not just an enemy to us, they were the foe that could bring and attack so destructive, that it would destroy all life on our continent. An attack so powerful, that our only defense was to unleash a counter-attack so destructive, that all life on their continent would also be killed. And in so doing, destroy the world. Those were the stakes. No matter how it got spun, and no matter how I misinterpreted that spin...there was no mistaking those were the real stakes. I fell asleep more than a few nights wondering if I would wake up because a nuclear war happened while I was dreaming.

Okay. That's motha' fjuckin' nuts. I know it now. But I also know that's what the feeling was during that time. So to continue with my narrative...

When the Berlin Wall came down, We really had a common feeling like all the Warsaw Pact countries were free! In Poland, the Solidarity Union took over. In Czechoslovakia there was a velvet revolution led by a playwright...and after that, specifically, I can't remember the others. But one by one all the hard-line regimes changed. We thought it was going to be great. Gorbachev was a wise Saint, and no longer was there there a planet-threatening battle of ideology. (Clearly, nearly none of the people in the U.S knew a Russian, and vice-versa, we didn't hate each other, the hate was from our ideology towards theirs (and likewise, vice-versa))

There was going to be a "peace dividend" from all the money we were going to save from keeping a massively awesome global military on standby. And life was going to be AWESOME!
(And seriously, for me, the psychological weight from knowing I wasn't going to be incinerated by a nuclear warhead as I slept was considerable...even if it was, or wasn't ever real)

But around this time I thought about the downfall of Communism, and wondered, quite a bit about Karl Marx. Marx was the dude who came up with the idea of..."hey, instead of the fifty rich guys owning everything and taking the profits of the fifty-million workers working for them, let us do away with the fifty guys, and let the fifty-million workers share the profits of everything they make."

As it turns out the Communist Revolution (1917-ish, which the Germans helped along starting WWI) was run by some awful thugs, who, in pure Capitalist tradition, seized power, and made sure things for them, were pretty fjuckin' bueno. I'm no expert, and pretty sure I'm no novice when it comes to commenting about what life was like under that rule. I only assume, compared to what I know, it was pretty bad. Of course, from what I know, life is almost always bad...but I do know they got free healthcare, which isn't awful. But anyways, I need to get back to my point.

The whole deal with Marx, was a class-struggle. There were three classes, the lower, the middle and the upper class. In which, inevitably the upper-class (which already had all the money and power) would exploit the middle and lower-class workers, until the middle-class and the lower- class joined up, and united rose up in revolution, to replace the upper-class with nothing. In it's place would be a collective. A collective of people who shared the wealth that was created, thru their work and creativity. What would exist, would be a society that had no owners, and instead shared all their talents in ways to benefit the common good. Needless to say it did not work out as well as planned.

However, the reason I was thinking about Marx after the fall of the Soviet Union...was that, without this ideology to fight against, without this horrible (world destroying) enemy to keep our ideology in line, (taking full advantage of any leverage we might use against them, or persuade allies or perspective allies, against a foe that had no respect for human rights, or civil rights, or human freedoms.) we reach a simple conclujsion. In the global struggle for ideas and systems of government, order, finance, and manufacturing that work, the Capitalists have won.

It was at this moment (err, well, yaknow, it didn't happen exactly at one moment...it took a while to kinda work this idea out) that I thought to myself. "Now there's no-one to fight against, we'll see if Marx actually had anything."

Not to lead your thoughts too far along on this, but it does seem like in the last twenty-years, one particular class has already made class-struggle a pretty high priority. And it ain't the two that gots problems affording healthcare. Well, anyways, I do sorta' hope enough of 'em wake up to actually do something about it, but from what I've seen, it's already too late.



See, I told ya you shoulda' skipped this and just watched the octopus. That thing is pretty fjucking awesome!