Mentzen spreads imitations of the banknotes from the Confederate estrada. Nothing new. People like him have done things since Roman times. But sometimes – especially erstwhile they wanted to “turn over the system” – they did it a small differently. due to the fact that there were others and another things they wanted.
For example, 56 years ago, the hippies dropped real bills on the level of the fresh York Stock Exchange and stopped her for a fewer minutes. I threw toilet paper in the carnival myself 36 years ago, and on Women's Day towels – more valuable then money – trying to make a tiny revolt and not let the militia roll. Can money be "turned over" and the strategy changed? due to the fact that Mentzen says that the strategy is turning over, spreading confetti, spilling beer and promising 2 cars each. He insults reason. Don't you feel offended, you guys who drink beer and catch the flying papers?
The hippies and their revolution swept the planet well over half a century ago. It is the 1960s with culmination in 1968, erstwhile in places as different as France, the Netherlands, the USA, Mexico and in any sense besides Czechoslovakia and Poland believed that if necessary, then and can change the planet for the better. They were young, tried to "turn over the table" – and were lefties. And sometimes they were made of them. The Manifesto of American New-Left Students for Democratic Society was full of references to Sarte, Camus and others, but there were besides literal quotes from John XXIII's encyclical. There have been instances of war, kyrvawa frequently discrimination against races, gender, religion, sexual orientation, against exploitation at work, drastic inequalities, governments of a financier overblown with politicians and media, against the power of secret services, against dulsche in customs. In no of the many countries in turmoil, the protest movement has achieved anything in political terms. no took over and almost no even tried. On the contrary – politics was avoided, reasoning it was always dirty, which present sounds familiar, right? But all of these have overtook politics, public life, and social life in a way that we feel profoundly to this day, more than half a century later.
Today, another wave of very deep shocks has – as in the USA, the UK, Poland, Hungary, Sweden, Italy – clear, purely political effects. Today's rebels do not shun politics – on the contrary, they push to it without any restraint, reasoning that they deserve a place in it. Today's wave differs from that revolution, too, that present no 1 quotes any intellectuals or even popes. Compared to the others, today's rebels are knuckleheads, although they dress in costly suits erstwhile they wear grumpy clothes. Today's rebels don't head either war or discrimination, they like violence. But they besides say that they want to overturn the system.
Revolution
Let's see – a comic small part of history:
We were 18 people – writes Abbie Hoffman (Revolution for the Hell of It – Revolution for Eggs) about shares in the fresh York Stock Exchange erstwhile we came in, the guards threw themselves at us. "You are hippies and you want to make illegal demonstration here." "And who's the hippie?! – I say – I'm Jewish, I don't have any banners, I want in." They yet felt it was not a good thought to keep the hebrew out of the stock marketplace and let us go. We stood in line politely, chatting with another tourists... and abruptly saw hordes of journalists with cameras. individual got a tip that could be a story. In fresh York, the press can mobilize in a minute. frequently faster than police.
... We went to the gallery, the guards wouldn't let the press in. I gave money to the remainder of the group and respective tourists – and we all threw it at erstwhile through the railing down onto the floor. Pandemonium. The celebrated Christmas electronic tape with action odds, the heart of the Western world, froze in motion. The brokers crawled around the dance level like mice in panic, collecting bills. There's lust. This lasted 5 minutes at most. The guards threw us out, the neon tape of the stock marketplace moved again.
In the evening we were on tv worldwide – writes Hoffman at shortly To Be a Major Motion Picture – although no camera has filmed us or seen any reporter. The revolutionary theatre is most likely the oldest form of political comment. The same ideas are inactive alive. Spending money on the stockbrokers of the fresh York Stock Exchange is simply a modern version of expelling debt sharks from the Temple. The symbols, the sense, the message were identical. Did we shake the Empire? Well, 2 weeks after our act of terror, $20,000 was spent on a bulletproof, tight barrier separating the gallery from the stock exchange floor. Given that we invested $200 in it, individual had to take it seriously as a business so large that it was dangerous.
This bulletproof guardrail and conversion origin 1 to 1000 I recalled erstwhile the PiS spent millions on kilometers of rented steel railings around Smolensk monthly and thousands of policemen drawn from all over Poland, or erstwhile I looked at barriers around the Sejm for over 6 years. 1 and the another were set up due to a tiny group of my friends. The tiny, shitty PiS empire was a small shaky, though there were no ones who could have knocked it over... Mentzen with Bosak in the area I have not seen, nor have I seen Tusk, Holownia, Black and others. We were alone with Kaczyński, his gorillas, his television, and the remainder of the company.
I besides remembered the 1987 carnival erstwhile in Orange alternate we decided to celebrate the carnival utilizing confetti and napkins from toilet paper – in PRL it was a treasure for which there was no price. The power – 1 of our small triumphs – decided this time to "play politically", alternatively of simply reeling us as usual and "throwing" the reserve resources of the scarce commodity to close shops and kiosks. The consequence was that erstwhile ordered to wrap everyone with paper, guilty men were sent to God's custody, girded with string-on rolls of paper, like guerrillas Che Guevary with tapes of bullets. Fragment of the hearing, another part of history:
– And what, citizen, were you doing at Swidnicka during working hours?
– Well... – the citizen hesitates confused, due to the fact that “bumelka” was punished in PRL – I was shopping, wife asked, you know, officer, what it's like...
– And what were you for – here the esbek bends behind the desk and for a minute disappears, with a dramatic motion he brings out a rotation of paper and with an aggressively triumphant grin he stilted being interrogated by crushing evidence of the crime – this?!!!
The citizen did not know whether it was appropriate for him to explain to the officer in item how to usage paper. He came out changed, learned the higher fact about the nature of things, was already a soldier of the Orange Revolution...
Another tiny jolt of unwavering, as everyone thought, an empire that turned out to be alternatively comic and not terrible.
I have shown you, Confederate voters, a revolt in its version completely bloodless, in tiny and insignificant appearances. Yet, the sum of specified tiny things and things a bit larger has changed the world. First of all, I'm showing you this to show people who were after something. People who went against the current, risking themselves to the power of violent police and frequently standing alone in front of an enemy crowd. Sometimes this crowd killed like the Ku-Klux-Klan, sometimes they just kicked like nationalists on the independency March, or screamed furiously and spat, as Smolenian followers did on Kaczyński's monthlys. Either way, you had to have the balls to do it and you had to believe anything.
Spin
The Confederate, though he's talking about turning the table, doesn't do the revolution. He's doing a political spin. Both words – spin and revolution – have sources of akin importance. In both cases, it's about rotation. Revolutions seldom succeed, and even little frequently – almost never – neglect well. Spin's safer. It doesn't change anything. It's made for a political career. Spin's to sell. To make the most of the comfortable flow with the current, to get a good pitch.
There is, however, something deeper in throwing money into a crowd of anonymous people. It's scary from the promise of a barbecue and 2 cars. If this is the engine of change and its purpose, we plan a society of people who want nothing more. We plan a fresh kind of man. Reduced to the needs we see on Confederate posters. Beer, barbecue, 2 cars. Leave the remainder to us, your leaders. But that's not all. erstwhile these people are made anonymous, senseless crowds showered with money from the scene from which they are “learned” erstwhile the crowd howls out of delight, they go a step further. possibly I shouldn't, possibly it's not worth touching my arms – but I take it fatally seriously. It's the purest horror of a distinctly brown color. The stories you would gotta mention would have been even older, a 100 years ago. And they wouldn't be funny.
