“How can we free ourselves from being dominated by people from the past who still retain a shadow of power in the world of space, without soiling ourselves by coming into contact with their lives (we can use the soap of word-creation), and leave them to drown in the destiny they have earned for themselves, that of malicious termites?” —from “Subjects for Discussion” by Velimir Khlebnikov
——
Why do we have old men running the country?
You know, I despise the civil war generation.
When they were young
and the world was theirs,
they chose to slaughter each other.
Our parents and grandparents:
murderers, rapists, thieves,
propagandists, cowards,
idiots.
And the warlords they used to worship
still sit on thrones made of blood and feces.
I don’t care what they stood for.
I don’t care what they fought for.
Obviously, they failed
as I see no victors.
I would rather have
a coder or a gamer run the country.
A bartender or a young Uber driver would do, too.
Not food for worms.
The present — today — is the “future” that the civil war generation built.
This is their future.
Our future is tomorrow.
And tomorrow is a party which they wont — and cannot — attend.
(They’ll be bribing the ferryman
and drinking from Lethe.)
Their time is up, brothers and sisters.
Don’t let them guide you, advise you, teach you.
Because if they do, history will repeat itself.
Their wisdom is as valuable as our Lira.
So I say to you,
Respect your parents and grandparents, yeah,
but make sure you destroy the walls of hate that they have built.
You have to teach them because they cannot see.
The lenses they wear are old and dusty.
They must be reminded that the consequences of today
come from the mistakes of the past.
They are guilty.
The rewards of tomorrow will sprout
from the solutions of today.
And it’s up to you.
You.
Old men!
“We have broken the locks and see what your freight cars contain: tombstones for the young.”
——
Քեզ պէտք է հոգեփոխուել, իսկ դա նշանակում է, թէ դու պիտի դառնաս հակապատկերը հայրերիդ:
— Գարեգին Նժդեհ
Category: Blog
Quotes from The Communist Manifesto
We cannot but acknowledge that the specter of communism still haunts the world, that it never stopped haunting it. The collapse of the Soviet Union wasn’t the end of communism, nor, as some would argue, was its establishment the beginning.
All historians without exception agree, I hope, that the first half of the 20th century wasn’t really the best of times. On a scale of one to what-the-hell-are-you-doing, it was the worst period in human history. That’s when the ‘communism’ you are afraid of today was born.
Communism itself does not advocate killing, of course. (Nor does it want you to be hungry and poor, by the way.) Lenin, fighting in the name of communism, however, did not shy away from spilling some blood. But that’s not so surprising, I would say. When the revolution comes, people die. That’s how it always has been.
On the other hand, we must also understand that though people (like Dostoevsky, for example) were afraid of communism (or socialism, or anarchism) way before 1917, it was only after the October Revolution that the bourgeoisie shat in their pants. As Orlando Figes puts it in Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991, “It was not Marxism that made Lenin a revolutionary but Lenin who made Marxism revolutionary.” In other words, Karl Marx wouldn’t have sent so many people to the Gulag as Lenin, or as Stalin, did.
Now, since I have just reread The Communist Manifesto, and since communism and anti-communism is still a thing on Social Media, here are some quotes from it. Maybe you’ll use one of them to win an argument one day. Who knows?
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property.
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production.
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation.
But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons – the modern working class – the proletarians.
Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers.
The “dangerous class,” the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.
The communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.
The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.
That’s it for today.
Quotes from Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”
I read Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” (1849) wholeheartedly for the first time a little before I started participating in the Lebanese protests of 2015. That was the year I became aware that I am a political animal.
Then I reread it in 2017 (I know this because I posted a picture of the book on my Instagram page with a description that says, “Getting ready for #revolution on Monday morning.”), and I read it once more today, a week after the Beirut Explosion which took place on August 4, 2020.
“Civil Disobedience” unintentionally turned me into some sort of an anarchist — “That government is best which governs not at all.”
But most importantly, Thoreau made me realize that when a government is corrupt, incompetent, or simply inefficient, one must not remain silent. You must fight for what’s right, even if the majority is against you. “For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done for ever.”
Quotes from Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”
I heartily accept the motto, — “That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, — “That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.
Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” (1849)
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse.
Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” (1849)
All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to and to resist the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now.
Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” (1849)
All voting is a sort of gaming, like chequers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.
Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” (1849)
There is but little virtue in the action of the masses of men.
Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” (1849)
Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.
Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” (1849)
