Moar.
Post-Revolution Blues
I think I'm suffering from a light case of burn-out. Yesterday I practically pushed myself beyond my limits. I woke up at 7:30 in the morning, had a small and quick breakfast that was going to be my only meal for the next 12 hours. I traveled in a train packed with early commuters to the centre of Athens to meet with the people from my union. There we joined in solidarity with another union to block the entrance to a huge coffee shop that has been using and abusing its employees. That was an amusing way to wake up and start your day. After that we handed out a call for more people to join our union and joined another three unions to form a bloc that then marched all the way to the central square of Athens. I held the banner too.
I was hot, thirsty, possibly sunburnt already and a bit tired. I spent some time with the people I've met in the union and when shit started getting kicked, and they decided to leave, I stayed and watched and participated depending on the tides of battle I suppose. I inhaled cubic arseloads of teargas and various asphyxiants and thank fuck I was wearing a mask otherwise I may have been deadified by now. I came face to face with plenty a pig in all shapes and colours and I walked tens of kilometers.
We built and lit barricades, flung rocks, insults and other debris at cops and tried to protect ourselves and other people, some of whom didn't even want us there. That's the shittiest thing of all. To be treated like an unwanted servant. Fuck you lady. I didn't come here for you, I came here for me. I'm alive and you're still dead. Underneath the mask I'm smiling.
I met a lot of people, I like most of them and I was genuinely happy. I only had water and cigarettes, I was definitely sunburnt and dehydrated by the end of it, very dirty and tired but I was fucking happy. The explosions didn't scare me or the fire. That's not to say I wasn't scared. This was happiness resulting from fears being faced and defeated.
Today, I'm healing. Apparently the government will be changing but that won't change my life. Or the life of most other people. It'll still be "same shit, different asshole". And I'm kind of down today. I feel like a wild animal that has been caged for all its life, has tasted freedom for a day and then has been shoved back in its cage. I still have to find a shitty job to pay my shitty rent. But yesterday. O yesterday I lit fires.
Society of the Spectacle
In contrast to the logic of false consciousness, which cannot truly know itself, the search for critical truth about the spectacle must also be a true critique. It must struggle in practice among the irreconcilable enemies of the spectacle, and admit that it is nothing without them. By rushing into sordid reformist compromises or pseudorevolutionary collective actions, those driven by an abstract desire for immediate effectiveness are in reality obeying the ruling laws of thought, adopting a perspective that can see nothing but the latest news. In this way delirium reappears in the camp that claims to be opposing it. A critique seeking to go beyond the spectacle must know how to wait.
Guy Debord
The slogan ‘Revolution or Death!’ is no longer the lyrical expression of consciousness in revolt: rather, it is the last word of the scientific thought of our century. It applies to the perils facing the species as to the inability of individuals who belong. In a society where it is well known that the suicide rate is on the increase, the experts had to admit, reluctantly, that during May 1968 in France it fell to almost nil. That spring also vouchsafed us a clear sky, and it did so effortlessly, because few cars were burnt and the shortage of petrol prevented the others from polluting the air.
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