"Not always entertaining but a show even so". The only thing more tragic than Earth Day 2020 is May Day 2020. So many people trying to put a positive spin on these Events, but the left should face the fact they have been thoroughly captured, neutered and co-opted. Like a Trump "briefing", the best thing you can do is ignore them, recognize them for the Spectacle they are. When you participate you only lend these obscene displays legitimacy.
I am being asked to participate in a River Clean-up, not a terrible idea in and of itself ( every day should be river clean up day.) But the idea that we have been locked into this repetitive, "groundhog day" re-enactment, year after year after year, with no systemic change on the horizon- or even suggested- is pathos revealed. Plant a tree. Attend a virtual rally with uplifting speeches.
In or around 1930 Antonio Gramsci wrote: "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." Two points: we should be aware of how long analysts have been saying "the old is dying". The fact is the old is always dying and in the case of capitalism (the cultural, economic, political, ideological system) is is dying and being re-born every minute. Certainly the Heritage Foundation will be freaking out right now as "all that was solid turns to air, all that was holy profaned" but Capital itself is mutating before our eyes.
And secondly, yes indeed, the "morbid symptoms" are piling up, like corpses in refrigerator trucks. Too numerous to list, really. Negative price for oil, frozen circulation, billions unemployed. Destroying food while people go hungry.
I'll end by suggesting folks hang on to their masks, even with the Covid threat diminished. This summer will be hot and there will be smoke. Lots of smoke.
No comments:
Post a Comment