On Its Way

As Gil Scott-Heron said, “The revolution will not be televised.”

The US, or one of its “coalition” partners, bombed a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that they – the US and its phony partners – knew the precise GPS coordinates of, and called it, at first report anyway, by that nifty name that absolves a belligerent party of all responsibility, “collateral” damage. More than twenty people killed, at least that many wounded, and you know damn well there will be no impartial investigation, no war crimes tribunal, because the US, like our dear friends Israel and Saudi Arabia, are exempt from international law.

The US can kill whoever it damn well pleases whenever it pleases, and if you don’t like it, so what.

All the Pentagon has to say is that the Taliban was using the hospital for cover. God, how familiar does that sound? Think back to the last Israeli assault on Gaza – the same bullshit excuse was used when bombs and artillery shells fell on UN schools.

Fourteen years and billions of wasted dollars later, the US is still teeing it up against the Taliban. We were supposed to be leaving the scene, turning the broken nation back to the Afghans – sorry we fucked your country up but we gotta’ split – but now Obama wants to keep as many as 5,000 US troops in country for God knows how many more years. Great. Let’s piss away another $50 billion while people in our country starve, sleep on the sidewalk, and go bankrupt because they cannot afford overpriced medications.

My country is an embarrassment. Our politics are absurd, most of our leaders are liars and whores, and there is no doubt that we are the most dangerous and mistrusted nation on this poor planet. We are an imperial power, pure and simple, and like all imperial powers throughout history, we are in the throes of a major collapse. We can’t sustain global, endless war, but we’ll never give up trying. Our leaders are just too fucking stupid and pigheaded to admit that it’s time to sound retreat, to blow up all the monopolies and cartels, to chase the super rich from the temple with torches and pitchforks, string some of these white-collar criminals up by their scrotums, and start giving a shit about income inequality, the working poor, the dying middle class, and our beleaguered climate. 

No, Mr. Scott-Heron, the revolution will not be televised. The beat of the drum, the cadence of marching feet, the flicker of torches, and voices echoing off the pavement; better run, Mr. CEO, Mr. Mighty Banker, because these people are headed your way, right up your front porch to your gilded front door, just like 1789 in Paris. Remember? Heads in a basket, bodies piled in tumbrils like cordwood. You can rob the masses blind for only so long, prey on the poor and the weak for only so long, steal from the national treasury for only so long, before the people wake from their dream and realize they can end their nightmare.

The revolution may not be televised, but as sure as the sun rises, the revolution is on its way.