last night I watched a PBS program on the French Revolution, told through the lives of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, by historians who somehow, despite the messages they were delivering, seemed to act as if they were close personal friends of the King and Queen. Which is awkward. A main point I took away was that, when one looks at upheavals in the past, there is a retrospective mythologizing of the 'idea whose time has come'. The king and queen couldn't conquer and rule it, and despite their best interests were worn down and forced to acquiesce in order to keep their lives and livelihoods (for the nonce).
At this moment Congress is to decide whether certain CEO bonuses should be subjected to taxation. A man has issued a video calling for the heads (and addresses) of particular CEO's. Is this the new manifestation of class warfare in our egalitarian, meritorial, class-free midst? Is Main Street fermenting the gall and rage to storm Wall Street? It seems for sure that there is novel use of divisive class-based rhetoric and widespread 'outrage' (catharsis). Not that I think any of it is mistaken. Just unexpected after what seems like a lull.
Maybe it is just the vengeful set's substitution of the financial sector as foil into the space voided of Bush.
An epithet for the times: A rising tide obscured all rocks.
And by 'class' I don't mean (upper, upper middle...) or (Proletarians, Bourgois...) but I do very much mean a struggle arising from deep seated inequity in the control of the means (of production, reproduction, sustenance...). And today there were a reported 3m strikers in the streets of France.
Digging the Masabumi Kikuchi over at Orgy in Rythm, with Al Foster, Gary Peacock, tablas and percussion. Deep digging groove and melodic soulful and Japanese.
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