[D66] The Coming Insurrection

[Antid Oto]

http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/

The Coming Insurrection

(begin and end)


 From whatever angle you approach it, the present offers no way out. 
This is not the least of its virtues. From those who seek hope above 
all, it tears away every firm ground. Those who claim to have solutions 
are contradicted almost immediately. Everyone agrees that things can 
only get worse. “The future has no future” is the wisdom of an age that, 
for all its appearance of perfect normalcy, has reached the level of 
consciousness of the first punks.



The sphere of political representation has come to a close. From left to 
right, it’s the same nothingness striking the pose of an emperor or a 
savior, the same sales assistants adjusting their discourse according to 
the findings of the latest surveys. Those who still vote seem to have no 
other intention than to desecrate the ballot box by voting as a pure act 
of protest. We’re beginning to suspect that it’s only against voting 
itself that people continue to vote. Nothing we’re being shown is 
adequate to the situation, not by far. In its very silence, the populace 
seems infinitely more mature than all these puppets bickering amongst 
themselves about how to govern it. The ramblings of any Belleville 
chibani contain more wisdom than all the declarations of our so-called 
leaders. The lid on the social kettle is shut triple-tight, and the 
pressure inside continues to build. From out of Argentina, the specter 
of Que Se Vayan Todos is beginning to seriously haunt the ruling class.


...



In times like these, the end of centralized revolutions reflects the 
decentralization of power. Winter Palaces still exist but they have been 
relegated to assaults by tourists rather than revolutionary hordes. 
Today it is possible to take over Paris, Rome, or Buenos Aires without 
it being a decisive victory. Taking over Rungis  would certainly be more 
effective than taking over the Elysée Palace. Power is no longer 
concentrated in one point in the world; it is the world itself, its 
flows and its avenues, its people and its norms, its codes and its 
technologies. Power is the organization of the metropolis itself. It is 
the impeccable totality of the world of the commodity at each of its 
points. Anyone who defeats it locally sends a planetary shock wave 
through its networks.  The  riots that began in Clichy-sous-Bois filled 
more than one American household with joy, while the insurgents of 
Oaxaca found accomplices right in the heart of Paris. For France, the 
loss of centralized power signifies the end of Paris as the center of 
revolutionary activity. Every new movement since the strikes of 1995 has 
confirmed this. It’s no longer in Paris that the most daring and 
consistent actions are carried out. To put it bluntly, Paris now stands 
out only as a target for raids, as a pure terrain to be pillaged and 
ravaged. Brief and brutal incursions from the outside strike at the 
metropolitan flows at their point of maximum density. Rage streaks 
across this desert of fake abundance, then vanishes. A day will come 
when this capital and its horrible concretion of power will lie in 
majestic ruins, but it will be at the end of a process that will be far 
more advanced everywhere else.





All power to the communes!