Black Lives Matter & The Question of Violence | Gary Younge – Video

1. A revolution is a political act outside and against the established order.

   It becomes necessary and justifiable in the name of humanity, which is the very object and essence of political association, when the established order acts so totally and persistently against the fundamental terms that govern the relation of governors and governed that no more tolerance may reasonably be expected.

   But a revolution must have a constructive and not merely a destructive direction, aiming to restore those values that the established order had denied.

   The French Revolution was justified due to the intolerable excesses of the regime, but, though it destroyed that, it failed to build on sound foundations.

   The American Revolution was more successful as to that.

   In any case, tyranny is always the enemy and freedom and human dignity the object.

   But the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

   And tyranny today has a different face, enslaving people by dependence on the system of economic and social organisation.

   This face is more elusive than that of a tyrant and much more difficult to combat by revolution.

   As Oscar Wilde said, it is the problem of slavery and we have solved it by amusing the slaves.

   By the pittance of άρτον και θεάματα that the very few, into whose hands most of the wealth is concentrated, give to the very many whose labour produces that wealth.

   This is a very sick society because, as Plato told us, the greatest evil for any society is excessive wealth and excessive poverty.

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