Textbook Revolutions from Libertalia by BrainDead

I wrote this in response to the 2011 London riots, or more precisely to some of the reactions that came from left circles and tried to deny the political nature of the riots. If the rioters didn’t have a strong theoretical background it doesn’t make their struggles less political or less important. They are, to the contrary, much more political in the true sense of the word, as they arose from ongoing experiences of exclusion, race and/or class discrimination, and general hardship. This does not mean we have to approve of every single act carried out during those days, but it is important to place these uprisings in the right context and, most importantly, to listen and learn from these people. For a radical left-wing viewpoint on the events of August 2011 check the following links:
> http://socialismandorbarbarism.blogspot.com/2011/08/open-letter-to-those-who-condemn.html
> http://thedisorderofthings.com/2011/08/09/reading-violence-whats-political/
> http://www.solfed.org.uk/north-london-solfeds-response-to-the-london-riots
> http://325.nostate.net/library/9-325-net.pdf p. 14

Tracklist

3.	Textbook Revolutions	3:43

Lyrics

we blame the poor for being poor, bare of rationality,
debarred to cash in on their needs, division's elementary
kept down, excluded and deprived by artificial scarcity.
the drawback of this grim charade, continuous brutality.

<Chorus:>
for as long as people hunger
while food is turned to trash
the temples will be plundered
by those who feel the lash.
and as long as we keep up
this structural divide,
we will feel the rebound of
the violence it implies.

the left behind start to awake, but you can't relate.
think they're criminal or insane, but they're intrinsically political
none of your theories could ever explain their anger or their hate.
you want a textbook revolution, but they are bound to fail.

will you just stand beside
when the worm finally starts to turn?
don't you try to understand
why the streets are left burn?
if we don't interact
and make no attempt to learn,
we'd turn an insurrection
into an elitist concern.

Credits

from Libertalia, released July 11, 2013

License

CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. See the Creative Commons website for details.