i went to a talk from a guy named joel, he was a revolutionary all the way from the 60s and the civil rights movement to the modern day, participating in the portuguese revolution and a million other cool things.

one of the best things he mentioned was a twist on the common phrase ‘power corrupts’. i dont remember who he said came up with it but the idea is that just as power gives one the opportunity to be a terrible fucking person for their own gain, powerlessness, over time, rots your brain in a very specific way. powerlessness corrupts.

we can observe the effects in our own lives, and the lives of those we are close to. nobody i know personally is throwing bricks at cop cars or blowing up pipelines, or participating in union strikes, myself included. the families of my friends and i, only one or two degrees removed from me, are often hard liberals. it begs the question “why?” and part of the answer is that powerlessness corrupts.

joel says, in paraphrasing, “we have now experienced generations of oppression and systematic violence, and it does often make us feel powerless.” he continued to explain that in a position of helplessness we slowly begin to believe that there is no alternative to the way things are, and maybe that ‘we should change some things, but there isn’t anything we can do about money existing’ or other such platitudes.

we begin to believe in capitalism, sometimes even while we disagree with it vehemently, and it precludes us from taking action. we remain powerless through the democratic system against coal plants, landlords, and uber shareholders. insidiously enough, the best way to overcome this powerlessness is to grab power by force, to take direct action and make one’s voice heard.

the truth is that, COLLECTIVELY, we do have power, and so going to a protest or a talk and seeing even 5 or 10 people who want to truly change things, let alone 60 of them completely using up the supply of chairs, is kind of like crack when it comes to revolutionary action. when we exercise the innate power we have as the largest social class in the world, the working class, we stop feeling powerless, and we stop being powerless in the face of capitalism’s many horrors.

just a simple truth that we’ve all heard before but phrased differently. powerlessness corrupts. go to your local commie book club or something. possibly even if you are tired or feeling hopeless or worn out. that hope will put some air into your lungs, maybe the sort of hope u havent felt in a while. – snot