Well, in that moment, in that time of complete dislocation, you know, people can get together and create new spaces for the dislocations that are coming. And only people can do that, because it’s only in people’s human interest to do that, and once they do that, new things are born. You know, I remember reading about the French Revolution, and you know, they had strikes, and they had, you know, real big groups of people gathering in resistance. And you know, in many ways, the old France was transformed. And when you think about even something like the MOVE confrontation in Philadelphia back in the 1980s; during those periods of high tension and high stress, you know, people didn’t recognize that crime fell, you know what I mean?
Now, part of it was because part of the city was occupied by huge numbers of cops, but it’s also that people were looking in ways and at things they had never seen before, right? And when people turn their attention from the individual to the collective, they see things that their minds have never prepared them to see. They see people working together, fighting together, and struggling together against the state. When that happens, consciousness will change, for some of us. It will expand, and people will sense and see and begin to taste and smell new possibilities, new ways of living with each other, and new ways of resistance to the empire, and the billionaire class and the ruling clique. That will be transformative. That will be transformative.
And, you know, it answers the question about why is the fat guy organizing military to attack Americans internally and non-Americans externally, because military is the tool, right, a force. It is the state using force to intimidate others, so that they can steal better, quicker, you know, more voluminously. You know? We used to say, back during the Iraq war days, “No war for oil.” Now, what are we seeing before our very eyes? You know? Venezuela? It was all about oil. Because when they gave this cat, you know, billions and billions of dollars in oil, he was happy as a cat on a hot tin roof. He was like, in heaven. “And I got so much oil, I don’t know whether to like drink it or just sell it to somebody and make money,” you know.
When Iran talks about – and they gave a few tankers to these people. They went cuckoo with delight, because oil equals money. Money equals capital. And to capitalists, the most important thing on the planet is capital, not people, not things even, but capital, because it makes them richer. And that’s their only, only interest. That’s the world we’re looking at, but it can be changed if people organize, get together, fight not against each other, but fight together against the powers that be, with love, not fear. This is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
