<nettime> Go Baltimore

[Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>]

Hey, I heard something in the USA! People are, like, talkin' in 
Baltimore! They're makin' smoke signals and everything! They're 
signifying! Go Baltimore!

We live here in a country of great democratic ideals, murderous class 
violence, and until about a year ago, effective repression of any 
serious public speech. America needs an operation on its collective 
larynx. We're crippled, my friends. We gotta learn to talk again.

Go Baltimore!

???Too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to 
be destroyed by thugs,??? said the mayor (or maybe just a zombie with an 
honorific?). Hmm, what about the sadistic power-crazed thugs that kill 
people when it pleases them?

As I recall, the finest hour of the American collectivity was the civil 
rights movement back in the '60s. As I recall, we got a president today 
who was elected in honor of that movement. As I recall, the finest hour 
of the American collectivity involved huge riots, cities in flames, 
national guard on the streets. As I recall, everyone in America is duty 
bound by law to recall how fine was that hour. As I recall, some 
bastards who behave exactly like the military on foreign soil just broke 
an innocent man's neck because they didn't like the way he looked. As I 
recall, that does not exactly fit with our finest ideals.

Who knows where this thing is gonna go? Please remember that the 
rebellions of Detroit and Newark in '67, and just about everywhere in 
'68, were followed by the most extreme right-wing repression we have 
ever known in this country. And that was the foundation of neoliberalism 
around the world. Historical fact if you care to know anything about it.

Everybody, everybody, we all better learn to talk right now. This is 
serious shit. What's happening in Baltimore is not an excuse for more 
control. What's happening in Baltimore, what's happening in Ferguson, 
what's happening in New York, what's happening in Oakland, what's 
happening in Chicago is the test of a democratic society that has been 
tested and found wanting. You want to survive these next decades with 
some kind of dignity? Say it:

WHAT WE NEED IS NOT MORE POLICE REPRESSION. WHAT WE NEED IS JUSTICE.

You can talk, it'll heal, you'll be a human being again some day, just 
try it out:

Go Baltimore!


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