Channel Reintroduction: The Case & Our Call For Revolution

Rosa: A friend once asked me why I ever bother to talk, let alone write an entire book of poetry, about the defense of democracy. When I had said multiple times, I did not consider us to live under one that I thought it was a plutocracy. At least that it wasn't possible to have democracy until money was entirely removed from political influence and that cannot happen without an end to capitalism?

Right, so what we're talking about is a cognitive dissonance. I would have demanded of myself and others that we don't breach democratic norms just because our democracy is deficient. It's kind of insane isn't it? Kind of doesn't make sense I. Mean with everything at stake.

The IPCC report just came out and this isn't just but the consequences of capitalism. It's the subjugation of the entire thing. Everything is done under duress. Because capitalism can strip it all from you. It's work or die. There's no choice here. There's no freedom.

So, the idea that this is democracy and that we should limit ourselves to the avenues of change through these processes that are designed to ensure that social revolution. Or change on that scale never happens.

That's what liberal democracy is, by the way. Because ask yourself what you're being asked to be liberal too liberal of contradiction. The fact that it doesn't make sense.

And this is what was happening with that cognitive dissonance that didn't make sense, did it? Not at all.

So we are redefining the channel now the stated aims. Having confronted the reality.

Anybody that's seen the content we've been putting out will know that we have been calling for global revolution by general strike. Velvet means ideally. But that this is where we are.

We've lost all faith in electoral politics reform. There's no longer the alternative to revolution. There is no reform left, it's harm mitigation. It's stopping people from making **** worse, and that was my answer to my. Friend, well, if you want something to be better, you shouldn't make it. Let somebody make it worse, because then you've got longer to go. It'll be harder work to get it to where you want to be. I was right, that's still right. But resistance must be holistic, right?

It has to be going in from all sides, like the three pillars of anti fascism, the street state. And the public space. We will get back round to whether you should vote considering. You know, we're telling you that it won't give you the change you need. We all need.

My issue personally was that the rules had been broken, but at the same time already believed many of those rules to be a nonsense that made a mockery of democracy. And so. This is. It shouldn't have taken what it took. But it's only now that the literal fascist government is in power, that that broke for me.

[Riot Footage:]

Every single ******* one of you.

In filming this footage is a reporter of the Daily Mirror.

This is what happened next. Playing into the hands. Of a ******* fascist government.

He doesn't give a **** about you and they don't give a **** about us. And you're ******* stupid. You're ******* stupid for doing it.

Rosa: When peaceful resistance is restricted, is it not? ******* madness to be constricted by duty to a non existent democracy already under capitalism or cruel absurdity made a sick joke by the power rubbing Brexit sovereignty. Only for the executive. This ****, it's the straw. It's the break, it's them that's raised the ******* stakes.

Triggering new rules of engagement. And let's be very clear that the shot was fired by our government.

And I talk about this process because I'm sure most people are still great with that cognitive dissonance. You think this is all a? Joke, but still. You probably feel quite uncomfortable by our discussion of revolution and extra parliamentary action. So let's recap where we are and don't feel ashamed that it's taken this for you too instead. Just wake up now. And take action now.

Updates

Rosa: Now we're going to go on to the horrific updates from the last 3 months since we uploaded a video.

Ellis: Yep, the world is fucked.

Rosa: The world is super fucked.

[A minute of scary news titles]

Rosa: And just to you know, make it more real for you, because yeah, we're trying to radicalise you because reality should be ******* terrifying you right now. I mean where in the hell is the hysteria? Have a look at this footage, does it not look like people sailing through the pits of hell?

[Footage of people on a boat near a forest fire]

Ellis: It is and this is the hell that we're all headed for. If we continue with capitalism. It needs to be gone, it needs to be got rid of now, there's no way to, and there is no political time. There's no I mean by all means vote, but there is no political time to deal with this and capitalism is at the core of it. And it needs rooting.

Rosa: If the only thing that drives an economy is profit. Why would it do what is useful for society if it is not profitable? These are people who are already planning to let us perish while they sit pretty in bunkers and madno space colonies is now the idea, and as a short reminder, it's a direct you back to this. Infamous though again, perhaps it's the cognitive dissonance and the terrifying nature of it. That means that we all deny it that these people have so much power, unearned, wealth. Seek to turn us into slaves if they let us live.

Ellis: If they need us at all.

Rosa: Indeed and here's the other clock on a workers revolution. Automation, no shit, because it's no leverage to rescind your labour if your labour is no longer needed. Now I don't know we can't estimate how many jobs need to be lost to automation before a workers revolution really loses a substantial bit of its power. The first block on it. Obviously climate devastation. Because we're. Already seeing it. This is absurd, and here's just a little snippet from the last three months again.

Ellis: Flooding, fires…

Rosa: All that shit. Do you remember that one where a man saved that little girl or little boy, he was on this pebble between rushing fucking waters. It was horrific.

Ellis: Yeah.

Rosa: So, the purpose of this video is not to explain our idea of how the revolution would work. The precise place we will end up, but why we have decided that we utterly reject the demand and to work only within a rigged process. And the inevitable disembowels that will come because of that rejection?

Ellis: Yeah.

Rosa: Because what is madness is clearly describing the impossibility of getting this change. And doing nothing. That's that, is waiting patiently in line when the road winding corrals of the slaughterhouse of capitalism with your children in hand. Oh, and letting poorer people who are less complicit ahead of you in the queue. And as with complicity, we set out just yesterday that consumers cannot be held liable. But what they consume, because Oh yeah, they have no control over the way it's produced. So that thing you know, the way that people keep saying, oh, you know environmentalists. They're trying to impose socialism. They say that because they know it works, because guess what? If people had ownership common ownership, it means. Production they could choose how it's produced. They could choose to try these plastic alternatives. They could choose to fossil fuels off and just stop exploration **** we can't use 80% of the stuff that we know the precise location of already. So, this big claim that justifies our rejection of these rules, and. We're going to let them make the case for us. This isn't a call out, this is just I was literally gripped with the same cognitive dissonance, so this is not a judgment of poor capacity, politically or anything. It's confronting this reality is fucking awful because we are fully seized, fully seized of the size. Of what we? Declare ourselves at war with now.

Ellis: At the same time as our position. We also understand that all of the positions on the left are viable. We understand that unity is essential and everybody plays the part their own part in the revolution.

Rosa: Which is why, and this is coming to what we hope can be advantageous for other people on the hard left. Like us, we've come to accept the ways in which these people differ in their approach. Essentially, they are leading people in to the consciousness class, consciousness and consciousness of what capitalism does to the planet that will lead them to that cognitive dissonance. Now, one hopes that there is something that breaks that and leads them to us that tells them no. You're right, it didn't ******* make sense. To work within rules that are rigged when there is so much at stake, no, it doesn't make any ******* sense at all, and contradiction you may have heard Marx's talk about a wee bit in capitalism. Let's think about it. People are wealthy because they already have wealth they. Keep profit which is only created the increase in value from the materials and the resources is only created by the presence. And the activity of. The worker, yet the worker doesn't take their share proportional to the input they put to the increase in. Well, you now that doesn't make any. Sense either does it. So this isn't just about the consequences of capitalism, but it's construction. And when we talk about construction of a system and consequences, let's think about let's properly left unity is actually not a mad thing to call for by people without opposition.

Ellis: Well the right shows disparaging views all over the place. And they show unity when it comes time to vote.

Rosa: Because they understand gains for one are gains for another. The important thing to remember is that almost every vision held by a leftist. If we define being leftist by wanting the common ownership of the means of production. Are all closer together morally in their conception, operation, and consequence than any single one of them are to capitalism. So what in God's name are we doing arguing and actually? For the record, leftist infighting not actually as big a thing as one thinks because leftist infighting, the squabbles that absolutely happen are and are silly and we need to stop. They are not the same thing as labour infighting, because labour. 's not left.

Ellis: Any party with a right wing isn't a leftist party. When Tony Blair threw away clause 4. He destroyed the Socialist Labour Party and the workers no longer had a voice in the political sphere.

Rosa: So, if we think about contradiction again, how does it make sense for? People to think it is strange that there are disagreements among people who have always been in the Labour Party because of what it was meant to be, and people who were actively against founding principles. Primary aims of the Labour Party like Constitution, Clause 4. Which reads would you like to? Do you know it? I know it beaten by now right?

Ellis: Common ownership of the production…

Rosa: To secure for the workers, the full fruits of their industry and most equitable distribution thereof upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production. And it continued. Now, this being jettisoned by Tony Blair fundamentally changes what the Labour Party is. And it changes what the political fear is, what the options are for leftist politics. There are none. So if there are no democratic avenues for socialist politics. And then.

Ellis: The only action that can be taken is actually parliamentary action, absolutely.

George Monbiot: You need a supportive and enabling state and almost nowhere on earth at the moment. Is there a state which is in a position to start doing that? So we need regime change. Democratically, of course, and peacefully.

Rosa: Our preference is by far for velvet, but we're not blinded to the role of violence because and this you must remember. They will never relinquish power. It must be taken from them.

Thing is there. Is nothing democratic or peaceful about the status quo? When you apply the trolley problem to caps itself tourism, the answer is uncomfortable but clear. You know, we've all acknowledged it as being a reasonable way of calculating what is moral. The lesser of two evils? The lack of preparedness to. Engage in that. That is selfish ******** that is wanting to keep your hands clean your soul, all pure for what and encounter with St. Peter, that will. Probably live and encounter with Saint Peter that will never ******* happen. Understand that refusal to engage in the lesser evil is to give the greater evil a greater chance. Of coming to pass. This goes for voting harm mitigation, I said is the only option other than revolution? This is true. Reform is reform. Is a ******* pipe dream now. 22 million people die a year from deprivation and understand that. Every person that dies of deprivation is dying because somebody else has too much.

I'll use the tools of this trade of writing angry verses to ask why we allow people to. Keep billions they never are. I demand you explain to yourself, let alone me how such wealth in so few hands doesn't leave. Doesn't need most of humanity damned to abject poverty.

As for democratic:

Jo Maugham: I think it's more likely than not that we'll never have another Labour government.

Rosa: So why would this be? I mean, it's they're about to explain exactly our case for rejecting the strictures of democracy as we call it. They feel the same things we do, it's merely the action they choose as appropriate in response that it differs. So let's let them make the case for us that capitalism. And democracy. Are mutually exclusive.

Ellis: They are.

Jo Maugham: I think it's more likely than not that we'll never have another Labour government. I think the playing field is tilted too much towards the Tories and is continuing to be. Wanted more and more.

George Monbiot: People like Rupert Murdoch and the Barclay brothers through controlling the media are able to impose their views on other people, but simply because they have more money, they use their economic power and translate it into political power, which is what oligarchs do the world over that. Unless Rupert Murdoch is on your side. You are highly unlikely to win a general election and form the next government in this country.

So just thought it was worth mentioning that we did find this clip of Steve Baker saying that. It was good that. There would be a conservative in charge of the BBC now, so we're also referencing the entire takeover.

Steve Baker: I think this would be great news and I think anyone suggesting we we were somehow appointing our our preferred people needs to look at the record of others who've been appointed to these roles and try to be a bit again more realistic about politics and policy and who should be appointed by governments.

Interviewer: Why would it be great news then?

Steve Baker: Well because they're conservatives.

The press is free, like the free market is freedom and our votes free and fair. We are not ******* free. Do you care?

The media, I mean **** yes is a problem. It was my core problem that got me started with making noise into the void, but. Is by no means the only problem, and even if it was, the time it would take to fix it were you to allow all of this to just continue along the terms it does. At the moment.

You just. ******* hell, it's not gonna.

Work, are you kidding? Me no, and the lack of imagination with regard to even their policy ideas for rules. You know what to do. It's not even about policy right about social media.

George Monbiot: One of the things we need to do is to ensure that people are much more aware of what is fake and what is real. Dark ads on social media telling total lies, Facebook, Google, Twitter. They're all deeply culpable in this. So we must defend ourselves. From lies and that requires digital literacy. And there are ways of doing that, yeah?

Yeah, the response is to what become more digitally literate to be better at spotting the lies. Hell no, what the **** is it? Where politicians are allowed to send personalized propaganda to people, contradictory promises? Everybody has to vote on the same proposal, because guess what? They're all going to live in the. Same ******** reality.

George Monbiot: When you look at the only Labour leader who has succeeded in recent times, Tony Blair. You see someone. Who has pretty well gone along with the agenda of the billionaire press. I mean he went to great lengths to butter up Rupert Murdoch, potentially the most dangerous man on Earth. The fear, the worry is that he had to do that. In order to appease the billionaire press, and that if a Labour leader doesn't do that, they can't succeed.

Rosa: The appeasement of the oligarchs by Tony Blair. I mean it, it's not really an appeasement. It was a fucking invasion of the Labour Party, and it seeks to create the situation where you have two interchangeable parties that makes it essentially A1 party state. A capitalist state, no matter what you choose.

George Monbiot: People are blaming Corbyn for. For the results of this election. A lot of people blamed Hillary. Clinton, for the results of the presidential election that brought Donald Trump in now Clinton and Corbyn are opposites as far as progressive politics are concerned. People have blamed the opposition in India for the reelection of Narendra Modi. They've blamed the opposition in Australia for the election of Scott Morrison. In Brazil, for Jair Bolsonaro, similarly in Hungary and Turkey and Poland in the Philippines.

Rosa: In terror, capital reaches for its comfort blanket, fascism, anything, anything but socialism. In the context of the last general election here in our country, which is where even though any successful revolution should be international, the local action is. Where it begins? Jeremy Corbyn could have been. There were people that wanted his policies. I mean for the record. Guys, you know what you want? Is socialism, not necessarily Corbyn? I no offence, I hear he's a great constituency MP.

Yeah, it may well be a really nice bloke, but his policies are all socialist. When it's his policies that you like, so it's socialism that you, like all korbinites are socialists. They just don't realise that socialism is separate to Jeremy Corbyn.

And in truth I think and I understand I wasn't part of the Corbyn movement, because proportional representation was always a deal breaker for me, but I thought he was very impressive, very inspirational, not a great communicator. Now every socialist Labour leader will be utterly torn apart by our capitalist press. To not expect that to not have your answers. Ready to. Very predictable critique that we should. All know are coming by now. Was perhaps naive.

Ellis: He’s not metaphorically hard enough.

Rosa: Exactly, yeah, I. I like the idea like you say of of a new party being formed with him as a leading role that seeks to inspire people to join. Yeah, but he will not be the person he.

Ellis: I mean absolutely he could be an advisor, he could be anything but a leader. We need a charismatic leader who isn’t afraid to fight on the harder ground.

Rosa: He's not a spokesperson. Exactly, fighting on the hostile ground is crucial when you. Don't mention socialism or but you describe what you want and it's socialism. The fact that you haven't mentioned it, it concedes the ground that it's somehow a bad thing that you should be ashamed, right?

This is a critique we have of people like George Monbiot, but we respect and we ask other. People on the hard left, like ourselves, to also respect their everybody, has their role in the revolution. Ultimately, if we have, you know, leftist thought on one stage of the. Pipeline right, it helps us. Down the line. What we just have. To hope is that. People don't in gaining the insight that is given and we are using to make our case for us by these people that they don't get stuck with that cognitive dissonance because the despair. Of the awareness that you've got no ******* chance. Something you can do about it is too painful. It is the point, right? It's why the government treat us with such contempt, why they gaslight us? Because it's to drive us mad and away from political engagement.

Ellis: To stop you voting. But the right will always vote.

Rosa: Which is why. After we've just explained that democracy is not real, we are going to tell you to vote because harm mitigation matters, because otherwise the harm happens.

George Monbiot: We also have to attend to the short term crisis that many people in this country now face.

Even though most of us are little hungry, we have to be careful with our food so. We try not to eat. A lot in one day.

Continued austerity, continued exclusion and marginalization. There's going to be a rising tide of xenophobia and hatred. It's even central government policy. Now they're going to attack Roman, Egyptians and travellers. That's in the manifesto. So the first thing we need to do is to stand in solidarity. With everyone who is likely to be victimised by this government.

Rosa: Of course I can't change the world to just a poem or by any means. No one can alone. I can't tell you capitalism's best kept secret though. We can the when any bloody time we like except. Only once we know who we are. Bushes politics are. The proof that too many can't see. That it's a tool of capital used to divide those from whom we should side. God forbid workers and oppressed people should unite.

Ellis: Vote protest, do what you can. You know within legal means if that's your gig. But at the end of the day, that is just harm mitigation and. It's only through extra parliamentary means that any leftist movement is going to get anywhere in the UK.

Rosa: OK, so rather than parties clearly our concern is more with unions and individual groups working in a sort of syndicalist type way, it's. Also harder for a state. To crack down on a movement that is. Made-up of multiple groups, it's also more intimidating. One group can be minimized multiple groups. They may be small, but if there is coherence between those groups also that poses a significant threat.

Right, so I mean I get my appeals pretty niche anyway, and there is a role for people like George Monbiot and everybody who looks very respectable and ****. And you know, I can't get it through a video without smoking a joint and usually have odd gloves on. And you know. This is what we are.

So, for the second main reason, I mean there are many others in which capitalism undermines any possibility of democracy. But, what we're talking about here is finally in the news a bit more party funding. This is a mechanism that does not just allow for corruption, but is in itself a corrupting force. To explain why party funding is corrupting:

Double Down News: This is fundamentally a question of democracy and accountability. We're told that we live in a system in which we all have a vote in which we all have a say, but every single system in which we are involved is to a substantial extent controlled by a small number of people. The very top of our society.

Aaron Bastani: Between 2005, 2015, right, the Conservatives raised a quarter of a billion pounds. It's no coincidence that after 2010 you get austerity. People gave that quarter of. A billion pounds. The Conservative Party, you know, the Labour Party weren't particularly radical under Blair and Brown. Michael, but the point is, with the rich that it's never. It's never enough, and so they said, look, we want our lower taxes. We don't want to actually fund, you know the NHS and their reward. Was a Conservative government from 2010 and shame on them with the Liberal Democrats, which implements austerity, that is a quid. A quote that was a direct transaction of money, resources, and funds for certain political outcomes, right? It wasn't an accident.

George Monbiot: What we see happening here in the United States in many other countries around the world. Is that a? Nominally, democratic country falls prey to oligarchy. It is profoundly undemocratic. But it is how politics has come to work in this country.

Rosa: Ah yes, bloody billionaires, 10 people provide 25% of the Conservative Party's funding.

What was it, another quarter is made-up by property developers. Now a sympathetic example of how this is a corrupting force for any politician. You need money to run. Say you really care about your constituents, but you then come to a decision where the interests, funnily enough of your billionaire owners and working people in your constituency are in conflict. Because they always will be.

I'll tell you what part poem plays to speak up for the discontented and fan the flames to remind us of our commonality, and that it's the interests of the rich that are antithetical to most of humanity.

Because they’re irreconcilable, this is kind of the point of populism. We believe the rich’s interests are antithetical to all the powers.

So they say to themselves I will compromise myself this time so that I can run again to help my constituents and it goes on and on and on. This is more contradiction and I think people are ******* sick of being gaslit by the whole world. The discourse of our civilisation is gaslighting.

For as long as we are a capitalist species the way that we have been indoctrinated to be.

There is no democracy, which is why we're done defending as I think I once crazily said in a poem defending a joke of democracy. And instead we aim to actually create it for the very first time with the abolition of capitalism. And that is the only way it can ever happen.

This is Left wing populism, indeed, intolerant leftists, because we have to be.

And to the parasites, we are we coming for you and yeah, come on, we would like it to be all velvet, but you're not going to relinquish power are you

Ellis: No, no, not by choice. We're going to have to take. It away from you.

Rosa: Your answer will determine by what means we take it from you. And anybody who looks clearly at the circumstances can see it is the only way to save the entire ******* world. It's the only way to end the everlasting oppression and theft from workers.

Ellis: I would love it to be peaceful. General Strike May 1st and next year prepare for it. Get ready collectivise. Tell your friends. This is gonna happen.

Rosa: You don't have to keep your head down nose to. The grindstone gritting your teeth, because contrary to what capitalist propagandists teach. Should workers of. The world unite there can be real change. Join a fight comrade. After all you have nothing to lose but for your chains.

Ellis: If you have a job. You're part of it. If you haven't got a job. You're part of it. That's the way it works.

Rosa: If your job is collecting most of somebody's wage and having them pay off the mortgage on a building that they're not going to own, in the end.

Ellis: You've got a passive income? We're coming for it.

Rosa: And you will be provided for!

Ellis: You will be provided for.

Rosa: This is the thing, you're not going to be left with nothing. You're just going to get to…

Ellis: You’re going to be living the same way that you are now. You're just not going to be taking away someone else's wages. That's it.

Rosa: Exactly.

So it's time for us to tell them those parasites that we are coming, for them to show them. Who we are.

We are serious. We are and…

Ellis: Deadly serious.

Rosa: We've noticed something. There are other impressive voices that we're going to recommend channels. I think in the description of videos from now on. Mutual aid, some other creators that are doing good work and making the case for revolution.

But there is something interesting there. Lots of them distinguish themselves as revolutionary socialists, socialists or leftists who want a revolution rather than leftist revolutionaries. So we've been wondering what would happen if every…

Ellis: Revolutionary Leftist…

Rosa: Became a leftist revolutionary…

Ellis: Don't forget to like, subscribe, smack the notification bell around like it's some sort of bash that's just broke through your living room door. And yeah, enjoy the rest of our content. Have a look through.

Rosa: Yeah, and if you want better quality tech wise.

Ellis: Absolutely Patreon coffee if you just wanna buy the coffee, buys a coffee. But if you really wanna help the cause and you wanna help us get better videos together, please subscribe to the Patreon if you could afford to subscribe to the Patreon.

Rosa: It’s about ability to need.

Ellis: From each according to their ability and to each according to their need.

Rosa: Yeah, and this revolution is needed.