Originally posted at www.therevolutionwill.blogspot.com
by Sandra De La Loza
Imagining Revolution, 2019..what do you think?
Some quotes from responses to what a revolution in Los Angeles, 2019 (the year the film Bladerunner, was set in), might look like…
We find the cop inside of us all… hold onto him as if he were the mouse in the trap and than we fucking kill him.
..cops that manifest in judgement, in self criticism, I would kill the cop inside of me and hope that everyone else could to in the name of revolution.
Raquel Gutierrez
The process is already in place to screw out any dissent and to starve out creative thought. That combination of creative thought and action poses a great threat to a fascist lifestyle.
To be successfully revolutionary one will have to internalize it, and live with it as a concept as a way of life, while participating in daily life.
Harry Gamboa
I think of olmstead’s original plan for the LA river as this greenway that connects the city. The freeway may be that, and each little pocket park along of olmsteads plan for the la river is the neighborhoods along it and the neighborhoods could travel up and down the river trading food and fruit with each other… that’s a green vision for a radical revolution that could totally redefine the city.
It’s just amazing to imagine this city that’s just so defined by its freeways actually to be defined by its little neighborhoods and its pockets and as the freeways begin to erode like the New York City skyline, the freeways themselves begin to erode, the freeways themselves become garden passageways for the local neighborhoods to flower and feed themselves.
Robby Herbst
For more info on architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s 1930’s vision of a green LA check out: http://www.cityprojectca.org/ourwork/olmsted.html
For more: http://therevolutionwill.blogspot.com/
-Sandra De La Loza
“…put you in the driver’s seat.” I guess Gil’s line was made for L.A. But damn, all I can think about is The Parable of the Sower. Gotta focus more on creating, not just combatting, I know, I know. A green L.A….we might need that Genesis bomb-thing from the Star Trek movie to pull that off. But even the desert supports life of course, and more of it if that life is intelligent. If all revolutions involve seizing resources at one time or another what are the Angelenos gonna grab? Definitely no shortage of labor, cars, weapons, technology… Any de-salinization plants nearby? Could we solar power one of those suckers? And what else do you need to make soil besides caca and dead bodies? Anyone learning how to raindance? I’ll have to give this some more thought…
“Gotta focus more on creating, not just combatting” Nice sentiment, but Gerrard doesn”t seem to take into account that creation always involves destruction and The creation of truly different social relationships (revolution) involves the destruction of the institutions that create and enforce current social relationships… and in some sense (subversive rather than military) that means combat.
Gerrard, what do you mean by creating something instead of combating? I tried to read beyond that and just couldn’t understand your point. My apologies. Give me the layman’s version of that comment.
I find the blade runner book-mark amusing, as if our only reference to the future (and revolution?) has to be given to us by Hollywood. Revolutions are simply the act of resisting. I do not see violence/war/guns/combat as a means of creating change, more like an exercise on who has the biggest balls—and I resist showing mine. True revolutions come intelligently with a Gandhi-silence, not a George-Bush-bang. If you dream of a green LA river, then just start making it happen now—in a passive-resistance way. I’m truly over some people getting subjugated by others as if it’s a revolutionary move—or violence as a catalyst for change. Quiet intervention is revolution.