rEvolution: a process of involving people in a movement of self-determination

Corruption

Political scientist Mark E. Warren defines corruption as the duplicitous exclusion of people from decisions that affect them. Democracy is supposed to give people a say in decisions that affect them. The exclusion is duplicitous because while the elite excludes everyone else, they claim inclusiveness.

With that definition, and with what we've seen the last weeks, the greek government is corrupt. Clearly all that are in the streets protesting in Greece have a legitimate claim. No matter what maps with dotted lines and papers with scribbles on 'em I am shown, governments nor corporations "own" a nation. The people do. And the people are demanding otherwise, and then beaten up by government sent forces for protesting a corrupt government.

From that understanding, the more narrow definition "corruption is the abuse of office for private gain" allows for investigating the way in which people come to their offices. Process legislators, political candidates, and their corporate benefactors who take advantage of the whole process are all corrupt.

Are humans in essence corrupt?

No way. Believing that we are all essentially corrupt makes it a moral issue. It's not. Believing humans to be essentially corrupt is a meme. It's a silent weapon, just like "inciting to violence" is more and more considered a crime by "authorities" and "actual violence" is not until proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And this "humans are in essence corrupt" meme happens to be a shadow meme of "faith in unrestrained self-interest": The Nastiest of Men for the Nastiest of Motives Will Somehow Work for the Benefit of All. Plain insanity.

But a change without disrupting the system would require "elected" officials whose power depends on the corrupt system to legislate such changes. That's unlikely to happen. Unless there's some kind of revolution ...

rEvolution

John Holloway:

The revolution I have in mind has to be thought of as a question rather than an answer. On the one hand it is clear that we need some basic transformation of society, on the other hand it is clear that the way that we have tried over the last century to transform society through the state has failed. So that leaves us with the conclusion that we have to try it in some other way. We can't just give up the idea of revolution. I think what has happened in recent years is that people have come to the conclusion that because the transformation of society through the state did not work therefore revolution is impossible. My argument is just the contrary, that in fact revolution is more obviously urgent than ever. But that means rethinking how we can do it, trying to find other ways. But at the moment, at this stage, this means posing the question and trying to think how on earth do we develop the question. I think it is important to think that revolution is a question rather than an answer, because the revolutionary process in itself has to be understood as a process of asking, as a process of moving out, not of telling peoples what the answers are, but actually as a process of involving people in a movement of self-determination.

We have a non-negotiable right to Self-Determination!