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Leave The Banks Alone!

This is a Burke vs. Paine moment. The recent shattering of windows in the greedy Scottish banker's mansion may be momentarily thrilling - but as Burke observed, you don't rebuild a house by knocking it down. The plans afoot, to storm the City banks next week, timed to coincide with Obama's visit to London, are entirely misguided. One does not pelt a pilot with stale buns during a crash landing. The time to restructure the capitalist system is tomorrow. And slowly. Today we should be speaking and planning, together, how to locate a globally-sustaining ideology, or system, to allow for the world to continue managing the many forces straining against each other. Yes, we need to enter into a post-capitalist world. I am a post-capitalist. However, radicalism in the streets should not be simply a wasted resource. Best to conserve that radicalism for a revolution of minds. Put it in writing, not through someone's window pane.

Comments

Frances Kruk said…
and who is this "world" that continues "managing" many forces?
Sheenagh Pugh said…
But the bankers are not analogous to the pilot crash-landing the plane. They are doing nothing to get us out of the fine mess they got us into, just collecting their pensions. And let's be honest, we all felt a momentary lift of the heart when we heard that smug sod's car had had its windows smashed, and isn't that worthwhile?

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