Everyone agrees. It's about to explode.
July 21, 2009 8:14 AM   Subscribe

The Coming Insurrection (pdf) (in French) by the Invisible Committee.

Composed following the 2005 riots in France, The Coming Insurrection predicts the collapse of capitalism and has been described as a manual for revolution. It is also at the center of the trial of the 'Tarnac 9,' a group of anarcho-autonomists (believed to be the Invisible Committee) arrested on terrorism charges for allegedly sabotaging train lines. Three were released in December, while their alleged leader, Julien Coupat, was released on bail after 6 months imprisonment in May. This past June saw the ‘official’ launch of the English translation in New York. The New York Times seems bemused, but Glenn Beck seems pretty worried
posted by jrb223 (28 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Glenn Beck needs to be institutionalized. His rants are increeasingly taking on the lineaments of serious ding-dong "I see little green men with tinfoil hats crawling on my skin" territory. The only thing missing is the DT twitches.
posted by blucevalo at 8:24 AM on July 21, 2009


I think Glenn Beck is actually completely sane. He's just pandering to his audience.

It's his audience that's crazy.
posted by empath at 8:30 AM on July 21, 2009


I just had an idea for a tv show:

Usually, when they do conspiracy theories on TV shows, they focus on just one conspiracy theory and a debunkerfnord. I think they should get rid of the debunker and have like 3 people with 3 different conspiracy theories have a 'debate'.

So you can have like the Lizard People vs the Birthers vs the 9/11 Was An Inside Job people, and just kind of let them go at each other.

I'd be interested to see whether they actually will poke holes in each others stories, or if they'll stick together in solidarity against the man and come up with a grand unified theory of crazy.
posted by empath at 8:36 AM on July 21, 2009 [18 favorites]


Bonkers. Just checked on Amazon.co.uk and there's only 2 left.
posted by Damienmce at 8:38 AM on July 21, 2009


Protip: if you are over the age of 16 and anarchy of any flavor still seems like a good idea U R DOING IT RONG

That said, I cheer for the coming collapse of corporate kleptocracy masquerading as global capitalism. I just don't think I'll live to see it.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 8:47 AM on July 21, 2009 [1 favorite]


French leftists are tedious and the Americans who worship them even more so. (I'll make an exception for Debord, who at least admitted, in 1988, that there was no way out.) When I was in Paris last, there were Christian Dior advertisements in the Métro showing a shirtless scruffy model with a copy of Baudrillard's La Société de consommation in his hand. Pseudo-Marxist theory is like the French version of Che Guevara T-shirts over there.
posted by nasreddin at 8:48 AM on July 21, 2009 [7 favorites]


I'd be interested to see whether they actually will poke holes in each others stories, or if they'll stick together in solidarity against the man and come up with a grand unified theory of crazy.

If you've listened to George Noory on Coast to Coast, you would know it is the latter. Everything is true. Even the false things. (And don't ask me man, I didn't do it.)
posted by cimbrog at 8:51 AM on July 21, 2009 [2 favorites]


Protip: if you are over the age of 16 and anarchy of any flavor still seems like a good idea U R DOING IT RONG

No, that's not true. But that has nothing to do with this sad little bunch.
posted by nasreddin at 8:51 AM on July 21, 2009


empath, that's brilliant. Alas, I have no funding....
posted by lodurr at 8:52 AM on July 21, 2009


cimbrig, true.. I did just re-invent Coast 2 Coast, didn't I :(
posted by empath at 9:01 AM on July 21, 2009


People who swear by quantum physics and pursue its consequences in all domains are no less bound politically than comrades fighting against a multinational agribusiness. They will all be led, sooner or later, to defection and to combat. - The Coming Insurrection

Ah, french philosophy.
posted by phrontist at 9:14 AM on July 21, 2009 [2 favorites]


Just read the .pdf also, it's an atrociously written book. Po-faced final year undergrad nonsense going on about their great victories in keeping the police in overtime for a few hours in Genoa . If they were serious they would have worked out car bombs long ago. A fake enemy that talks alot and is French. Glenn Beck's wet dream
posted by Damienmce at 9:16 AM on July 21, 2009 [1 favorite]


Just read the .pdf also, it's an atrociously written book. Po-faced final year undergrad nonsense going on about their great victories in keeping the police in overtime for a few hours in Genoa . If they were serious they would have worked out car bombs long ago. A fake enemy that talks alot and is French. Glenn Beck's wet dream

There's a specific kind of style which is vague but immediately recognizable as "lame attempt at a manifesto." (The biggest feature is the overuse of the first-person plural.) You can see it, for instance, in almost anything published by Crimethinc, and of course here. As soon as you see its identifying marks, you know that there's nothing of value to be had there, and in fact you could easily reconstruct the rest of the text without even reading it.
posted by nasreddin at 9:28 AM on July 21, 2009 [1 favorite]


i was a bit disappointed to visit my parents and see that they DVR Glenn Beck every day
posted by glaucon at 9:31 AM on July 21, 2009


One of my favorite things about people like Glenn Beck is that to fuel their own paranoia, they have to believe every bit of propaganda their opponents put out. Really, the Communist Party says it has a bunch of new members? Well, then it must be true.

I also loved "passed hand to hand via the internet."
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:31 AM on July 21, 2009


I can't help but feel it loses something when translated into English and taken out of the student dorm filled with Gitane smoke where a box of cheap wine drips into a plastic cup and is quickly drained between chapters.

Sous les pavés , la plage!
posted by Molesome at 9:41 AM on July 21, 2009 [2 favorites]


REVOLUTION IS THE OPIATE OF THE INTELLECTUALS

(graffiti seen in the background in O Lucky Man, the greatest movie ever made, and I should know, I just said it.)
posted by philip-random at 9:49 AM on July 21, 2009 [5 favorites]


empath: I'm not a psychiatrist, but I've sat in on a few impromptu "group therapy discussions" in psychiatric inpatient wards. Mostly they talk past each other. Some'll tell you privately that the other people there are all crazy, but who knows if they believe some of it. Of course Your Mental Illness May Vary. As you ratchet the paranoia down, based on the communities that spring up it seems like they cross-pollinate with varying adherence to other people's ideas.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 9:49 AM on July 21, 2009


Many people won't read 1-2 pages of warnings regarding medicines that determine whether they personally will live or die. This is often forgotten by would-be revolutionaries who publish 90+ page introductions to their program for changing all of human history. Intellectuals forget that most people aren't intellectuals, but people who aren't intellectuals never forget there are people not like them (who are either heroes or villains or alternate between the two). As is so often the case, TISM points the way [1] [2]
posted by eccnineten at 11:00 AM on July 21, 2009 [2 favorites]


empath: ...So you can have like the Lizard People vs the Birthers vs the 9/11 Was An Inside Job people, and just kind of let them go at each other.

I'd be interested to see whether they actually will poke holes in each others stories, or if they'll stick together in solidarity against the man and come up with a grand unified theory of crazy.


David Icke does this, unifying lizards, 9-11, global banking, shamanism, aliens, mind control and JFK into a grand unified theory of crazy. And at the end of that, he invokes quantum mechanics and holograms to tell you that reality is just an illusion anyway so that none of the preceding stuff actually exists really. Every couple of years he has to write another huge book to integrate all the latest trends.
posted by memebake at 11:03 AM on July 21, 2009


David Icke...

Oh, wow. How did I not know about this guy?
posted by lodurr at 11:09 AM on July 21, 2009 [1 favorite]


Any stream of consciousness rant, to me, is suspect. But, likely even in Heaven there are differences in opinion, and maybe even wars, and who knows even perhaps a heavenly version of 'corporate kleptocracy'. Probably what we can call agree on is that rants and calls for 'revolution' get us no where; ideas and solutions do. What is clear is that unfettered, laissez-farre capitalism doesn't work, and neither does it antithesis, communism. (Communal living on a small, tribal or kibbutz level may work, but not on a national scale.) What seems to be most workable is a democracy with a regulated business sector. It ain't perfect, yah, there is politics, but it beats armed conflict. Just realize that most business and industry can not function in a war zone.
posted by vvurdsmyth at 11:09 AM on July 21, 2009


The Invisible Committee, huh? Wait until the Cabal hears of this.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:29 AM on July 21, 2009 [1 favorite]


I'd rather be on the Visible Corporate Board.
posted by oddman at 12:44 PM on July 21, 2009


I'd settle for the Slightly Translucent Chamber of Commerce.
posted by brundlefly at 12:54 PM on July 21, 2009 [2 favorites]


I think Glenn Beck is actually completely sane. He's just pandering to his audience.

Alas, I think you may be right. It's so fun to think the other thing though.
posted by blucevalo at 1:12 PM on July 21, 2009


Pandering to the nutjobby rightwing in it's current mood IS insane. Dude's gonna launch a revolution and they are so incompetent he'll be among the first up against the wall when the FBI come down on them.
posted by DU at 5:29 PM on July 21, 2009 [2 favorites]


I seem to remember someone (I think on the blue) saying they had talked to a someone who had worked with Glen Beck who said it is pandering... all an act.

So there you have it: a dimly remembered third-hand account. Wars have been justified with less.
posted by brundlefly at 6:24 PM on July 21, 2009


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