The revolution will be live

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote to my colleagues about one thing that I am confident about in the age of the coronavirus: Everything happens way faster than what we might expect.  Overnight things change.

It turns out that even aspects of life that have nothing to do with the coronavirus are changing at warp speeds.

History is unpredictable. We should have learnt that from history, but then we really do not!

As I noted in this post four years ago, I remember the excitement when the Berlin Wall fell.  To this day, I am amazed at how the experts never saw that coming.  Just like that, the wall came down.  

The young people of today might think we were stupids not to have seen that coming, but, really, there was no way that one could have predicted that.  History just happens, more often than not.

Yet again, we are living in a moment when history just happens in unpredictable ways.

A week ago, the country was worried about the coronavirus, and about how to relax the lock down that has been in place since March.  The nutcases who are the base of the 63 million who elected the demagogue to power even walked around with guns and without masks threatening anybody--even governors of states.  

That was the situation a mere week ago.

Now, we don't have any time to talk about the coronavirus. 

Every minute and day, we talk, think, and write about the ongoing protests and racism in America. And about the demagogue's reactions.  With the entire world watching us.

It is almost as if the revolution is being televised.

Here's the poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron:

You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
And skip out for beer during commercials, because
The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you
By Xerox in four parts without commercial interruptions
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle
And leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams, and Spiro Agnew
To eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary
The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre
And will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs
The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because
The revolution will not be televised, brother

There will be no pictures of you and Willie Mae
Pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run
Or trying to slide that color TV into a stolen ambulance
NBC will not be able predict the winner
At 8:32 on report from twenty-nine districts
The revolution will not be televised

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young
Being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process
There will be no slow motion or still lifes of Roy Wilkins
Strolling through Watts in a red, black, and green liberation jumpsuit
That he has been saving for just the proper occasion

"Green Acres", "Beverly Hillbillies", and "Hooterville Junction"
Will no longer be so damn relevant
And women will not care if Dick finally got down with Jane
On "Search for Tomorrow"
Because black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day
The revolution will not be televised

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news
And no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists
And Jackie Onassis blowing her nose
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb or Francis Scott Keys
Nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash
Engelbert Humperdinck, or The Rare Earth
The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be right back
After a message about a white tornado
White lightning, or white people
You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom
The tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat

The revolution will not be televised
Will not be televised
Will not be televised
Will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
The revolution will be live