Firework

I am simply linking here to Peter Ryley's Fat Man on a Keyboard. Peter continually demonstrates that it is possible to be of the Left and not simply buy into whatever package whatever is currently calling itself the Left is declaring itself to be the one true faith.

The Alex Crawford video linked to on Peter's blog is famous by now and it is fascinating being there in the truck with her, the cameraman (we never see the cameramen), and the rebels riding into town. It is in these dizzy revolutionary moments you catch the word 'freedom' and see people illuminated by it. Their faces blaze as though lit by a passing firework. It is brief and bright.

None of the potential resolutions of this - or any other - uprising is likely to be as good as the hopes of those whose faces are suddenly illuminated. No doubt in some dark unfilmed corner someone is being burned or tortured or hanged or shot as we look elsewhere, but that happens whether there is such a revolutionary moment or not. It is what brings revolutions about.

Nor does it matter that revolutions do not produce utopias. If they improve matters that is something. I know how broad the definition of democracy is and how impossible the ideal. But it is still better than anything else. It is still worth fighting for.