WHY THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED

Gil Scot Heron taught us many years ago that the revolution will not be televised.  We sang along with the tune and believed what brotha Heron sang about was certainly true.  We all came to our own conclusions as to why the revolution would not be televised, but we all agreed it would not be shown to the public.  When I first was able to comprehend the song (since I was too young to fully understand what was being sung when it was released) I concluded that the U.S. government would be so brutal in its response to smash the revolt that it would not want the world to see it's brutality.  Others in my circle believed that the government would block the televising of the revolution because they felt we would be winning and to spare the embarrassment, they would block the world from seeing their demise.

Both viewpoints were probably driven by the era we were living at the time.  The song was released in the 1970's and we didn't really come into comprehension until almost a decade later.  Still young and dreaming, we believed there would be a revolution and for whatever reason it would not be televised.  Our imaginations, built on the images of the Black Panther Party, were that there would be actual combat in the streets against the front line of the government starting with the police department.  The San Diego Police were (and probably still are) one of the most brutal police departments in the country and we believed this is who the first battle would begin with and of course the same would occur  in every city. The police, we believed, would be the first to receive the primary volley of combat.  Yet, the government and big business had a trick for us all.

By the mid to late 1980's the $.99 menu began to appear first at fast feed restaurants.  You could save a bunch of money by getting a meal for as low as three to four dollars.  Heck,  you could feed a family of five with 10 bucks.   Some chains resisted the pricing, but later fell in line.  As more and more chains gravitated to the new low pricing the "news" picked up on it and cleverly reported that the new low prices at fast feed restaurants was a temporary measure to rebuff Ronald Reagan's recession (depression for the rest of us.) Little did we know this was the first volley in the war against the U.S. population.  We were so caught up in the belief that we needed to be prepared for conventional combat that we never saw the war begin.  

Oppression and destruction have taken on it's most heinous form. Attacking the senses. Combat is taking place against you and you never knew it.  The assault on us was is so subtle that we do not realize we are at war.  Each day we are assaulted by the enemy, blind sided and yet we don't respond.  No response from the population.  All of the most revolutionary brothas are preparing for physical combat and yet losing the war.