"The Revolution will Not Be Televised"

[pnorman]

Thanks to DU, I was able to get an easily accessable verson of that film; a film that I'd been searching for in vain for a long time. Here it is again: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144&q=%22the%2Brevolution%2Bwill%2Bnot%2Bbe%2Btelevised%22&hl=en
(There's also a YouTube version available).

I slipped that into an appropriate thread on my union's BBS, and got a snarky response from a self-annointed patriot ("Welcome to HateAmnerica dot com!"). I invited him to view that film in it's entirety, but if that was too tedious, to zip over to 46 minutes in the film, to that "swearing in ceremony" of the newly designated Presidente. Here are the English subtitles:

"We hereby decree that a democratic transitional government shall be established in the following manner: We hereby dissolve the National Assembly. We also dissolve the Supreme Court. We dismiss the Attorney General, the head of the Central Bank ... the Ombudsman ... and the National Elections Board".

No rejoinder so far, and none expected.

pnorman

[TomInTib]

1. God bless Gil Scott-Heron

Gil Scott-Heron's Lyrics to
"Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

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,

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 4 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 May

pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,

or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.

NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32

or report from 29 districts.

The revolution will not be televised.



There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down

brothers in the instant replay.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down

brothers in 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 life of Roy

Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and

Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving

For just the proper occasion.



Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville

Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and

women will not care if Dick finally gets 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,

Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom

Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.

The revolution will not be televised.



The revolution will not be right back after a message

bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.

You will not have to worry about a dove in your

bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.

The revolution will not go better with Coke.

The revolution will not fight the 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.

[BrotherBuzz]

2. I think we're dating ourselves...

Forever, 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' will be associated with the late Gil Scott-Heron, in my mind. I think this thread is about the documentary film about the April 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

A television crew from Ireland's Radio Telifís Éireann happened to be recording a documentary about Chávez during the events of April 11, 2002. Shifting focus, they followed the events as they occurred. During their filming, the crew recorded images of the events that contradicted explanations given by Chávez opposition, the private media, the US State Department, and then White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. The documentary concluded that the coup was the result of a conspiracy between various old guard and anti-Chávez factions within Venezuela and the United States.

The film has won awards at the film festival screenings where it was shown. IMDb. Although the documentary was not widely distributed, a number of groups, such as Venezuela Solidarity and Hands Off Venezuela, are distributing copies on DVD for free or a small donation. It is currently available for free in Google video. A Spanish language documentary, Venezuela Bolivariana: People and Struggle of the Fourth World War, covers much of the same subject and uses some footage from The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

Edited to add: THANK YOU for posting Gil Scott-Heron's seminal piece. :thumbsup:

[TomInTib]

3. I know that. The US was complicit in that clusterf**k.

But I would rather ride with Gil.

Art over Matter, every time.

The times, same as soldiers, come and go like waves on the sands.

Art lasts forever.

Same as poor old toothless cracked-up Gil.

Gone.

But his thing will outlast all of today's horrors.

I hope and pray.

[BrotherBuzz]

4. I'm with you Brother

:thumbsup:

[Nostradammit]

5. Rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated, I think...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Scott-Heron


"Gil Scott-Heron (born April 1, 1949) is an American poet and musician known primarily for his late 1960s and early 1970s work as a spoken word performer. He is associated with African American militant activism, and is best known for his poem and song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"."

[BrotherBuzz]

6. I'll be damned

I'm happy he's not dead. I have no idea where my misinformation came from. :shrug:

[FtWayneBlue]

7. Apparently he has AIDS and might be in prison.

SCOTT-HERON TO SERVE TIME FOR BREAKING REHAB DEAL


Also see:
GIL SCOTT-HERON


Music icon GIL SCOTT-HERON has been sentenced to two-to-four years behind bars for violating conditions of a plea bargain stemming from drug possession charges in 2001. The REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED hitmaker, who is considered a pioneer of hip-hop, was served the sentence on Friday (07JUL06) in New York State Supreme Court. The court heard that Heron violated the agreement by leaving an in-patient drug treatment centre, according to the New York Post. According to the publication, Heron left the clinic after they stopped giving him his HIV medication.
08/07/2006 09:21

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



that is all from:

http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/scott-heron%20to%20serve%20time%20for%20breaking%20rehab%20deal_1001885

[FtWayneBlue]

8. I am still looking for the lyrics to his "Work For Peace."

If anyone finds them before I do, posting them would be appreciated.

[FtWayneBlue]

9. Found It! "Work For Peace"

WORK FOR PEACE
Gil Scott Heron

Back when Eisenhower was the President,
Golf courses was where most of his time was spent.
So I never really listened to what the President said,
Because in general I believed that the General was politically dead.

But he always seemed to know when the muscles were about to be flexed,
Because I remember him saying something, mumbling something about a Military Industrial Complex.
Americans no longer fight to keep their shores safe,
Just to keep the jobs going in the arms making workplace.
Then they pretend to be gripped by some sort of political reflex,
But all they're doing is paying dues to the Military Industrial Complex.

The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
The Military and the Monetary,
get together whenever they think its necessary,

They turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries, they are turning the planet into a cemetery.
The Military and the Monetary, use the media as intermediaries,
they are determined to keep the citizens secondary, they make so many decisions that are arbitrary.

We're marching behind a commander in chief,
who is standing under a spotlight shaking like a leaf.
but the ship of state had landed on an economic reef,
so we knew he was going to bring us messages of grief.

The Military and the Monetary,
were shielded by January and went storming into February,
Brought us pot bellied generals as luminaries,
two weeks ago I hadn't heard of the son of a bitch,
now all of a sudden he's legendary.

They took the honour from the honourary,
they took the dignity from the dignitaries,
they took the secrets from the secretary,
but they left the bitch an obituary.

The Military and the Monetary,
from thousands of miles away in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
had us all scrambling for our dictionaries,
cause we couldn't understand the fuckin vocabulary.

Yeah, there was some smart bombs,
but there was some dumb ones as well,
scared the hell out of CNN in that Baghdad hotel.

The Military and the Monetary,
they get together whenever they think its necessary,
War in the desert sometimes sure is scary,
but they beamed out the war to all their subsidiaries.
Tried to make So Damn Insane a worthy adversary,
keeping the citizens secondary,
scaring old folks into coronaries.

The Military and the Monetary,
from thousands of miles in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
kept us all wondering if all of this was really truely, necessary.

We've got to work for Peace,
Peace ain't coming this way.
If we only work for Peace,
If everyone believed in Peace the way they say they do,
we'd have Peace.

The only thing wrong with Peace,
is that you can't make no money from it.

The Military and the Monetary,
they get together whenever they think its necessary,
they've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet, into a cemetery.

Got to work for Peace,
Peace ain't coming this way.

We should not allow ourselves to be mislead,
by talk of entering a time of Peace,
Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the absence of the rules of war and the threats of war and the preparation for war.
Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the time when we will all bring ourselves closer to each other,
closer to building a structure that is unique within ourselves
because we have finally come to Peace within ourselves.

The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
Get together whenever they think its necessary,
they've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning parts of the planet, into a cemetery.

The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
We hounded the Ayatollah religiously,
Bombed Libya and killed Quadafi's son hideously.
We turned our back on our allies the Panamanians,
and saw Ollie North selling guns to the Iranians.
Watched Gorbachev slaughtering Lithuanians,
We better warn the Amish,
they may bomb the Pennsylvanians.

The Military and the Monetary,
get together whenever they think its necessary,
they have turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet, into a cemetery.

I don't want to sound like no late night commercial,
but its a matter of fact that there are thousands of children all over the world
in Asia and Africa and in South America who need our help.

When they start talking about 55 cents a day and 70 cents a day,
I know a lot of folks feel as though that,
thats not really any kind of contribution to make,
but we had to give up a dollar and a half just to get in the subway nowadays.

So this is a song about tommorrow and about how tommorrow can be better. if we all,
"Each one reach one, Each one try to teach one".

Nobody can do everything,
but everybody can do something,
everyone must play a part,
everyone got to go to work, Work for Peace.

Spirit Say Work, Work for Peace
If you believe the things you say, go to work.
If you believe in Peace, time to go to work.
Cant be wavin your head no more, go to work.