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This is the Eye of Grace. This is where the world is set straight before your simple minds. This is where the shit hits the fan.
You are nothing without me.
Not a Dead Rebel of the Week
The theme of our Anniversary Week is just that - “Anniversaries”. It so happens that I can’t think of a single thing to write about as far as anniversaries go, and I already did one article along those lines for my 9/11 piece. So, I’m writing about something else instead. I think I will stay true to our site’s original thought, be a fucking rebel, and write about the concept of rebels. Fuck all this anniversary shit.
As you know, we have a section on the site called “Dead Rebel of the Week” in which we all take turns plugging our fallen heroes and closet idols. It doesn’t matter in how small of a way they did something that affected either a greater us or just one stinking person. They deserve to have a spotlight shone on them for a measly minute or two. You have probably never heard of most of them before. That’s the point. Go read it. You’ll like it.
There are a bunch of people who are perhaps too obvious, too played or too dull to write about in the Dead Rebel section: Leonardo Da Vinci, Joan of Arc, King Arthur, Robespierre, Tolkien, Salvador Dali and John Lennon, to name a few. And then there are some people I just WISH would croak so I could nominate them for the Hall of Dead Rebel Fame: Fidel Castro, David Bowie and Bret Easton Ellis come to mind.
So, I will not dwell on all the great people who revolutionized the world of reality and thought through their actions and dreams. No… Instead I will focus on some of those fake ass rebels who have been mistaken for Great Revolutionary People, but, in fact, were nothing of the sort.
These people are the Not Dead Rebels of the Week.
The first person to spring to mind, and perhaps the best example, is Niccolo Machiavelli. You know him! Sure... You fell asleep during that history class and just googled the shit out of that name as it rang a bell somewhere in the murky backwaters of your mind, but fear not… I’ll give you the Cliff Notes:
Back in the Dark Ages, Machiavelli wrote a most extraordinary book on politics called “The Prince”. This little volume became The Manual on how to successfully rule a newly acquired feudal principality as the master of everybody’s universe. In short, it was an instruction manual on how to rule supreme as the Head Cheese. Since then, it has been read by millions and adapted and implemented into reality by thousands of leaders worldwide, in many different fields. Everybody from Napoleon to Hitler to J. Edgar Hoover, Donald Trump and Bill Parcells has based their very concept of Almighty Rule on Machiavelli’s little book.
Cool, right? What a guy. Must be one sharp kickass rebel…
No. He wrote that book purely for selfish and flawed reasons. See, Machiavelli had been disgracefully expelled from his hometown of Florence when the House of Medici took over. He wrote the book as a personalized gift to the new ruler, in an attempt to win back his good graces. Machiavelli just made all this shit up, this whole Successful Dictatorship 101, with Lorenzo of Medici as the book’s glorious main role model, in order to suck this guy’s ass hard enough to taste yesterday’s shit, and to be allowed to slither into Florence through the back door again. Machiavelli was quite the liberal in his true political ambitions, but he deserted all those thoughts as soon as he saw that they were not in favor with the powers that be. According to history, the ruler of Florence never even read the book and could not have picked out the author in a lineup anyway. Machiavelli was, of course, never given any position in office, and the book was never published during his lifetime. It never served his purpose, so he gave up on it. Boo fucking hoo.
Machiavelli - Not a Dead Rebel.
There are many more…
Galileo Galilei, aka “The Father of Astronomy”, ripped off most of his ideas from Copernicus and Kepler, added some shit of his own and then tried to steal all their thunder by presenting these ideas about the universe as his own, exclusively. Sure, he was a great physicist and a great mathematician, but he was not a great imaginer. When confronted by the Catholic Church, Galilei collapsed like a boiled macaroni and vehemently renounced his own scientific beliefs and ideas, groveling on the floor, crying like a baby - claiming it was all rubbish by a confused man. Grow some balls in Hell, you lame fuck.
Galileo Galilei – Not a Dead Rebel.
Who else?
Sid Vicious - A punk rock fashion victim who couldn’t play to save his life. Everything he did was done knowing there was a camera to capture the moment. He was only in it for the fame and fortune and couldn’t care less about making a statement. As long as he got paid. Johnny Rotten always thought Sid was a fag. Vicious even died like a rockstar – overdosing in poverty and misery. Live the dream – die the dream. Fake motherfucker.
Sid Vicious – Not a Dead Rebel.
Then there was this famous Swedish king, Karl XII, known as “The Warrior King”, who has lately become somewhat of a symbolic leader for the Swedish Nazi Skinhead movement. This young king came to power in the 1700s and decided to wage war against everybody at once, trying to lay Europe under his feet. The only problem was that he didn’t have enough manpower to fight a war on four fronts. Little by little he lost the entire grand empire that Sweden had already established before he was even a twinkle in Karl XI’s eye. After losing all territories in Russia, Germany, Poland, Denmark, and God knows where else, he decided to make a last run for Norway. He dug himself, and his ragged army, down into the snowy trenches of the Norwegian mountains and besieged the little country with his mighty force. Well, I don’t think the Norwegians felt so very besieged since they basically went about their daily business, as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on. After a considerable number of months of freezing and dying, one Swedish soldier had enough. He loaded up his pistol with a button from his own uniform and shot his King in the head, point blank. Then they all packed up their shit and returned to what was left of Sweden.
Why the fuck the Nazi Fuckheads pay tribute to such a pathetic figure, I don’t understand. Then again… they seem to be suckers for losers, and they all bailed out of school in 5th grade anyway, so I guessed they missed that history lesson.
Karl XII – Not a Dead Rebel.
Then we have Mahatma Gandhi. I mean, what the fuck? He led India out of the oppression of British Rule, armed with his concept of civil disobedience. Great, right? No. That is just too lame. Sitting on your ass, refusing to do shit, but not putting up a fight either, doesn’t make you a fucking rebel. Half the people in Florida swam over here from Cuba and do the exact same thing on a daily basis. Are they also Rebel candidates? Was Christopher Reeves their leader? Fuck that. It’s called being too fucking LAZY or INCAPABLE to do shit yourself.
Gandhi – Not a Dead Rebel of the Week.
And here’s a kicker for you. A dark horse in the Hall of Not a Dead Rebel Shame:
Rosa Parks.
What? How dare I? Blasphemy! She triggered one of the most important social reforms in modern history. She, if anybody, deserves to be called a Dead Rebel.
Wait. Shhhh… Bear with me. You’re just upset and confused. Shhh… I will set you straight.
Let’s say you build a ship, and decide to sail it through the Sahara Desert by having thousands of people dig a deep ditch in front of you, filling it with water so you can sail by them. The figurehead of that ship, Rosa Parks, is not really making a big fucking difference, but it’s still the first thing the thirsty overworked laborers see as the ship comes gliding by.
Rosa Parks was thrust into a situation by people around here, asking specifically for the situations that arose, and anticipating the desired outcome. The whole bus gig had been tried many times before, by Claudette Colvin, Irene Morgan and even Jackie Robinson - but without success. Married to a fierce NAACP leader, Rosa Parks was used as a bat in the battle for Black Civil Rights. The bus story quickly went from “I was so tired that I just moved over to the window seat” to “I felt the Spirit of our Lord giving me the strength to tell this unjust system that African American people should be granted the rights of Human Beings”. With every passing week, and with every passing interview, the event was retold more and more courageously in her favor. Soon enough she was the Black Super Woman, who had told every white person on that bus to suck her big black dick. Well, that’s not how it originally happened. The NAACP doctored that story pretty good, and the fiercer they made her look, the more controversy it spawned in the legal system. The proud battle ship “HMS Black Power” charged through the waves, with Rosa Parks tied to the mast, taking the brunt of the weather, but also most of the glory.
The most common remarks about her person were that she was “quiet”, “serene”, and downright “timid” with a voice that “nobody could hear”. Quite the rebel, huh?
After the whole Civil Rights upheaval she worked as a seamstress until a US Representative hired her on as a secretary in his congressional office. It looked good for him to have THE Rosa Parks on staff when he was trying to fish for Black voters. Again she was used as a figure head for somebody else’s agenda.
How would it look if we made her a real Dead Rebel? Imagine the annual induction ceremony. She is seated next to Mozart and Jesus Christ. Small talk all around. “What are you here for?” – “I died for your sins” – “Ah, super.” That sort of thing. Then somebody asks Rosa Parks: “What are you here for, Sweetie?” – “I didn’t give up my seat on the bus.” – “Eh, OK? Why?” – “Because my husband told me not to.”
Rosa Parks – Not a Dead Rebel of the Week. Cry all you want.
I have more, but I think you get my general idea here… Just because some people make a name for themselves, maybe even head some movement or get some theory named after them, it doesn’t mean they are Dead Rebels.
Some people are just plain dead.
And, oh… To stay on topic:
Happy Birthday to us. DRS fucking rocks. There.
~ The Eye of Grace ~
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