Monday, April 11, 2005

Revolutionary Movements

These words by James Connolly (1907) are painted on the wall of the Starry Plough in Berkeley California:

No revolutionary movement is
complete with out its poetic
expression. If such a movement
has caught hold of the
imagination of the masses,
they will seek a vent in song
for the aspirations, fears, and
hopes, the loves and hatreds
engendered by the struggle.
Until the movement is marked
by the joyous, defiant singing
of revolutionary songs, it lacks
one of the most distinctive
marks of a popular revolutionary
movement; it is the dogma of the few
and not the faith of the multitude

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