10 May 2004

Saddle up

One more post about the Recent Unpleasantness.

Ken MacLeod has a poetic call-to-arms for lefty boomers that you should read.

Something within you has become harder and colder this week. You've glimpsed the bestiality and the decadence, in the system's nerves like a venereal disease. It's sick, and there is something sexual in its sickness, something warped beyond therapy. The oiled skin of a gladiator, the lusty roar of the arena. A line from Cornford, whom you haven't read for years, slides beneath the surface of your mind. ''The painted boy in the praetorian's bed.'' Camphor and pincers, piss and blood. You're in this rotting system, you're part of it. You pay the soldiers. Civis Romanus sum.

No comments: