Someone on DU began talking about the inevitability of revolution. Why not revolution?

[JDPriestly]

Because. Look at the history of revolutions. Especially revolutions and revolts due to extreme poverty. French history is replete with these events. Peasant revolts. Marches.

Most of the aristocracy, the landowners, the wealthy survived the violent episodes intact. A few actually succumbed. The "French Revolution" changed things -- for a while. But then came Napoleon, military losses and, and . . . . In general, revolutions mean that the rich suffer setbacks only to return and rule again.

Revolutions do happen. But they are really horrible affairs. And usually pretty ineffective when it comes to achieving justice.

Repeating the lament that things are bad and people are bound to rise up is just as ineffective, sorry to say. (Although I have said it myself and they may.)

We have a voice. Americans have not yet lost the right to vote. Our current state of injustice in the world could lead to revolution. True. But revolution is unlikely to change much.

What is needed is people who understand what is going on getting out and peacefully talking to voters one by one. We have to explain to people that they are voting against their interests. We have to be the rational ones.

Occupy was good because it attracted attention to injustice and united like-minded people. But real progress is not made by just sitting and commiserating among ourselves. Real progress is made when wise people find good candidates to run for office and then work like the dickens to persuade people to vote for their interests.

We can have real change without violence or revolution. And change without violence or revolution is the only kind of change that really improves people's lives.

One thing that is forgotten about the American Revolution is that it occurred in a country in which most of the land was not farmed or developed and in which there was almost no industry. Ours was truly a land of infinite possibilities and no aristocracy at that time. That is no longer the case. Yet Americans are made to feel like losers because they can't just go out and homestead and make it without much social and infrastructure support.

Nowadays, nobody makes it without social and infrastructure support. Steve Jobs didn't. Bill Gates didn't. William Randolph Hearst didn't. (He did OK with his newspapers, but that his not how he became rich. His father invested in gold mines. Way to go.) They got a boost from friends and/or family. We all need that. We all need to help each other.

The great danger today is that we are gradually forming an aristocracy. We had the Bush presidencies -- father and son. A very bad omen. Now we hear of having another Clinton presidency. Leaving aside whether Hillary Clinton would make a good president or not, the idea of developing even the hint of dynasty in the White House should be repugnant to every American.

We need a people's government and a people's president. That does not mean socialism. It means electing representatives and a president who are strong enough to stand up against the very wealthy as well as the crazy, extremist, self-styled but mistaken reformers. We need people who will dare to move to implement new ideas and require the wealthy to obey the laws that everyone else obeys.

It's that simple.

If you read the history of wealthy men in America, you will note that many of them cheated, bought politicians and undercut their competition in order to create monopolies that harmed our economy. Many, maybe most of them obtained (bought) special favors from the government (or the governments of other countries. Think of the railroad barons who were given generous land grants. There is nothing new about corruption or bribery.) Those who became wealthy really because they were smarter, wiser than others without some cheating or taking unfair advantage are rare.

Some of the wealthiest Americans in history used law enforcement to protect their wealth and harmed others in the process. The list of wrongs that created wealth is very, very long. Just study the building of the railroads, the history of mining, the story of the steel industry. Cut-throat, ruthless competition was not unusual. And as a result a lot of ordinary people suffered.

But violent uprisings only very rarely improved things. Quiet cooperation and wisdom can save the day.

We who post on DU and others like us who see the great need for real change have insight into what could be done differently. We have the power to change the world in the gentle, firm way that it needs to be changed without useless violent revolution.

Just talk to your neighbors. Don't argue. Inform yourself. Learn the facts. Study history. Study the present. Then just state what you believe and why. Let it sink in. Don't excite the defenses in people. Just speak to their common sense. We all have to do this.

Extremism works for a while and then fails. But acquiescence to injustice is dangerous.

At the same time, let's admit that sometimes we are wrong. The wonderful thing about democracy is that through the lens of diverse thought and expression, freedom of speech, freedom of communication, bad ideas can be held up and criticized (we all have them once in a while) and good ideas can rise to the top. But we have to do our part by holding reasoned conversations with each other and with our families and friends, neighbors and acquaintances. We need to do it in a spirit of good will, however and not from one of despondency or anger.

Sorry for the long rant. I don't expect very many people to read to the end. And, in closing, I wish I could always follow my own advice. If you catch me violating it, let me know. Speak up. That's the only way that I or any of us can learn and improve.

[FSogol]

1. No revolution in the US until we run out of Chalupas and Diet Coke.

[kentauros]

12. I'll make/take the chalupas.

You can have all the cigarettes and diet coke you can drink

[Egalitarian Thug]

21. Nah, the only thing that could prompt these gigantic asses off their couches would

be a blackout of their televisions...

Maybe if you took away their piss water, I'm pretty sure that they would watch bars and tone as long as they could get drunk staring at it.

[randome]

2. Especially your last sentence.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[Turbineguy]

3. In this case I think it's the oligarchs that want revolution.

There are too many wingnuts and too many liberals. The fact that it's mostly wingnuts that are itching to shoot people supports this. It's the wingnuts who believe their propaganda.

[graham4anything]

4. The revolution was won in 2008. Why would anyone want to bring back Jeb Bush?

It takes a village and decades of work to undo what he lost since Nixon sabatoged LBJ in 1968 and led to 50 years of
going backwards and lateral til the revolution of 2008 peacefully got out the bad regime

Any protest now will directly lead to Jeb Bush and bring back what the 2008 revolution kicked out

[JDPriestly]

17. Probably true. Thanks.

[Starry Messenger]

5. Revolutions are shifts in society.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone seriously advocate violent overthrowing of anything here.

"We need a people's government and a people's president. That does not mean socialism. It means electing representatives and a president who are strong enough to stand up against the very wealthy as well as the crazy, extremist, self-styled but mistaken reformers. We need people who will dare to move to implement new ideas and require the wealthy to obey the laws that everyone else obeys."

This in itself will take a revolutionary mass in society to achieve. It will mean building coalitions and I think many people here want to work toward this goal. But we also have powerful foes in the corporations and the extreme right wing who will call your plan "socialism" and they will be the source of the violence, not us.

[marions ghost]

6. Who says revolution means violence?

with Democracy in America on life support, it's hard to put much faith in the ideals of it all.

We have to salvage Democracy, and I don't think it can be done without revolutionizing the system.

Much different direction than fomenting senseless violence.

[stevenleser]

7. The gun culture does.

This guy and his myriad of supporters does:

[marions ghost]

11. The Tactical Response nutjob

and Kokesh and Co. Yes they personify the violence route.

Not attractive.

[Laelth]

8. Lovely and hopeful. Thanks. n/t

-Laelth

[cali]

9. Yikers. There's quite a bit of misinformation in your op

of course there was an American aristocracy pre-revolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_gentry

Furthermore, we may still have the vote but the system is utterly corrupted by corporate money.

[JDPriestly]

18. There was the British aristocracy before the revolution.

The Vanderbilts and Rockefellers came later. There are always different levels of wealth and of wisdom. A lot of the aristocrats went back to Britain. There are also social strata. But right now there is a very tiny but extremely, extremely wealthy group that live aloof from the rest of us. It is more like the Gilded Age in that respect than pre-revolutionary America. There were, admittedly, owners of huge amounts of land in colonial America, especially in the South. But it was more landed gentry than shareholders. In fact, mercantilism was the predominant economic system until sometime around the American Revolution. Capitalism was just starting. The Dutch and British Indies Corporations were budding capitalism but it was not the dominant system -- not yet. So that is why corporations existed but were not that important at the time.

The monarchy and the vestiges of feudalism were very different from the kind of corporatism we know.

[cali]

32. I'm not talking about the Rockefellers

and Vanderbilts but there damn well was a a ruling class. Yes, it was different from the kind of corporatism today- and yet....

[JDPriestly]

47. That's why we had the revolution -- to get rid of them.

But that opportunity is gone. We have to achieve change through peaceful means. The "ruling class" owned the land but did not control people the way that the present oligarchy controls us. The opportunities for those who were not slaves to go out on their own in early America were nearly unlimited. Members of my family, my ancestors, were poor but were able to go into the new territories and provide good lives for themselves. As long as you have that choice, you are not really poor and the fact that some are richer than you does not make so much difference. The fact is that today the oligarchs have opportunity pretty much sewn up. There is no wilderness left, no homesteading possible. So we are much more limited than our ancestors were in terms of economic opportunities even though we have more wealth as a society.

[arely staircase]

10. revolutions don't normally occur in places with extremely high standards of living like the US

yeah, things suck relative to what we are used to, but the US has one of the highest standards of living of any nation on Earth. That isn't fertile ground for revolution. And to put things in perspective, if you have a choice of what you are going to eat tonight, you are rich by global standards.

[maddezmom]

13. Speaking of revolutions...just read this on Think Progress

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/29/2075191/leader-of-armed-march-on-washington-calls-for-revolutionary-army-to-topple-government/?mobile=wt

-snip

About a month ago, a gun activist named Adam Kokesh called for thousands of people to join him in an armed march on Washington, D.C. to “put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny.” As of this writing, nearly 5,200 people have RSVPed for Kokesh’s armed march.
Late last week, however, Kokesh decided to abandon this march in favor of a much larger effort to bring down the entire federal government. In a statement written from a jail cell in Philadelphia (Kokesh faced charges for allegedly resisting arrest during a pro-marijuana rally. He now says he’s been released), the gun activist called for his supporters to form a secessionist “army”:
A new American revolution is long overdue. This revolution has been brewing in the hearts and minds of the people for many years, but this Independence Day, it shall take a new form as the American Revolutionary Army will march on each state capital to demand that the governors of these 50 states immediately initiate the process of an orderly dissolution of the federal government through secession and reclamation of federally held property. Should one whole year from this July 4th pass while the crimes of this government are allowed to continue, we may have passed the point at which non-violent revolution becomes impossible.

More at the link

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Most American Revolutions have not been violent

Most refuse to see both the New Deal and the Reagan Revolution as exactly that, but they were. Both changed the country in massive ways, and we are seeing the same pressures today.

Could we see the violent kind? Yes...if a refusal to change continues. You speak of Occuy in the past tense. They are still around. Then you have the low wage workers sorting to strike for better pay and conditions. Those are both markers of a revolutionary era.

[felix_numinous]

15. John Lennon on revolutions

I agree that non violent resistance is the way to go. Declare independence from corporations and don't fight for them. Why have all the most peaceful public personalities been assassinated? Because what they believed in was considered dangerous to the status quo.

We need another peace renaissance in this country, dedicate ourselves to peace and to the planet. It is a dream I have.

[Whiskeytide]

16. Great thoughts, and I admire your optimism...BUT...

...to effect real change you have to take money out of politics. Or at least greatly restrict its influence. That single concept, in my opinion, would solve most of our governmental and societal ills, and nothing short of it will ever accomplish anything substantive. Yet, I have no idea how your do that when money has become essential to getting elected. How could you ever run a successful campaign on a platform that proposes throwing the money out of DC?

[Chathamization]

39. The money problem is often overstated

That’s not to say that it’s not a big issue, but from what I’ve seen people power, even with only a few people, can trump it. The problem is that it’s hard to get even a small amount of people active and working for change. I’d say that the biggest problem I’ve run into is just getting more people involved.

[Whiskeytide]

40. I agree with getting people involved...

... as probably the only solution, but as long as the people with the most money and money backed organizations can run the most ads to influence the electorate, nothing's likely to change. You would have to get a sufficient number of people (sufficient in terms of voting strength) involved deeply enough so that they were able to resist being fooled by the ad campaigns. I'm sorry, but I don't see that happening for a while yet. As long as a large percentage of our population can be "skeered" by threats to "take away our guns", "tax the job creators", "open mass abortion clinics", "put everyone on disability and welfare", "knuckle under to foreign interests" and "let 'the gays' take over", among many others, they aren't going to switch parties. Money is going to rule the day for a while yet.

Funny. I'm not usually such a cynic.

[Chathamization]

45. I’ve mostly been doing work

at the local level, but time and time again we’ve seen people raising tons of money and not getting anywhere, while poorer campaigns with more support beat them. And keep in mind that a lot can happen at the local level – that’s where we’re seeing marijuana legalization, gay marriage, universal healthcare, and fighting against things like gerrymandering and “right to work” laws.

[Recursion]

19. Actually revolutions almost never happen in extreme poverty

For all the rhetoric about "people who have nothing to lose", it's actually people who do have something to lose and are afraid they are about to lose it who start revolutions.

The American revolution was instigated by rich planters and smugglers who feared British mercantilist policies would cut into their profits.

The French revolution was led by the bourgeoisie; the sans coullottes didn't show up for several years.

The Russian revolution happened after liberalization and emancipation of the serfs.

[JDPriestly]

48. What do you think the outcome would have been had the liberalization

and emancipation in Russia been allowed to take its course? What if the revolution had not occurred? What do you think would have happened?

[Spider Jerusalem]

20. I don't think that's strictly true

"America was a land of no aristocracy"? The leading "revolutionaries" were the aristocracy, as such. George Washington was the richest man in America. By and large the "founding fathers" were members of either the Southern plantation aristocracy or the Northern arosticracy of merchant wealth. Very few were yeoman farmers. The American "revolution" was not a revolution from below, as the French revolution was; it was led by members of the elite socioeconomic class. And the American government constituted after independence restricted voting to white male property owners.

[JDPriestly]

22. Capitalism was in its earlier years. Mercantilism was the economic system.

And Washington did not have industrial wealth. Even the Du Ponts came later. The Vanderbilts, Du Ponts and Jay Gould and then the railroad magnates of the time of the Civil War followed by Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller and the other truly, truly wealthy American characters came later. There were differences in levels of wealth, but not men of the wealth of the industrial and real estate magnates of the Civil War era and Gilded Age. Those were the true capitalists. And we have a fair share of them today.

[Spider Jerusalem]

23. Sure, but saying "there was no aristocracy" is ahistorical.

[BainsBane]

29. The Southern planter class saw themselves as aristocratic

A gentleman was defined as never having to work with his hands.

In Brazil, the crown actually bestowed titles of nobility on the prominent landed families.

[HiPointDem]

25. depends on what you mean by 'industrial wealth'.

Washington’s Distillery was the largest whiskey distillery in the country during the 18th century. It measured 75 x 30 feet (2,250 square feet) while the average distillery was about 20 x 40 feet (800 square feet).

Washington’s Distillery operated five copper pot stills for 12 months a year. The average distillery used one or two stills and distilled for one month. In 1799, Washington’s Distillery produced almost 11,000 gallons of whiskey, valued at $7,500 (approximately $120,000 today). The average Virginia distillery produced about 650 gallons of whiskey per year which was valued at about $460.

http://www.discus.org/heritage/distillery_faq/

That's the Washington that crushed the whiskey rebellion.

He also had an advanced grist mill.

[BainsBane]

27. Manufactures didn't not develop on until after the War of 1812.

Not on a significant scale. The American Revolutionary war can be seen as a revolution against the colonial system, but it did not bring about a change in the social order. Distilleries existed in pre-industrial societies, including throughout Spanish American where manufacturing was largely prohibited. Textiles marked the beginning of industrialization in both England and the United States.

[HiPointDem]

31. i'd disagree. the social order was changing long before the war of 1812.

Last edited Thu May 30, 2013, 06:59 AM - Edit history (1)

e.g.:

Following the war, (Paul) Revere's... success as a silversmith enabled him to pursue and leverage more advanced technological developments for the purposes of mass production....rolling mills greatly improved the productivity of his silver shop and enabled his business to move further away from manufacturing high-end customized products in order to focus instead on the production of a more standardized set of goods...

By 1788 he had invested some of the profits from his growing silverworking trade to construct a large furnace, which would allow him to work with larger quantities of metals at higher temperatures. He soon opened an iron foundry in Boston's North End that produced utilitarian cast iron items such as stove backs, fireplace tools, and window weights, marketed to a broad segment of Boston's population.

This technical proficiency allowed Revere to optimize his work and adapt to a new technological and entrepreneurial model...as his business expanded he hired employees (wage laborers) to work for his foundry. Many manufacturers of the era found this transition from master to employer difficult because many employees at the onset of the Industrial Revolution identified themselves as skilled workers. An artisan himself, Revere managed to avoid many of these labor conflicts by adopting a system of employment that still held trappings of the craft system in the form of worker freedoms such as work hour flexibility...

As he shifted to ironworking, he found the need to produce more standardized products, because this made production cheaper. To achieve the beginnings of standardization, Revere used identical molds for casting, especially in the fabrication of mass produced items...

By 1795, a growing percentage of his foundry's business came from a new product, copper bolts, spikes, and other fittings that he sold to merchants and the Boston naval yard for ship construction. In 1801, Revere became a pioneer in the production of rolled copper, opening North America's first copper mill south of Boston in Canton. The copper works founded in 1801 continues today as the Revere Copper Company...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere

the first US textile mill was completed in 1787. it was financed with capital from the slave trade (as were most of the early mills).

george washington toured this mill.

washington's grist mill produced flour & cornmeal for profitable *export* to the West Indies, England, and continental Europe. He was an early adopter of new technology, the Oliver Evans automatic process:

In 1791 Washington automated his mill using technology developed and patented by Oliver Evans of Delaware.[1][2] Evans was personally acquainted with the mill and had repaired some of its works

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_Gristmill

In the mid-1780s, Oliver Evans invented a (fully) automated flour mill that included a grain elevator and hopper boy. Evans' design eventually displaced the traditional gristmills. By the turn of the century, Evans also developed one of the first high-pressure steam engines and began establishing a network of machine workshops to manufacture and repair these popular inventions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_and_industrial_history_of_the_United_States


The distillery was an adjunct to Washington's milling business. He produced a variety of liquors & vinegar, and sold his products in the commercial market. Washington's distillery was far larger than any operation of its time in the US & it operated continuously. It wasn't 'traditional' distilling in any sense of the word.

Both the grist mill and the distillery were built specifically for capitalist profit.


the war of 1812 just accelerated what was already in process, because of war needs, disruption of trade with britain, and injections of government capital.

[HiPointDem]

35. mercantilism is not something distinct from capitalism.

Mercantilism is the economic doctrine that government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the military security of the country. In particular, it demands a positive balance of trade.

[Egalitarian Thug]

26. Wrong as usual. John Hancock possessed considerably more wealth than Washington

and Robert Morris was probably richer than either of them. Of course, none of them were especially rich by today's standards.

John Hancock was generally considered the richest man in the colonies, but much of his wealth came from his very lucrative tea smuggling operation so records were scarce. Either way, his net worth was in the neighborhood of somewhat less than a million dollars. Several of the southern delegates, most notably Lee, Rutledge, and Carrol were quite well off, but their fortunes consisted mainly of huge land grants from the King and possession of large numbers of slaves to work their lands, but liquid assets were frequently scarce for all of them.

While none of them were paupers, of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, less than half of them would qualify as what might be called gentleman of leisure. But when the shit hit the fan it was Robert Morris that opened his purse and kept the cause going.

Is there any more misinformation you would like to present?

[HiPointDem]

34. according to this, washington was worth half a billion in today's dollars. still pretty rich.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/print/2010/05/the-net-worth-of-the-us-presidents-washington-to-obama/57020/#slide1

john hancock inherited 70,000 pounds (in non-adjusted dollars) from his uncle and was worth 350,000 dollars when he died. i don't know what that translates to in modern currency, but it doesn't sound like he was substantially richer than washington.

washington estimated his wealth later in life as about $530,000. i don't know how the will panned out.

they're both pretty close on this list:

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2006/07/29/the-wealthy-100-a-ranking-of-the-richest-americans-past-and-present/

and of course morris died broke.

[Hekate]

24. KnR

[dkf]

28. The Rich Actually Are Different

With the long-weekend rapidly approaching, ConvergEx's Nick Colas takes a trip to the Hamptons, but through a time warp back to the Great Depression. Examining the social registers (colloquially called the “Blue Book”) from 1927 and 1940, he finds that “The great and the good” of the day had real trouble holding their status during the social upheavals of the late 1920s and 1930s. Only 32% of the families appearing in the Blue Book in 1927 were still there in 1940. The ratio was even worse, at 29%, for the ultra-elite who belonged to the Meadow Club in Southampton. It’s too early to tell what the last few volatile years will do to the upper crust of East Coast society, of course. Or what may still be in store. But when the hedgie in the Bentley cuts you off on Route 27 this weekend, take some solace in knowing he may not be there in a few years.


Ernest Hemingway had a famous retort to “The rich are different” in his story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”: “Yes, they have more money. But that was not humorous to Scott. He thought they were a special and glamorous race and when he found they weren’t it wrecked him as much as any other thing that wrecked him.” Yes, these two great American writers were friends. Sort of.

I think about this exchange regularly, given the extremely high levels of personal wealth generation the world has seen over the last 30 years. Hedge fund billionaires in the US. Russian oligarchs in Moscow. Super wealthy Indian businessmen snapping up nine figure houses in London. And China… Even Chairman Mao’s granddaughter, Kong Dongmei, is reportedly worth over $500 million. And the list goes on…

Specifically, I wonder how long wealth actually stays with an individual and their descendants. There’s an old saying which posits that three generations is pretty much the maximum: one to make it, one to start to spend it, and the third to finish it off. There are obvious exceptions to this rule, of course, such as the in United Kingdom, where land ownership has kept the country’s titled elite deep in the money for hundreds of years. But in economies where wealth is measured in financial assets rather than 100,000 acres of Scottish highlands or 50 blocks of London waterfront, how long does wealth concentrate before divorce, death, squabbling children and bad advice disperse it back into society?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-24/rich-actually-are-different

[HiPointDem]

36. "one to make it...etc" is bullshit. do some genealogy of very wealthy families. the three

Last edited Thu May 30, 2013, 08:04 AM - Edit history (4)

generations thing applies mainly to small capital.

big fortunes just don't disappear that easily assuming the heirs aren't insane. they just get more hidden through a variety of mechanisms.

to wit:

Kathleen (harriman) Mortimer, Rich and Adventurous, Dies at 93

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/us/20mortimer.html?_r=0

married a standard oil heir, daughter of financier averell harriman, granddaughter of railroad magnate eh harriman (born 1848, nephew of financier orlando harriman and descendant of a line of merchant capital)...

a long and unbroken line of wealth, and her kids are still rich.

http://observer.com/2006/12/the-mortimer-family/

The Mortimer family traces its origins to John Jay, the nation’s first chief justice...Ms. Pell, who lives in San Francisco, recently finished a biography of both the Pell and Mortimer families called We Used to Own the Bronx. That book is currently being shopped around. “We’re actually very un-America in spirit,” she said. “Horatio Alger would not be welcome in our family. And the idea is to inherit your money and not make it—and the longer ago, the better.”


even the supposed 'new wealth' in india the writer talks about is actually old wealth, e.g.:

Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata (Gujarati: જમ્શેત્જી નુંસ્સેર્વાનજી ટાટા; 3 March 1839 – 19 May 1904) was an Indian pioneer industrialist, who founded the Tata Group, India's biggest conglomerate company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamsetji_Tata

the tatas got their start in the opium trade acting as compradors to the british.

[Scootaloo]

30. You misunderstand the concept of revolution

Revolutions can be launched and settled without a drop of blood being shed - ask Iceland. The idea of revolution is not necessarily violence. That can be - and often is - an ingredient, depending on circumstances. But it's not essential. The crux of revolution is a change in the way of doing things. All that is really required is action.

That is the failing of the American Left, a lack of action... precisely because the Left in America is scared stupid of ever being labeled "violent" by anyone. Pacifism and passiveness become one and the same, and so the height of our "activism" most often seems to be strumming out some shitty old folksy song from the 60's and holding up a witty posterboard sign. We mind our P's and Q's and make sure to not kick up any dust or talk too loud, and all our papers are in order, and just to be safe, we'll tug our forelocks and scrape a bit with a bleating of "yes officer of course officer." And we'll pat ourselves on the back, because we've convinced ourselves that we're following in the footsteps of Gandhi or King and their nonviolence, the entire time missing that while those men were not violent, they were also not passive, nor did they acquiesce to invalid authority.

Until the left gets over its fear, until we decide, hey, fuck what's written, let's go for what's right, no, there will be no meaningful revolution. We've been domesticated, and we did it to ourselves, by taking only smidges and smudges of the past activists to adorn ourselves with. This is the primary failing of OWS that I've seen - many of the people involved have no idea about the "and then" part. That's been excised, extirpated, removed from the culture of the left, and so it has to be rebuilt from scratch, often against the constant demands for passiveness-as-pacifism.

[JustAnotherGen]

33. We have to tap into this

“Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald. “The Great Gatsby.”


Somehow folks (mainly on the right) have been lulled into a comfort zone of peasantry. Not everyone wants extreme wealth. As my husband and I say, "How much do you really need?". But thats easy for us to say - as we sit in a place financially that many find enviable. How to get our peers on the Right to understand - you have more in common with the family desperate to hang onto their house than with Jamie Dimond or Kim Kartrashian. . . That's the Revolution in "thinking" that needs to take place.

We need a people's government and a people's president. That does not mean socialism. It means electing representatives and a president who are strong enough to stand up against the very wealthy as well as the crazy, extremist, self-styled but mistaken reformers. We need people who will dare to move to implement new ideas and require the wealthy to obey the laws that everyone else obeys.

I tend to agree with Graham4anything on approach. I know I turned six voters - three couples - against Romney. Simply ask - why are you as a couple paying a top tax rate when you "only make" a few hundred grand per year - yet Romney pays in the teens? Followed by this statement: he must not want to contribute to America and see us great again.

Revolutionize the thinking of the upper middle class and rich who want to cling to the notion that folks in the lower tier of the income scale are taking something from them. Show them that they are actually carrying the Burden of those far wealthier than they will ever be. That can be done with words.

[HiPointDem]

37. speaking of inherited wealth; fitzgerald's model for jay gatsby:

tommy hitchcock jr.

hitchcock's father was in the newspaper business, a famous polo player & trainer, a friend of financier august belmont, etc; his mother was "the daughter of George Eustis, Jr. and Louise Corcoran Eustis ( of the Corcoran Family of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Riggs Bank fame)" .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hitchcock

Hitchcock jr married Margaret Mellon, daughter of William Larimer Mellon, gulf oil (and from the mellon banking family).

partner in lehman bros, died in ww2.

his kids brought timothy leary (LSD) to millbrook; one of them helped finance production at the first LSD labs...and the first national LSD distribution network...

[JustAnotherGen]

38. Eh

I think was more likely Max Gerlach or whatever Mr. Stork/Stark called himself!


I think Tom is a possibility for that man - but Ginerva's (Fitzegerald's unrequitted love) father played a hand in that character as well.


Gatsby was an invention of Gatz . . . Gerlach was an invention of Stork/Stark - a bootlegger with "supposed" German Aristoctratic heritage. But it was all an illusion he created to get the girl.

[HiPointDem]

41. sorry, i meant tom buchanan.

"It’s unclear precisely how Fitzgerald met Hitchcock, but it was likely at one of those Long Island parties where much of the novel’s revelries take place. In 1922, Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, moved to Great Neck, Long Island—later immortalized in The Great Gatsby as West Egg—just a few months after Fitzgerald planned the tale of Gatsby. Rich, handsome, athletic, brave and with the quiet self-assurance that comes from these enviable qualities, Hitchcock, who lived in nearby Sands Point (the model for East Egg) across the bay, certainly made an impression on the writer. Fitzgerald was hardly alone. Nelson Aldrich Jr., Hitchcock’s lone biographer, called his subject the “beau ideal” of an East Coast patrician, while one of Hitchcock’s peers laconically dubbed him “perfect.” Countless others simply idolized him.

In March, his son William filed a lawsuit against book dealer James Robert Cahill, alleging that a first-edition copy of The Great Gatsby, inscribed by Fitzgerald and given to his father in 1927, was stolen from his home in 2006 and sold on the black market."

http://global.ralphlauren.com/en-us/rlmagazine/editorial/summer13/Pages/TomHitchcock.aspx

[JustAnotherGen]

42. I figured!

I do think though the racism and arrogance came from his lost love's father.

He reported told F that poor boys should never aspire to rich girls . . .

[HiPointDem]

43. check out the copy of gatsby fitzgerald gave to hitchcock, though.

http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/17782/lot/1107/

[JustAnotherGen]

46. ha ha ha ha

Polo Club - The "Polo" Player - eh Old Sport?


Love him or hate him - James Gatz was my kind of person.


He was a very real and down to earth phony! :rotfl:

[JDPriestly]

49. Thanks. I like this very much:

How to get our peers on the Right to understand - you have more in common with the family desperate to hang onto their house than with Jamie Dimond or Kim Kartrashian. .

I would not call that a revolution. I would call that change. That's what I expected from Obama and have not found.

[Dash87]

44. Obama's election was arguably part of the beginning of a revolution

It's being caused by the Internet and is worldwide. I think we'll see a further focus on civil rights in the coming decades, because of how common social media is these days.