Revolution is coming, and if you are 50 or younger it's coming in your lifetime.

[rateyes]

We've got a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy. We've got a bunch of millionaires and billionaires running the show in Congress, in the Executive and in the Judiciary. And, you had better believe that there is no way that Congress will pass any bill that requires any real sacrifice on the part of the wealthy. People in power do what is in THEIR self-interests---and, since the people in power aren't the middle-class---but, the upper crust of society, the middle-class and poor are screwed.

But, what the wealthy in power fail to understand is the seething anger of the people. And, the truth is, there are more of us than there are of them. When mamas can't feed their babies. When unemployment reaches epic proportions (and, it will---if you know anything about real monetary policy and how it works in this country---and, are watching the numbers---then you know, it will)---there will be revolution. And, sadly, it will be bloody. There will be riots in the streets.

And, if you think that the military will put it down, you are wrong. When the government tells the soldiers to turn their guns on their own families---it won't happen. The military will stand with the people, because they are part of the people---it's the poor who fight the wars that the rich of the country wage---all so that THEY (the rich, that is. not the people) can continue to enjoy their "way of life."

Do you really think that Congress is interested in passing a REAL health-care reform package? Don't kid yourself. Real reform will require the rich giving up something so that the poor can have health care. IT'S.NOT.GOING.TO.HAPPEN. Oh, they will pass something and call it "reform," and the president will sign it and claim victory--but, shit by any other name still stinks.

Congress will toss us a bone, and think that we will be pacified. But, when we find that there is no meat on that bone, we will bite the hand that tosses that bone.

Revolution is coming. It may not be tomorrow. It may not be next year. But, it's coming, and it's coming in most of our lifetimes.


Barack Obama won't save us. The Democratic Party won't save us. God (if there is a god) won't save us.


We can only save ourselves. And, when "we, the people" finally come to accept that cold, hard reality---we, the people will fight to save ourselves.


Revolution is coming. Mark my words.

[mdmc]

1. horray for everything

bring it on!

[rateyes]

2. Bring it on.

:hi:

[mdmc]

14. kick to the rec..

peace and low stress..

[olegramps]

179. We need a revolution, but not one that is violent.

Yes, I do believe that we will have a revolution in the future, however, it isn't going to be the starving masses with torches and pitchforks storming the gated communities. We have seen a massive redistribution of wealth and its associated power to what has become a virtual Plutocracy.

I am of the thinking that what we hoped for in electing Obama would be a revolution in which the working class regained a fair share of the fruits of their labors. I can safely say that so far he actually hasn't been the revolutionary that I belief the working class had envisioned him to be. It appears that he has not been able to grasp the opportunity that he was afforded by the massive support that he entered office with.

I believe that we do need a revolution that firstly consists in breaking the strangle hold that professional politicians have on government. This could be greatly accomplished with firm term limits and campaign finance reforms that absolutely prohibit any campaign contributions, i.e., public financing of all elections. The argument that this violates free speech is nothing more than a sham to maintain the present status quo of lobbyists' influence at the expense of the common citizen's interest.

My ideal revolution would be a workers revolution in which there was a massive resurgence of organized labor. It would be more powerful and effect than any bloody revolution led by ignoramuses of either the right wing or liberal causes. It would be led but by people seeking meaningful reforms. Its goals would be to bring about fundamental changes ranging from elimination of excessive management compensation, unwarranted out-sourcing at the expense of the workers, universal health care, living wages, pensions and most importantly the restoration of the dignity of the working class. It is absolutely unconscionable that any manager should be making 1000 or 10,000 times what an average worker is making or that those in charge of health insurance companies be compensated on the basis of how many claims they have denied. Organized labor could demand and get progressive income tax reform that has been allowed unjust benefits for the wealthy at the expense of the working class.

This is a revolution that is in within the actual grasp of workers if they choose to organized. It doesn't require the creation any wild eyed messianic leaders with empty promises of change. The leadership all ready exists and is fully capable of leading a meaningful revolution with guaranteed positive results. Not some assinine exercise in fruitless vengeance, but a means to demand what is rightfully every worker's share.

[BonnieJW]

193. How do you organize workers when everyone is

unemployed?

[rapturedbyrobots]

203. they did it

in argentina. the workers took over the factories and created worker-owned and operated cooperatives. problem is labor in this country is synonymous with unions...who are in the business of managing (instead of erasing) capital's exploitation of laborers.

[moodforaday]

278. Many of the takeovercases

went to court. The old corporate feudalists are still expecting to reclaim what was their property, even if they ran those factories into ground in the first place.

I love what Argentinian workers did, but it seems their fate has not been decided yet.

Co-ops in general though, I think this is the way.

[heliarc]

289. And in Chile...

And they were massacred by the landed aristocracy and military factions...

[kenfrequed]

209. Sadly

The manner in which power is attained is indicative of the manner in which power is maintained.

[TBF]

220. Non-violent revolution. Hey, maybe it could be a reality show.

What organized labor? Auto unions were the strongest we had and Obama brought them to their knees as one of his first exercises in power.

Anyone who isn't catching the anger in our society right now has blinded themselves deliberately. The sad part is that the fundamentalists are the only ones organizing right now, and you may not like their ideas of an "ideal revolution".

Those dumb workers, why don't they get it together. :eyes:

[JDPriestly]

228. Term limits are not helpful. They just result in incompetent government

in which elected officials are thinking about what their next job will be all the time. It's like a company being run by temps. We have tried that to some extent in California and we ended up with a legislature that cannot pass a budget.

[Number_Six]

263. I dunno about it being non-violent

I look around me. I really do. What do I see?

France, late 1790's. Yes.

The king spent money he didn't really have on one pointless war after another. Sound familiar?

The reformers begged the rich and the churches to pay their fair share of the money to run the government. Both cackled at the very idea. Sound familiar?

The government was of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. Sound familiar?

The king was supposedly "appointed" by the people. He wasn't. Sound familiar?

Hate to burst a bubble, it will be violent, it will be angry, it will make the last revolt look like a picnic lunch disagreement.

God help us all....when it finally arrives.

[Gnome Sane]

274. Right The Fuck On!!

What in the name of all that's sane, is the "Left" so goddamned afraid of?? What, we're gonna lose some folks fighting for our CONSTITUTIONAL...INALIENABLE RIGHTS...to wit: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...We're dying in the streets, NOW!! This plutocratic, corporatocracy is having their way with us, like cheap assed-whores. Sorry to be so gutteral and blunt, but WTF???
Just how you think that all this "Change" shit will go down?? And who will be doing the "changing"??
You'd better Believe the Right will NEVER give up this insane "idea-illogical" battle of the wits...
They're all standing on the Mountain Top waiting for the fucking Rapture...
Terrorism??? For the love of Pete...it's right here...at home...in the guise of "GOD"'s name.

[JoeyT]

277. Well

There is the fact that the right has us beat hands down on crazy. Our strategic reserves of batshit are sort of low. ;)
Most of us aren't willing to kill someone over a minor disagreement. Most of the right wingers (At least the tea party crowd) ARE.

So if the revolution comes it'll either be the non-violent kind, the kind that doesn't work, or it'll be the violent kind, in which case we'll see our population drop by at least half. The second there isn't the threat of a government boot on their neck and the nutjobs are unleashed, they'll kill anyone over even minor disagreements in policy. Even if you're weren't willing to kill them, they're willing to kill you. So you'd be forced to fight back.

Given that the vast majority of the police and at least half of the military would be on the right-wingers' side, I'd predict one of two outcomes. Either the authoritarian nutjobs win and we'd turn into a JesusFreak version of Saudi Arabia, or we'd fight them to a standstill and we'd be more like Somalia. Neither prospect is promising.

[Name removed]

298. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gnome Sane]

303. I Love This Guy!!! :D

[jberryhill]

290. "We're dying in the streets, NOW!!"

Can you do it without using caps lock?

[Gnome Sane]

302. NO.

And... WTF does THAT mean, anyway???
That 'passion' is passe??
That loud is wrong??
We (the collective 'left') NEED a clarion call to 'git 'er done'...and we NEED to quit pussy-footing around. So...get loud, man!

[jberryhill]

318. Who is dying in which streets?

I have no problem with passion.

I do have a problem with nonsense, however passionate.

[Gnome Sane]

319. Seek Ye First...to Understand.

My passion is neither nonsense nor problematic. Please visit www.aplaceforhope.net and see what the past 8 years of my life, along with my wife...and a passionate group of boots on the ground student-volunteers, average Joe's, and some militant activists pulled off.
I've buried more innocents and innocence than you know.
Through violence, drug addiction, and just plain 'ol "ain't got no money fo' no doctor..."
or "The clinic don't do no more pre-natal care for unwed, teen moms and their unfortunate unborn. Ever bury a shoebox ??

Poverty...it's a Bitch; and it'll kill ya!

[adachuk]

375. Non-violent revolution, yes, as cultural transformation of values.

I don't think revolution is the answer. But I think you're on the right track, Olegramps, and I want to lean on Thom Hartmann to help me explain why.

Thom Hartmann's "Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture" is a remarkable book, and I believe he has got it right. Here's my understanding of what he is saying.

The U.S. dominates Western culture, and the U.S. is essentially a fascist society--that is, one dominated by the "bundling together" of government (which includes the military) and business interests. The ultra-wealthy, mainly through corporations, own the government. They have purchased it with billions of dollars in lobbying of lawmakers who, with the lobbyists writing much of the legislation, a) have deregulated the banks and many other powerful corporations, and b) have lowered the taxes on those same wealthy people that in effect "own" them. (Warren Buffet admits that because of loopholes he pays less income tax than his middle-class secretary.)

It all started when Ronald Reagan's "greed is good" trickle-down approach unravelled the gains made by Teddy Roosevelt and his distant relative FDR in controlling monopolies and the power of the rich. Reagan started it (and the Bushes intensified it) by deregulation and by lowering tax rates on the wealthy. Deregulation led first to the S&L scandals and other corporate abuses, including everything involved in the housing bubble, and then the worldwide economic crash of 2008. When Reagan cut the tax rate on those who earn $3.2 million annually (in today's dollars) from 70+% to around 30%, he opened the floodgates for the rich to become ultra-rich. (How many more thousands of millionaires do we have today than in the 70s?) This resulted in the beginning of a drastic reduction in the overall wealth of a strong middle class (which had developped after World War II). It has meant the reduction of middle class individuals' incomes, so that our middle class is being decimated, and added to the ranks of the nation's working poor, while the top 0.01 percent of wage earners, according to Hartmann, have come to dominate the formation of policy with the power of their mind-boggling wealth.

Hartmann calls for a change in basic cultural values and assumptions, such that our economy works for people, not vice-versa, and that our economy becomes modeled on biology in an eoologically sustainable way. The plutocratic model we currently have ("corporatism") is a cancer on the planet, he says. It an uncontrolled (deregulated) way it is greedily sucking the economic life energy from the vast majority of humans on the planet while also destroying the environment and the ecological systems that sustain all living species, including ours.

Now, finally, my own belief is that, in keeping with Hartmann's thesis, what's needed is a transformation of our cultural assumptions and values--not a revolution that transfers political-economic power from one competing group of dominators to another. That's what happens in a "revolution" whether it is bloody or non-violent. Democrats vs. Republicans, conservatives vs. liberals, rich vs. poor, these vs. those, us vs. them--these competing divisions are the paradigm we have all known, lived with, and helped to shape in its current form. It's THAT paradigm, that way of looking at things, that needs to change in people's minds--en masse, in a critical mass--around the world. That will be the transformation that's needed, and that's what Hartman calls for, not a revolution. If it is to happen, and I believe it is well underway, it will happen here first, in the U.S.

What are the signs of it occurring already? How can we help it along? Is it too late to hope for and work for? Can such a global transformation really happen? If so, can it happen before it's too late? These are tough questions.

[nightgaunt]

377. "Greed is good" has Ayn Rand all over it.

She saw good things in psychopaths and considered them to be the clearest form of her "perfect" person. The ultimate in how her ideal person would think, move and act. Without remorse, without empathy, without the need for any law but their own credo to operate from. We see what such institutionalized psychopathology has done not only to thins country but many others. Enjoy for the show isn't over yet. Not until our Democratic-Republic (what remains of it) is dissolved by their sabotage.

[cloudbase]

3. Here's a rec for ya!

[timeforpeace]

4. "Ask not what your country can do for you,

ask what you can do for your country." In the spirit of all your JFK quotes of the other day.

[rateyes]

7. That's exactly right!

Thanks. :hi:

[RedCloud]

5. As I said many. many moons ago, "Bring it down!"

[HopeHoops]

6. I expected it after Reagan was elected, however...

everyone was either too yuppie or too stoned. MTV was new and Panasonic had a VCR with a remote (attached by a cord). Now everyone is just too fat and lazy. I know, I know - generalizations. Still...

[kimmerspixelated]

257. Heh..heh..HH rides again!

Truth, though.

[tularetom]

8. I hope you are wrong - about that not in my lifetime part

I'm 68 and I've been anticipating this for the last 15 years. I'd like to be around to see it all come about.

[rateyes]

13. Maybe you'll be part of it.

I hope so, too.

[Vincardog]

26. +1 I hope I live to see it too

[HuskiesHowls]

248. I'm ready for it!!

I'd really really like to leave something better for my grandkids than what we currently have, and the only way that I see being able to do that is with some type of revolution. They're 7 now....so it doesn't leave a whole lot of time.

I also am old enough to remember Viet Nam, and the protests, the protest songs, the Woodstock nation.....
We had great promise, we made things happen....and now we're older and once again, we're asked to make things happen.

Its up to us!!!

[laughingliberal]

9. It would be interesting to investigate whether any country ever got to the kinds of disparity in

wealth and incomes we are headed for without revolution ensuing. In other words, has a country ever been able to turn a situation like this around through customary processes? I mean, the 2 party system is so entrenched it would take decades to build a 3rd party that could actually win power. And the 2 parties are both selling us out as fast as they can open their wallets.

[XemaSab]

113. You really think it would take decades to build a third party?

I got back from my second Redding tea party tonight.

These people are wingers, but they have their shit together.

[loudsue]

118. Those aren't the people I want to have a 3rd party with.

I don't want to party with them at all, in fact.

[laughingliberal]

161. I think it would take decades to see any impact at the national level, yes.

Starting locally and fielding candidates at that level and building from there it could eventually happen. Might get a congressman or senator on a fluke here and there but, yes, for enough numbers nationally to change things-decades.

[dionysus]

232. hows it like teabagging?

[amborin]

345. well,

Mexico still has horrific levels of inequality.....

and only fairly recently broke free of the one party super authoritarian PRE......

there are articles addressing this issue....

[Overseas]

371. There was that FDR guy in the USA.

Speech to the Democratic Convention, 1936

* It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

* The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor — these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age — other people's money — these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in. Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities. Throughout the nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

* For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor — other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.
Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

* These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

* The brave and clear platform adopted by this convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.

* We do not see faith, hope, and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.
Faith — in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships.
Hope — renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.
Charity — in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.

* Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales. Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

* There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

[Newsjock]

10. Look! Over there! An exciting new season of 'American Idol'!

America turns its attention.

[Obamanaut]

36. Today on DU I read that 'amazing race' is good because it is

informative

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x9157038

6. the Race shows us life in other countries which is very interesting and informative

[tranche]

238. It's not American Idol. It's because you're fat.

Hunger. That's revolution.

[mdmc]

11. wouldn't the powers that be throw us some crumbs to avoid the

guillotine?

imho, as long as folks have iphones and internet connections, things will stay the same..

[rateyes]

15. People won't have the money for iphones and internet connections.

[mdmc]

21. I've felt like your OP since ray-gun

I've been waitin and waitin..

[Yavapai]

223. the guillotines will probably be made in China and work poorly if at all.

Just sayin'

[Chulanowa]

12. Welcome to last century

There's not going to be a revolution. Study your history. The US government is well-practiced in underminin g revolutionary movements. Look how easily it pacified the civil rights movement, simply by co-opting the leaders, occasionally doing a little bit, and MY favorite, "don't get too loud, you might scare hte people who are on your side"

You might manage to get to the level of large riots, but an all-out revolution won't happen. Whatever people are angry about will get a band-aid here and there, and htey'll go home. You'd be amazed how easily pacified we are.

[jimlup]

29. Agreed!

Actually, if we aren't in open rebellion against the banks now I don't see how it could ever happen. They are charging us usury rates of 29.9% and chasing out of our own homes and we still take it??!!

Honestly, I do think that the rebellion will eventually occur but by then it will be far too late. The oil will be gone, the climate will be hell and the economy will be a bad joke. But that day could be decades away.

We seem to enjoy the current situation of being ....

[Chulanowa]

34. That won't be a revolution.

The country will simply crumble. As will most nations of any noteworthy size in the world. No oil = no easy transport, climate problems = local focus... Once those turds hit the rotary, the US is basically going to split up, and it'll most likely be fairly peaceful... simply because nobody will have the resources to waste fighting a war.

[RKP5637]

66. I think this is on target. We will be masses of serfs. n/t

[Chulanowa]

67. I thought you said Smurfs n/t

[RKP5637]

76. LOL!!! Thanks, I fixed it!!!

:rofl:

[Jackpine Radical]

163. Remember the motto of the New American Revolution:

"Serf's Up!"

[Name removed]

364. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RaleighNCDUer]

173. When nobody has the resources is when wars happen.

So long as people are getting by, if only just getting by, there will be no war - but when people in place A are not getting by and they see people in place B managing, they will move to take what B has for themselves.

There is no way a split up of the US is EVER going to be peaceful. If there is one thing americans are good at it's killing people they don't like. Why do you think the war that was most costly to us in men and material was the Civil War? Every war we're in, we kill the enemy at a rate of at least 4 to 1 - and recently more like 10 or 20 to 1. What's it going to look like when two sides which normally kill at 10 to 1 are fighting each other?

A new civil war would be an unmitigated disaster. We'd make the Russian Revolution, the French Revolution and the Spanish Civil War look like pre-game warm-ups.

[ChiciB1]

270. ROME??? n/t

[Chulanowa]

Something along those lines, yes

My inner historian can't wait. The rest of me, being completely rational, is telling that dude to shut the fuck up.

[ChiciB1]

276. Same Here... But Is There A Better Way?? Tell Me Please! n/t

[olegramps]

155. When I saw the banks raise their rates to exorbitant levels and Obama not do at damn thing:

Then I knew that he wasn't really serious about any meaningful reform. I am truly discouraged about the situation.

Will the people actually revolt and take to the streets? For this to happen then a leader would have to emerge to rally the people and I can surely guarantee that it won't be Obama or anyone in the present Democratic Party leadership. Hell, they are all gorging themselves with the spoils, living in mansions and we are their lowly servants. Lookiing back over what has tranpired in the last twenty years in another twenty years the average working class person won't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.

As far as I am concerned the working class brought much of this on themselves. They bought the managements propaganda how unions were evil and they would be well taken care of. They have been taken care of all right. Their jobs out-sourced, pensions cut and health insurance canceled. Welcome to the real world suckers. While the working class wasn't paying attention their masters flushed the New Deal down the toilet along with your kids and grandkids' any hope for a decent life. I hate to inform you, but Obama ain't' no Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

[CrispyQ]

207. Spot on about working class people buying into management's propaganda.

To this day many working class people abhor unions. It just blows my mind.

A few months ago the grocers union was in dispute with management in my area. There were two young people (early 20s or younger) at the customer service desk where I was doing business. While I waited for the one young woman to complete my transaction I asked how the union dispute was going. They didn't care. The young woman went so far as to say, "I would never join a union." (I guess it's optional now? It wasn't when I worked in grocery many, many years ago.) I asked her if she got paid overtime, vacation time, sick time. Did she have health benefits? She responded yes, she had all those things. "You have them because of a union. Go study history." I'm sure they laughed at "that old lady" as I was leaving.

What I made as a journeyman clerk back in 1983 was significantly more than what journeymen clerks make today. My good paying union job put me through college, allowed me to live in an apartment by myself & graduate without any debt. Granted, it took me seven years to do it, but it was worth it.

[RKP5637]

310. Quite True!!! IMO the working class of today is brain washed!!! Most don't even

realize the unions brought them what benefits left they still enjoy.

[bongobobtherealone]

198. That rebellion on banks

can and should start now. I quit paying my credit cards in February of this year. Everyone should do the same. Fuck them! THEY ruined my credit score by lowering my limits to a hun or so over my balance. What good is a good credit rating when banks won't lend to you anyway?? It's time for people to grow some balls in this country. Don't be afraid of the court system. Most courts can't handle the case loads now because of staff and budget cuts. It's time to make a stand peoples. You can only be screwed by those you allow to screw you~

[jimlup]

246. I've thought a lot about this lately. It does seem...

That if we all in solidarity stopped paying them for just a month or two they would have to come begging on bended knee but we would have to stop paying en mass! All alone we are powerless. TOGETHER we could bring down the powerful (who currently think they are the unshakeable kings) and leave them begging for mercy.

[misanthrope]

282. That's not a revolution. That's called a "breakdown of civilization"...

...and you're exactly right in that it's coming at our own hand.

[Autonomy]

166. Since when did giving a movement what it wanted

become 'co-opting'? I am not unfamiliar with the use of that term in that context. It just seems strange to me how it could be rationalized -- when a movement gets a large part of what it was designed to accomplish -- how anyone could be disappointed. Or were those goals just a smoke screen the whole time, and violent insurrection was the only goal the whole time? For 'some of the people' at least.

[rapturedbyrobots]

212. you might actually want to study the movement(s)

they didn't get what they wanted. the civil rights movement was much larger than dr. mlk...and much of the work continues today. white folks like to pretend that it was all about desegregation and voting and therefore ended with the civil rights act of 1964 and voting rights act the next year. it didn't. it wasn't about that, that was just a milestone...it was about the rights of all people regardless of color to self-determination and dignity. and that still hasn't happened. in fact, i would argue that they failed to co-opt dr. mlk, as his leadership in the movement was starting to take a dangerous turn in promoting the cooperation of working poor people across racial lines. that's when he got shot. when the panthers started practicing self-determination in oakland...they got shot. when malcolm x started preaching the right to self-determination by all means necessary (also for working poor across racial lines)...he got shot. you see a pattern here? do the working poor have the right to self-determination and dignity yet?

[Autonomy]

304. Like I said, for some people

the goal was... larger... than the goal of the majority. Sorry, "self-determination and dignity" are subjective, ambiguous, and not tangible goals for an organization, though they may be viable for an individual. I would say that both are achievable ONLY by individuals, through hard work and dedication, and dependency on others is the antithesis of such goals.

When an organization outlives its purpose, it often attempts to stay relevant by redefining itself. After the CRA and VRA, the civil rights movement ceased to be the civil rights movement. It attempted to stay intact, but it definitely transformed into something else. It was no longer the civil rights movement.

Btw, Malcolm X was shot by his own Nation of Islam members. You're correct saying he was shot, but it seems disingenuous to place him under the rubric of 'martyr for collective self-determination' when he was killed in in-fighting.

Yeah, I've actually studied the movements.

[Chulanowa]

271. As Raptured pointed out...

They didn't get what they want. They got just enough to shut them up. The leaders were pacified by letting them into the halls of power as favored guests. It happened to labor, it nearly happened to the women's movement, it happened to civil rights, the Red movement was gunned down when it demonstrated it wouldn't settle for crumbs, and the pride movement is facing the same thing today.

[Blue_In_AK]

16. I'm not under 50

but since I'm going to live to be 93, I expect to see this in my lifetime. :)

[rateyes]

18. Good for you!!

[ipaint]

17. I'm 53 and I expect to see it if I live.

We are way past the point of no return. It's a matter of critical mass and once they gut medicare and steal my social security, which I have no doubt they will do, we'll be there.

My dad regrets being too old to live to see it. He hates the bastards.

[leftstreet]

19. No. The 'middle class' will slide silently into poverty

as it's been doing slowly and steadily for several decades, all the while identifying with the very Ruling Class that's fucking them over.

Sorry.

[RKP5637]

73. Yes, as you say, the middle class has been slowly dieing now for sometime and people

seem accustomed to it... I think many are becoming numb with it all. I'm disgusted with those that are too ignorant, too dumb or just too lazy or whatever to realize they are really being screwed.

The ones that really amaze me are the poor RW'ers that somehow think the extraordinarily wealthy are their friends. What a bunch of dopes. And they flock to these RW religions wherein their manipulators are on the take. I think we've been invaded by space aliens and they've drained the brains of many...

I've been listening to people talk about changing everything, dump the establishment and all since the 60's, and it's still basically the same IMO. I've heard all of this before. Then along came Reagan...

[Name removed]

363. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[emulatorloo]

20. Will it be a teabagger kind of revolution, or a your kind of revolution?

Because the teabaggers have that whole anger at the federal govt thing going too, and the whole "Tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Patriots" thing.

Just curious how you see this working out, not making any judgements.

[rateyes]

22. Let's put it this way:

It won't be led by a fucking politician or political party.

[Kermitt Gribble]

208. Exactly. To get our govt back,

we'll have to put political affiliation aside. Angry Dems alone won't get the job done just like tea baggers, alone, will not get the job done. We have to do it together. On this mother-of-all-issues, we are all on the same team as US citizens.

[Fire1]

23. I anticipate watching on the news from somewhere in the

Netherlands. Good luck.

[rateyes]

24. Thanks.

We'll need it.

[intheflow]

25. My prediction: it will come in the next decade.

US history seems to run on repeating themes of dissent, prosperity, and corporate control. What we're seeing now is not that much different from the robber baron era, which lead to the labor, social, and welfare reform movements of the 20th Century. I had thought it was quickening with Obama's election, but I'm back to my original predictions established during the Clinton era that things need to get really bad before they'll get better. I think we're in the really bad phase now.

[LooseWilly]

110. I seem to recall reading some obscure paragraph in a history text book that said...

that welfare, and unemployment, and such like programs were put together in response to rioting farmers and hobos and such, who were hijacking milk delivery trucks and so on as the depression got worse and worse.

The promise that a depression was sidestepped is all well and nice, but globalization seems to be pushing a global trend toward a levelling of standards of living & incomes for workers on a global scale... which means that US standards have no which way to go but down.

I can't imagine that there will be any full blown revolutions until US standards of living start to approach (or sink below) those in the "third world". Of course, that doesn't mean it can't happen on the OP timeframe...

[RaleighNCDUer]

176. somehow the cycle got screwed with and we missed the last cycle

of dissent, which has intensified things. We had the labor movement of the 1880s/1890s, before the Gilded Age. We had the political radicalism of the 1930s. The New Left movement, coinciding with civil rights and anti-war movements in the 60s, spurring the feminist and gay movements. But the next cycle, of the 1990s never happened. The cycle of progressivism should have peaked in 2000 or so, but instead we got Bushco.

When you don't get little tremors to relieve the stress on a fault, when a quake comes it is big. I think we are looking at the San Adreas Big One coming. Question is, are WE ready for it? We know the other side is - they have their offshore accounts, their mercenary armies, their walled & gated communities.

Are WE earthquake ready?

[intheflow]

190. I don't think we missed the last cycle of dissent.

I just think it wasn't televised so few people knew it was happening. But consider the Battle of Seattle, the HUGE anti-war marches during Bush's era, the repro rights rally in 2004, the public outrage over Katrina response. Many of us have been fighting hard and not getting recognition. But we've been out there fighting and I think history will remember us as predicators of a larger swing in the next decade. That's my hope, anyway.

[SlowDownFast]

224. Good analogy. n/t

[Bullet1987]

200. They're trying to prevent the really bad phase right now

They know it wouldn't end good for them, they want to keep us just barely above water...but without changing their system too much. They want to have it both ways, but you can maintain the system we have for too long before the majority says enough is enough.

[704wipes]

335. I'm only getting older; nuthin' left to lose; bring it ON

Babyboomers can finally fuck over the corportistas any god damn day we want...
AFAIAC

[PuraVidaDreamin]

27. It's going to start this spring with

http://peaceoftheaction.org/

I'll be there

Viva!!!!!

[rateyes]

30. Thanks for the link.

Glad to see this. If able, I'll be there, too.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

46. It's well past time

Please pass this link along to many and often. We are looking for 5000 seriously
committed folk to kick this off. We want 1000 people arrested each day. Clogging
up major thoroughfares and filling up their jails. It will coincide with the 7th anniversary
of our illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. Big doings in DC this March! Peace IN & Peace ON.

[ChiciB1]

273. Oh, Me Too! Money Is A Problem Now... Perhaps There Will Be Busses

or something! This is LONG OVERDUE!

[deutsey]

156. I hadn't heard of this. Thanks. n/t

[Atman]

28. It's been part of the BushCo plan all along.

If you don't believe most of the BushCo elite are still running the show, you're delusional. They spent years planning this massive societal change; they talked about it during the campaign for 2000. The "drowning in a bathtub" stuff, it was intended to cut off all funding for the "lower classes." Make no mistake, the Bush family has been big into Eugenics for ages, and this is the big one, the Grand Experiment. Katrina was a trial run. They're trying to do it to the whole world. Revolution is part of it. Some deep research into the early GW Bush campaigning will reveal a lot. These people intended all along to break the unions, break the poor, break down society and foment revolution -- they looked upon it as the only way to affect significant societal change.

.

[rateyes]

32. BushCo should have been more careful for what they wished.

They might just get a revolution they weren't expecting.

[DemReadingDU]

45. This thread is in GD,

I rarely venture here because many people still believe in the immaculate recovery. But yeh, I'm with you rateyes, there is a revolution coming. Maybe not in my lifetime, but surely in my children's. I worry about the future my little grandbabies.

[gordianot]

71. Eugenics has not worked well for the Bush family on a personal level.

They are a mess with substance abuse and mental heath issues.

[Hubert Flottz]

143. substance abuse and mental heath issues can be overlooked

if it's the wealthy. Anyone else should be locked up to work their lives away for the "Homeland"...Hitler will never die as long as the people who funded Hitler go on to fund the next Fuhrer and the next and the next. A "Dictator" is a dictator!

[jpak]

31. "The Democratic Party won't save us." - ummm where am I?

:shrug:

[rateyes]

I hear you.

:shrug:

[jpak]

75. No - I was talking about that D-thang in "DU"

n/t

[rateyes]

87. I know. nt

[tavalon]

138. We are the rabble rousers of the party

We are not The Democratic Party. I decline to be identified with the same party with Rahm Immanuel.

[Autonomy]

167. Welcome to Silly Season on DU

it's the only place to go when you're a political junkie, your party has all the power, and yet your life is not magically golden.

[dionysus]

240. the biggest woo woo threadi have ever seen on DU. these people have lost their minds.

[zonkers]

33. We all must prepare for the robot uprising. So true,

[rucky]

35. What about Chuck Norris?

[Martin Eden]

37. The Plutocracy would be well advised to treat the Proletariat a little better

The seeds of revolution are watered by injustice and inequity. Ultimately, the greedy rich bastards are killing their own golden calf because the people can only be pushed so far.

[rateyes]

40. And, we're just about at that point. nt

[Shandris]

43. But thats the problem.

The 'people' aren't being PUSHED! The 'people' think we're the enemy, how the FUCK do you think they're being pushed? Our whole country has Stockholm Syndrome and when someone starts to wake up from it, its like being in Vichy France!

[Martin Eden]

54. Oh, but we ARE being pushed

The PROBLEM is that a third of the populace (teabag morans) think they're being pulled and another third or more are like the proverbial frog on slow boil. Even if they feel the heat, they don't know where it's coming from or that they can do something about it.

Eventually there's going to be a jump, but without direction it's chaos.

[Shandris]

111. I should have clarified my point there...

...when I said the people weren't being pushed. I put it in quotes to demonstrate that the people themselves don't see themselves as pushed, which fits with what you're saying about a third of them like frogs in boiling water. I'm pretty sure we agree that the people are, in actuality, being pushed. I just don't think that the resultant chaos will generate anything because when there is no direction, the outrage doesn't last. It internalizes and sputters out.

Also worth noting that the teabag morons don't think they're being pulled by the same people that are actually doing it -- they blame US for it. That doesn't help the chances any, imho.

[panader0]

38. Maybe we'll get hit by a comet.

[Shandris]

39. What, exactly, would even begin to change?

A 'revolution' by a group that, in large numbers, doesn't believe in military usage and can't, at present, energize people to even move to a TRUE political center (as opposed to the center-right 'center' we have now) is going to do exactly what? If you don't have persuasion, and you don't have force, what the hell is going to 'revolutionize'?

I'm sorry, I'd like to believe in it. I used to believe in it. But now? No, its not happening and if it does, it'll be a 15second spot on the evening news between the commercials for Survivor and Lady Gaga.

[Mojambo]

41. Do you hear the ringing?

Not yet, but someday...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rni9Cwoe6g

[branders seine]

42. not until they cancel a season of the NFL

or American Idol...

[ConnorMarc]

158. WoW! So True

Sad, but true.

[Marr]

44. Hard to predict something like this.

It won't necessarily be a revolution, though. We could easily see a repeat of the 20's-30's, too.

[DemReadingDU]

47. It'll be worse. What do we manufacture?

Just about everything has been offshored...shoes, socks, underwear, small appliances, tools. And what kind of skills do people have? Can they sew, repair and mend, fix appliances? And what are people going to do for money when so many will have no job, nor income, nor savings. Pensions and 401(k)s will be worthless once the toxic bubble bursts. And where are people going to live, and how are they going to eat?

edit to add - And people as well as businesses most like will not have any credit cards. How will groceries be bought, assuming the big trucks can get them to the store? Where will the delivery trucks fill up with gas, and pay for it?

[Statistical]

48. US has largest industrial output in world (more than Japan & China combined)

This "what do we produce" meme is so tired.

How about:
civilian aviation
communication satellites
heavy lift rockets for above said sats
inudstrial equipment
automobiles
weapon systems
refined petroleum products
industrial chemicals
aluminum
semiconductors (virtually every PC in the world has an Intel or AMD chip and most are made here)
diesel electric locomotives
power plant turbines
nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel assemblies (about 40% of global marketshare)

[Shandris]

49. Its not a tired meme insofar as it is accurate...

...in regards to non-niche products. Huge numbers of things that we manufacture require very specific applications. Its the common product that we don't make very many of, and unfortunately those are the things that people buy the most. Thats why they're...common.

[Statistical]

53. No it is NOT accurate. US industrial output is GREATER than China + Japan.

US produces more stuff that any 2 countries on the planet combined.
Industrial output has grown every decade since 1940s.

Just because $2 socks aren't made in US doesn't mean that $6,000,000,000 reactors aren't.

Industrial LABOR has declined mainly because PRODUCTIVITY has skyrocketed in last 30 years.
A single assembly line worker today produces more than 4 workers from 1970s.

Output has grown but it hasn't grown 400% thus less workers are needed to produce same amount of goods.

[Shandris]

112. Alright, I take the distinction and amend my previous statement.

Intellectual honesty and all that. :)

I was thinking in terms of production in relation to labor, not to actual 'real' output, as you noted. Thank you for pointing that out.

[Statistical]

114. Output in terms of labor = # of production jobs

will be difficult to grow unless either there is an explosion in demand for US goods or productivity gains slow to allow modest demand increases to translate into more jobs.


The end of WWII was a "freebie" that comes along once every hundred years or so. Unless our goal is to bomb every industrialized nation back 50 years that will never happen again.

[Common Sense Party]

348. Great Caesar's Ghost!!! Economic common sense! On a DU thread!

THANK YOU!!!

I didn't think it possible!

[DemReadingDU]

51. Where is the energy going to come from to run all those?

Electric? Gasoline? Solar?

Who is going to pay for it? Will we be going even deeper into debt?

Today's world runs on credit. Just about anyone can buy anything using a credit card. Unfortunately, the credit bubble is huge and it is getting ready to burst. When it pops, no more credit. Very few people nor businesses will have the cash to do anything.

[Statistical]

57. Agreed US has a major debt problem.

From the top (federal debt) to the bottom (consumer debt) and likely the bad news is the unwinding of all this debt plus devaluing of US currency will result in a loss (or at best stagnant) standard of living. Can't keep spending money you don't have forever.

However that isn't the post I responded to. I responded to the tire "US doesn't make $2 socks in Walmart = US doesn't make ANYTHING" meme. The US does produce a large amount of refined goods.

The US is the #1 industrial power by a large margin and the #3 exporter on the planet.

[DemReadingDU]

69. True enough, today. But

But the companies won't be able to produce much of anything if they can't pay for the energy and raw goods to manufacture the products. The world revolves using credit for just about everything, especially large companies. When access to credit is gone, very few will be able to produce or buy anything.

[Statistical]

79. Credit isn't going to be "gone". It will be harder to get....

but it SHOULD be harder to get. Virtually all the problems in US are related to "cheap" and "easy" credit. Even falling wages. There was no outrage over falling wages because cheap credit enabled consumers to maintain the same lifestyle. Without easy credit we likely would have gone into a recession a decade ago and the fear, anger, and outrage from the populace would have forced Congress to adopt better employment regulations and better social safety net (similar to Europe). That never happened because EASY credit masked the rot in the system.

Most large companies are multinationals. While falling dollar hurts them in carrying costs it helps them in margins from exports. As carrying cost rises companies will pay down debt. They keep debt because it is cheap to finance that way when costs are low. Hell Microsoft has debt despite having 10x that in cash on the books.

[TankLV]

149. Autos? What fucking Autos? Where have you been for the past YEAR?!!!!

We no longer manufacture any Autos!!!

We no longer have any car companies but a reduced Ford and GM and Chrysler in NAME only.

All the rest are FOREIGN - and even the ones here are producing a SMALL FRACTION of what they once were!!!

I won't even go into the rest - you're "wish list" of how it WAS is too amuzing if it weren't so sad...

not to mention how many reactors, airplanes, and other FUCKING EXPENSIVE CRAP you've listed that has no bearing on anyone except the corporate CEO's who produce these THREE items!!!

[bongobobtherealone]

201. Sure we make autos

I was admiring a new Ford Whatever while I was waiting for the recall work to be done on my Explorer. It was a small crossover and was only 38k and change! Sure we make autos, just not ones people want or can afford~

[dionysus]

236. so much absolute ignorance. jesus h christ.

automobiles are still produced in mass numbers everyday in this country tank.
holy smokes...

[Statistical]

297. So the US produces 0 autos annnually. Thanks for the update.

[olegramps]

157. All of the products that you cite are just as vulnerable sewing machines for outsourcing.

The problem is how do you protect your market share when faced with un-fair trade policies? It doesn't matter what you manufacture especially when there is the possibility they can be manufactured for less by a competitor. Obama' solution is that we should be building solar panels in the garage.

[RaleighNCDUer]

181. A FEW high tech industries, where half the production is done on

robot lines, is NOT indicative of a healthy economy.

The entire list of yours could run on the efforts of a one and a half million workers. What about the OTHER 79.5 million workers in the US? We're flipping burgers and sitting in cubes. There are as many people shuffling paper around, playing with imaginary wealth on Wall Street (short hand for the entire US investment/banking industry) as in the industries you list.

It is not that we produce nothing - it is that the proportion of US workers who actually produce anything is a fraction of what it was, and that number is dwarfed by those who literally produce NOTHING, and who are in the service sector.

Frankly, if Boeing went belly up and locked its doors, the rest of the world would have no trouble picking up the slack. The US auto makers are not the giants they were - the giants are Japanese and German and even fucking KOREAN. There hasn't been a viable steel industry in this country for 40 years.

'Diesel electric locomotives' - right. We have one of the WORST passenger train systems in the world - what good is it to make locomotives and NOT utilize them to their greatest potential ourselves? Do we have ANY high speed rail?

It is NOT the big ticket industrials that fuel an economy. They simply do not employ enough people. I'd rather we still produced a million bicycles a year than 300 locomotives.

[Kermitt Gribble]

216. A lot of the materials and parts used to make those products,

such as steel, or wiring harnesses are now imported. If you buy a Chevy, it might have been assembled in this country, but what percentage of the parts were actually made here? Where did the steel come from? If you read the window sticker, you can see that maybe only 30% of the vehicle was manufactured here. 30 years ago that number was much closer to 100%.

I grew up in western PA. Our community had a medium-sized steel mill and 3 large tube mills. There is now only one tube mill left (which is on it's last leg, I might add). They used to get their steel from the local steel mill, but now they buy most of their steel overseas.

The "what do we produce" meme is not so tired - you can't deny that we manufacture far less today than we did even 30 or 40 years ago.

[RaleighNCDUer]

315. The real way to appreciate it is to imagine 'what if' -

what if the US was embargoed, and could not import. Would we survive as a society? We put things together here that are manufactured somewhere else. We don't have the textile mills that are the basis for all clothing manufacture. We don't have the steel mills that create the stock needed in manufacturing. How long would we have before we had no new clothes; before vehicles and vehicle parts became unobtainable?

Who is our greatest rival in the world today? China. Who owns the majority of our debt? China. Who makes the majority of the consumer goods we use? China. Who would be hurt if China called in our debts and cut off exports to us? Not China.

[ChiciB1]

275. I Saw A Documentary On HBO, Can't Remember The Name, But One

fact I remember is this... In 1920 the garment industry produced 95% of the garments, today it produces 5%!

That's pretty sickening!

[DemReadingDU]

286. I'm stocking up

on socks, underwear, t-shirts, jeans, sweaters

edit - and shoes

[eilen]

294. Schmatta! that's the one

I taped it on my DVR.. It was so depressing at the end, these people who were so talented and good at what they did are all unemployed on the road to being homeless. That one designer-- I loved her stuff! Closed down because her profits did not go up every quarter-- steady profit not good enough. greedy fucks.

[ChiciB1]

296. Thanks For The Help! I Was Just So Shocked & Mad As Hell Too!

I NEVER knew the numbers were that bad, but not only does it hurt the designers... it's "out of work" for TOO MANY PEOPLE!!

The reality here... the garment industry is DEAD! Hello, China, Guam, Guatemala and on and on! Something has gotta give!

[eilen]

299. My friend Janet owns a quilt shop and

told me there are no more cotton mills in the US. They went to Asia. I think the whole title of the film was "Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags.

It isn't just the designers, it's the jobbers, the merchants the factory owners and workers, the dyers and cutters, the middle road of the garment business. Thread makers, trim merchants, button factories, etc.

[ChiciB1]

306. Again, You're Correct... The Whole Industry Is Basically Gone AND I

wish MORE people would pay MORE attention! I also wish the show could have been a "required to see" for the American people! It really got to very heart of what has happened here in America! And it's not only the garment industry, and the long line of jobs it actually provided!

It was an eye-opener!

[RKP5637]

311. Many Americans, anymore, prefer to keep their heads stuck in the sand unless it

smacks them, then they wonder what happened. The apathy and ignorance in this country is alarming.

[Better Today]

50. I hope so but I doubt it.

[metalbot]

52. No revolution with an apathetic public

You might be pissed off. You might even be willing to act on your anger.

However, bear in mind that more than 40% of Americans couldn't be bothered to get off their couches and go vote last year - and that was a GOOD turnout. Next year, fewer than 40% of eligible voters will show up in November. Revolutions aren't born from that level of apathy.

And I'll point out as other people have that people on opposite ends of the political spectrum are predicting revolution, for completely different reasons and with completely different goals. That's much more indicative of a civil war than a revolution.

[rateyes]

55. You may be right about civil war.

[leftstreet]

58. Voter turnout is NOT a measure of citizen apathy n/t

[sendero]

99. Exactly..

... some catch on quicker to the FACT that it doesn't make enough difference who is elected to worry much about elections.

[DemReadingDU]

60. They won't be apathetic when

When people have no job, no income, no savings, no credit cards, no shelter, and are hungry and can't feed their children, they won't be apathetic.

[readmoreoften]

107. Revolutions don't happen because people are "caring" they happen because material conditions change.

The real problem is what happens after revolutionary change (see Spain, see Russia after Lenin's death, see the Paris Commune.) Counter-revolutionary elements within the revolutionary situation (like Stalin) and without (like imperialists) will try to reclaim power by pretending that they've changed their ways (in the case of the latter) or that they are the Great Father of the People (the former).

Put it this way: almost all the left wing protests (including LGBT rights, immigrant rights, anti-war, etc.) are put on by a handful of rock-hard committed activists--mostly revolutionary leftists (although other groups are involved, the framework, the infrastructure is maintained by these leftist groups). At a gathering of the largest of these groups in the US, the number of attendees went from a few hundred during to 90s to about 400 two years ago, to 1000 last year; this year there were almost 2000 people in attendance.

It will be this network of patient and incredibly knowledgeable activists who will be there when the American Idol crowd comes around. In fact, some of them came from the American Idol crowd (or its equivalence).

I'm not sure if there will be a revolution in my lifetime, but one doesn't decide to take part in revolutionary activity or its precursors solely for a personal payoff.

But hey, that's just me.

[MSchreader]

323. It won't be the left leading it

For those who will actually make the revolution, the protest/pressure group left is as much a part of the rulers' order of things as Congress or the police. The "American Idol" crowd you sneer at has no use for phonies or half-stepping buffoons with puppets and drums. When we decide to move, we will dance to our own beat, and either you'll join in after the fact or get out of the way.

[TBF]

225. Many people don't vote because they know it doesn't change anything.

But there is a lot of anger out there. Unfortunately, as you touched on, the revolution just may be coming from the right.

[omega minimo]

56. The Battlecry of the Chickenshits

This is what all the politically savvy, under 50, under-educated (or maybe over-), under-motivated, spectator American lame-os always say....

"Yeah, we won't do anything now cuz ya can't do anything about it, but that day we'll come and we'll get off our lazy asses, unplug from the video and act like it's real life ... someday."

And I never bought their shit either about what will happen in the streets. Crowd control is high art now, dude.

Too little. Too late.

Spoiled American brats.

:thumbsdown:

[rateyes]

59. Take away a spoiled brat's toys,

and you've got holy hell on your hands.

[omega minimo]

62. The Founders twirl in their graves.

[cliffordu]

123. Yep, perfect.

[tom_paine]

125. Well said, omega minimo

:hi:

[omega minimo]

250. I noticed

"tom_paine" on another thread echoing similar ideas .... :toast:

[Caliman73]

130. Harsh but true.

I want things to change. I want middle class and poor people to really have an equal opportunity. I dislike the wealthy who put monetary gain above all else. However, as I read the posts about "bloody" revolution I have to ask really? Bloody? As in the people advocating this course of action are willing to beat up and kill fellow citizens? As in, you have been in fights where you were willing to do harm to another human being? This coming from people who condemn people on the forum who own firearms for personal protection, hunting, or target shooting?

You really think that all of the military and police forces will just lay down arms or join the fight to disrupt the way of life that they have bought into? It just seems like this notion of revolution or civil war is being romanticized here.

[omega minimo]

249. Yes, romanticized

and used as an excuse to not be active in the moment ... hence the "harsh" comment. :hi:

Well put post.

[rhett o rick]

267. I agree. I am curious just what line will have to be crossed to get a revolution started.

I dont believe there is such a line. There was no revolution during the first Great Republican Depression.

[arcadian]

206. Crowd control? Like Katrina?

The "control" is an illusion. A make believe cage that the citizenry often times willingly subjects themselves to.

[tranche]

239. Yea. The control is called society and the cage is called jail.

It works. Fat Americans and college kids back home from spring break does not make a revolution.

[omega minimo]

251. You think so?

[fascisthunter]

61. they'll try to start a civil war first

and they have done everything, especially from the right to instigate one. Dumb bastards don't even realize they are being hosed ten times more by their own right wing. They fed them shit while stroking their anger, now the morons chant on the internet with conviction of their misinformed views.

[RKP5637]

81. So correct IMO! n/t

[spanone]

63. oh good, i'll miss it

[MilesColtrane]

64. Been watching "V for Vendetta", hunh?

The thing about revolutions is that they replace bad systems with a worse ones just as frequently as better ones.

[rateyes]

65. What is "V is for Vendetta?"

:shrug:

Sounds good, though.

[MilesColtrane]

70. A movie based on a graphic novel. (the novel is better than the move, BTW)

It's about how a single man sparks a revolution that frees people from subjugation by a fascist state (what was the UK)

He does this by targeted acts of political violence. (One example: he blows up the Parliament building.)

[Prophet 451]

142. The book makes the point better

In the movie, V is simplified almost to the point of being whitewashed so you end up with a straightforward goodies-vs-baddies action flick with political elements. In the book, V is an out-and-out terrorist and you're never quite sure if Norsefire's fascist state isn't being replaced with something arguably worse (which is what Moore intended: "Is this guy right, or is he mad? What do you, the reader, think of this?").

To my mind, the book is a tragedy with the only hope coming at the very end, when both extremes are dead. The hero is Evey, who walked in both worlds, neither as tyrannical as Norsefire or as whimsical as V. Where Norsefire could only control and V could only destroy, Evey can lead.

Sorry, it's one of my favourite books.

[tavalon]

141. Exactly!

It would be better for it to come quietly, nonviolently. The spasm of bloody revolution may be the "desired" money shot but the stability of the society ten years later is far more important. Less fun but more important. Too many bloody revolutions have installed tyrants who turned on the revolutionaries. It's a dangerous business, this revolution stuff.

[Unvanguard]

68. Don't get your hopes up. n/t

[Gman2]

72. tHAT IS JUST silly.

A revolution requires funding, if not military help. Therefore, if any revolution is going to occur, first, it will be from further sway in south and central America. It will recieve harsh treatment, the moment it has anything to do with Chavez. Our moving into Columbia en masse, and calling that tri-country area the funding mechanism of TERRORISM. They didnt say hemospheric terrorism, they said terrorism. Thus, I believe that our national policy soon will be to draw back from other continents longitudinally. Our sphere of influence will shrink to Alaska to Chile. It will be harsh for Latin America. We convinced them they didnt need nukes. And kept them too broke to build them anyway. Now, our military estimates, with regards to our nukes, call vaporizing those climate displaced, as the target. This, in conjunction with PNAC, makes clear that we will glass anyone we need to, to maitain our relative advantage in all things. That was so pre-recession/depression.

My point is, all revolutions need funding. It will have to be Chavez, Putin, or some other shitstain, not on the teet of uncle sam. We cannot go to France!

Your assumption that our national/regular armies will not fire on MOM, is naive. They are readying vast non-deadly force weapons. The armies of the US WILL restore order, if they are not openly rebellious. The TIA resources, will find most of the opposition, let alone ten years worth of your posts, even googled.

It is romantic to dream of revolution and glory. That was a different time. Facial recognition software, voice stress analysis, current draft registration address, cutting all they opposes debit/credit availability.

Give it up. If we are to revolt, it will need funding, and lots of it.


NOW, civil war, that is a whole other subject. Those regressive fucks, that have horded ammo and guns, talkin all murder, that is almost certain. At least on an unofficial level. Military will scurry hither and thither, to thwart efforts of freeper types philosophic CLEANSING. Most certainly we will see a rise of PARAMILITARIES. Those freaks sound JUST LIKE FREEPERS. They will kill all the weak. Those that would be moved, by necessity to theft to survive. Thus, also will there be a widespread gang neighbor mentality. We already see homeless burnings. Baglady executions. We will see liberals targetted.

[Hannah Bell]

101. funding, organization, & communication. logistics.

where is it?

people don't just suddenly go out in the street in unison & yell "hell no".

[cliffordu]

122. That's right.

[hellsbeagle]

244. They did in Eastern Europe in 1989

And they did in the most repressive police states that this world has ever witnessed.

[readmoreoften]

108. What makes you think there aren't radical leftist soldiers in the military now?

In the history of revolution, soldiers are a major part of it. There are radical leftist soldiers fully aware of the revolutionary role of soldiers.

[olegramps]

162. This is one reason that I am opposed to an all volunteer army.

They are not citizen soldiers and can be under the control of their leadership without any regard to the rights of the common citizen. Their loyalty is not to the Constitution but to their commanders. I consider them to be an eminent threat. When their was a draft the influence of the so-called professional soldiers was tempered by a constant influx of citizens from a range of classes and varying educational attainments. Young men who were college grads weren't very receptive to indoctrination.

[cherokeeprogressive]

74. Yeah, I'm thinkin' no. n/t

[santamargarita]

77. I really do believe this will happen within ten years...

we can't keep going like this!

[Gman2]

78. THIS' covers great ground. There will be trouble, what type is not certain.

[Gman2]

88. Being Revolting does not make a revolution. My new Tshirt idea

[Gman2]

89. Being Revolting does not make a revolution. My new Tshirt idea

[beyond cynical]

80. No way--people have it way too good...

Besides that, Americans are too fat, lazy and docile to revolt against anything.

[Tim01]

84. Nailed it. nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

185. That's what every person who ever underestimated Americans has said.

The problem is not that we're 'fat, lazy and docile'. It is that there is no clear target for our anger. What do we do? Start ambushing cops, who are our neighbors, went to the same schools, came from the same socio-economic background? Start burning down banks, where our friends work? They control the message so well, that we don't see any clear options. We KNOW the banksters are the bad guys - but what can we do about it? Trap them in their mansions and hang them by their heels, like Mussolini and his mistress?

We don't have it way too good - 17% unemployment is not good by anyone's standards - but there will be no revolution until there is actual FORCE applied against us. Americans are highly reactive. We may not agree on when to fight, but the moment someone pushes against US, THEN we will fight. And things will have to get a whole lot worse for the country - not for individual citizens - before the public sees itself being pushed.

[beyond cynical]

215. Actually, that is not quite true. For example, after the attack on Pearl Harbor,

Japanese Admiral Yamamoto was quoted as saying "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

But that was a different time. The nature of the American character has also changed quite a bit since the era of the Founding Fathers, when people did actually take up arms against an oppressive and overbearing government. At that time, Americans were independent and self-sufficient.

Nowadays, many of the unmotivated have sold their souls to the government in order to live at the expense of their fellow citizens. Others have corrupted the power of the government and used it to enrich themselves and acquire their own power. I wouldn’t count on these groups to enlist in your “militia.”

After that, many people are just too busy trying to play by the rules and live their lives as they see fit. Even if this group were to be “pushed,” there are not enough of them to defeat the others.

[RaleighNCDUer]

227. The point is, Yamamoto was the ONLY person in the japanese high command

to say it - the rest thought we'd run to the League of Nations, file protests, and just abandon the bases in the Philippines in the face of real conflict. Americans were too comfortable, too rich, too 'Hollywood' to lay it on the line.

As for the founding fathers, only 30% actually supported and were involved in the revolution. A third also supported the Crown, and the middle third just wanted to be left alone.

It think the ratios remain about the same today.

[beyond cynical]

314. I wish you were right, but I just do not see it. The Crown levied a 3% tax on tea that provoked

Americans to revolt. Nowadays, "The Crown's" take, in some cases, exceeds 50% and the people do nothing.

Perhaps things will change in the future when entitlements will make it necessary to raise taxes to the 85-95% level. Then again, Americans may just sit there and take it.

[RaleighNCDUer]

317. Please, learn your fucking history.

The issue was not about a 3% tea tax. It was about a tax of ANY amount being forced upon a people who were not allowed to argue against that tax in Parliment.

The anti-tax idiots always forget that it was TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION - and the tea tax was just one of a many-years series of taxes imposed without input from the colonies that were being taxed.

History is your friend. Get to know it.

[beyond cynical]

340. I never said that taxes were the main cause...

If taxes were the main cause of the American Revolution, the war would have started sooner than it did.

Self-governance was the primary issue. However, internal taxes were frowned upon by the Founders, especially when a national revenue could be had by requiring foreigners to pay for the privilege of doing business on American soil.

"...a national revenue must be obtained; but the system must be
such a one, that, while it secures the object of revenue it shall not be
oppressive to our constituents."

~ James Madison

History is indeed your friend :hi:

[Jim Sagle]

308. The Bush gang took over via brute force.

Hardly anyone said much less did anything about it.

[bridgit]

82. I agree

:kick:

[Tim01]

83. What are people going to do? Burn down their own homes?

Revolution will only come in the form of civil war, and then only after some of the states secede. Those will be the right leaning states, not the left.
Is California going to leave the union so they can get jobs and health care? No.

[bhikkhu]

186. and their businesses, and their grocery stores, etc

At times is does feel good to blow off some steam and rant as the OP, but then you think about what it means. Like a 10 year old who's thrown a tantrum and busted up all his own stuff, the aftermath is usually not pretty.

[Occam Bandage]

85. People have been claiming that since, quite literally, Jesus. nt

[bridgit]

93. Fair enough, but there have been several timely revolutionary interventions since

Were that to not be the case we'd all be rendering unto Olive Garden what is Olive Garden's :P

[Occam Bandage]

94. Oh, sure. But revolutions are noteworthy for their rarity,

while doomsayers are noteworthy for their ubiquity.

[Throd]

86. No it isn't. Mark my words.

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

90. the thing about "revolutions" is that they are circular

and they always end up in the same spot they began, from the opposite direction. It's the definition of the word, fer chrissakes. I'm tired of being trapped in the same old cesspool of history: I want EVOLUTION, not REVOLUTION. Gimme forward motion, please.

[aquart]

91. Something's coming.

But you damn well better hope it isn't anything that dissolves the union.

[tom_paine]

92. Nice sentiments, but wholly unrealistic considering the Modern American National Psyche

Overmedicatred by prescriptions and TV, dumbed down to an astonishing level, and one-third or more of the nation having had their "Nazi Superegos" activated by years of targeted RW propaganda

There is only one kind of "revolution" that the American Subject Populace is psychologically capable of..and that's the Nazi "revolution" of 1933/4.

Unquestioning unthinking obedience to authority (and the TV which speaks for it) is astronomical. there is no truth so demonstrable it cannot be obfuscated, no lie so powerful it cannot be easily laundered into "conventional wisdom" by the RW Lie Machine.

The Founding Fathers and their generation wouldn't recognize us, but the Germans of 1934 certainly would.

So, while I appreciate your post, I strongly believe it is merely a case of wishful thinking. Look around you. Listen to people, speak to them. The 1934 Germanic psyche lives. Virulent RWers chomping at he bit for the tiniest "permission from authority" to begin committing atrocities against The Other. A huge mass of tired, exhausted, befuddle people (Hitler had to create these conditions artificially with endless Nazi Rallies & meetings, but the Americccan way of life has "coincidentally" created the same psychological exhaustion where people have to time to think, even if they could remember how).

I hope I am wrong and you are right about this.

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

95. I agree

I saw a video of Chris Hedges presenting for a panel called "The Death of Conservatism"(I think) and he had a similar -- and similarly horrifying - take on the the situation. He mentioned the teabaggers as indicative of what can happen when social anger and resentment are combined with demagoguery and racism: he claimed that when this group really begins to feel the effects of what has been done to them by the hyper-capitalist Social Darwinists in Wall St and Washington they will react with terrible fury and violence. Unfortunately I have a very difficult time coming up with arguments against this scenario. The mob has historically been the face of revolution, at least much more than any other.

[Politics_Guy25]

116. +1000!!!

Wow right on bro.

[Turborama]

119. The Nazis - A Warning From History

Your analogy is very well put. I'm not sure if you've seen it yet but this series gives the truth to what you're saying: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x405536

From the OP: "But, what the wealthy in power fail to understand is the seething anger of the people."

This might be true but if Alex Jones and/or Glenn Beck's names were put next to this quote people wouldn't question it came from them. This anger is what they are playing on to make their millions and it's a very dangerous game they are playing.

If the kind of revolt we desire didn't happen under Busch's regime, what makes anyone think it'll ever happen in our lifetimes?

Just my opinion, but if there's any time in modern history that the 'revolution' that we want seemed possible it would, should and could have happened after he stole his 1st and then 2nd "election". That's what I was hoping for then but now I'm like BakedAtAMileHigh and hoping for an evolution.

[laughingliberal]

169. Sadly, I agree with a lot of what you say

I believe people will reach a breaking point with the system that keeps demanding more from them and giving less. The problem is that RW media has many of the victims of our economic system convinced it is "those people," the illegals, the minorities, welfare mothers, etc...that are the reasons for their problems. They believe spending on social programs is what has robbed them of their chance at economic freedom. In Germany it was the same. Hitler had the German people brainwashed into believing their problems were due to the various undesirables and not the people at the top. Here's an article I read a while back which, I think, perfectly describes where we are. It's frightening:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/15

The RW in our country has far more effective and sophisticated methods of getting its message out and it has been very successful. If our Democrats would, by some miracle, stand up and start leading and people could see a positive change this could be avoided but I don't see them standing for traditional liberal principles or fighting for them.

[Selatius]

96. I would say people who are 25 years or younger have a lot to worry about.

They have quite a long ways to live, and the world can change radically in the following 60 years. If you were born in 1900, the world definitely changed drastically by the time 1960 rolled around.

For the younger people, likely one major change is China will become a superpower rivaling the US. Another change will likely be incredibly expensive gasoline and the rise of alternative energy sources. Nations that are investing heavily in alternative energy now and mass transit are going to come out ahead of countries that only put forward half-hearted measures at best. There will probably be several more wars the US is involved with, probably dealing with, again, access to fossil fuels, and there will be a high body count. There is no telling where the US economy will be, but it's likely to find itself being challenged by the likes of India, China, Brazil, etc. It's not even a guarantee the US will survive to the end of the century without dissolving into several smaller constituent nations like the fall of the Soviet Union.

The future is going to be a terrifying place.

[marmar]

97. Bring it on......Things can't continue as they are.

[anonymous171]

98. If the left hadn't become a bunch of worthless eggheads, I might agree

I see a revolution coming alright, but it's not a left wing one. It's going to be a non-corporate right wing takeover. Get ready, because the American empire is going to go out Germany-style!

[madokie]

100. Just between you and me

I think you're knutts to think that. Nothing personal here ok

The way out of this mess is to vote these bastids out. I think most can see where the bottleneck is and I believe the next election will reflect that. Change is coming I promise that but I don't think for a minute it be in the form of a revolution in the sense where we take up arms against each other.

Oh, and another thing there is NO GAWD up there with streets of gold just a waiting to resurrect your dead ass because you said somewhere before you did that dying thing that you believed in this Gawd person.

[Joe the Liberal]

102. I'm 20 and I don't see it happening......

Maybe there will be riots, protests and some movements but full blown revolt? I just don't see it, people here in the US are way too easily distracted and most just don't give a damn.

The US will fall apart before there is ever any uprising. The only revolution this country has had was to gain it's independence and that was probably the last we'll ever have.

[BeHereNow]

103. 47th Recommendation and proud of it.

I agree 100%.

The pendulum is going to swing.
It always does which is why we can expect
to see further tightening of the noose.

The PTB know it is only a matter of time.

BHN

[Odin2005]

104. Within the next 10 years, IMO

Probably not a full-blown revolution, but a lot of unrest that weakens the corporatists' hold on power.

[Jakes Progress]

287. The riots of the sixties

scared the hell out of the powers back then.

[VOX]

105. Money controls the Message. The Message controls the Masses. "The Other" is the Enemy of the Masses.

Fear "The Other," as the Message goes, is the root cause of all of society's real and perceived ills -- economic, spiritual, personal. And sadly, that "Other" is being portrayed daily as anything or anyone running contrary to the Message of (big private) Money -- the federal government, human rights, women's rights, alternative energy, education, arts, libraries, pacifism, critical thinking.

This is not an era of enlightenment, not by a long shot. Those who will be moved to anger and violent action will likely be uneducated, uninformed, economically depressed. They will they feel alienated, neglected, passed over, envious, enraged; those emotions will be reinforced and stoked numerous times a day by the Message of big money.

In the end, any violent revolution will be committed by a reactionary element. This is underway right now, and it's straight out of Yeat's "Second Coming:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

[TexasObserver]

106. So, according to your timetable, revolution is coming 20-30 years from now.

Silly, silly, silly.

Mark my words.

Your hysterics are comical.

[Usrename]

109. Yeah, sure, and the mercenaries will just cower in fear.

Do you really think the public will try to out-Blackwater the folks at Xe?

Maybe like these guys did?



How will this insurgency be organized? Do you think that the opposition won't know how the organization is structured, that it can be kept secret? Just how is this revolution going to take place when any hope of any leadership is thwarted?

Seriously. You must have heard of the Patriot Act. How can any armed resistance be organized without being crushed by the government? Those days of hostile takeovers is past. They couldn't even pull it off in Iran recently, and those are the same politically savvy individuals who overthrew the Shaw. Their resistance was broad and deep and very committed, protesting under pain of death, and they were obliterated in less than a fortnight without so much as a whimper. What makes you think our population has a chance?

The kind of thing you are talking about has been relegated to history, along with calvary on horseback and edged weapons. It's the 21st century now. Welcome to the future, welcome to 1984.

[MilesColtrane]

117. Yes, no revolution in this country, unless there is mass starvation.

The people who advocate revolution the loudest are rarely willing to die, or are willing to watch their family and neighbors die for their cause.

[Usrename]

309. That's one angle, sure, but the problem is more fundamental.

Even if many were willing to fight and die for a cause, how would they organize themselves into any kind of armed resistance?

How can you put together an army when the enemy knows your entire roster, including the complete chain of command, and they can freely pluck any of your leaders from the population at large? Who will lead this resistance if we are never allowed to organize into a group that has leaders? How are you and your 14 friends who are really committed supposed to hook up with me and my 8 friends to plan the overthrow? I don't think people have even begun to understand the science that is involved in identifying and manipulating or destroying social networks. Big Brother has become real, but in a manner that nobody expected and that few are even aware of.

Without our ability to organize, we are nothing.

[MilesColtrane]

312. Please don't include me in that "our".

I'm not interested in killing anyone.

[Usrename]

320. Well neither do I.

The was a response to try an enlighten the OP about the futility of an armed insurection.

But we have to organize, it's the only way forward at this point. And that's where our political power can be found. By organizing ourselves into an overwhelming voice.

[Zomby Woof]

115. and the fundies keep promising Jesus will come any day now

No difference in the Utopian Bullshit Quotient. Keyboard commandos unite! You have nothing to lose but your credibility!

[sasquatch]

121. Agreed

[progressoid]

120. Hope so....but I ain't holding my breath.

[Patchuli]

124. 50 years old or younger?

What if you're double nickel like me soon? I won't get to see the 'backlash cometh?' Please say it ain't so! ;-)

[earcandle]

126. I hate to tell you but the people that will be doing us in are the people we are training to police

the world right now... Afghanis will be armed and trained in
10 years. Iraqis are already trained and then there is the
APF,
Blackwater's guys.  You know most of the contractors, trained
by Xe, etc... are sourced from those insurgents we buy into
the programs. They will enjoy killing us when the time comes. 
So we are being totally duped to use our money to train other
countries in our war tactic for fucking what?  to use against
us.... I think.  What do you think? 

Please talk me down, if you can.  If you are paying attention
at all.

[Mithreal]

127. There'll be more Timothy McVeighs, more poverty, and less freedom

in our lifetimes but no revolution.

[Stand and Fight]

128. ...

[Umbral]

129. Maybe, It's amazing how cheaply 'Bread and Circuses' can be purchased now-a-days. nt

[ProgressOnTheMove]

131. A legal and peaceful one at the ballot box with large scale movements and enthusiasm.

[Aramchek]

132. that's what all the Teabaggers say

[Mithreal]

133. So how ya think teabaggers will vent their hot air?

I have no idea, just asking.

I would not be shocked if the intelligence services ignore them and continued to focus on infiltrating peace groups.

[Mugweed]

134. Sounds pretty teabaggish to me

Maybe you have some good intentions and want to create a system of government that actually represents and helps the hard working Americans. The problem is, what about the other "revolutionaries"? You know the ones I mean; the christo-fascist ultra right wing freaks who have been calling for a revolution ever since that black man had the temerity to assume he's the President. Even if there was some sort of success in bringing down the current form of government, there would be no additional progress because the whole thing would turn into one giant civil war between the people who want to rebuild the country into what it was meant to be and the unwitting pawns of the right wing rich who will try to make it into jesusland.

Anyway, your part about the military not turning their guns on fellow Americans...tell that to those kids at Kent State. I think the people who were there will tell you otherwise. Plus, Blackwater (or Zima, or whatever they're called now) would likely be the front line on the war against the citizenry and they've already shown in New Orleans how easily they'll turn on fellow Americans.

[AusDem]

135. you sound like an angry Glen Beck

and all those people who put up signs saying "prepare for war", etc.

except of course you're coming at it from a slightly different angle

[sandyj999]

136. Unfortunately I am beyond that age group but I'll be watching and cheering.

I know it will eventually happen.

[Daemonaquila]

137. Nice wish, but the American sheeple won't revolt.

If this was happening 50 years ago, when people were not so dumbed-down, trained into "knowing" they can't rock the boat, etc., I might agree and clap when it started. But it won't. This is why we have Walmarts dotting the landscape, lotteries, doorbuster specials, cel phones for 8 year olds, 500 channels on satellite, etc. The racket is to make Americans (a) believe there's a "way out" of financial misery, no matter how remote, and (b) feel like while they're scraping along in misery, they still have toys to protect and make it all better. All those things that should've kicked of a revolution have already arrived. Yet we're living in a culture that can't even intellectually challenge Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, Glenn Beck, etc. as political jokes. A culture that can accept Rick Warren as a religious figure, not immediately tank the McCain campaign as a laughingstock when Palin was brought on board, and go bankrupt for 8 years while chanting the empty line "United We Stand" and never once ask "for what?", is incapable of revolution.

[Locrian]

139. revolution, or facist army state?

Either way, it's gonna suck. It's gonna get worse, a LOT worse, before it gets any better.

[quaker bill]

140. My bet

is that if it comes, you will not care for the results. Chances are far better that the result is a far greater authoritarianism than we have now, not because the revolution fails, but because it succeeds.

Revolutions are generally far easier to start than to control once underway.

[Caliman73]

370. That is what I think many fail to see.

Yeah for the revolution!! Bring it on!! until government soldiers or mercenaries arrive at their doorstep and take the parents out and shoot them for being insurrectionists or until the rebels do the same because they are suspected of aiding the government. Until the bus their kids are riding in is caught in the cross-fire or blown up. They are looking only at a positive ending with their desires fulfilled rather than at the gruesome destruction that takes place during armed confrontations.

[onehandle]

144. I used to think so, but no. We heard this in the '30s and '60s.

Nothing happened except a few wars.

[lxlxlxl]

145. and is this revolution going to accomplish ANYTHING other than chaos?

You don't need a PHD in comparative politics to see that violent revolutions tend to favor the best armed and segments of the elite that participate. what exactly is your revolution trying to accomplish? because you probably just need to start with campaign finance reform.

[pecwae]

146. Heard it all before.

You're right about those who can't or won't improve conditions for everyone, however there's not enough 'we' in 'we, the people' to make a white of difference. Things have to get a helluva lot harder for the majority of people to riot in the streets. As long as there's PS2, flat screen TV, and all those other little luxuries most like to think of as necessities you can forget about anyone bestirring themselves especially if there's a chance their blood might be spilled.

[Alcibiades]

177. As long as folks are amused, they can tolerate poverty

and injustice, and all sorts of terrible things. Plus, folks are too busy doing all those other things--raising families, trying to get by--to take part in something that would probably just wind up with them getting dead.

[bdamomma]

147. love your post rateyes,

but revolution or any kind of unrest won't happen until people are really desperate, i.e lack of food, water, or electronic toys, once those are taken away then people will revolt, we are too compliant, but I hope it comes because each day it gets clearer that the upper crust of society just doesn't give a crap about the middle or poor class. It just really sucks to see how greedy people are.

[earth mom]

148. Oh shit, I turn 49 soon-guess I'm still part of the revolution whether I want to be or not.

:yoiks:

[raccoon]

150. Shucks, I'm over 50. But I KNOW the US needs one. nt

[earthlite]

151. Torches and pitchforks will be met with machine guns.

No thank you!

[TomClash]

152. People will write

But they won't fight.

[onlyadream]

153. The dems will get voted out and the teabaggers will be happy

much like we were a year ago. Then they will see no changes (and a lot of blame) and soon they will become unsatisfied (like us). Eventually, I think we'll all be in the same boat. They just need to wake up.

[deutsey]

154. I think something like the Velvet Revolution may be possible

but that will only happen after some time and a lot of hard work by a relatively small and highly committed group of "revolutinaries."

I suppose if we have a total economic meltdown like the 1930s, we might see more active and possibly violent agitation (I hope not), but even then I have to wonder if that won't go in more of a reactionary, Fascistic direction than a progressive, socialistic direction.

The forces of reaction, after all, are the ones that control most media (and therefore the bulk of public perception) and have shown how adept they are at distracting and manipulating people's preceptions.

[Autonomy]

159. The revolution has been cancelled

to bring you this episode of The Family Guy.

Revolution. Heh. There's no revolution coming. Sorry.

[Le Taz Hot]

160. More ageism on DU.

Color me surprised. NOT!

[Neecy]

164. Mario Savio said it best:

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

[Lost-in-FL]

165. I just read "Germinal" by Emile Zola

Things really need to get ugly for peope to want to bring about a revolution. It is the sad truth.

[BennyD]

168. A revolution is coming indeed.

[swilton]

170. Power to the People

I just hope you're off in the age thing by about 11 years.

Thank you for having the courage to say this.... Michael Moore essentially said the same thing with the defeat of the robust public option - my own words but people won't have faith in their government

Furthermore - although the necons like to think that they (Reagan policies) defeated the Soviet Union, others argue that the Soviet Union was brought down from its own internal decay as characterized by cynicism, cronyism and corruption.

A BIG. THANK YOU. and K&R :hi: :kick:

[cali]

171. sure it is.

if it makes you feel better to believe that, knock yourself out.

[closeupready]

172. I agree with your premises, but not your prediction of bloody revolution.

I do think that things will eventually sway the other way, peacefully, gradually. At least I sure hope so. :scared:

[MissDeeds]

174. K&R

Sadly, we can't hope for change, we have to demand it. I hope I live to see it.

[ipaint]

175. Use cash.

http://www.usecashmovement.org/

Starve the parasitic banks.

[Ukonkivi]

178. Oh yeaaaah.

Oh yeah, revolution. I've been in need of something to alleviate the boredom. Oh wait, that sounds kind of dangerous.
I'm scared y'all. Hold me.

[kpominville]

180. The Military WILL put it down

They have done it before and they will do it again. There is no longer any possee comitatus to protect us from the military being used against the citizens. They won't be asked to shoot at their families because they will make sure to send troops from California to Michigan and vice versa. It will happen here just like it happened in China and Iran recently.

[Ishoutandscream2]

182. We live in a plutocracy. It's not even masked anymore

Yes, I'm jaded, and for good reason. I think revolution is the only solution at this point to turn this sucker around. Will we see one? I don't think so. But you never know.

[cascadiance]

183. I think where it might start is if some ultimate bad guy of the elites gets "offed"...

If you have a Karl Rove, one of the conservative SCOTUS judges, one of the fat cat CEO's that's the worst of the bunch in terms of corruption, suddenly getting assassinated (instead of just popped in the chops at a health club like an earlier CEO was), that's when I think there might be a moment of "waking up". Mind you, I'm CERTAINLY not advocating this, I'd rather peaceful methods of change happen and give us what we need if they can be employed. But the more the powers that be shut down those peaceful methods and it becomes more obvious that our democratic processes are lost, you know there will be someone or some group out there that is strong enough willed to do something like this.

At that point:
1) Many of these elites might realize that unless they board themselves up in their own castles and never venture out into public, which I'm guessing many already do now (aka the Wal-Mart "bunker" noted in the film earlier), they will be potentially a target if the example of this sort of event happens and doesn't seem to be "controllable" at that point if enough unrest exists in the country then. Perhaps some police state methods and martial law will be brought to bear, but that will only get the boiling frogs woken up more...
2) Whoever does kill notable figures in the past would be seen as a group of indefensible criminals. Even many of our earlier resistance groups like the Weather Underground, and ELF more recently have tried to target buildings, etc. and not people to try to keep their set of principles, and yet still get labeled terrorists. However, at this point, there might be a large enough segment of society that might look at them more as "revolutionaries" and "heroes" instead of those criminals that should be arrested and prosecuted. That will create greater divisions and more unrest that the elites will have a hard time dealing with. Repression won't solve it and will only heighten it and have more Americans align themselves with those "revolutionaries".
3) America at that point will have lost its innocence that it has had since at least the Civil War, where we haven't had any major upheaval or visible threat of upheaval and change of government since then. Just about every other country on earth has gone through times of big changes in their governments where they have present extended family members that can remember these periods of times that know when they personally feel like they have to depart from a current system into a revolutionary struggle, and how they were able to come out of it and rebuild from it. Our people don't have that experience, and therefore up until this point are afraid of pushing the system to a point of failure where they don't know where that push will lead them to. When an event like the above happens, they will start to feel those changes forced on them, and the more they feel them inevitable, the more they will join the effort for that sense of change.

I'd like to think the elites see these possibilities, and realize that ultimately this is the prospects that they are likely pushing on themselves and the rest of America, and it will become very ugly if that does happen. We won't have another big country to "bail us out" like even the former Soviet Union did when we helped them through the fall of that regime. Maybe China might, but I don't think they will necessarily be good willed about that sort of effort, and democracy might fall as a system of government if that happens too.

Hopefully at some point the elites will realize that there's a point of no return we are heading to if they don't allow for significant change happening, and that the fate of Marie Antoinette will be visited on many of them in such a future if they don't try to allow for more peaceful change soon.

As I said before, I certainly am NOT advocating this future, but if we keep getting choked out of any reform and pushed to the point of being starving third world caste slaves, the way it seems we are heading, a future like this like the OP noted seems inevitable. The U.S. will boil a lot more before this sort of explosion happens, as others note we seem to be like "sheep" at times, but if we slow boil more than everyone else, the explosion at the end will be that much larger than seen before too I think.

[michreject]

184. Let's say it does happen. What then?

Who leads the Country in the aftermath? How do we re establish leadership?

[mullard12ax7]

199. It should have happened already, Obama could have moved the gov't to...

a more socialist type of government. Instead, he bailed out Goldman and JP Morgan, placates war criminals and is a complete tool of the failed capitalism industrial war machine that despises the idea of health care for all and instead prefers health insurance for profit/death.

So, Obama would easily remain the POTUS, it's Congress that will have to hold special elections to elect an entirely new bunch of House reps and Senators. We could throw out the entire Supreme Court too and start over. It could all easily be done if 1 simple disastrous event occurs which it likely will: that event will be the U.S. declaring bankruptcy.

Another way to start over completely would be to hold Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Powell accountable for their conspiracy to commit war and their following war crimes including torture camps, rendition flights and passive genocide in Iraq.

[onenote]

256. how exactly could Obama have "moved the gov't to a more socialist type of govt'?

By ignoring congress and the constitution and just making decrees?

I hope you're not holding your breath for your doomsday scenario....it ain't happening.

[yurbud]

187. you are right about the military. It happened in Russia and happened here with GENERALS

when it came to Iran. Bush repeatedly replaced CENTCOM commanders, looking for one that move ahead on attacking Iran, but none would do it, even when he took the unprecedented step of appointing an admiral instead of a general. At the top, they know the wars are imperial bullshit, and after Iraq, they drew a line against potentially starting a world war.

[azygous]

188. US National Guard massacre of US citizens

What makes everyone so sure our soldiers wouldn't turn their guns on us, their friends and neighbors? It's happened before at Ludlow, CO when the National Guard opened fire on helpless women and children and men who were protesting at a local coal mine. Most of us can remember Waco, TX when the FBI murdered all those people, and Ruby Ridge, too. How about the Kent State Massacre where the National Guard killed unarmed students?

And now we have an all volunteer military, many of which signed up to earn a living in this scarce job market. Top that off with being brainwashed to follow orders to kill, I have a hard time believing we'd be safe from our own soldiers, let alone see them put down their weapons and join the revolution.

And don't forget what happened in NOLA with Black Water Mercenaries murdering citizens trying to escape the flood waters.

[rtassi]

191. IMO you are absolutely correct! n/t

[yurbud]

189. every time there's a protest, 1 in 5 should carry signs that say ''cops and soldiers, we're fighting

for YOU & YOUR family!''

[BonnieJW]

192. Yes, but will Xe say no?

Will paid mercenaries refuse to turn the guns on Americans? They will do what they are told to do because they get paid six figures each month. An uprising in Detroit? Send a drone to smart bomb that little upheaval. I don't put this past anyone in power.

[era veteran]

194. Jefferson

.... "it is their right,it is their duty, to throw off such government" ... Declaration of Independence Your duty! I'll be 56 Sat. but I hope to participate. We need a redistribution of wealth if for no other reason. Campaign finance reform could avert one. Peace

[Deep13]

195. Yeah? Let's just hope the tea-baggers don't take it over.

Instead of becoming a social democracy we could become a Christian theocracy.

[asdjrocky]

196. It all depends on if Dancing with the Stars in in reruns or not.

Really, I'm serious.

[waronbanks]

197. I believe we could prevent the violent part

If we would DO SOMETHING NOW! There needs to be a movement now...before things get so bad that the people believe that only violence will bring the change they so desperately need. Now is the time...when it is so crsytal clear that our government is corrupted so completely by the Oligarchs, Wall Street and the corporate marauders. We need no more proof. Obama's kissing up to the these interests pretty much tells us whats in our future.

I believe there should be a mass demonstration of the power of the people. If there was a concerted effort among the middle and lower classes to refuse to pay credit cards off...no more payments...none...there would be capitulation by the corporates. If the middle and lower classes removed their money from banks and put them in credit unions they would back off. If we went on a national strike for a week with a promise it will become permanent until the corporates influence on our government was neutralized...we would get it. It does not have to be violent but it does have to be well coordinated and soon...NOW.

Our government is hopelessly corrupt. They are no help...none. We either come together as the true owners of this nation and demand an end to the corruption, greed and abuse or we only have ourselves to blame for the coming storm. And I agree...there is a nasty storm brewin.

[ChiciB1]

279. As I Said... I've Been Calling Out For Many Years Now... If Not Now, When???

Is there not a great deal of anger here and around the country? Something is building and we CAN avoid the worst of the worst if we stood up now! But yes, there is far too much APATHY... STILL!!

JMHO!

[reign100]

202. My big concern is

if the Teabaggers decide to revolt. Most of them are armed, it's hard to stand up to that. Bullets certainly seem to be the best method of oppression/control when it comes right down to it.

You could count on some soldiers being interested in revolution, but without a method to organize them any involvement on their part would be suicide. You have to take into consideration that most of the soldiers and police are like a brotherhood, and while some might think outside the box, most will just tow the party line.

[Jester Messiah]

204. Great. You want a revolution, the freepers want a civil war.

Is there any way we could resolve this without killing ourselves?

[PinkoDonkey]

255. How about we just make like Czechoslovakia

and opt for a velvet divorce? Jesusland can become an authoritarian theocracy and economic basketcase like Iran while the rest can evolve into a standard social democracy.

Granted, the massive internal displacement this could create would be a bit of a problem. That, and Sarah Palin would end up controlling at least a few thousand nuclear warheads...

[stopbush]

205. So, rateyes, what are you willing to sacrifice to make things better for those

who aren't as well off as you? What are you willing to give up that's meaningful and could be considered by one and all to be a real sacrifice (in other words, NOT your cable TV sports package)? You're asking the rich to sacrifice. What about you?

I look forward to your response.

BTW - I put your OP in the same class as all of the "I'd leave the country if I could" posts that infested DU right after bush got re-"elected" for a second term.

[rateyes]

261. I just voluntarily took a job making $20,000 a year less than

what I was making...changing careers, to help people less fortunate than I, and that's with trying to put 3 daughters through college.

I'm willing, and am in fact DOING IT, to make numerous sacrifices for that effort.


You?

[stopbush]

301. Me? I'm currently unemployed. I'd take just about any job these days.

My charitable donations are on hold for the time being, and this in the top season of giving.

Speaking of college, we're coming close to having to raid the kids college funds to keep a roof over our heads. All of our other resources/assets are gone.

At least we had the sense to eliminate our credit card debt a few years ago, and at least I'm getting some productive interviews on the job front. And, at least I'm drawing UI benefits.

The only thing we've been able to keep up with are clothing & toy donations to the Goodwills of the world.

[rateyes]

305. Sorry to hear that.

Believe it or not, I'm on your side. I'm working my ass off to get things changed for the better for folk in your situation.

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

210. shhh...

it's already begun.

No embedded Obama pics in this thread.

[Ezlivin]

211. When the internet goes dark you'll know it's time

If we attempt to revolt our main organizational tools, the internet and cellphones, will be simply switched off or so heavily filtered as to be rendered useless.

Any revolution that depends upon the use of a highly technical underpinning which is controlled by corporations and the government will fail.

Ask yourself how you would plan a meeting, let alone a revolution, without a cellphone or the internet? Most of us can't even recall the phone numbers of our five closest friends from memory; we're that dependent upon the technology.

[JNelson6563]

213. Revolution!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVWlNQxjIsc

[Vidar]

214. I sincerely hope you're right.

[SandWalker1984]

217. Hit them where it hurts - a peaceful economic revolution

Let's keep the revolution peaceful.

Boycott big business.

Quit using their debt to further inslave yourselves.

Quit using credit cards, racking up high rates. Use cash or debit cards instead.

Stay out of Wal-Mart as much as possible, go to mom & pop stores instead.

Make Christmas about counting your blessings instead of your presents under the tree.

Give up your football tickets. Your NASCAR tickets.

Eat at home instead of the large fast food restaurants.

Cut back on your alcohol.

If you're into them, cut back on the illegal drugs as you are, I am told, putting black money into the CIA's pockets and black budgets.

If you are on legal drugs, cut back - with your doctor's approval.



You get the idea.

The power of our purse is far more powerful than our vote that they have corrupted.


Think about your actions and who they will affect. Money is power and we have the ability to massively influence political change.

Now THAT's change you can believe in!

[SlingBlade]

218. FDR forestalled a revolution in the thirties by

what many said was selling out his "Class" as a one of the wealthy.
He actually looked DOWN and saw that there would either be reforms
or revolution, He chose reforms.

Not much hope in finding a wealthy "trader" in today's society
They are purposely blind to the sufferings of tens of millions
of there fellow Americans.They have like the Bush's been raised from
birth to ignore the little people and to take their rightful place
as one of the chosen few, The elite over seers of the masses.

So yea, A revolution of some type by The People isn't such a whacked
out idea. The only question is, How bad will it get before that happens ?

[TBF]

222. Correct about FDR -

he was forced to reform and that is what will have to happen again. It's a constant struggle.

[totodeinhere]

241. You have absolutely know way of knowing if there would have been a revolution or not.

You are talking about a hypothetical. Yet you sate it as if it were a proven fact. It's not. We will never know exactly what would have happened if FDR had not come on the scene. It's totally futile to try to second guess history.

[happyslug]

219. Discussed in another thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x43751

[Politics_Guy25]

221. With all due respect, this thread is something that could come straight from Free Republic

Free Republic is talking about revolution over the Obama presidency as well. Is DU joining the chorous? Disgusting. Free republic is that way<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

[dionysus]

234. i know, i haven't stopped laughing yet reading this romanticized bullshit...

[mnhtnbb]

226. Hubby maintains that the revolution will come when the people have passed a threshold

of economic instability--or in other words, when enough people are hurting economically.

[SlowDownFast]

230. That IS the key. n/t

[SlowDownFast]

229. Revolution or civil war.

Either way, something's slowly brewing...

[chrisa]

231. Okay, a few points.

- There isn't going to be a "Revolution." This country solves its problems by voting.

- Yes, the military would have no problem shooting its own citizens.

Really, I don't understand why people talk of "revolution" when only 60% of Americans vote. Are you trying to tell me people will pick up arms and fight, when 40% of them won't even cross the street to vote? I don't wish more pain and suffering upon anyone. If you want a change in government, go to the ballot and cast your vote, and hope that everybody else feels the same way.

[clear eye]

260. Look, I don't know about a revolution, but I do know we don't have securely counted elections.

So your utter faith in being able to vote people in who are truly committed to the interests of the many as opposed to the few, sounds terminally naive to me. (Just MO.)

[dionysus]

233. i find internet armchair revolutionaries hillarious.

huzzah!

:rofl:

[Arkana]

235. The Ron Paul Revolution?

[tranche]

237. I thought this about 15 years ago. Then my mom stopped paying my rent.

[LaPera]

242. I'm 51 so I'll miss it!

Though I'm in perfect health, still young enough to do EVERYTHING as before and much better shape than in my thirties and forties party days....shit so I'll miss the revelation by one year?

[HuckleB]

243. Sorry, but it's not bloody likely.

[mistertrickster]

245. Actually, what you're saying sounds like what Marx wrote: that the proletariate should

take the wealth of the bourgeoisie not because it's fair or just, but because they CAN.

The wealthy should pay attention. Hell, they should get a clue.

[greyghost]

247. This country could use a good one, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

[pundaint]

252. We wont Vote in our interest, why would we fight?

America is soft and malleable and we don't like each other enough to revolt. I might believe anarchy is coming, but revolution requires a quality of citizenship we no longer posses.

[clear eye]

264. These days it's hard who to say we vote for, w/ computers counting and all. n/t

[apocalypsehow]

253. God I hope not, because if such a Revolution comes, it will be from the Right, not the Left.

And the gallows will be erected for people on our side of the aisle, not theirs.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply too ignorant of the stream of American history as to not even warrant discussing anything of substance with.

[vssmith]

254. Aux Barricades!

[onenote]

258. most folks under 50 don't remember the last time it felt that the US was on the verge of revolution

that would be the 60s. When some people really were taking to the streets in opposition to the government, whether it be war or Jim Crow laws, etc. And there was violence (Kent State, various bombings), and rioting (Watts, DC, Detroit).

And yet, the "revolution" never came.

And its not coming in the next 50 years either.

[cowcommander]

262. No revolution came because the politicians were smart enough to listen

Nowadays though...I don't think they give a shit.

[onenote]

265. really? Nixon listened?

No, the reason that there was no revolution was that there never was going to be one. Because the people trying to undo the system through violence and rioting figured out that what they ended up with was dead friends and burned out neighborhoods.

[cascadiance]

281. He DID resign, which is FAR more than I can say for the previous BASTARDS like Bush and Cheney...

who committed far worse crimes and should have been out of office FAR earlier than Nixon.

And according to Daniel Ellsburg, it was things like the Pentagon papers coupled with enough protestors on the streets that kept Nixon from dropping nukes on North Vietnam then too, which had been in the plans earlier. The problem is, none of the media or congress critters are allowing for whistleblowers like Ellsburg from being heard or have their claims investigated, and the attention to our protests are so marginalized now these days that many have given up those efforts.

Being on the verge of "revolution" in Nixon's time helped bring down that house of cards. Will it happen today? Still hard to say. I think even back in the 60's most of the revolutionary groups like the Weathermen still tried to avoid catastrophic loss of life in their activities. They were going more for buildings, and other things like that to emphasize their unrest.

At some point though, the point of no return in terms of violence will be crossed, like it almost was with Kent State. If a violent enough event happens that convinces many that a revolutionary struggle that will be violent is inevitable, then I think you have most Americans trying to find what their "plan B" is in place of their existing "plan A" trying to just "survive" like they are doing now, hoping that someone else shifts the gears to fix things. They'll realize that "plan A" is no longer feasible, and that is when the gloves start coming off and our "civilized" society will start breaking down quickly then.

[ooglymoogly]

259. KR I am not so sure the military robots, or far worse, the sadistic Backwater,

will not be turned on the people in the event the rich are threatened. But you are right; That situation can't last forever; Without surfs they will eventually become impotent and the armies will die from desertion and then watch out for the guillotine.

[cali]

266. the irony of your posting this is pretty funny.

all those all war is evil quotes and then this. And no, you're not just predicting it..

[rateyes]

285. I am more than predicting it, you're right.

I'm sounding a warning. I hope we're smart enough to change. I don't think we are that smart. I don't want it. I think it's coming, though.

[ChiciB1]

268. My, Oh My... Oh My... Oh My! I've Talking About This For At LEAST Four

or Five years now. Each time I mention it, I'm told it will NEVER work! Don't get me wrong, THIS IS NOT what I want to see happen, but THIS IS what I feel NEEDS to happen! We have long since been forgotten and perhaps the time has FINALLY come where "we the people" the ones left behind, will FINALLY see the light and say, REALLY SAY.... E.N.O.U.G.H.!!!

I'm seeing more and more people here at DU sounding this way, so perhaps the ground is beginning to tremble with anger at how this so called Democracy in this country is slowly turning into an Oligarchy!

We may be reaching the end of what I've seen of overwhelming APATHY for so many years, and it's about DAMN TIME! Don't want it to happen, didn't want to see it come to this, but can't see any other way to let our voice be heard!

If so many other "poor" countries can rise up in protest at what they feel is INJUSTICE to them, then WHY can't we in the supposedly "greatest" country in the world, stand up for our rights and get JUSTICE and not JUST ICE??

I was around during Viet Nam, but this is something much bigger that is brewing IMO, and unfortunately may be even worse! This country has seen it before, and the waves might really be building up to a crescendo once again!

I know that there are still millions out there who don't see it and may call us nothing more than naysayers, but I do believe it may come to this! Very sad, very bad!

[Name removed]

355. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[rhett o rick]

269. No revolution is coming. And if it did the powerful wealthy would stamp it out in a min.

How bad will things have to get to get a revolution organized? Dont hold your breath waiting for the revolution.

[Name removed]

357. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[valerief]

272. If we do revolt (which is our only recourse), I wonder if China will invade us

to quell us.

[branders seine]

280. If America stays on its current trajectory

(and Obama certainly shows zero sign of changing that trajectory), revolution is inevitable. Things will get worse before they get better. In the absence of real change--not the bumper-sticker "change" we all got suckered by last Fall--revolution will come. The timeframe is debatable though. We're well on our way to being an overt oligarchy--the arrogant bastards don't even bother to hide it much anymore. historically, it has taken generations, if not centuries, of oligarchical abuse to stir the people to revolution.

[davidwparker]

283. We need "the terror", USA style, to show that we are still "of the people,

by the people, for the people."

V for Vendetta

[misanthrope]

284. As to your opening paragraph, you best go back and see...

...what socio-economic class the Founding Fathers all belonged to and how the government was initially set-up.

[Imajika]

288. Just realize that it may be a right of center...

..populist type revolution. I agree a lot of turmoil is coming, but I am not sure it will be led by the left.

When the masses are fat and happy, they tend to be tolerant because they are too busy worrying about how to spend their money, where to go on vacation, etc, etc. When the masses are poor and feel uncertain about the future, they tend to become intolerant and begin scapegoating various groups.

Things could go either way, just know that revolutions often don't have the outcome many of us may wish for.

[Butch350]

291. There's not going to be a revolution to write home about...

the oppostion must have plans for a rebellious population. Just like you are thinking about a revolution
I'm sure the opposition has a plan to squash your asses. As far as saying the military will not shoot the citizens,
well some of those sick bastards now kill innocent men, women and children over seas, and I'm sure they'll find someone to shoot
your ass for money with NO PROBLEM.

Who knows, they may put down the rebellion with contract soldiers, who'd shoot your ass for a buck and a cup of coffee.

Go ahead with your little rebellion - you'll be no better off.

Get your favorite lubicant ready because the screwing of america citizens has begun.

[eilen]

292. There are signs everywhere.

""

[Don Draper]

293. I'm pissed at how the ultra wealthy are screwing us

But when I look around, it seems most Americans are apathetic to what is going on. We are more concerned with stupid reality shows, sports,etc than dealing with our broken political process. Most Americans I meet are also clueless about politics. I hate to say it, but by and large we are a stupid people.

I wish the public would be outraged, but any anger we have will fizzle to apathy like it always does.

[d3m0l1sh3r]

295. props

duely marked, good man (or woman)

[Codeine]

300. Fat people do not revolt.

people with HD TVs and DirecTV and Playstations and late-model cars and plenty to eat do not revolt.

It ain't happening.

[depakid]

365. You assume that it will remain that way- because that's all you remember

Fact is, the world's run up against geophysical resource limits that renders that assumption wishful thinking. The next wave of financial and economic meltdowns will be worse than the last- and the ones following worse still.

Third world status is not only in the cards for America- but in the trend lines.

[lib2DaBone]

307. Ain't no revolution coming... America is Sound Asleep Z-z-z-z-z-

The Dems approve Torture... (no disclosure via sunshine laws). The Dems Love Big Banks ..Geithner, Summers and Bernake.

The Dems Love the Patriot Act and Spying..... Check.....


Continued war in the Mideast to save Big Oil ... Check.....


Kiss Republican Ass (Even if it makes No Sense)... Check......

[Kievan Rus]

313. I disagree. There's never gonna be a revolution, ever.

[nels96]

316. The best Revolution

You wanna revolution?

The only infallible, unstoppable, guaranteed way to get a truly new Congress is :
NEVER REELECT ANY INCUMBENT! AND DO IT EVERY ELECTION!

The American voter must IMPOSE term limits by NEVER REELECTING ANYONE IN CONGRESS, AND DO IT EVERY ELECTION! In other words, don't let anyone serve more than one term. That's the only way to teach them that the voter is boss! The “one term limit” can be eased AFTER citizens get control of Congress.

Congress will never allow us to constitutionally term limit them by an amendment. Our only choice is to NEVER REELECT them. All of them!

The number of ‘good guys’ left in Congress is negligible, so if we threw ALL 535 members out, we wouldn’t do as much damage as the good we would gain by by turning Congress into a bunch of honest, innocent freshmen.

Some of the reasons in favor of this approach:

• It gives us a one-term-limited Congress without using an amendment
• It encourages ordinary citizens to run for Congress
• It is supported by 70% of the country (see Rasmussen and Cato polls)
• It is completely nonpartisan
• If repeated, it ends career politicians in Congress
• It opens the way to a “citizen Congress” of guys like you and me
* It would open a torrent of fresh ideas to improve our government
• It ends the seniority system that keeps freshmen powerless
• It doesn’t cost money. But you MUST vote! Just don’t vote for an incumbent
• It takes effect immediately on Election Day
• It is the only infallible, unstoppable, guaranteed way to “Throw the Bums Out”
• When the ‘pros’ stop running, ordinary citizens will run and win
• If it doesn’t work, do it again and again! It will work eventually, without a doubt.

NEVER REELECT ANYONE IN CONGRESS. AND DO IT EVERY ELECTION!
Go to [e-mail] to send for your free NEVER REELECT bumper sticker

Nelson Lee Walker of tenurecorrupts.com

[montanto]

321. Nope.

I wish I could believe it, but I don't. It won't happen. Unless you want to redefine revolution that is. To imagine that there will be a revolution is to way underestimate the Panem et Circensus factor here. As long as the Budweiser and Ballgame arrive on time, nothing "bad" will ever happen to this system. It still has legs. I can't imagine that gov't will somehow be "looking the other way" while discontent festers into revolutionary rage. I can't imagine that our "circuses" will somehow be preempted. You may be angry enough to go out in the street and do something now, and I may too, but there will never be enough of us while there are other things watch on TV.

[MSchreader]

322. There will be a revolution, but it will be against you, too

I offer this as a comment on the OP, but, in a sense, also as a warning to those on here who might actually get their hopes up about it.

Revolutions are funny things. Unless they are betrayed and crushed from within, revolutions tend to go well beyond the margins set for them by their (self-appointed, more often than not) leaderships. They get "out of hand". "Excesses" happen. Even in the most orderly and idealized revolutions in history, someone gets tarred and feathered (or whatever the equivalent is for their country). There's no avoiding it, so you can only accept it or work against the revolution -- in which case, if the revolution succeeds anyway, you'll be a target.

The coming revolution here will not be "left" versus "right", even if it starts that way. It will be have versus have-not -- it will be those who have given up their lives to work versus those who have given up work to live. It will not be Wall Street versus Main Street. It will be the back streets against Wall Street and Main Street.

Did you really think we forgot about what you've done to us? Did you think we forgot about how you got yourself an exemption from so many laws and regulations because you're a "small business", or how you helped shred social welfare programs so you could get a piece of that corporate welfare pie? Did you think we forgot about how you evicted us from your rental properties, or shut off our electricity and heat because we lost our jobs? Did you think we forgot about how when you didn't want to pay taxes, you used your connections to shift the taxes on to the things we consume?

Did you think we forgot about how when the surplus we created through our collective labor began to become smaller, we were punished with longer hours, lower pay, layoffs, cuts to our health care, or sick time, or resting time -- all while you maintained your standard of living? Did you think we forgot how your streets paved with gold were laid down by us? Did you think we forgot about us sewing those straps on to your boots, and then pulling them up for you?

Did you think we forgot how you suspected we were shoplifters or drug addicts because our clothes were tattered, and had your security (or security cameras) follow us through your store? Did you think we'd forget about how your screaming about "safe streets" turned ours into something resembling occupied Iraq? Or how, when your little brats went ballistic and shot up a suburban high school, it was our schools that became virtual prisons, starved of resources and then shut down (and then you had the nerve to blame us, the teachers and everyone but yourselves)?

Did you think we forgot? If so, you thought wrong. You may think we're stupid (you say it enough among yourselves), but we have long memories when it counts.

And decades of white flight, suburban sprawl and gated communities haven't protected you any more than the castles of feudal Europe protected the heads of the absolute monarchs. You still need us. We are still the ones you have to turn to when your toilet breaks, or your lawn needs to be cut, or your car needs repair. If something goes wrong in your life, we are the ones you call to fix it. We hate you for that. We'd rather tell you to go to hell, but since you control whether or not we get to eat, we have to smile and lie through our teeth at you.

And as much as you'd like to avoid us, you can't. We are everywhere, making and delivering the things you want in order to maintain your lifestyle at our expense. You still need us. We're the people who make your car, clothes and half-caff mocha latté.

But we don't need you. Stop believing your own propaganda. We don't need supervisors, managers, officials and owners telling us our job. We don't learn from your video "orientations" or "development seminars" or "motivational speakers". The first thing we do when we start working is ask our co-workers what the job is, and they tell us. If all of you disappeared tomorrow, we'd all still be able to do our jobs, produce the goods we have to produce, deliver them where they need to be. The difference is that we'd be able to stand up a little straighter because you wouldn't be on our backs any more.

Stop believing your own propaganda. We don't trust you enough to tell you the truth. It doesn't matter if you're our manager, our boss, the local cop, councilperson, Congressperson or president. We don't trust you and, more often than not, will tell you something just to get you to go away. As the saying goes, "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies".

You need us, but we don't need you. We already realize that. We have only to act on it. Should the revolution come -- tomorrow, 10 years from now, whenever -- you should expect that we will act on it ... with "excess". And you should expect to get the same mercy and goodwill you've shown us through the years. After all, as I said, we have long memories.

We can wait. We have patience. You won't know when it's coming, since it won't be started on the Internet, or through some blog or podcast or cable channel. It will start in your little establishment just after pay day, or at the local store in between shifts, or in your backyard while it's being landscaped, or in your house when the carpets are being cleaned, or at your kids' daycare center or school. And it will be a whisper -- a quiet conversation just out of your range.

It will change the world, and you won't even know it's happening ... until it happens to you.

[MSchreader]

324. A P.S....

To all you nice "middle class" elements who think revolution is impossible and that Americans are "too fat", "too lazy", "too distracted", etc., etc., ad nauseam, I suggest you do us all a favor and stay in your homes. Hide under your beds, and podcast and Twitter your little hearts out until you're in your happy place. And while you're at it, take your anti-worker classism and jam it up your arse.

[Imajika]

326. Your dreaming..

Your post and follow up sound like the angry rant of someone who seriously hates their lot in life and has drifted off to fantasy land.

If you think the average worker in America sits around all bitter just waiting to "rise up" against everyone from small business to the middle class, well, your seriously deluded.

Oh and by the way, no, a worker cant do just fine without supervisors, managers, etc. Life simply does not work that way.

There are some things you say I agree with, such as the fact that "excesses" happen. Once a real revolution occurs, they tend to spin off in directions no one would have imagined.

I would also add this. You seem to believe that whatever "revolution" occurs will be some sort of class struggle between a subsection of unhappy workers versus...well...everyone else. I suggest that we are just as, or perhaps more, likely to see a revolution that comes from the populist right. When society is truly fearful about the future, it tends to become more intolerant and search for scapegoats. I see no evidence Americans feel the class struggle in the classic sense, so my hunch is a revolution may well have as its targets not the rich, but instead immigrants, gay/lesbian/transgendered, the very poor whom scrape by on government assistance, etc.

The majority of Americans believe in the "American dream". Rather than rejecting it, they may well be more likely to lash out at anyone they perceive as challenging it.

[MSchreader]

327. Spoken like a nice "middle class" radical

You don't have any idea what's happening, and it's probably best you don't. Just stay home.

[Imajika]

329. Newsflash...

Without the middle class on your side, you've got nothing. No revolution, no change, no nothing.

So go ahead, keep criticizing and insulting the middle class, the small business owner, etc. Go for it, just know that without those people you will get nowhere. It is actually more likely that the middle class, business class, etc scapegoat those most in need, minority groups, non-conformists, perhaps YOU, etc.

[MSchreader]

330. Thank you for making my point

Your blatant "middle class" arrogance is actually appreciated. Usually, people like you try to sugar coat it. Guess that's wasted on me, so you bring out the hammer.

But what do you have to offer? Seriously. Numbers? Education? Money? Connections? Power? What do you nice "middle class" exploiters have to offer to those you exploit, except a nice "under new management" sign?

Is it numbers? The working class is the majority; two out of three people in the U.S. is part of the working class, so we only need half of us in motion to match your total mobilization (and remember, we're the ones forced to serve in the military).

Is it education? I know plenty of workers with college degrees, and a number of them who are demonstrably smarter than the smarmiest "middle class" academic.

Is it money? We're looking to change the world, not bribe it. Besides, we create all of your wealth. If we decide to stop doing that for a while, you're the ones in a world of shit.

Is it connections? We don't want your connections; you can keep your syphilitic chain.

Is it power? Your power is hi-tech barbarism and humanity does better without it. And without us running your machines, the weight behind that power is useful only for holding down paper in a stiff wind.

Sorry, we still don't need you. Anything you know we can learn, and anything we know you'll never learn.

[704wipes]

336. Anything you know we can learn, and anything we know you'll never learn

wow

[MilesColtrane]

346. You might want to stop displaying your intellectual prowess.

Whoever our version of "Brother Number 1" turns out to be may not like intellectuals.

[MSchreader]

367. I'll hide out in the Proletarian Zones

Until we're all ready to roll.

[MilesColtrane]

368. You didn't get the "Brother Number One" reference, did you?

This was Brother Number One:

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

[MSchreader]

373. Sadly, no, not at the time

Far too tired when I read the thread at the time. You said "Brother Number One", and I read "Big Brother".

But, yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if one of these "middle class" radicals, should they get the opportunity to seize power, would go the route of a Pol Pot or Idi Amin. Of course, as happened in those instances, the other "middle class" elements would have a chance to make a run for the border while workers like me are getting slaughtered.

[MSchreader]

333. As for the "American dream"

I'll put it simply: Your "dream" is our nightmare. We'll create our own "dream" -- we'll put our own meaning behind "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".

[ipaint]

332. That's it exactly.

That describes every job I've ever had and the unspoken understanding between my co-workers.

Thank you. I've never heard it put into words.

[MSchreader]

334. You're welcome

It's something that doesn't always translate well into words, because it's that unspoken language we as working people learn through bitter experience. It actually took me a while to get it where I wanted it to be, and I've done a lot of writing in my life. I appreciate your willingness to acknowledge openly what we all share privately.

[Odin2005]

369. +1

[MSchreader]

374. Thank you

Appreciate the thumbs up.

But I do find it interesting that Thom Hartmann, who sparked renewed interest in this thread through his radio program, didn't have the stones to mention the responses. I'm not surprised, though, since Hartmann is a spokesman for "middle class" elements and allows no political room for working people (unless they are slavishly following the "middle class").

[Douglas Carpenter]

325. it is far, far, far more likely that there will be a right-wing/neofascist revolution

than any kind of left-wing democratic/socialist revolution.

There is simply no class-conscious - socialist or even social-democratic awareness among the American working class and there has not been for several decades - and only to a limited extent way back then. The very concept that the workers by right should own and control the economy simply does not exist in American working class consciousness outside of the most limited circles. The American working class feels in fact, utterly and completely alienated from the intellectual or pseudo-intellectual left (who large sections of the working class consider elitist) which are the only ones pushing the concept of class struggle in America for at least the last half of a century.

Class based antagonism has been redirected against everyone and anyone except the the system and the upper classes. We live in an "everyone wants to be a millionaire" society.

If anger pours on to the streets expect it to be directed not against the capitalist class or system. Expect it to be directed against immigrants, minorities, Arabs and Muslims, "deviants and perverts" and their apologist - the liberals and pointed headed intellectuals.

Right-wing reactionary forces are simply far more organized, have far, far more media and have much a clearer message that rings however falsely as a populist message of the common people.

[Imajika]

328. You are 100% correct...

I believe this as well.

You put it much better than I previously have.

I said a few posts up something that I will repeat. However deluded they may be, people here in the US generally believe in the "American dream", rather than rejecting it, they may well be more likely to lash out at anyone they perceive as challenging it.

[Douglas Carpenter]

331. I most certainly wish I was wrong

I was predicting on election night in 1980 - that the election of Ronald Reagan was the final death throws of American capitalism. In fact I spent much of my youth preaching socialism and predicting revolution. But somewhere along the way, reality reared its ugly head and I had to accept it whether I liked it or not.

Reactionary forces in America do to a large degree have emotional dominance - however delusional - over the - flag, patriotism, God and religion, traditional morality, popular working class imagery and machismo. These are all very powerful emotional bonds and symbols. They are especially powerful and ring especially strong among working class Americans. Conversely the left, however unfairly has found itself with an image that is largely seen as opposition and antagonistic to these powerful emotional bonds and symbols which most working class American cherish along with their dreams of personal economic success as opposed to collective economic upheaval.

[Douglas Carpenter]

338. I just recalled a quote by Eugene O'Neill:

"Whenever I see an American with a glow in their eyes talking about workers and peasants uniting - something deep inside my heart tells me to watch out - There's new brand of Irish Catholicism on the rise." - Eugene O'Neill

[Douglas Carpenter]

339. /

[Douglas Carpenter]

344. /

[Name removed]

351. Deleted message

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[Douglas Carpenter]

354. I think living would be more fun

I'm sure you can wait to die even though you say you can't. You'll have plenty of time to be dead and only a limited amount of time to be alive.

Of course if you really want to die, I suppose you can. But it is still not going to bring a socialist revolution when the vast overwhelming majority of the working class are against it or not interested.

[Name removed]

358. Deleted message

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[Douglas Carpenter]

360. please tell me you are joking!!!

you are not seriously advocating an immanent armed uprising are you?

[Name removed]

361. Deleted message

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[Forkboy]

337. I'm marking your words, but I don't think so.

This country is WAAAAAAAY too comfortable for that to happen. And yes, we're comfortable even with our shitty healthcare, the wars, no jobs etc. What, do you think this country actually gives a shit? Sucker.

[Gold Metal Flake]

341. Hartmann is talking about this post now.

He likes you.

[bridgit]

347. Heard that today driving round the city - cool beans!

:kick:

[guerrilla.poet]

342. RE: Revolution is Coming

While I agree revolution is coming, and I agree it will be bloody. I think that anyone who believes the military will NOT fire on the citizens it is sworn to serve is living in a fantasy land. Ever hear of Kent State, or Ludlow, Colorado, or many others during labour strikes, protests, riots, and other forms of civil obedience that have been bloodied in the name of the capitalistic state? The military will follow orders. Then the people will fire back.

[Caliman73]

372. But guns are evil.

That is what is said on this forum all the time. What will the people fire back with since they would never own such barbaric "death machines"? Gun control was not a big issue in California, until the Black Panthers used them as a means to send a message that they would defend their community. Now they are vilified and we have legislation seeking to have certain types of firearms banned, ammunition sales limited, and everything registered. There was a poster on the forum who said proudly, "Liberals are for gun control, get used to it". So people with that attitude will all of a sudden do a 180 and pick up arms?

[johnlucas]

343. The Revolution will not come until the illusion of "The Middle Class" disappears

Revolutions are fought by those with nothing left to lose. They are NEVER organized & orderly but violent, destructive, & earth-scorching.
Those who are comfortable make the worst fighters & a lot of people still have some degree of comfort.

There have been so many idealized notions of what happened to those slave-trading English colonies talking about Liberty who decided to go against the English Crown. Most people just went along with the flow jumping on the bandwagon of whoever made their lives easier. People in essence don't really change all that much. There's always some "leader" who rouses a bunch of people up to fight for an ostensibly noble cause...only in reality the noble cause is really about that leader's self-serving interests.

We have been taught American Mythology so long people fail to realize that all that moaning about people caring about "American Idol", "videogames", "microwaves", & "air conditioning" ain't no different than past grousing about "hanging out in the pubs", "playing cards", & "teatime".

Revolutions don't automatically mean that things get better afterwards. In a wartime atmosphere, warlords rise up in the natural hierarchy & take over. It's the very nature of chaotic revolutions that cause this. The people are just reacting & exercising their inborn drive to be wild & reckless. It might start out noble but after awhile those who fight are just doing it for the joy of the fight, the lust for revenge, & the egomania from power.

If many on this board are unsettled by the inner city & the ghetto (the 'hood), then they ain't got the HEART to deal with the Revolution. The Revolution is gonna start THERE. The Revolution will be started by the ones with a brown face. And those from the 'hood are fighting for a whole set of different motivations then what many of you fight for.
They couldn't give a damn about some "Founding Fathers". It's straight about oppression & fighting that power by any means necessary.
Dow Jones means "jackshoot" & politics is a rich man's game. It's about pure unadulterated street justice & those from "the other side of the tracks" will have a rude awakening no matter what your tax bracket.

If you can't understand why gangs run those streets, then you REALLY can't understand Revolution. You haven't HAD it bad enough yet.
You still identify yourself under the labels of "taxpayer", "homeowner", "citizen". You buy into the mythology of a Middle Class.

There is only HAVE and HAVE-NOT.
If you work for your money, you are a HAVE-NOT.
If your money works for you, you are a HAVE.

Anytime a job loss or medical emergency wrecks your total financial situation & put cracks into that mythological "American Dream" with its fabled Puritan ethics about hard work bringing success, you get a chance to recognize the reality of the situation.

Those who identify under "Middle Class" & aspire to label themselves as such forget that it's about THE POOR. You are POOR too only with a few more luxuries than others. It's the twilight pacification the Rich powermongers put in place in divide the Poor. Give up a little access to wealth to create a House Negro/Field Negro phenomenon. That House Negro will always fight for the cause of Master.

Besides, as many people on this thread pointed out, those pulling the puppet strings know that one day the people will rise up against them. In fact, this was the driving reason for the Industrial Revolution & the vast improvement in technology we have seen over the past 200 years.
You ain't taking down the government with a .45. And a private arsenal ain't enough either. The Waco situation from '93 taught you that.

That's what those militia groups will find out soon enough if they ever get started.
They can fight you from the air. They can fight you from space!
AND unless you have that top-notch military conditioning, any upriser will be no more than those overseas fighting the U.S. with that bootleg guerrilla warfare.

The Enforcer Class of any society is all that stands between most of The People of a Nation & those few people who Rule over it. It has always been this way. Yes, they (most of them) will turn on The People if given the word. All the soldier worship makes it easy.
It's all psychological really. How does a few people control many? The military could take over & rule the land at will if they wanted to (Might Makes Right) but they concede to the whims of the ones giving the orders. Why is that?

And if the Middle Class disappeared, would the massive numbers of the newly reunited poor be enough to withstand the advanced weaponry of the Military, society's Enforcer Class? Would the people in that Military align with their familial ties fighting with the people or their militaristic ties fighting for the government?

Interesting questions to think about but none of it even begins until the illusion of "Middle Class" is recognized for the farce that it is.
None of it begins until people simply have nothing left to lose.
John Lucas

[Name removed]

350. Deleted message

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[laughingliberal]

352. Pretty well covered all the bases with this one. Very astute. nt

[Name removed]

353. Deleted message

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[laughingliberal]

356. Welcome to DU. I'm impressed

:toast:




I'm a burnt out RN who was worked half to death after profit became the only priority in health care and left poor when I couldn't do it anymore. Just FYI.

[Name removed]

359. Deleted message

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[laughingliberal]

362. Ah, you are more than welcome

Fellow moron here.

Here's a link to a post I made a while back that pretty much lays it out. Made in response to some very hateful posts by those who don't think their tax dollars ought to go to helping homeowners avoid foreclosure.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7153679&mesg_id=7155079

[Blue-Jay]

349. Will the revolution be televised?

[bridgit]

366. It is being televised, so you should be able to Tivo it too

[nightgaunt]

376. A slow revolution against us after failing in 1934

The ultra rich rethought how they would do it and it has been happening since 1980. Where the middle class was attacked and the unions as well. Now the unions are at their lowest and the middle class is all but non-existent. Where the gov't has been weakened to such a point that it takes corporate contractors to keep our military and gov't in general moving. The next step is to have it collapse and they are the only ones standing to fully convert our country into a free for all corporate theocratic state. When the economy finishes its downward spiral, at any time it can be triggered, they will swoop in to give us what passes for a choice in these days. Joint their hive or live in a desolate starving land of cannibals. Most will take the former without batting an eye. The country will mostly look like what they are used to now, from electricity to TV to cars to a job but no Bill of Rights or any rights for the lobe-slaves and worker-slaves. Only the ones in corporate governance, church and military will have any rights. You and I will be owned. Though to build incentive they might let a kind of pseudo-middle class come into existence with the higher you go the better clothes you where, type of house, type of car and type of neighborhood you will live in.

Though the way it is looking now we could get a world of slums surrounded by heavy fencing Red Zones and the few armored Green Zones well protected from us who aren't working for them.

Barak Obama is just the other face of the crypto fascists who are wearing down the republic while emptying its coffers to feed the empire building in waiting for the final turnover of our gov't into ruin. Then the sinister Bird of Holy War will rise from its ashes.