One third of the Colonial population supported secession from Great Britain in 1776. One third.
Ponder that for a few minutes. Ponder how a minority -- perhaps 33% of the population -- not only won their freedom in a war of secession where they were pitted against the world's greatest superpower of the day, but also brought the 66% of their peers who did not agree with secession from Great Britain along with them for the ride.
Never say that a minority of Americans can have no power to change the course of human events. Especially not on July 4.
But of course, it is much easier and simpler to believe we are powerless and that resistance is futile (as the Borg would put it). It excuses us in our complacency, in our fear, it excuses us from standing up for principles and excuses us from acting upon what we think. So we believe. We believe that we are the best, that we are number one, that there is no reason to change. Or we believe that change is impossible, that change simply cannot be done, that we are powerless and that resistance is futile. Irregardless, we believe. And having believed, we act as if it were true.
If our forefathers had thought the same way in 1776, our national anthem would be "God Save The Queen". So it goes. So it goes. But that, of course, was the problem in 1776. Britain did not buy us. Today... ah yes. We are bought, indeed. And I include myself in that number.
-- Badtux the Bought Penguin
Never misunderestimate the power of an agitated minority that has guns and the willingness to use them. Only in the present circumstances, that minority would not be the people pressing for peace.
ReplyDeleteWhen Obama becomes president, if (and that's a big "IF") he makes any attempt to change the course of events, it will be horribly fascinating to see where the angry resistance will aim its arms. I'm thinking that politically motivated mass shootings will be the latest in the line of devolution from Post Office to workplace to classroom. The nutters have convinced themselves that anyone who opposes torture and genocide is a terrrrrrist, and there will always be some unhinged amongst them who decide they'll be heroes if they kill some dirty goddamn hippe terrorists.
u know it is self inflicted,
ReplyDeleteface it most folk
aint well read like us jones
they think its a demcracy - true
when its a republic
Bukko, Timothy McVeigh thought as you did. But what happens is that 95% of Americans do not like violence, abhor violence, will demand of their representatives that they do something about violence, and the police state machinery will then move into place to squash violence -- and, incidentally, further entrench the police state. It is the same dynamic that Saddam Hussein used to cling to power. "He's a nasty dictator," people in Iraq would say, "but he keeps the streets safe." So, though we now know that the majority of Iraqis were well armed and perfectly capable of overthrowing his government, they did not do so -- because he kept the streets safe. And Americans are no different there.
ReplyDeleteViolence is a dead end when it comes to revolutionary change internal to a nation-state (as vs. a war of secession against an external government by the organized governments of a set of provinces) unless the government in question has virtually no support like the Shah's government in 1979, or Czar Nicholas's government in 1918, or Lon Nol's government in 1975. But the current American government governs with the consent of a significant majority of the population and as long as that is true, any violence will be squashed in much the same manner as happened in the late 1960s/early 1970's.
But the fall of the Soviet Union shows that violence is not necessary in order to end a government...
- Badtux the History Penguin
Oh, we could do so much,
ReplyDeleteby not doing anything at all.
Oh, Badtux, the Revolution happened before people had malls Where they could go shopping instead of noticing the condition of their lives! They can't be bothered now with a national existential crisis...there are SALES to attend and credit cards to run up. Yeah, yeah, I am just in a pissy mood and want to kick a few rabid consumer sorts, pay me no mind.
ReplyDeleteremember that it was a general strike strategy that brought down poland, east germany, czechoslovia, romania and the other warsaw pact sattelites, along with soviets not being able to fund their goon squads.
ReplyDeletea large, worldwide depression brought about by an oil shortage would probalby isolate and weaken things like globalization and even federal unions as society contracted into the smaller more easily understood and functional units.
not with a bang
but a whimper.
Tux, you have a more charitable view of the American public than I do. I tend to think in cynical, apocalyptic terms. Perhaps it's because I read too much Harlan Ellison type science fiction during my formative years. Maybe your more forgiving mindset is because you live in an area where people are by and large progressive and decent. (Although I'd start feeling creeped-out whenever I drove south across the San Mat County line...)
ReplyDeleteWhile 95% of the American people might want peace, how many want it on THEIR terms? Terms like "no abortion can be allowed, because that's baby-killing, and if there's even a spot of baby-killing going on, there can BE no peace"?
Not that all of these people would pick up a gun, but what percentage would silently support those who do? And there are so many splintered sub-groups with their own hatreds against Mexicans, gays, blacks, dirty goddamn peace-protester hippies...
Gun violence can be an effective tool of suppression against anti-authority demonstrations. I used to go to protests in front of S.F. City Hall. It was part of the liberal ritual! But I'd think twice if there were times when snipers with scopes were picking off protesters from surrounding buildings.
I don't know how accurate an indication of the mood of America can be found in blog comments. They are a representation of each commenter's id, what that person feels deeply, which they can't say in public, but are free to spout from the cloak of anonymity. There seems to be lots of support for violence against left-wing voices.
There are also regional variations in America. You live in a progressive area; you interact daily with people who are mostly civilised and who reinforce each other's decent behaviour. What about the retrograde areas of the South, and the isolationist Midwest, where the hate feeds upon itself with every nigger joke that gets open laughter at the bar?
I agree that an "anti-violence" rationale could be used by the government to clamp down on society. But I believe that the THREAT of violence is a "kinder, gentler" way of silencing dissent before going to the effort of an expensive, labour-intensive police crackdown. You're probably aware of how right-wing hate radio has been increasingly and explicitly calling for killing people on the Left. Yet this gets no censure in the corporate media. If someone on Air America Radio had been saying that rightists should be shot, do you think it would caused a bigger stir?
I agree with you that non-violence is the way to bring down governments. If it could crumble the Soviet Empire, after all... But I also agree with MB that it's going to take a systemic economic collapse to shake sheeple from their stupor. Many people can still sleepwalk through life in the U.S. without using their wits or paying attention to what's going on (although their numbers are getting fewer as the situation gets worse.) When things get bad enough that they have to WAKE UP! there's no telling what direction they'll take, and the lurches along the way are likely to be not-pretty.
I hope you're right, and I'm wrong. I think both of us will live long enough to find out. Unless some crazed reich-wing gun nut pops one of us first.
Or, let me amend that to "you" first. We don't have those armed sorts here. My only worry is that I'm going to get bashed on the tram because I'm wearing the wrong footy team's colours, or that some Aussie drunk is going to vomit on me as I ride home Saturday night.
My understanding was that the American Revolution was pretty much a land grab by the economic elites. Most of the populace thought more about their essential Britishness than the need for liberty of property. Only with the realpolitik of France did we alter our destiny from that of Canada or Australia.
ReplyDeleteMold
That third of the Colonial population (loyal to the King) displaced to Canada, the Indies or back to Britain after the war ended. The third that didn't do anything, continued to not do anything - remember that was half the remaining population - I am just saying.
ReplyDelete