I like this recipe for revolution... We play the billionaires' game against them and screw them over with boycotts, strikes, mass protests and keep spinning the narrative through the indie journos. But we do gotta organize ourselves much better than we've ever done before. Voting for Jill Stein in the US might just be the key to uniting diverse factions.
1) it's entirely wrong to say that violence doesn't have a role to play in the face of oppression. It clearly does. Without the threat of violence from NOI the SCLC was a neutered puppy staging sit-ins and hoping for change. There must be a credible threat to the power structure or the power structure will not change. If the peasants hadn't built and deployed the gallows, Marie Antoinette would have just kept hurling brioche from her parapet window.
2) a well organised band of peasant farmers defeated, first the French and, later, the US armed forces in Vietnam. The United States armed forces have proven themselves over and over again to be impotent against enemies employing asymmetrical (guerrilla) tactics. Latter day examples include both Iraq and Afghanistan.
That said, I do not by any means argue that violence should be the first option employed. I'm saying that any action taken without the express and legitimate threat of violence is pointless theatre. Should we engage (or perhaps more accurately, disengage) economically through BDS? Absolutely. Should we look for ways to avoid paying tax, putting money in government/corporate hands? Absolutely. Starving the beast is a an excellent tactic. But it's a foolish person who thinks that alone will ever be enough to destroy the empire.
There is no political solution. And thinking that's available to you is to be wilfully blind as to the realities of the American duopoly politics. Jill Stein is a chimera. Even if a third party DID win the white house, you still have an entirely corrupt duopoly in control at the behest of a well-entrenched oligarch class.
There is no entirely non-violent solution. Power cedes nothing without a fight. The American Labour movement was born of blood. The civil rights movement was born of blood. There is absolutely zero chance that the Empire will let go of its power without a fucking bloody fight.
Promoting any other understanding of history is ingenuous to the degree of insanity.
I am not enthusiastic about either of the candidates or their potential alternates. Not to mention the raft of 'unelected officials' that inevitablely seem to follow in their train…
Perhaps it's high time that we revisit these first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence:
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the natural law and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.--That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
Revolution will only come about when the Army turns on the government, or at least does nothing while the people overthrow it. Just like it did, or didn't do, in England, France, and Russia.
With every new imperial war, with every mandatory DEI training in the military, with each subsequent failure to help a veteran wounded in body or mind, that day just comes closer, and no one will see it coming before it gets here.
Ballots, brains and BDS, and strikes and Jill Stein...could be a recipe for success. Thanks for posting.
I like this recipe for revolution... We play the billionaires' game against them and screw them over with boycotts, strikes, mass protests and keep spinning the narrative through the indie journos. But we do gotta organize ourselves much better than we've ever done before. Voting for Jill Stein in the US might just be the key to uniting diverse factions.
Couple of thoughts.
1) it's entirely wrong to say that violence doesn't have a role to play in the face of oppression. It clearly does. Without the threat of violence from NOI the SCLC was a neutered puppy staging sit-ins and hoping for change. There must be a credible threat to the power structure or the power structure will not change. If the peasants hadn't built and deployed the gallows, Marie Antoinette would have just kept hurling brioche from her parapet window.
2) a well organised band of peasant farmers defeated, first the French and, later, the US armed forces in Vietnam. The United States armed forces have proven themselves over and over again to be impotent against enemies employing asymmetrical (guerrilla) tactics. Latter day examples include both Iraq and Afghanistan.
That said, I do not by any means argue that violence should be the first option employed. I'm saying that any action taken without the express and legitimate threat of violence is pointless theatre. Should we engage (or perhaps more accurately, disengage) economically through BDS? Absolutely. Should we look for ways to avoid paying tax, putting money in government/corporate hands? Absolutely. Starving the beast is a an excellent tactic. But it's a foolish person who thinks that alone will ever be enough to destroy the empire.
There is no political solution. And thinking that's available to you is to be wilfully blind as to the realities of the American duopoly politics. Jill Stein is a chimera. Even if a third party DID win the white house, you still have an entirely corrupt duopoly in control at the behest of a well-entrenched oligarch class.
There is no entirely non-violent solution. Power cedes nothing without a fight. The American Labour movement was born of blood. The civil rights movement was born of blood. There is absolutely zero chance that the Empire will let go of its power without a fucking bloody fight.
Promoting any other understanding of history is ingenuous to the degree of insanity.
I am not enthusiastic about either of the candidates or their potential alternates. Not to mention the raft of 'unelected officials' that inevitablely seem to follow in their train…
Perhaps it's high time that we revisit these first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence:
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the natural law and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.--That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
youtu.be/buvSIrFi0Hw
A great summary. I'll vote Green in the UK for the same reasons (and offered to stand as a Green MP).
Yes! Global strike is the way to go...
Revolution will only come about when the Army turns on the government, or at least does nothing while the people overthrow it. Just like it did, or didn't do, in England, France, and Russia.
With every new imperial war, with every mandatory DEI training in the military, with each subsequent failure to help a veteran wounded in body or mind, that day just comes closer, and no one will see it coming before it gets here.