What Will Start the Revolution?

Revolutionaries have to be realistic. Revolution is messy. We’ll have to hit the ground running and make things up as we go along.

What Will Start the Revolution?

by C.A. Matthews

These questions keep popping up recently: When will the Revolution begin? What will start the Revolution? What will happen if Revolution comes (or not)?

The “why” we need to have a Revolution is simple enough: Trump is inaugurated again, and it’s no-hold-barred fascism in seconds flat.

Peaceful people are being kidnapped off the street without a trial or due process and flown to a privately-run prison in El Salvador, to be tortured under the auspices of a fellow fascist leader. Permanent residents who speak out against the US supporting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people are being whisked off the street and disappeared somewhere across the country in privately-run ICE prisons. Folks with decent-paying jobs in cities like Seattle are living in their cars because they can’t afford rents.

Bernie Sanders is herding Dems back into their useless duopoly faction in order to maintain the illusion that there is actually an “opposition party” in Congress. Worse yet, Bernie, who once boasted how much he was against the Iraq War, has voted to continue sending arms to Israel. He won’t even call it a “genocide” in Gaza. Really, Bernie has sunk so low to please the oligarchy that he’s forgotten all about the ordinary working class people.

It really does sound like the end times, doesn’t it?

What then can we the ordinary people do to start a desperately needed Revolution? I’d like to see it begin sooner rather than later because I want to be remembered (if there is anyone left to remember) as one who helped birth it into existence. Plus, I don’t want to be known as a useless “Boomer” who cared nothing about the fate of younger people, the planet, and their future. I do care. The Revolution shouldn’t be delayed another day in my opinion.

What will start the Revolution then? A horrific major event or the revealing of a long-held secret by the powers-that-be can jolt a sleeping populace into rising up and taking action. That “secret” may not even be all-that-secret, either, but it could have been propagandized or white-washed in the mainstream media so much that great numbers have forgotten all about it or written it off as so much fiction.

As soon as good percentage of the public—let’s say about ten percent—realize the truth of the matter, something goes off in their brains like a bomb exploding. They can no longer hold back the urge to fight back. They are out of their homes and into streets with signs, pitchforks, and torches—or the modern equivalent, the shotgun and Molotov cocktails.

Watch the following video for one idea that could start the Revolution: American Healthcare is a Nightmare-- Second Thought

You’re thinking, “Nothing new here for most working class Americans. We know how awful the for-profit health care situation is in the US is.” But I say, “What about those who until recently had decent jobs with decent health insurance benefits? Did they realize just how bad it is until it affected them personally?”

Formerly “middle class Americans” might not have suffered as much as others, but now many are being thrown into the pit with the lowly uninsured. Many are finding themselves homeless or about to become homeless. The shock to their system when they find out that they’re not “special,” that our fascist leaders really don’t care about them having access to health care or not, could be all it takes to get them on the front lines with the rest of us who have been fighting for Medicare For All for years now.

If enough Americans are convinced that their government has been willing to sacrifice their lives (and their children’s) on the altar of ever-increasing profits, then that could be the spark needed to get the Revolution started. After all, when the formerly well-to-do learn that our ruling oligarchs are perfectly fine with allowing 68,000 – 70,000 Americans to die needlessly every year without health care in order to make health insurance CEOs even richer, then they’re liable to snap and do a Luigi on the rest of the disgusting vultures who profit from our deaths. (And more power to them.)

A related issue that is just beginning to pry open many willfully closed eyes is Social Security. Middle class Americans have relied on Social Security to survive their later years every bit as much as working class Americans. And now that Trump has made it open season on closing down agencies and departments, and Social Security’s future isn’t looking too rosy, they’re starting to sweat.

But is the dawning realization of how little regard our fascist leadership has toward ordinary Americans enough to trigger a full-fledged Revolution? Do we have numbers enough to bring down our corrupt capitalist system that profits from our shortened lives? Would a health care or Social Security crisis inspire enough of us to tear the system down and try something new? We won’t know until it happens.

Health care and Social Security are topics that reach a large number of Americans. If revolutionaries can keep the dialogue flowing and emphasize how the 1% don’t give a flying f*** about us, then we could see a sudden explosion of energy directed toward our oppressors. Organizers must be ready to channel this energy toward building a universal health care system, re-establishing a better Social Security set-up, and marching those who have made so much money from our early deaths into the private prisons they’ve had built to contain us.

If social issues don’t seem strong enough to light the spark of revolution to you, how about the “biggest secret of all time”? I’m talking about the US funding and arming Israel’s genocide for almost a year and half. The genocide in Gaza has become a red line not to be crossed for many Americans who have seen one too many videos of mutilated children and babies.

Many Americans, in utter contempt and disgust, no longer sing the national anthem, say the Pledge of Allegiance, or celebrate the Fourth of July. Why would we? We’re not in kindergarten. We don’t believe that “freedom and democracy” line anymore. Photo after photo of dead Palestinian babies can do that to you.

But is realizing just how blood-thirsty for profits our military-industrial-Congressional complex is enough for a good number of us to rise up and rebel against the sadistic US government? I hate to say this, but I think not.

Let’s been realists here: It’s been almost 18 months of daily mass murders of babies and school kids in Gaza, innocents suffering amputations without anesthesia or antibiotics. We’ve read the independent journalists’ stories—and now the United Nations’ report—on how Palestinian prisoners were raped to death by the IDF. We hear of how Israel has cut off all power, clean water. and food to Gaza. Other than the mainstream media propagandists ignoring the horrors happening currently in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, nothing much has changed in the last year and a half.

Sure, some Americans are in the streets marching and chanting to shut down the genocide. (I’m one of them and perhaps you are as well.) But consider this: How many Americans have actually gone on strike and/or shut down the factories that are making the US bombs given to the Israelis that have caused all the death and dismemberment in Gaza? Are Americans refusing to pay their taxes that fund all the bombs and jets we’ve given to Israel knowing how they’ll use them against the Palestinian people?

Are Americans calling their Congress members night and day until they get these fascists-wannabes to stop giving the president (whether it’s Biden or Trump) the go ahead to arm Israel? Have Americans marched in disgust into Congress and the White House and set things on fire (literally and/or figuratively) until all support for this genocide is shut down?

The truth is staring us in the face: Americans just don’t care about the suffering and injustices inflicted upon foreigners, particularly non-white peoples such as Palestinians. Many Americans have even fallen for the lies of “racial superiority” the Israelis have presented about themselves. In their opinion then why would anyone care much about the deaths of “inferiors” like the Gazans, including their children, when there are lucrative land and oil/natural gas deals to be made?

As long as Americans can pay their rent (can you?) and have some sort of health insurance coverage (not great, but adequate) and aren’t over their heads in debt from school loans or unpaid medical bills, they’ll just keep putting these unpleasant events in Gaza out of their minds. They won’t get angry enough to start a Revolution over them.

“Nothing personal, Palestinians, but we’ve got our own problems to deal with,” the vast majority of well-off Americans will say. “No, we aren’t dealing with bombs falling on our neighborhoods nightly, but it’s just as bad—someone has carved a swastika on the door of my brand new Tesla!”

This is why I think the current unconstitutional removals of immigrants and green card holders without due process isn’t going to spark the Revolution, either. Americans are just too self-centered to put others’ needs before their own. They’ll keep their heads down and pray that no one sends ICE after them or their loved ones someday.

This lack of compassion is particularly true of Americans who claim to have a faith in God or religion. Their “god” isn’t big enough to take care of everyone in the world, they believe. They rather their “god” stay out of what they think of as purely “political affairs” and stay in church where he can be brought out once a week, on Sundays usually, and then put back into his box where he belongs. So, no, I don’t see many American religious leaders coming to aid the Revolution. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an exception.

Revolutionaries have to be realistic. Revolution is messy. We’ll have to hit the ground running and make things up as we go along. Better-off folks with OCD won’t like it. They’ll watch the CEOs’ mansions burning from a distance at the most. They won’t even think to bring the marshmallows.

We need to face facts: It’s going to be us who live at the bottom of society driving the Revolution. We’re the ones without adequate health care, housing, and decent jobs, after all. What have we got to lose that we haven’t lost already, will lose soon, or never had in the first place? But social issues such as the lack of universal health care or Social Security will resonate with enough Americans to get things rolling. Just don’t be too disappointed if it seems like those who complain the loudest don’t join in the cause.

After all, Americans have always been pretty awful at “revolution” when you study it closely. As Howard Zinn points out in A People’s History of the United States, it was the poor, landless whites who were sent to take on the professional British army in 1776. The poor were pressured into fighting by the wealthy colonists who didn’t like paying the king’s taxes on their extensive land holdings and slaves. The rich could buy their way out of serving in the Continental Army and risking their lives, too.

The wealthy colonists felt that the taxes were not “fair,” although they had the money to pay them. The poor whites often ended up in debtors’ prison because they couldn’t afford to pay anything. The wealthy colonists on the whole grew wealthier by the time the “American revolution” ended, too. The poor whites and enslaved persons who survived their ordeal found the only real change was that their masters had stopped calling themselves “British” and now called themselves “American” instead. The more things change…

What make you think things will be all that different a second time around if Americans don’t get rid of the corrupt economic system that put us in this mess in the first place?

Switching “masters” isn’t a Revolution. This time has come for We the Workers to get it right.

Articles for Revolutionaries & Other Interesting Links

‘No Other Land’ Co-Director Hamdan Ballal Beaten and Attacked, Says Yuval Abraham: ‘No Sign of Him Since’ https://variety.com/2025/film/news/no-other-land-hamdan-ballal-attacked-missing-yuval-abraham-1236346751/

Pete Hegseth Sent Secret War Plans to Journalist by Accident https://www.newsweek.com/trump-secret-houthi-war-plans-goldberg-hegseth-2049762

The Last Chapter of the Genocide https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-last-chapter-of-the-genocide

You Cannot Separate Yourself From What's Happening In Gaza https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/you-cannot-separate-yourself-from

In Movies We Understand That The Genocidal Child Murderers Who Blow Up Hospitals Are The Villains https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/in-movies-we-understand-that-the

America’s Constitutional Crisis (w/ Katherine Franke) | The Chris Hedges Report https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/americas-constitutional-crisis-w

Trump Is Just Bush In A Red Hat https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/trump-is-just-bush-in-a-red-hat

Israel resumes its war on Gaza, killing over 400 people in one night https://mondoweiss.net/2025/03/israel-resumes-its-war-on-gaza-killing-over-350-people-in-one-night/

Israel Lied About Murdered Children To Justify Murdering Children https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-lied-about-murdered-children

This Is Trump's Genocide Now https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/this-is-trumps-genocide-now

Norman Solomon: Why ‘Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace’ Advocates Cling to Genocide Denial https://scheerpost.com/2025/03/19/norman-solomon-why-pro-israel-pro-peace-advocates-cling-to-genocide-denial/

Family Detention: What You Need to Know About Its Past, Present, and Future https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/family-detention-what-you-need-to

ABA concerned about U.S. government's cutoff of legal services for unaccompanied children https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2025/03/aba-concerned-about-cutoff-of-legal-services-for-children/

Trump Shuts Down 3 Watchdog Agencies Overseeing Immigration Crackdown https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/us/politics/trump-civil-rights-homeland-security-deportations.html

Trump Declares War on Immigration Attorneys https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/trump-declares-war-on-immigration

Canada Is Poised to Become a Partner in the US Assault on Immigrants https://truthout.org/articles/canada-is-poised-to-become-a-partner-in-the-us-assault-on-immigrants/

Georgetown Postdoc the Latest to Be Detained by ICE as Crackdown on Campus Speech Widens https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/georgetown-postdoc-the-latest-to

Milwaukee mother deported to Laos, a country she has never been to, where she doesn’t know anyone and doesn’t speak the language https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/milwaukee-laos-ma-yang-deported-ice-b2717388.html

Trump Demands Impeachment of Judge Who Ruled to Block His Deportation Orders https://scheerpost.com/2025/03/19/trump-demands-impeachment-of-judge-who-ruled-to-block-his-deportation-orders/

Arlington Cemetery Erases Black and Female Military History https://www.washingtoninformer.com/arlington-national-cemetery-erases-black-hispanic-female/

Maersk denies shipping arms to Israel during Gaza conflict https://www.reuters.com/business/maersk-agm-vote-israel-arms-transport-amid-gaza-war-2025-03-18/

Palestinians Didn't Choose The Religion Of Their Oppressors https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/palestinians-didnt-choose-the-religion

The Prophecies of Malcolm X: Zionism a New Kind of Colonialism https://husseini.substack.com/p/the-prophecies-of-malcolm-x-today

Stepan Bandera's Sinister MI6 Alliance Exposed https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/stepan-banderas-sinister-mi6-alliance

A “biohybrid” robotic hand built using real human muscle cells https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/03/a-biohybrid-robotic-hand-built-using-real-human-muscle-cells/

$8.4 Billion: Enormous Cache of Rare Earth Elements Discovered in America https://scitechdaily.com/8-4-billion-enormous-cache-of-rare-earth-elements-discovered-in-america/