The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
How would a revolt in the modern United States go down?
Sorenson
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm going to start this thread rather bluntly: the situation in the United States is pretty much fucked up on every single front, and people are pretty god damn pissed off about things:
*Unemployment continues to hover around 9%, and what unemployment reductions do take place are more often than not from people simply giving up looking for a job.
*What jobs ARE available are proving less and less satisfactory as employers increasing labor without increasing pay and benifits, and for other jobs work availability is increasingly sporadic.
*People are becoming extremily agitated and hostile towards the financial sector and the people associated with it, citing not only their involvement in the economic crisis of 2007-8 that helped contribute to the country's current economic state as well as their treatment afterwards, receiving a bailout from the government while suffering very few punishments and regulations for their actions.
*People are also becoming extremily agitated at our current class and wealth structure, citing the incredible increase in wealth and income for the ultra-wealthy while wealth and income for lower classes have stagnated, and the low level of effective taxation on the ultra-wealthy and their businesses.
*People are becoming agitated further still by a feeling of disenfranchisement towards a government that is regarded as cripplingly partisen and completily corrupt, citing the extrordinary influence of the lobbying industry and corproate influence in various cases.
*Finally, people are becoming extremily agitated towards a government many feel is infringing upon individual liberties and other ideologies, recently coming to a head in light of revelations about a section of the National Defense Authorization Act that would permit the military to indefinitely detain suspects without legal representation.
At this point, it's tempting to say that it's more a matter of when a revolution is going to take place instead of if there's going to be one in the first place. Cynicism aside, however, it's clear that the US population has reached a critical level of discontent and that, if no sign of effort of a massive change for the better appears, people are going to start lashing out and support said lashing. Just how these events would unfold and where they would lead is just about anyone's guess, though:
*What event/events would serve as the initial trigger for a revolution?
*How would the revolution manifest itself and change over time?
*Would Washington capitulate in light of mass extreme disapproval that leads to sizeable anti-government activity, or would they try to maintain power?
*Would the military be willing to engage civilians, would they turn against Washington, or would they simply remain neutral?
*How would the revolution affect our current social structure and relations?
*At which point is the revolution succussful, if "succuss" is even possible?
*Unemployment continues to hover around 9%, and what unemployment reductions do take place are more often than not from people simply giving up looking for a job.
*What jobs ARE available are proving less and less satisfactory as employers increasing labor without increasing pay and benifits, and for other jobs work availability is increasingly sporadic.
*People are becoming extremily agitated and hostile towards the financial sector and the people associated with it, citing not only their involvement in the economic crisis of 2007-8 that helped contribute to the country's current economic state as well as their treatment afterwards, receiving a bailout from the government while suffering very few punishments and regulations for their actions.
*People are also becoming extremily agitated at our current class and wealth structure, citing the incredible increase in wealth and income for the ultra-wealthy while wealth and income for lower classes have stagnated, and the low level of effective taxation on the ultra-wealthy and their businesses.
*People are becoming agitated further still by a feeling of disenfranchisement towards a government that is regarded as cripplingly partisen and completily corrupt, citing the extrordinary influence of the lobbying industry and corproate influence in various cases.
*Finally, people are becoming extremily agitated towards a government many feel is infringing upon individual liberties and other ideologies, recently coming to a head in light of revelations about a section of the National Defense Authorization Act that would permit the military to indefinitely detain suspects without legal representation.
At this point, it's tempting to say that it's more a matter of when a revolution is going to take place instead of if there's going to be one in the first place. Cynicism aside, however, it's clear that the US population has reached a critical level of discontent and that, if no sign of effort of a massive change for the better appears, people are going to start lashing out and support said lashing. Just how these events would unfold and where they would lead is just about anyone's guess, though:
*What event/events would serve as the initial trigger for a revolution?
*How would the revolution manifest itself and change over time?
*Would Washington capitulate in light of mass extreme disapproval that leads to sizeable anti-government activity, or would they try to maintain power?
*Would the military be willing to engage civilians, would they turn against Washington, or would they simply remain neutral?
*How would the revolution affect our current social structure and relations?
*At which point is the revolution succussful, if "succuss" is even possible?
Sorenson on
0
Posts
We're no where near the situation it would take for a revolt, anyway. The government is hardly as draconian as it seems and the economy is slowly recovering, not as fast as we'd like, but it is.
The best way to revolt is to use your most powerful weapon, you'll get a chance next November.
In order for it to be close to anywhere near a trigger point for national revolt you'd need unemployment levels above and beyond 30%, you'd need a nation wide outbreak of increasing crime levels, over inflation of the dollar to the point where even those who have jobs are unable to obtain the basic necessities, you'd need large swath's of city, state, and federal government services failing, basically the point where America has lost the ability to be a functional developed nation. You'd have people coming out seeking to be the voice, the discipline, the leader for millions of people organizing nation wide revolts. Sure, OWS occurs around the nation but each OWS is independent of the other and lacks any real leader or any real cohesion between groups.
The point is even at this level there are a bunch of people angry, but they lack the leader, discipline, direction, and really a means for a full scale national uprising. People are angry, just not that angry.
Waco: munitions-hoarding suicidal religious cult
Ruby Ridge: munitions-hoarding apocalyptic suicidal Mormons/Klansmen
Oklahoma City: "payback" for Waco and Ruby Ridge by white supremacist militiamen.
KOF School of Ministry: hard-right Christian militants who sent their children to be indoctrinated
The best part is how that last group saw the documentary that was made about it and brought about it's shuttering still to this day thinks the film is an accurate and positive portrayal of its message and goals.
It would be cute.
Have you seen the candidates? There's no way to revolt against something that's so completely embedded into the modern U.S.
Keep Americans fat and nothing will happen.
Don't worry though, they'll vote republican because the democrats couldn't fix much and then everything will be peechy keen. I'm still aghast with people's fascination with Ron Paul, as if he was some sort of messiah of politics.
Join the club. Ron Paul getting maybe 10% of the votes (which hey won't do anything with the electoral college) is about as far as revolution is ever going to go in America. Having said that I want nothing to do with such a terribly misinformed revolution and it'd be completely terrifying if Rick Perry wasn't considered a legitimate candidate. So instead it's only a small reminder of how wrong things can go.
Where does the political system go without lobbyig though? After all of that fun corruption in the early 20th century it's got a pretty firm grip on the way people vote for candidates.
The closest the US can come to a revolt.
To play devil's advocate, both Waco and Ruby Ridge were horrifically botched operations by the federal agencies involved, and neither needed to turn violent.
I don't think a "revolt" in the US is realistically possible at this point, short of some sort of armageddon event.
"Oh my god! I respect their right to protest, but why are they making X inconvenient for me??? OMG OMG OMG"
Edit: That was to bowen....
Now, I know the sources for those aren't great, but it's very very difficult to find reputable information on the FEMA Camp things. Either way, it concerns me a great deal that these exist, and in the event of a revolt I can't imagine something like this wouldn't be used, especially if the information is accurate and these already exist. I wish I could find better sources on those FEMA camp things, most of the sources are from crazy Tea Party people, but there's enough truth to be concerning. I'm less worried about the government becoming fascist than I am of corporations becoming so vastly powerful that they completly control the government. That is, unfortunately, the path we seem to be headed towards. But with mass media the way it is today most Americans are entirely apathetic and think "Well someone will fix it" when in fact they themselves are needed to stand up and work on it. People are going to let the engine break instead of taking it to the shop when the light is on and that could end up very very bad.
edit: And hopefully the NDAA will get vetoed by Obama, if it hasn't already and they'll remove the 1031 section.
Meh, I seem to recall like a year or so ago people were making the same comments that something like OWS would not even be possible because no one cares at all. Like, there wouldn't even be one, not counting the "you're making this inconvenient for me" nonsense.
Maybe, and that's debatable, but I think the point stands that there isn't an analogue for those kinds of movements with the more left-leaning issues of unemployment and anti-capitalism.
The whole point of the Waco/Ruby Ridge operations were to eliminate what the government perceived as a possibly dangerous buildup of arms by hostile private citizens, and in trying to show how dangerous these people were, they ended up involved in exactly the situation they were trying to prevent. Which, on the surface is retarded, but the fact remains that it was still a bunch of bigoted religious fanatics with mountains of guns that caused the problems.
1031 lets them just say "OH, you might be a terrorist. Indefinite detention with you!"
Jon Stewart has a great bit on it: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-december-7-2011/arrested-development
It's not apathy. It's not ignorance. It's not inability. It's that the overwhelming majority of people aren't upset enough to even consider it.
There are a solid half-dozen snarky comments I could add in here, but I think I'll just close with: all those "people" you referred to don't add up to many people, at all.
The issue is that the overwhelming majority aren't upset because of their ignorance and apathy. People simply aren't paying attention and the media isn't making a fuss about things. To find out about those FEMA camps you have to dig. Very very few news agencies have reported on the NDAA 1031. In fact when I discussed it with people, they told me I was dumb and that we needed that bill to fund the military, ignoring that the entire scary part is the tacked on bit.
People in this country do not pay enough attention and are quite easily manipulated, especially in the age of commercials and advertising.
If I recall, the colonists were, in majority, against revolution, too.
If you're worried about the government suddenly rounding people up, you're obviously not familiar with the ubiquity of personal firearms here in the US, especially among every state between the two coasts.
I'm pretty left-leaning myself, and even I own two guns (a sniper rifle and a 12-gauge) and a compound bow.
They got tanks, body armor and most importantly training.
If we're supposing a really bonafide revolution here.
The US has a high percentage of gun owners, but even assault rifles aren't going to do much against the kind of air and mechanized power the US Armed Forces have.
Our single largest problem is that the majority doesn't even vote, nor do they follow politics beyond the most superficial headlines. If they did the Republican party would fade into obscurity within a single election cycle and the entire political landscape would be completely different.
This is a fantasy, and while it gets the progressive dick very very hard, that's pretty much all it's useful for.
If the majority voted, you guys would hate this country even more than you do now. The problem is that you don't know the majority, and the people in the majority whom you do know, you sort of disrespect and dislike them. Then you come to places like this and talk about how hey maaan, if everybody was really educated, they'd never disagree with me and all our ideological opposition would just vanish like smoke.
Yeah. Sure, maaan. It's not that people disagree with you in good faith or have different priorities or a different perspective, it's that they're all too fucking stupid to know what's good for them.
And when the nice man in a suit shows up at your door and asks you to please come with him for some questions, you're going to shoot him?
To debunk your "silent majority" gooseshit. Polling shows that when asked in an unbiased manner, the majority of the US population actually supports radical ideas such as healthcare reform and higher taxes on the wealthy.
In a U.S. revolution scenario, you'd also have tons of active duty military playing the same game as our allied militaries in the Middle East - taking our weapons and training while feeding intel and supplies to the rebels. They'd also have much less support from their troops for operations clearing out entire cities, ala Fallujah.