Very plausible arguments, to the effect that revolution is highly unlikely in the U.S., are often made. Factors such as the apparently increasing appeal of the Democrat party to wealthy people and the continuing material well being of most Americans are often cited. Revolutions such as the French, Russian and Chinese certainly were motivated by actual and dominant destitution and injustice which does not obtain in our country. But what if you could convince enough Americans that it does? Perception in a communication and information technologically rich society is powerful and often decisive. Is it enough to provide the perfectionist, ever revolution seeking American left the means to force unwarranted change on us?
In the book Fan Shen, William Hinton describes the extraordinary measures communist cadre took to persuade the Chinese population that they had been oppressed far more than they had realized and that fundamental change was necessary and just. Intense public discussions known as "struggle sessions" were often the means employed, though torture and murder were, ehh, not unknown. Hinton was a declared Marxist who appeared to think this process justified, despite such consequent "problems" as the malnourishment rife Great Leap Forward, which finished some 20 million lives and the insane Cultural Revolution of the '60's. Mao Tse-tung remained comfortably corpulent during the former and he wasn't out there with the bustling mobs in the latter so there had to have been alot of perception changing going on to muster the needed coercive manpower. I can imagine none but an intellectual sociopath maintaining it was honest or positive.
A recent article presented a debate over the desirability of a carbon emissions tax in the U.S. The opposition presented the reality of the U.S. being a leading cutter of carbon emissions through the wisely increased use of our abundant natural gas enabled by now proven technology and the thwarting of those for whom all fossil fuels are "icky'". Here indeed is a test of the "unquestionable" responsibility of mankind (but especially of profligate U.S.kind) for perceived "global warming", yes? In support: "why this evidence is but nothing, nothing; we are just getting started toward the environmental perfection we know to be unattainable but without which our lives of noblesse will be bereft of meaning. Accordingly we are blithe to advance to the full the perception that sans revolutionary change, planetary immolation is assured and that 'ANY means necessary 'to meet it is justified and if you disagree you deserve complete legal, social, economic, intellectual and perhaps existential proscription."
It has been argued well by Dr. Nicholas Waddy that the Dem party does not purpose the elimination of the wealthy and that many of the rich believe they stand to benefit from the porcinely expanded government assuredly the mission of the Dems to force on us. But that party put Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both very possibly convinced Marxists, at the executive pinnacle and willingly employs openly declared Communists. ( Why not Nazis then; Marxists are historically proven equal to them in subhumanity) The Bolsheviks were but a faction of a Social Democrat party which might have brought somewhat less draconian change to Russia. But the Reds did not acquire their murderous power by heralding Stalin, universal suffering and the Gulag.Instead, they promised unattainable ultima.
In his blog Waddyisright, Dr. Waddy, as I see it, recently asserted that the climate change lobby is a conduit for the transfer of wealth from those the left disfavors to those it does and that the left's egalitarian rhetoric is a sham . I believe that but would note in addition that leftists are ineluctably perfectionist (why? in America maybe it was all that flouride in the water in the '50's) and that consequently environmentalists will never cease their meddling, never. Second, that leading leftists always presume mundane profit for themselves (eg. Madame Mao and Daniel Ortega with his multitudinous designer sunglasses, ad nauseum across the detestable proven Marxist spectrum), while forcing"heroic"sacrifice on their unwilling subjects. And as long as general and reasonable material well being is readily available to all willing to live positive lives, as it is in the U.S., inequality of income is not, I think, a national fault. Why should we care if others have more than us as long as most have enough to lead the decent lives purposed by the just? The left trumpets the certainty of blasphemy in that but in power cynically thrives(remember "Comrade" Leonid and his 100 cars in a time when everyday Russians saved ten years to buy a charcoal burning Soapbox Derby contraption, in a country able to put men into space?).
Most Dems and their public supporters are not totalitarian monsters but their party has its Bolsheviks who see in it a convenient vehicle for disingenuous passage to a far left future. To use Lenin's term "useful idiots" for Dems who naively countenance this is reasonable.
The far left has grievously infected the MSM , the American academy, including secondary and elementary education and librarianship, publishing, the entertainment industry and the governments and judiciaries of several of the states. The Federal deep state has a certain leftist cast and the struggle to repel the imminent radical takeover of the Federal Judiciary has yet a long road to victory. The business management world shows alarming symptoms of spineless surrender to an ideology which loathes it. In all of these settings leftists command harrowingly powerful organs of manipulation of perception and its ancillary, opinion.
In consequence: the slanderous calumny that the police are essentially and endemically determined to oppress minorities and that the only just reaction to that is forceful resistance to them and discrediting of their mission, despite the anarchy promised by the same and amply demonstrated! And: that a plutocratic 1% of the population controls all American financial security and plenty and that it requires an "impoverished" 99% underclass for its continued dominance. And: that all elections lost by Democrats are now by definition suspect because of the manifest determination of the atavistic and primitive real America to suppress dissent. And: well, this putatively miraculous and painfully evolved American haven of life as it should be is nothing of the sort. It is a seething "racist" , "sexist" and you fill in the blank at your pleasure, hell hole and is overdue for complete "transformation" on a model which caused one hundred million in country murders in the 20th century.
The generation of such virtual misconceptions could be the road to a virtually generated revolution with very concrete , onerous and disastrous consequences for all who embrace solidly evolved American institutions and values. Jack
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Some fascinating ruminations here, Jack. I'm honored, of course, to be mentioned! You're right that future revolutions may look different than what we experienced in the 20th century. The revolutions in Ukraine and the Mideast in the recent past may be models that aspiring insurgents in the West could learn from. It seems to me that street violence, which a regime may or may not have the gumption to quash, is usually the first step in most revolutions. As you point out, though, the usual pretext for a revolution -- genuine suffering -- is startlingly absent in the modern West, so it's difficult to imagine that we fat and happy dilettantes would bother to overthrow, well, much of anything. On the other hand, as you also point out, perception is what drives politics, not reality, and by the sound of it the American Left perceives Trump as an existential threat...possibly to Existence itself. For my own part, I hope they mount a revolution, because that would be the surest way to sweep them into the dustbin of history. Perhaps Trump's reelection could trigger some high drama?
Dr. Waddy: Perhaps the most tragic example of a country which did not need fundamental change but had it forced on it by a historically definitive insanely and presumptuously savage Marxist inspired gang, the Khmer Rouge, lead by a sociopathic idealistic hellhound, Pol Pot, who should never have been born and who apparently escaped earthly retribution, is Cambodia. That country was getting along just fine in its mostly pastoral satisfaction and relative plenty until the totalitarian North Viets ( who were racially contemptuous of Cambodians) decided to use their country as staging area for their rape of South Vietnam. The resulting chaos opened the way for Pol Pot's sociopathic thugs.
Can revolution be forced by a determined and inhuman faction willing to use ANY means?It was there; could it happen here, as a product of other purposefully induced anarchic forces? Maybe. The American left seems to think it attainable and hence their reflexive opposition to all that is constructively American and their eagerness to exploit any development they think divisive. Trump hatred is their focus now as they probe for opportunities.
I'm glad you cited latter day revolutions; they may well present a very different model and I wonder if the American left would take notice. But I think an attempted leftist coup in the U.S. would be defeated by the real America at any rate.
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