A new Revolution in America, how could it happen?

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Orwell
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29 Mar 2009, 11:20 pm

DentArthurDent wrote:
I get your point and yet I must disagree. When Britain was at the height of its powers, it could not subdue the Afghanis, then a hundred or so years later the Very people you put up as your champion got royally f**** over :wink:

I didn't say Russia could invade anyone, just that no one could invade them. Invaders often fail.

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Oh and BTW I think you give the working class too little credit. Not all working class are trailer trash, in fact most trailer trash are NOT working class :P

Maybe. But most working-class people have very little political sense, and if they do it is vague and ill-defined. They certainly aren't going Marxist anytime soon.


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29 Mar 2009, 11:25 pm

MR_BOGAN wrote:
John_Browning wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
The chances of a successful revolution is virtually zero. The government not only has more guns than private citizen, but they have tanks, planes, gas, flamethrowers and other nasty weapons.

Actually, the civilian population has several million more guns.


:lol: Yeah I heard that america would be the worst country to try and invade became the cillivians are armed with alsorts of guns.

I was thinking about this thread too. If you look at what happened in the 1992 LA Riots it can eaisly happen.

I think inequalty will cause it. If you are going o have lots of extremely poor that can't survive mixed with exessively rich indifferent people it can happen.


We can own sub machine guns, sniper rifles, automatic shotguns, we know how to make our own bombs (I'm sure everyone does), we have loads of stuff. Guns & Ammo is a great site to buy these weapons.


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twoshots
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29 Mar 2009, 11:32 pm

DentArthurDent wrote:
Oh and BTW I think you give the working class too little credit. Not all working class are trailer trash, in fact most trailer trash are NOT working class :P

I was thinking of leading some manner of communist revolution.

Principally because I need a personality cult.:☭:


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vibratetogether
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30 Mar 2009, 12:00 am

MR_BOGAN wrote:
look at what happened in the 1992 LA Riots


That is actually a small event compared to the ghetto rebellions of the late 60's.



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30 Mar 2009, 12:05 am

To me, the idea of a working class is a vastly outdated model of society. It's just not nearly as clear cut as it was when Marx was around. Even if there was a distinguishable working class, their identity lies with the upper-middle class. This is more applicable to America, as our consumer culture promotes selfishness. Even wage slaves gotta have an iPhone.



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30 Mar 2009, 12:12 am

vibratetogether wrote:
Even wage slaves gotta have an iPhone.

I really wonder what wage slaves you're hangin' out with. And how by any sense of the word is the working class associated with the upper middle class? :scratch:


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30 Mar 2009, 12:21 am

twoshots wrote:
vibratetogether wrote:
Even wage slaves gotta have an iPhone.

I really wonder what wage slaves you're hangin' out with. And how by any sense of the word is the working class associated with the upper middle class? :scratch:


Not associated, I said they identify with the upper middle class. By that, I mean they watch the same television, see the same advertisements, and get the same message of "consume" that the upper middle class does. Being that the upper middle class has the disposable income to consume more, they are envied by those who have less. You don't see working class people saying "I want to be working class, I want to foment a revolution and give my life to the cause", rather, they are saying "boy I wish I could afford that".

And way back in the day I worked at Best Buy, witnessing first hand the ridiculous purchases my co-workers would talk about. Combine that with my experiences in college with teenagers already over their head in debt, and I think I can say this with some authority.

So if there even is a working class, there is absolutely no sense of class consciousness. I imagine this might be different throughout other countries, but America definitely seems to be this way.



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30 Mar 2009, 12:24 am

twoshots wrote:
vibratetogether wrote:
Even wage slaves gotta have an iPhone.

I really wonder what wage slaves you're hangin' out with. And how by any sense of the word is the working class associated with the upper middle class? :scratch:

Most of the people I know who are considered to be in the lower socioeconomic brackets have nicer cell phones than I do. I think what vibratetogether meant was that the working class shares the consumerist values of the upper middle class.


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vibratetogether
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30 Mar 2009, 12:28 am

yup



DentArthurDent
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30 Mar 2009, 1:43 am

twoshots wrote:
DentArthurDent wrote:
Oh and BTW I think you give the working class too little credit. Not all working class are trailer trash, in fact most trailer trash are NOT working class :P

I was thinking of leading some manner of communist revolution.

Principally because I need a personality cult.:☭:


? :?


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DentArthurDent
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30 Mar 2009, 2:05 am

Orwell wrote:
twoshots wrote:
vibratetogether wrote:
Even wage slaves gotta have an iPhone.

I really wonder what wage slaves you're hangin' out with. And how by any sense of the word is the working class associated with the upper middle class? :scratch:

Most of the people I know who are considered to be in the lower socioeconomic brackets have nicer cell phones than I do. I think what vibratetogether meant was that the working class shares the consumerist values of the upper middle class.


This is why it is virtually impossible to have a revolution during times of prosperity.

The back in 89/90 when the USSR collapsed the media and political commentators kept harping on about the victory of capitalism over communism. For a while it all looked fairly rosy, apart from a few downturns here and there. From the late 90's economies began to get progressively worse until we get to todays global recession.

You base your beliefs on the behaviour of the working class from a time when they aspired to wealth through the financial markets, that dream has been torn down and now tens of millions of workers face unemployment, underemployment, reduced wages and conditions, homelessness etc.

The class distinctions are becoming very apparent and this is going to continue.

The Obama administration is rescuing the financial elite by allowing them to plunder the public purse whilst at the same time offering bugger all to prevent foreclosures, under the guise of 'job protection' the administration with the complicit aid of the unions are destroying wages and working conditions.

How long do you think these attacks on working people can continue until we see some major disturbances.


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30 Mar 2009, 2:32 am

*Shudder* The Second American Civil War. Don't much like considering it, because it will mean that I'll end up doing things that will be 100% contrary to most of my religious beliefs. And it's almost 100% certain that all of my friends will get killed, including the ones in the military. But here we go:

First off, I think the final trigger will be the forced confiscation of firearms. And I mean of any kind, not just the last step of the line. Once you make firearms illegal, you've just turned tens of millions of formerly law-abiding Americans into outlaws. And we've all seen John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies, let alone Red Dawn and Die Hard, far too many times to believe that we can't take our own gov't down if we have to.

The other triggers are already in place. Economic upheaval, massive discontent with the gov't on both sides of the aisle, and well-founded fears that the gov't is making a drastic shift towards a totalitarian state. Add to that the fact that the nation's populace itself is starting to see members of the other party as enemies, not fellow citizens with differing opinions, and almost all the pieces are in place.

The US military will fracture in a dozen pieces. First off, all members take oaths to the constitution, not the President, and are charged with disobeying illegal orders. Obviously units are likely to stay together, but they'll likely be much smaller after the infighting has been resolved. National Guard units are likely to stay in their state, but they too will be wracked with infighting.

Various units in the Corps are likely to avoid infighting, but whole units might take different stances on rebellion/suppression. I don't want to be within a hundred miles of a Marine unit during the war. They're too hardcore for either side to really want to use them. I've got crazy respect for their skill, but they're the "Devil Dogs" for a reason: once they're off the leash, they're pure hell.

The Navy is a wild card, but the Air Force is going to be a short-lived nightmare. They'll blow the hell out of anything they don't like, but since supply lines will be the first thing to go, they'll have maybe a month of fuel for ops, after which the pilots better start hiding. Retribution against a group of men who blew up all of your friends at once isn't likely to be swift and painless.

On the side of Chaos, you have the American hunter. Trained to hit targets at well over 400 yards with magnum-sized rounds, packs of these folks in the hills are going to shred infantry. Think Russia in Afghanistan, but with better shooting. A US military sniper can hit a person with a .308 at a kilometer, but he'd better hit the head of the guy hiding behind a rock. A hunter using a common hunting rifle might be hitting at 500, maybe even 600 yards, but a 7mm. Rem. Mag. round is going to blow through the body armor of a grunt if it hits, period. And most hunters use HP rounds, not the FMJ stuff the military uses.

I said Chaos because maybe 25% of them will accept enough command structure to be useful. The remaining 75% will shoot anything in a uniform.

Weapons will be everywhere, because foreigners will be seeing (foreign currency symbols) the instant it starts. Forget what you think about the US citizen not having military-grade gear, it'll be as easy as picking it up off a corpse after a month. That pack of Humvees supported by a pair of tanks aren't worth much when the Chi-Coms *flat-out gave* the rebels anti-tank missiles.

Forget lines on a map, it will probably explode all over the country the instant it starts anywhere. There will be no front lines, no rear areas, it will be everywhere. The military will sally forth from its bases all over the country, the anti-govs will do the same, and no one will be driving anywhere after a month. After all, if the gov't just pulled its fifth fuel convoy out of the refinery, forget driving them off and just blow it up. Never mind the fact that the roads will be jammed with cars that ran out of gas after people panicked and tried to join a loved one four states away.

Don't flee to the hills, some crazy hunter will smoke you for the food he's not even sure you're carrying. Your best bet is to hide in your well-fortified house and wait for the initial dust to settle, then join whatever side you feel like. If it happens, I'm going to wait for the cops to go for their families and forget about keeping the peace, then I'm going to go Boondock Saints on the local meth dealers and pedophiles, with any gang-bangers I find as a bonus. I'm way BP and I'd be out of meds, so I really shouldn't be in a military command structure, no matter which side I'm on.

After a couple of months, "side" will become relative, since the rebels and counters will switch to the "right" and "left" groups, instead of whatever they were before.

I'm not worried about nukes being used, but they'd disappear pretty fast. A lot of foreign countries would be eager to get their hands on an intact Minuteman, eager enough to hand over some really, really nice gear. And with the world in chaos and no paychecks, guarding silos is likely to be pretty low on the priority list after a few months, when highly-trained soldiers are getting scarce.

The rest of the world may or may not suffer from the economic fallout enough to explode themselves, but Canada is 75/25 likely, and Mexico is 150% guaranteed to implode. This is because the drug gangs are going to go out of business overnight, and a lot of people are going to try running to Mexico to escape.

I'd say we'd be lucky if the war ended within a decade, and really lucky if we had a stable gov't within three.



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30 Mar 2009, 6:42 am

ruveyn wrote:
The chances of a successful revolution is virtually zero. The government not only has more guns than private citizen, but they have tanks, planes, gas, flamethrowers and other nasty weapons.


A modern revolution would not work with violence, because of the arms of the government. A general strike is much more forceful. Also peaceful demonstrations bring governments in difficulties: They either do not react an appear weak or they suppress those with force, but this would quickly destroy the loyalty of armed forces: Only a minority of soldiers and policemen like to shut on unarmed civilians.

In the case of real mass movement the armed forces are worthless for the government, such a mass movement also includes to easily the armed forces - this was the case more than ones since 1789. One of the most radical groups in the Russian Revolution were the Soldiers of Kronstadt how supported Lenin as early as April 1917 - with the weapons paid by the Czar (they were betrayed a short time later by Lenin - but this is an other story).

ruveyn wrote:
During the American Revolution, the insurgents and the British regulars were equally armed (or nearly so). The Brits were ahead on training and discipline, but that advantage was whittled away during the course of the war, when the American troops received battle field training and discipline.


The American Revolution was less a Revolution than more civil war of separation. Washington & co. did not had the goal of overthrowing George III in Britain, but in gaining independence.

ruveyn wrote:
In addition the number of Americans who really, really want to have a revolution is very tiny.


This more the central point: A revolution is for anyone a risky game. No one knows how it will end. Neither the Terreur of the "Comité de salut public" of Robespierre had been planned 1789, nor Napoleon's rule. Ones a revolution starts the outcome is uncertain.

This risk has the consequence that a revolution starts only in a situation if a significant part of the population had nothing to loose any more. So long even the poorest have their welfare cheque to loose they will not start a revoltion.



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30 Mar 2009, 6:47 am

Dussel wrote:

The American Revolution was less a Revolution than more civil war of separation. Washington & co. did not had the goal of overthrowing George III in Britain, but in gaining independence.



If the Brits had agreed to some kind of reasonable representation of the American Colonies in Parliement then we would be toasting the health of Her Majesty and singing God Save the Queen. America would have evolved more along the lines of Canada. Not entirely though. They did not have slavery in Canada.

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30 Mar 2009, 7:02 am

Dussel wrote:

This more the central point: A revolution is for anyone a risky game. No one knows how it will end. Neither the Terreur of the "Comité de salut public" of Robespierre had been planned 1789, nor Napoleon's rule. Ones a revolution starts the outcome is uncertain.



The fact that the American Revolution did not produce its own terror is an abiding miracle although it came perilously close with the Alien and Sedition Acts which partially nullified the First Amendment. The election of 1800 was a hot affair and we are fortunate to have emerged from that time with our liberties intact. The defects of our (the American) Revolution manifested themselves in the very, very bloody Civil War. Killed in action and by camp disease 620,000 Americans (both sides counted) and maimed were 1.5 million Americans (both sides counted) and this in a nation with a total population of a little over 30 million! Canada which never had a Revolution also never had a Civil War. The Canadians are a calmer bunch than us Americans.

Most of the other radical revolutions of the modern era have had dreadful consequences. As you point out, the French Revolution was a mother who ate her children. The extremists culminating with that wonderous work of nature, Robespierre kept La Machine (the head slicer offer) busy throughout France. The Russian Revolution speaks for itself. It produced a degree of monstrosity rivaling what happened in Nazi Germany. Stalin was a Hitler-class Monster, perhaps even more so. The post colonial Revolutions in Africa further prove the point. And to this day, the excremental Robert Mugabe still inflicts death and destruction.

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30 Mar 2009, 8:16 am

I think first a revolution somewhere else in the world is more likely than in America. I mean, the plutocracy has really shrouded the Americans in a shroud of ignorance and apathy.


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