Are we looking at the start of a revolution in the US to match revolutions and mass populist uprisings that have characterised, shit just about fucking everywhere in the past year or three?
Revolution. It's a big, scary word. Death, violence, shooting. Scary stuff. It's no wonder most people would prefer to sit on their duff and watch [your nation here]'s Got (no) Talent. I'm not blaming you, any of you if you view the word with horror and revulsion.
Revolutions have never been nice things. They don't happen in an orderly way. People get hurt, people get killed, buildings burn down, brother fights brother and all that kind of thing.
I guess the big difference between the revolutions of yore and the revolutions of today is that, as a really fucking broad rule of thumb, we tend to prefer very calm and peaceful revolutions these days. No assault rifles or molotovs thank you, just impassioned discourse and factual points of demand.
I like that. It's civilised. The kind of revolution you can have within business hours, or accompanied by a cocktail. What the hell is a revolution though? Why do they occur?
Without getting too deeply into the nature of co-opted revolutions, or the failures of some revolutions after they've occurred, it is pretty apparent that throughout history, most if not all revolutions have occurred because of one base cause - discontentment. Discontent is pretty neutral. It is found among impassioned activists for social justice as well as communist guerillas, oppressed ethnic enclaves and far-right paramilitaries. Discontent is, in itself, not a reason to support or condemn any revolution.
If you've kept one eye open on US politics for the past few decades, then you may begin to understand what's going on here. Americans have been sold a grand and impressive myth - land of the free, home of the brave, where all men are created equal, where the little guy with a dream can work his way up to the top, where anyone can become President. They are, they say, a free and tolerant democracy that is the envy of the world, a beacon of freedom in the dim and murky night of global barbarism.
Well, I guess without even reading a lot about American politics, you can easily see what a complete bucket of horseshit that is. It's not the land of the free, it's a nation where you can be arrested for miscarrying. It's not the home of the brave, it's a nation where, for decades, callow former draft dodgers have evolved into bloodthirsty hawks, hungering for war with the smallest and most disorganised countries they can loot. All men are not created equal here, it's where some states make it incredibly hard for blacks and latinos to vote, where stopping the verbal or physical oppression of homosexuals is equated with a violation of the freedom of religious belief. It's a nation where some men want their daughters to stop going to school, so they can be sold in marriage as chattel slaves to fervent husbands, a nation where the middle class will soon stop existing. The little guy will grind his whole life away and get nowhere. Where anyone with a few billion and the right backers can become President. They are a militant force of invasion, and extortion hated by more than half the world.
You can't sit on a simmering pot forever. You either let some steam out, or wait for it to blow. The US's current doldrums aren't new. They haven't happened overnight. They've been buried and neglected and ignored for decades, and are finally simmering to the surface.
What's going to happen? I'm a bit of a pessimist I freely admit. I don't see any administration responding to the increasingly dire needs of its people. And I don't see the anger fading away any time soon either.
I think the US has a choice. They are a nation built on the back of revolution. Their Constitution is a revolutionary document, in a good number of ways - revolutionary for the time, as well as born out of a revolution. For the US to crush revolution within their nation is a defiance of the intentions of their own founding fathers, who enshrined the notion that people can and should be able to rise up and change their government when needed.
I can think of no revolution given any tolerance or credence before or during its birth, but we can all think of at least a few that were lauded or even just regarded as necessary later.
Maybe this is the time for the US, maybe it is time they got their house in order. I doubt it will be civil, neat or orderly, but I think the time when they could have achieved an amicable change is fast slipping away. There may be few, or even no other options left.
What can we do? Wait, watch and help those who truly need help. What else can we do?
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