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The basic causal argument is that there are factors that increase the viability of Political Revolution. However, conditions that make a Political Revolution viable are certainly no guarantee that it will occur, because these are people we are talking about, rather than charged iron filings.
OK, --I quote this mostly because I liked it--
Nicely put. There is a tendency in the technological world to treat human events in a mechanistic way, which is comforting to gearheads like I used to be, but works badly. The Neocon cartoon reality is a good example.
I think I would put it a bit differently, and this applies to your comments to follow. There are two fields here- likelihood and viability.
Likelihood---will it happen? and
Viability--- can it live?
The piece is not about viability, but about likelihood. The author does not really address the question of whether what follows will be an improvement over what is discarded.
ATinNM, however, nails it- without a fundamental paradigm shift, it will fail. It will be nonviable. Unfortunately, all those nice CO-words, like cooperation, collective bargaining, community, have been tarred and feathered pretty well. So the revolution might still happen, though, and hence all those very real fears about brutal fascism.
Helen also has her finger on the pulse of it--what currently exists is a fundamentally barbaric transnational corporate oligopoly, whose participants (including Sarko's handlers) have the emotional tone of cockroaches--but who have mastered the "bread and circus" thing pretty well (Thanks, Mig). As long as the toys last, there will be no revolution. But the toys are about to run out.
My view? Without a miracle, Obama will crash and burn. FDR faced significant challenges-- but they were minor compared to those Barak will face. He's likeable. I pity him.
I think the 0.1% still have a few tricks up their sleeve. Consider a post-2012, post-Obama world, with a second failed, Democratic presidency, and a lot of lost hope. I think at that point they need a new enemy- O.B. Laden is wearing thin even today, as public enemy no.1 and they will likely find one- to justify another round of violent predation, with universal conscription and national bankruptcy. Which will then REALLY stir the pot. If I were a member of the Repub. Pioneers club, I'd do my best to sabotage Obama and then pick up the pieces. Essentially what they tried to do to Clinton. If I were the opposite number in Europe and/or China, I'd decouple and rearm. Fast. Bad vibes here. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
Likelihood---will it happen? and Viability--- can it live? The piece is not about viability, but about likelihood. The author does not really address the question of whether what follows will be an improvement over what is discarded.
Viability--- can it happen?
A Political Revolution is a dynamic self-reproducing process. That's one substantial difference between a Political Revolution and a golpe de estado (or what the Frances would call a coup d'etat). A golpe de estado is an event ... a group of people taking power, after which they try to govern.
Or to use an analogy, a golpe de estado is like an ax striking a tree. A Political Revolution is like a Forest Fire.
And like a Forest Fire, a Political Revolution is very hard, and often in any practical sense impossible, to get started, and once started very hard to stop.
The viability refers to that initial condition ... can a Political Revolution get launched and continue long enough to start to catch fire?
I am not referring to the "viability" of declared aims of Revolutionaries that emerge from the process ... precisely because a Revolution is such a rare state of affairs for a polity, many declared aims are going to fall by the wayside as a post-Revolutionary status quo emerges. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Sure, its possible to think about its long term viability, but violent, that is political, Revolution is not a long-term sustainable process, so the answer to that is, "its not", so I'm not worried about distinguishing between its viability at genesis and its viability long term.
If there is a New American Revolution, then when it burns itself out, that will again answer the long term viability question in the negative.
Green Star, In Morning Soldier, take warning That Green Star at Night Will Guide True Love's Fight
Beyond Freedom and Despair I can see a land so fair If we move, we move far Guiding only by our single Star
Green Star ... I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
This thread, and the article that is it's base, discusses the likelihood of popular dissension in the U.S. rising to the level of revolt. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
If I were a member of the Repub. Pioneers club, I'd do my best to sabotage Obama and then pick up the pieces.
They will. And if I were Obama, I would shoot first. I don't think he will even think about buying a gun. Sigh.
It's too bad. Given the record of the Bush administration and of pretty much every big-shot decision-makers (Wall Street, the Media(TM), etc.) for the past 7 years, there's an embarrassment of riches to pick from and prosecute the Republican Party and US conservatives out of existence. But it would have to be swift and particularly ruthless. Not gonna happen.
A truth and reconciliation commission would be more appropriate:
A truth commission or truth and reconciliation commission is a commission tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government, in the hope of resolving conflict left over from the past. They are, under various names, occasionally set up by states emerging from periods of internal unrest, civil war, or dictatorship.
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