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Time for a U.S. Revolution – Fifteen Reasons
It is time for a revolution. Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful. But it does not work for people.
The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a revolution.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said forty three years ago next month that it was time for a radical revolution of values in the United States. He preached “a true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.” It is clearer than ever that now is the time for radical change.
Look at what our current system has brought us and ask if it is time for a revolution?
Over 2.8 million people lost their homes in 2009 to foreclosure or bank repossessions – nearly 8000 each day – higher numbers than the last two years when millions of others also lost their homes.
At the same time, the government bailed out Bank of America, Citigroup, AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the auto industry and enacted the troubled asset (TARP) program with $1.7 trillion of our money.
Wall Street then awarded itself over $20 billion in bonuses in 2009 alone, an average bonus on top of pay of $123,000.
At the same time, over 17 million people are jobless right now. Millions more are working part-time when they want and need to be working full-time.
Yet the current system allows one single U.S. Senator to stop unemployment and Medicare benefits being paid to millions.
There are now 35 registered lobbyists in Washington DC for every single member of the Senate and House of Representatives, at last count 13,739 in 2009. There are eight lobbyists for every member of Congress working on the health care fiasco alone.
At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations now have a constitutional right to interfere with elections by pouring money into races.
The Department of Justice gave a get out of jail free card to its own lawyers who authorized illegal torture.
At the same time another department of government, the Pentagon, is prosecuting Navy SEALS for punching an Iraqi suspect.
The US is not only involved in senseless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the U.S. now maintains 700 military bases world-wide and another 6000 in the US and our territories. Young men and women join the military to protect the U.S. and to get college tuition and healthcare coverage and killed and maimed in elective wars and being the world’s police. Wonder whose assets they are protecting and serving?
In fact, the U.S. spends $700 billion directly on military per year, half the military spending of the entire world – much more than Europe, China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, and Venezuela - combined.
The government and private companies have dramatically increased surveillance of people through cameras on public streets and private places, airport searches, phone intercepts, access to personal computers, and compilation of records from credit card purchases, computer views of sites, and travel.
The number of people in jails and prisons in the U.S. has risen sevenfold since 1970 to over 2.3 million. The US puts a higher percentage of our people in jail than any other country in the world.
The tea party people are mad at the Republicans, who they accuse of selling them out to big businesses.
Democrats are working their way past depression to anger because their party, despite majorities in the House and Senate, has not made significant advances for immigrants, or women, or unions, or African Americans, or environmentalists, or gays and lesbians, or civil libertarians, or people dedicated to health care, or human rights, or jobs or housing or economic justice. Democrats also think their party is selling out to big business.
Forty three years ago next month, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached in Riverside Church in New York City that “a time comes when silence is betrayal.” He went on to condemn the Vietnam War and the system which created it and the other injustices clearly apparent. “We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing oriented” society to a “person oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
It is time.
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Show AllWe are having a revolution, run by the rich and powerful. So far it has gone very well, if you are rich and powerful.
I think there is a rally/protest/march scheduled in Washington, D.C. -- March 20?
Is anyone going to tell us how to find cheap transportation to D.C. so that we can take part?
Are the writers on CD going to show up in D.C. and take a serious role in this action?
Is this action dedicated to ONLY the MIC, the offense contractors, etc., or will the action include the economy, education, health care, etc.?
I read very briefly about this action, but NOTHING is clear -- every serious writer should be touting this action so that all of us know about it!
I have a great deal of respect for Bill Quigley! He really cares about people, and all of his time and efforts are invested in "we the people."
Friday night, Bill Maher had Michael Moore on his program, and Michael was stationed on Wall Street, via satellite feed to Real Time. Why didn't Michael send out a letter? -- a lot of us, "we the people," would have shown up! But, of course, that would probably be too radical!
Amtrak goes to DC, at Union Station. But honestly, a flight might be cheaper (sad, isn't it?)
Also if you live in or near a major city, I'm sure there are bus services running straight to DC...for example, I pass about a half-dozen businesses that bus people from DC to New York just walking from my bus stop to the office every day. Try Googling something like "[your city] to DC bus".
I'll probably go to this one, since it's on a weekend, thankfully.
See you there! I'll be the one shouting, "Hey, ZMANN, where the hell are ya?"
Haha. Where were you for the 350.org International Day of Action? I was carrying my disintegrating (but still awesome!) sign in the rain down 16th street to the White House :-)
I've only recently finally decided to put down the snide pen for once and get off my lazy ass and at least try to make a small, infinitesimal, difference.
I'm the same way. That's been my only march/protest. I was going to go to the big Capitol Hill coal power plant one last March at the end of Powershift, but I got some really bad food poisoning and couldn't leave :-(
Do you live in DC?
Mechanicsburg PA, not far north. I can drive to the nearest metro station to the north of DC and take that into town.
Cool, I live closest to a Red Line metro stop myself. If you want to meet up at the metro and go to the march together, email me at zpleat@gmail.com
Activists in many cities within a long day's driving time are organizing buses. There are buses going to it from Pittsburgh that I may be on. Although me and my wife try to combine protest trips with family visits in the area, so we may go in our own car and stay overnight.
Go here:
http://www.pittsburghendthewar.org/
Sweet. Let me know if you want to meet up while you're in town. The more, the merrier.
And I have some nice wheat beer in my place.
O.K., Mr. Quigley, I TOTALLY agree with you that it is time and HAS been time for a revolution BUT...where are your suggestions on how to accomplish this? Hell, just about anyone could make a list of "wrongs", just as you have, but where is the "How-To" to go about it?
"They" have the guns and the programmed automatons that once were our brothers and sisters. "They" have the money and the power. "They" have the resources and jails for resistors. So, please, for all of our benefits who know what you are talking about, HOW?!?!
This is just yet another "What's wrong with the system" piece that poses no answers at the end. This might make good copy and show righteous indignation but shows NO PLAN to accomplish the recovery of our rights and control of the country, allegedly, run by "We the People".
DIRECTIONS PLEASE!!!
No one can possibly come up with an instruction manual for how to carry out a revolution on a site like this. It's just an article pointing out what should be obvious. How to go about it would have to be hammered out at face-to-face meetings all over the country. Getting those started and keeping them going is the process that needs implementing, not claiming to have all the answers for exactly how this can be done in a little article.
Here ya go.
http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsc5ed.html
Waging nonviolent Struggle. It provides unprecedented information about how to strategically plan nonviolent action and make it more effective. Gotta start somewhere...
idiotic comment removed by poster
I know the feeling.
I write a lot of angry comments as replies, not to the actual poster to whom I reply, but using his or her comment as a springboard into some really angry rants about the powers that be and situations as they are. I post them. Then sixty seconds later I delete them because I don't want the fascists banging down my doors at three a.m.
Sounds like the fascists have already beaten you down.
That's what happens when one has already once been falsely accused by a police officer committing perjury in court, and convicted as a result. I found that in Pennsylvania, according to state law, one need not actually be driving a car to be convicted of DUI. In fact, I found that one need not even be actually inside of a car or to have even actually driven it at all to be accused, charged, and convicted of DUI. One need only walk outside of one's house with his keys in his hand to push the button on the key in order to shut off the car alarm. All it takes is one "law officer" lying in court.
Sounds like Texas's public intoxication law. One can be arrested and convicted for public intoxication just upon the word of the arresting pig...even if a breathalyzer test is requested by the arrestee and refused by the arrestor.
no traffic.
How much more explicit directions do you need than this?:
'Forty three years ago next month, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached in Riverside Church in New York City that “a time comes when silence is betrayal.” He went on to condemn the Vietnam War and the system which created it and the other injustices clearly apparent. “We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing oriented” society to a “person oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”'
Be "person oriented." There are people all around you.
It's good to frame the issues in narrow terms: the people versus the elites. In this way the people get a regular mention as the "good guys", while the elites get regular criticism as they deserve.
WHAT KIND OF SOCIETY DO WE WANT AND HOW DO WE GET IT?
Hello Ephraim and Kucinich,
Ephraim is asking the right question. We need to have discussions about strategy and tactics, in small groups and online.
But even before we talk about strategy we need to discuss what kind of society we are aiming at. Mr. Quigley, this time anyway, does not tell us what he wants, other than to quote Martin Luther King. "A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.”
No one can question the need for new "values," but a real revolution requires one ruling group (or class) replacing another, a new way of choosing leaders, and new forms of social and economic relationships.
Haven't we had enough of the "ain't it awful and look who done it to us," school of radical analysis?
"What do we want and how do we get it?" Until large numbers of people have reached agreement on these questions, talk of revolution is a bit premature.
The last serious near revolution in the Western World was in France in 1968. 42 years ago. There is no precedent for what is happening in the United States. We need to talk.
Don't talk strategy and tactics online! The NSA has literally of millions of CPUs dedicated to snooping and code breaking. Do get out the idea that people should be meeting with people they trust *face to face* to up the ante on the corrupt broken system. I have been waiting for a general strike for a couple of decades now heres hoping people are finally pissed enough to make it happen.
Hi Stereohead,
A real revolution is many years ahead if at all. In the meantime we need to teach each other how to organize. NOTHING will happen if we don't learn how to bring people together. If I let worries about the NSA and friends keep me from learning that, from you or anyone else, they have already won - forever.
I am not saying don't talk about about revolution as a general idea I am saying don't put specific information about things like meeting places or specific actions on the net or you *will* be infiltrated. I vm quite certain when I was doing eco-defense in northern Cali that we had a couple of government goon disrupter infiltrators. SPecific plans have to be done face to face with people you trust and using code names only if there any strangers about.
Hello Stereohead,
Yes, I've been infiltrated too, and many years before there was an internet. You don't put your "dangerous" tactics on the web, or on the phone. Although if you are a large group, the FBI will know about it no matter what. Some of Lenin's top lieutenants were agents. (There, that name will attract their computers.)
But here's the point. Since you talk about a general strike, understand that it is not just a matter of stopping work. In Seattle in 1919, for example, strikers engaged in co-operative production and distribution for survival. Without that the establishment can just wait until you starve; they have more resources. Are we in the present generation ready for that kind of co-operation and solidarity? Not with the average American watching 4 1/2 hours of television a day. And we DON'T KNOW HOW to organize mass solidarity in today's world. In our marches and demo's we give the crowd 2 or 3 hours of speeches, and hardly anybody gets organized for sustained group action. It makes me cry.
That's what we need to talk about. How to organize. If the FBI listens in, which they will, we can't prevent it. If our fear of them keeps us isolated, they have already won. Closed cadre groups can't keep them out. In the 70's a Freedom of Information suit revealed that the trot Socialist Workers Party had at least 800 infiltrators among their few thousand members. Invisibility is impossible. Even the Mossad can't keep its cover.
A sustained, mass democratic movement is the only thing that can't be controlled by them. But we don't know how to build it. We need to talk until we understand how.
I hope you will still go back and read this. Thanks for the dialog.
It's been well past time for a revolution for over 40 years.
Where has Bill Quigley been? There has already been a revolution and complete take over of our government. As Dick Durban said of Washington "the Wall Street Banks own the place." The coup is complete and we the people aren't part of it. Does Quigley really think the average American will participate in a revolution? He should study his fellow Americans a little better. Here's a hint for him. The average thought process of an American....Beer! Beer! Beer!Looky them boobs! More beer here! Games on! How about them Boobs! More beer here! Pass the chips wouldya, Phlatturpt damn think that one changed the color of ma undies! Change ya can believe in uhh Cooder!!! Ha ha ha! More beer here! What gubment? What Dat? Who Dey? Sure do wanna get me one dem new Chevy trucks Billy Bob.
And that, as they say, is the rest of the story.
So, just how do you get regular, every day people to turn off the TV, get up off the couch, and out into the streets??? And how do you get those regular, every day people to deal with being labeled as subversives, terrorists, etc., which the powers that be will most certainly do?? Are you willing to hang your fellow Americans who like the status quo and are willing to fight back against your revolution?? And when the economy goes to (even worse) shit because day to day living has broken down, and nobody is working or has any money because the dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on, just how will you feed the millions upon millions of your fellow Americans because the food quit arriving at the super market?? How will you provide medical help to those who are hurt in your revolution when the hospitals are overflowing with civilians and combatants alike??
I could go on and on asking questions like the ones above. But, the most important questions I must ask are:
Just exactly what kind of revolution are we talking about here?? And have you truly thought it through??
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>>>>
"But if you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out" ~ John Lennon
"So, just how do you get regular, every day people to turn off the TV, get up off the couch, and out into the streets??? And how do you get those regular, every day people to deal with being labeled as subversives, terrorists, etc., which the powers that be will most certainly do??"
I think the answer to your question is...you don't have to do a thing. Just sit back and wait. When Billy Bob's belly starts growling enough from a lack of food, he will fight back. Considering the almost exponential progress in the demise of our economy, it won't take very long at all for the hunger pangs to set in.
>>>>"When Billy Bob's belly starts growling enough from a lack of food, he will fight back."
I seriously doubt it. He'll just roll over and die along with Billy Bob.
So you think our corporate fascist taskmasters are going to let Joe Sixpack starve? But then, they wouldn't be evil geniuses if they did that. I suspect you're in for a long wait.
We can't have a revolution! We'll all starve to death! With cherry topping John Lennon Revolution lyrics.
"You got a bullet in your f****** head!" - Zach De la Rocha
Sorry, I can't hear you. I have a bullet in my head.
Excedrin headache number 44.
I hope you're not waiting for anyone else to start the revolution. Start it yourself! Organize something.
And please, the revolution that MLK and Quigley are calling for is within ourselves. Let's be a little more imaginative here.
"So, just how do you get regular, every day people to turn off the TV, get up off the couch, and out into the streets???"
Allow employment to continue to fall, and curtail unemployment benefits. Allow foreclosures to continue putting more people into the streets, thus increasing the homeless population. The powers that be are fomenting the revolution, which, by the way, will NOT be televised (thank you, Gil Scott Heron).
When one has nothing more to lose, one has nothing more to lose, if you get my drift. Revolutionary actions will be referred to as "INCREASING INSTANCES OF DOMESTIC TERRORISM".
deleted by poster
You're giving me the chuckles Kent! :0)
"The tea party people are mad at the Republicans, who they accuse of selling them out to big businesses."
I don't believe that!
the teabaggers hate progressvies and the government.
They hate anything that might smack as "socialism" even though they have ZERO understanding of that term....
they apply it to the bank bailouts - which are decidedly NOT socialist in nature - but - are in fact - fascist...
the rightwing as won this battle largely over the use and misuse of language....
they defeat the left BEFORE the arguments are even made....
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I'm with you on that specious claim about what the Tea Baggers believe.
I don't believe the Tea Baggers accuse Republicans of "selling them out to big business" either. They don't like the Republicans (whom they few as very few) who cooperated with the Democratic majority in Congress to pass the TARP giveaways. They are in denial (or have willfully forgotten) that it was Bush and his Sec. Treas. Hank Paulson who threatened Congress into drafting the TARP legislation in the first place. The Baggers don't like the bank bailouts but they sure as hell LOVE the stock market bubble inflated by the big banks using TARP money and they don't see or want to see the linkage between TARP and the secondary stock market bubble which so many of them rely on to maintain their comfortable lifestyles.
Another economic collapse is coming. It's inevitable. What the public's response to that will be is anyone's guess. All I know is this: Obama will order you gunned down in the streets with the same aplomb as any fascist Republican.
Hyperbole? Sounds like teabagger talk to me.
Sounds like common sense to me, really. Suppose a mob converged on Wall St. in New York and started breaking things and setting them on fire. The police, following normal procedures, start shooting people with rubber bullets and beating people with batons and so on. Somebody dies. The mob starts throwing rocks at the police. The police, fearing for their safety, begin to shoot indiscriminately, knowing they will never face prosecution.
How is that remotely far-fetched? We've already had a suicide attack in Texas and a suicide-by-cop at the Pentagon. Knowing that probably makes the cops a bit jumpy. People in Greece are already rioting over essentially the same problems. The economic situation here is only going to deteriorate. Whether the violence in the streets starts with angry left wing people or angry right wing people is sort of an academic exercise. There will be violence in the streets. It's what happens when people are hungry and desperate, and the gutting of social services at all levels of government is only going to accelerate the rate at which that happens.
One word, two letters: Xe.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
We were talking about the $350 million in federal tax-payer dollars handed to Halliburton/KBR to build "detention camps" around the country on this site YEARS before the misbegotten Tea-Baggers existed.
More likely he'll put you in one of FEMA's concentration camps for an indefinite period for "terrorism."
Gary
“When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties.”
-- Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert Motier Lafayette (Marquis De Lafayette)