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Does America Need an Egyptian-Style Non-Violent Revolution?
Yesterday, I pointed out
that the the Egyptian protesters are acting more like the free people
which America's Founding Fathers envisioned than the American people ourselves.
New York Times' columnist Bob Herbert agrees, apparently calling for an Egyptian-style non-violent revolution in America:
As
the throngs celebrated in Cairo, I couldn’t help wondering about what
is happening to democracy here in the United States. I think it’s on
the ropes. We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only.While
millions of ordinary Americans are struggling with unemployment and
declining standards of living, the levers of real power have been all
but completely commandeered by the financial and corporate elite. It
doesn’t really matter what ordinary people want. The wealthy call the
tune, and the politicians dance.
***
The poor, who are
suffering from an all-out depression, are never heard from. In terms of
their clout, they might as well not exist. The Obama forces reportedly
want to raise a billion dollars or more for the president’s
re-election bid. Politicians in search of that kind of cash won’t be
talking much about the wants and needs of the poor. They’ll be
genuflecting before the very rich.
In an Op-Ed article in
The Times at the end of January, Senator John Kerry said that the
Egyptian people “have made clear they will settle for nothing less than
greater democracy and more economic opportunities.” Americans are
being asked to swallow exactly the opposite. In the mad rush to
privatization over the past few decades, democracy itself was put up
for sale, and the rich were the only ones who could afford it.
***
As Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson wrote in their book, “Winner-Take-All
Politics”: “Step by step and debate by debate, America’s public
officials have rewritten the rules of American politics and the American
economy in ways that have benefited the few at the expense of the
many.”
As if the corporate stranglehold on American
democracy were not tight enough, the Supreme Court strengthened it
immeasurably with its Citizens United decision, which greatly enhanced
the already overwhelming power of corporate money in politics. Ordinary
Americans have no real access to the corridors of power, but you can
bet your last Lotto ticket that your elected officials are listening
when the corporate money speaks.
When the game is rigged
in your favor, you win. So despite the worst economic downturn since
the Depression, the big corporations are sitting on mountains of cash,
the stock markets are up and all is well among the plutocrats. The
endlessly egregious Koch brothers, David and Charles, are worth an
estimated $35 billion. Yet they seem to feel as though society has
treated them unfairly.
***
The Egyptians want to
establish a viable democracy, and that’s a long, hard road. Americans
are in the mind-bogglingly self-destructive process of letting a real
democracy slip away.
I had lunch with the historian
Howard Zinn just a few weeks before he died in January 2010. He was
chagrined about the state of affairs in the U.S. but not at all
daunted. “If there is going to be change,” he said, “real change, it
will have to work its way from the bottom up, from the people
themselves.”
I thought of that as I watched the coverage of the ecstatic celebrations in the streets of Cairo.
As I noted last year:
Many people think we just have to sit here and take it.
[But as liberal] PhD economist Dean Baker points out:
The
elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary
people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where
the elites call the shots.
It's not just liberals like Herbert or Baker who are saying this.
Ron Paul - who has very strong conservative credentials, and who won the Presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference two years in a row - has repeatedly endorsed non-violent civil disobedience.
For example, Paul said to Congress in 2007:
The
true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility
and out of self-interest for himself, his family, and the
future of his country to resist government abuse of
power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means
obedience to the state. Resistance need not be violent, but
the civil disobedience that might be required involves confrontation
with the state and invites possible imprisonment.
Peaceful, nonviolent revolutions against tyranny have
been every bit as successful as those involving military
confrontation. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., achieved great political successes by practicing
nonviolence, and yet they suffered physically at the hands of the
state.
In fact, Paul has repeatedly invoked Gandhi and King's vision of non-violent civil disobedience as the way to reclaim our freedom.
As I wrote in connection with the Egyptian revolution:
This
is just like when the British police attacked the non-violent
protesters led by Gandhi, or the police in towns in the South of the
United States attacked the peaceful protesters led by Martin Luther
King, Jr.
And as conservative writer Karl Denninger wrote yesterday:
There is a lesson in here for all individuals and nations. All governments exist only
with the consent of the governed. That consent does not have to be
"withdrawn" via unlawful force at-arms or even via the ballot box.
Indeed, it is most-effectively withdrawn when the citizens refuse to go to work!
The Beast of Government exists on tax revenues. ALL governments share this fundamental reality. ALL governments fail when the economic capacity to tax is destroyed. ALL
citizens give their consent to their government each and every day by
performing economic acts and thereby exposing that activity to
taxation.
That taxation forms the essence of the functional capacity to govern. Period.
The people in all nations, at all times, reserve the right and the ability, through peaceful and lawful action, to destroy any government should it fail to comply with their demands and act in a sufficiently-onerous manner, and a minority
of the population is all it requires to effect this change. The
Soviet Union fell via this mechanism, East Germany fell via this
mechanism, and now Egypt has fallen via this mechanism.
No blood and no lawlessness were required.
In
fact, it was the pro-government goons that were engaged in violence in
an attempt to goad the people into acts that they could then use to
"justify" the excessive use of force. The government gassed the
protesters. The government was the one shooting people; rifles are
prohibited from private ownership in Egypt. The government was, as best
we can determine, the one raining Molotov cocktails on the protesters.
But the government failed to incite the protesters to violence, who
instead maintained their right to starve the government by refusing to provide it with the economic activity it needed to survive.
All
persons in all nations should be aware of the fundamental fact that
their government, no matter how oppressive, no matter how ugly, no
matter how allegedly-free or representative (or not) exists only because you rise from your bed each day and go to work.
The
day you stop, along with a sizable fraction of your neighbors and
friends, and instead wave signs and demand change, thereby shutting down
the engine of commerce is the day you remove through peaceful and lawful means the fuel that the government requires to operate.
Our
"protests" in Washington and elsewhere fail to provide results
because the "or else" has not been provided along with the protest. We
come, we wave signs, and the next day we go home and go to work. If instead any sizable fraction of the population ... were to appear, wave signs, and go on strike until and unless the change demanded was made.... [then we win.]
***
If you live in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or any other nation that has an autocratic and dictatorial regime, you
now have a blueprint to toss the jackals at the putative head of your
nation from their thrones without firing a single shot or drawing a
drop of blood.
I challenge the people of the world from Saudi Arabia to Jordan to China to do so.
For
those in The United States or other western nations who claim that we
are inexorably on a path toward civil disorder or even civil war due to
the outrageous looting of our nations that have been conducted by
financial interests with the full consent and complicity of our
governments, I simply point to Egypt.
As usual, this is not a question of left-versus-right.
The
war between liberals and conservatives is a false divide-and-conquer
dog-and-pony show created by the powers that be to keep the American
people divided and distracted. See this, this, this, this, this, this and this. Until we stop falling for this trick, we will remain powerless.
Instead, it is a question of the powers-that-be waging war on the freedom and wealth of the American people.
Wake up, liberals.
Wake up, conservatives.
Hear the whispers of the Founding Fathers ... and of Gandhi, and King, and the Egyptian people.
»
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There is no solution: humans are humans.
Whatever system you put in place, human nature (greed, avarice, envy etc.) will still be there, and will corrupt any system. History proves this to be so.
Good luck to Egypt et al that force a revolution, but likelihood is they'll be out of the frying pan into the fire.
Too many words on ZH: 'Yeah, let's sort the banksters and politicians out', NEVER any actions, and I'll bet most of you do business with the businesses you criticise.
It's a sad world, because we are human.
The solutions are simple, but not for wimps.
Ban lobbyists. Penalty: Hanging.
Ban corporate "contributions". Penalty: Hang the boards and the executives.
Ban political parties. Not necessary. Not desired.
Ban any re-election. One term only.
Fund all election costs from the public purse only (fair & equal)
Bury "the fed" (up) permanently. Immediately.
You are right that humans are human, that's why the Founders designed our federal governement to be eternally a house divided against itself. The federal monster must be cut down to size and hampered as originally intended from interfering unconstitutionally in our lives.
Good luck getting herbert and sanders to agree to that!
+1776
Starve the beast.
Amen. The only thing that will work.
whats up with all these tax havens? this shit is killing the world. greed
http://nakedempire.wordpress.com/
The founding fathers were prescient in recognizing the power of religion and providing for a separation of church and state. However, they didn't consider at that time how powerful the influence of money would be. Corporate America today can easily change the will of the people. Our Supreme Court just proved that. An individual American today has little or no ability to stand up against corporate America. We've allowed jobs to leave and now we are feeling the effects. If this isn't 1984 I don't know what is. "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others".
We must insist on a separation of commerce and state. Now
Agreed, good point. But, what would happen to a small company like mine if the over extended big companies were not given free money and other perks from the State? What if they had to earn their way? Then we would see not only political change, but a rebirth of innovation and the work ethic. Oh wait, that is not wanted here in the US is it? Sorry, thought I was elsewhere, future Egypt maybe.
The Founders DID NOT provide for a "separation of church and state." Read the Constitution. It forbids the federal Congress from establishing a state religion. The various states continued to have official state religions for some time. That was the original, obvious to all meaning of that short bit there in the Constitution regarding religion.
As to "commerce and state," well we will see what the Supreme Court does with ObamaCare. The decision there should be 9-0, but it could swing either way thanks to Democrat appointees. If they uphold the indvidual mandate, this means the federal government can make anyone do just about anything at all in the name of regulating interstate commerce. The federal government becomes a central government with unlimited powers, and the American experiment in freedom is over. It got that way through a series of injuries to the Commerce Clause, thanks to which is now already bled white and hangs by a thread: Some farmer unaccountably lost his case against the federal government back at the beginning of federal shenanigans that control agriculture. You see, he was growing grain on his own property to feed to his family and animals, but not selling it much, nor selling it across state lines at all. The Supremes ruled however, that the farmer's with holding of his production from market constituted participation in interstate commerce, because of the theoretical infinitesimal effect on overall supply and demand, and therefore price, that this farmer's non participation in commerce could cause. This decision and may like empowered the federal government to grow into the grotesquely bloated overreaching tyrannical force in our lives that it has become today. So, the first thing to do in regards to "commerce and state" is remove federal regulation of it. I.E. literally elliminate dozens if not hundreds of bureaucraties. This type of "multiplication of offices" is cited in the Declaration as being an important one of the list of insufferable offenses by King George against the people of the American Colonies. Offenses which "sucked the substance out of the people." King George had nothing on our modern day federal government.
I would argue the Jackson and Jefferson were well aware of the ability of fiat money to corrupt. Unfortunately, they were outnumbered and had some rather distasteful hang-ups like owning slaves.
Absolutely true.
Excellent point.
Not so much. The federal government is gigantic compared to any one industry in this country, never mind any one company. Statist blowhards like Obama stand up there whining about how the oil companies already make too much money as it is and how they'll not give up their profits easily, and on and on. The thing is, the entire industry's profits are miniscule compared to the mountains of taxes already levied by the federal government upon them. This sort of talk is wind upon the statists' windmill. They are all about seizing more power, more central control, in every possible domain, to feed their god the state.
Pop quiz:
How much did Exxon pay in income tax in 2009?
How many billions do they have stashed offshore?
They make big hay out of their worldwide tax liability, but that's what happens when your business is to sell the resources out from under other countries....they're bound to ask for their slice.
The best way to revolt is to vote out every incumbent. If you think the Tea Party makes the current Republicans nervous, just wait until no one is left in office for more than one term. Those who are worthy, let them run again after having experienced the reset button.
Break it down. Average Joe would probably do a better job and would certainly be hard pressed to do a worse job. Think of the disarray of lobbyists. Who do we buy off first, next, last, will they even be there when we come to collect?
Answer: the one that wins a primary (and likely for much cheaper rates).
If you really think this is a practical solution you're not paying attention.
That won't change anything. There is no balance of power at the Federal Government. If the President (dicator) wants to do something, he just writes an Executive Order (edict) or tells one of his many unconstitutional agencies under the Executive Branch to write it in the Federal Regulations with the force of law.
Congress is obsolete, and you can thank America's very own Emergency Act for it:
Within days of his inauguration, FDR amended the dormant 1917 Trading With The Enemy Act to include the American People on the list of ‘enemies’ of the United States, declared a ‘national emergency’ (the ‘Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933), and invoked the ‘Emergency War Powers’ of 1917 to rule the United States exactly as if we were at war, i.e. as a dictatorship.
During the declared ‘emergency’, the constitution for the United States of America was suspended as ‘supreme national policy’. During the ‘emergency’, what was once mandated by law is merely recommended by policy. In other words, as a government agent, if you had the time and inclination, you can follow the precepts of the constitution: but if you are too busy, too hard pressed by the emergency, screw the constitution, kick in some doors, start shooting and kill anyone gets in your way. After all, the law of emergency is no law, only power.
In fact, when FDR first asked congress to ratify his declaration of ‘national emergency’ and grant him the unconstitutional powers of an American dictator, he promised to terminate the ‘emergency’ and restore the constitution before he left office. If FDR ever truly meant to keep that 1933 promise, he apparently changed his mind when WWII broke out, and kept these powers intact until he died in office in 1945.
Harry Truman took over the presidency dictatorship, and apparently found the emergency powers so helpful in running the United States, he didn’t revoke the emergency either. In fact, not one American President-Dictator has even hinted that the ‘emergency’ should be ended, the war powers surrendered, and the constitution restored as supreme law. Not one.
The ‘President’s’ role in ending the national emergency is crucial because, although congressional approval was required to initially grant the emergency powers to the executive, once those virtually absolute powers were granted, no one but the almighty President Dictator himself could return them. In other words, if every representative and senator in congress voted unanimously to end the national emergency, the vote would carry as much weight as if they had voted to end aging, gravity and death. The 1933 congress created an American ‘King,’ and so long as that ‘King’ rules, we shall regret it because we are all relegated to status somewhat like a POW…
End the national emergency and almost every ‘alphabet-agency’ will simply disappear since they have no constitutional foundation. OSHA, FDA, FCC, CIA, FBI, FTC, NASA, TSA and even the IRS will be gone…
I like your energy, but review your copy. The IRS was authorized by an amendment to the Constitution, and the huge federal overreach was signed off by the Supreme Court over time.
That latter point, who gets to appoint the replacements for the remaining Supreme Court justices who are actually loyal to the Constitution, will determine whether we can reverse the stupendous powermad overreach of our central government. The Obamacare decision wil be pivotal in history, deciding whether the Commerce Clause limits the central governement to regulation of interstate commerce only, or whether instead, it gets re-read to mean the federal governement can do anything to anybody in the name of hypothetical tangential effects of our individual choices to NOT engage in some sort of local commerce. It is astonishing we've come so far watering down our constitution and letting central governement bureaucratic power creep into our lives that this question even comes before the Supreme Court. It is obvious the constitution doesn't allow this, even more clearly than it was unconstitutional for soem poxy federal agriculture administration to tell a family farmer to submit to its regulations in the name of interstate commerce back when.
""The IRS was authorized by an amendment to the Constitution, and the huge federal overreach was signed off by the Supreme Court over time.""
Citizen's Revolution, Egyptian Style...
http://seenoevilspeaknoevilhearnoevil.blogspot.com/2011/02/revolution-egyptian-style.html
Yes.
No. This is pure silliness at least as applied to the US. The unemployed should not go to work? Grossly overpaid civil servants should not go to work? The 43% of the population that doesn't pay income taxes shouldn't go to work? The 40% of the population on food stamps and similar welfare shouldn't go to work? What are we striking for? pay less income tax? more food stamps?
even if someone could find something to strike for, I suggest the govt could last longer than the strikers. Just have the Bernank print some more money. The fact that the current debt is so large that it will never be repaid, doesn't seem to bother anyone now. Why should it start? just vote the bastards out.
Bring it on!
It's been underway for over a decade.
These things are like avalanches. They start small, but once they get going...
Anyone around here want to set themselves on fire in front of a government building?