A word to the wise about history, humans and other stuff..

[Number_Six]

This is, in a way, an expansion on some comments I left on another thread, the Rolling Stone piece about how the crooked banks and other firms are going to use bailouts to create a "revolution".

I begin with the words of Princess Leia of Star Wars fame:

"The more you tighten your fingers, the more slips past."

Yet, elsewhere, the darling MSM is just now picking up on something I've seen taxiing out for some time now: "Populist Uprising", I believe the beast has now been termed.

A commentator: "AIG is Public Enemy Number One". Neat, last I heard that term was in association with ole J Edgar, in association with some big time mobster, eh?

"The public is angry about using tax dollars to hand over nice, fat bonuses to jackasses who basically blew the approach."

The Stone piece seems to hint, almost hysterically I might add, of a "revolt" by these firms to accrue even more power, and yes, we's nailed up the tail rotor, of course.

Small detail: He ain't read Dickens, do he?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . . it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . . in short, the period was so far like the present period . . . .

Meaning, the shit was about to smack the main rotors. A brief recap of French history of that era:

-Reformers begged both the Aristocracy and the churches to start helping out with a fair share of taxes. Reformers were told, succinctly so, to go have sex with a wall outlet.

-The king was spending the budget dry and then some on one stupid war after another stupid war after another stupid war.

-Eventually, the middle class and poor decided to the Howard Beale thing: "I'm mad as hell and I am not taking it anymore!"

-The Tileworks was overran by a pretty nasty mob.

-The Bastille fell, too.

-The king, attempting to flee, was arrested out of his coach, and drug to the gallows for some minor surgery. So was everyone else, from dogcatcher to court lackey to courtesan. The guillotine crews worked some serious overtime.

Thus, the French Revolution went off, totally unplanned, messy, bloody, violent, but....the citizens did what citizens tend to do during such times: They get angry, and then, they act out such anger.

Anger. Keep that word in your pocket.

I and a professor had a damned good yelling match going once on How To Create A Revolt. I had it down to basic Nuclear Physics 101; he was stunned at my analysis:

"Just like building a fission bomb, man."

Anyone who comprehends base fission knows: A lump of clean fissing U235 or Plutonium, attach a lenticular sphere, supply a pulsed trigger charge to set off some C4, and in about one millisecond, yep, (Delta)E=(Delta)MC(^2). Presto.

Humans, I needled him, work the same exact way: Okay, sloppier, but like this:

-A handful or more of angry, pissed-off citizens to form the core.
-Around them a lenticular sphere to create the pressure...a corrupt government.
-Driving the sphere in to critical mass: The wealthy, the rich, the elite, the "in crowd".

Like the A-bomb. Wealthy squeeze the government, the government squeezes us. Critical mass attained.

And somebody stands up and says what Popeye always said: "It's alls I kin stans, I can't stans NO MORE!!"

"Six, dude, come on, what are you implying here? That all this could lead to.....gasp.......revolt????"

No stuff, dude.

The flying neutron of citizen revolt....is anger. Enough, and the poop will smack the blades.

Could such happen?

I warn the gullible, the naive: "Oh, precious one, but it did!"

The Boston Tea party, to some, needs better explanation. The idea was in revolt over tea pricing. See, the crown had a monopoly going, a corporation George ran. (Twilight Zone theme goes here). Angry, the citizens decided to put the stock into Boston Harbor. Dressing up like natives was clever, but, the crown got the point:

"Take your tea and drown in it." And we wonder why America is so into coffee? Hmmm?

The party, as is called, was an act of counter-corporate anger. For years, following our revolt, we still had a nasty thing about corporations, but over time, that would fade, we'd get them back...

The French Revolution was about money, period. The middle-class and poor didn't have any. The Aristocracy had it all. The Aristocracy wanted more, more and did we mention more? Well, they got it....at the guillotine.

Anger. That's the key thing. Anger.

Angry at credit card companies that rip us off with rates that the prophets called "usurious". Angry at banks that whine like spanked brats, and get whatever they want, while others lose their homes, jobs, cars...some even lose their lives.

Anger...at a government that is just not listening.

"Could such happen?"

Easy as dirt: Let's play Einstein and cook us up a thought experiment:

California cannot pay their bills. The budget mess escalates to a point where monies needed...for certain services...come to a dead halt.

Police officers, not getting paid, walk. Ambulance drivers, paramedics, teachers, too....they walk.

Madness ensues. Civil disobedience. Crime out the wazoo. Street gangs become chieftan warlords. Anarchy. Who can stop it, with our troops overseas fighting for Exxon?

All we need do is imagine, but as Clarke warned, what can really happen may shock us far more than any imaginary tale. See 9-11 for that.

Even as we speak, overseas, in other nations, citizens are rioting, angry....angry....angry.

Suppose that happens here? Suppose a little protest becomes violent? And past the kind of violent...that scares us stupid?

It can happen, sports fans, it does. Read your history.

If this mess with the bailouts, is, indeed, a thing for the Corporati to extend even more control over we, the citizens, well, in time, we the citizens will get very angry.

And may God help us....when we do.

As I said, squeeze a little harder, the result will, if we are not careful, be a citizen's critical mass going off. It will not be pretty by any means. It may make the last revolt look far prettier by comparison.

No, no, no, don't put me down as wanting such a thing. I'd prefer our government listen and fast, but...history has been known to prove so many of us so very wrong.

Can it happen again? You tell me.

I know, it's scary. Life often is.