Come the Revolution: Are We There Yet?

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Come-the-Revolution-Are-W-by-Bernard-Weiner-100804-611.html

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."-- President John F. Kennedy

It may well be time for a kind of revolution. For those too young to remember, or for those who believe history still has much to teach us, here's a primer before we get to our shared 2010 reality.

Back in "The Sixties," as we ratcheted up our protests against the Vietnam War, we activist types saw daily evidence that The System (the financial//political/religious/educational institutions that more or less controlled our lives) was rotten to the core. As we liberals inculcated this evidence and became more radicalized, it was apparent that The System needed to be seriously dealt with.

The "Revolution," we believed, was just around the corner, worldwide. All we young radicals -- be it in Berkeley or Washington or Prague or Paris -- had to do was kick out the traces holding up the corroded System, and the whole thing would come tumbling down. A new, freer, more humane set of institutions and leaders would lead us all to the promised land.

Well, of course, that did not happen. Yes, we were able to do some damage to the destructive institutions and create some counter-institutions of our own, we helped stop the Vietnam War, and we even created an alternative mindset for a number of years. But it turned out that The System had a lot more "give" in it than we'd imagined. And corporations and multi-billionaires, thinking long-term, were willing to spend big to buy up media outlets and to create right-wing think tanks and other agit-prop organizations to help them regain their "divinely-ordained" throne of power. Notably, they also purchased control of the voting-machine industry, and of the proprietary software that these days runs it, thus guaranteeing insecure, easily tampered-with elections that are undetectable.

MORE at the link ---

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. the revolution starts when Rupert Murdoch's media are taken over

[Goldstein1984]

2. There'll be no revolution as long as the majority have ESPN

and moderately priced beer is readily available.

[Xipe Totec]

3. The Marketing Division at Sirius Cybernetics

The first against the wall when the revolution came.

[Poboy]

4. Nope. Lots more pain and abuse to come.

Not there yet as we still are just fine with taking it, which means its going to get much uglier for us little people.

[Octafish]

5. Once, We the People could do anything. Now, all We can do is pick up the tab for the crooks.

Thank you for an oustanding read and thread, Donnachaidh.

I remember what it was like during JFK's administration. Time seemed like we could do anything.

Then came war and money to be made from war. As we've seen over the past decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's how the Establishment stays that way.

Now, instead of voyages to the moon, we got as Poppy said during his inauguration: "We have more will than wallet." Except of course when considering how to make the taxpayers bail out the corrupted Savings & Loans his son Neil was part of helping rip off to the tune of a trillion dollars.

[alsame]

6. Judging by how easily this country rolled over when the

2000 election was blatantly stolen, I fear we're a long way from revolution. I guess we need lots and lots of pain to get motivated to do anything now.

[Curmudgeoness]

7. I'm sorry to say I don't see enough people ready yet.

If you remember the 60's, you will remember that the driving force that united so many people was the draft. Parents didn't want to see their kids go to Vietnam, the boys of age or close to it did not want to go to Vietnam. This was a rallying point that has no equal right now. Gotta give it to the powers-that-be to keep that one off the table and just make the military part volunteer and part mercenary. Bring industry into the wars, they win with profits and we lose motive to organize.

[damntexdem]

8. I know that the revolution will not be televised, but ...

will it be on YouTube? Will it be twittered?