Time for a U.S. Revolution – Fifteen Reasons

[Scuba]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/07-7


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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.

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.

<end snip>

[Crazy Dave]

1. If we were as aggressive as the Tea Party maybe things would be different n/t

[pintobean]

2. How do you propose we go about it?

[Kip Humphrey]

3. First we get free, massive PR (M$M & FUX NOISE), then we get massive funding (Koch, CoC).

[MedleyMisty]

4. Have you paid any attention to the Arab Spring?

Organizing peaceful and sustained civil disobedience worked pretty well for Egypt and Tunisia. Of course, other dictators learned from that and got much more brutal.

Fortunately, I think the great majority of our police and military would defect. They can torture Bradley Manning because he's only one man. I really think that when faced with tens of millions of us if not more, knowing that we would be armed with Twitter and YouTube, knowing that we could show the world that the whole land of the free, shining light on the hill, bringer of freedom and democracy BS was complete and total BS - I just don't see a Libya/Syria/Bahrain style crackdown happening.

But we need to do that fairly quickly, before they learn too much from the Arab Spring and get too much control over the internet.

And until we have enough numbers for that, we can resist in smaller ways. Occupy state capitols. Occupy bank branches. Occupy schools. All of that is already happening.

Remove all financial support from multinational corporations. Move your money to a small local bank. Support local business. Grow your own food. Do everything in your power to starve their economy while building your local economy.

And I wish the people in Wisconsin and Michigan and these other states with fascist governors would seriously start thinking about general strikes.

[originalpckelly]

5. The United suffers from a big problem: some of the framers literally wanted a king.

That's the big issue here.

Even Obama seems to walk all over the constitution he used to teach about. It scares me to think that a former constitutional law professor would issue a signing statement of any kind.

[Annata4Peace]

8. I agree

[chrisa]

6. Yes, if peaceful

[JoePhilly]

7. Not happening.

[GreenStormCloud]

9. Most people are still comfortable. Comfortable people don't revolt.

I have been hearing about this revolution ever since the mid 1960s. It still hasn't happened except in the fantasies of some Symbionese Liberation Army types who give themselves grandiose military titles. By now I have learned that it isn't going to happen.

[MilesColtrane]

10. Political revolutions tend to happen in countries with a lot of young people.

The United States' population has been trending older for some time now.