A lot of DUers were advocating "revolution" couple of years ago

[lazer47]

well be careful what you wish for, you may not realize it but the beginnings are on the fore-front,, most revolutions start when the economy begins to fail..

[Warpy]

1. Actually, most start after the bottom has been hit

and things are starting to improve, although never quickly enough.

Revolutions happen because desperate people see the fat cats grabbing first.

[lazer47]

3. And 100,000,000 people aren't desperate enough yet??

just hang in there dude it's coming....

[Le Taz Hot]

2. I offer the following:

"As revolutionary instruments (when nothing but revolution will cure the evils of the State) are necessary and indispensable, and the right to use them is inalienable by the people." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1803. FE 8:256

[lazer47]

4. and what instruments do most people have left???

[Le Taz Hot]

7. The same instrument they've always had.

Motivation. When there's enough hunger, joblessness, homelessness, people literally dying on the streets for lack of health care, people will act. Now, we can act rationally, as we did in our own Revolution or we can act irrationally such as the French did in their own Revolution 13 years later (1500 people a day to the guillotine). Peoples throughout history have achieved revolutionary change with far less than what we currently have.

[lazer47]

10. Wake up,, we already have that,, stop day dreaming,,,,

[Le Taz Hot]

12. We'll have to hit rock bottom and we're nowhere

close to that . . . yet.

[lazer47]

15. Never judge your bottom by someone elses,,,

[readmoreoften]

25. How is our revolution rational and the French Revolution irrational? Two different conditions.

Our revolution was a bourgeois revolution based on business owners and consumers who were pissed off at being bilked by a distant government that happened to be a monarchy. The French Revolution was a revolution of the working class and poor against an extremely violent system that left the poor and workers starving in the streets eating rats while the Royals lived off the fat of their labor. Those are two incredibly different situations.

It's true, of the 1500 people a day sent to the guillotine, it's likely that only 1000 a day really deserved it. How many of the poor deserved to slowly starve to death because of their "station at birth"?

The way I see it: the French Revolution was completely rational and unsentimental until it began to eat its own.

[cap]

5. we're having it right now with Obama

a peaceful, non-violent revolution... but a revolution nonetheless.

I do think you are right to point out the law of unintended consequences. Obama is both dealing with forces he can't control as well as starting new initiatives that will have their own forces

[msongs]

6. hows is the return of the clinton administration a revolution? forward into the past? nt

[cap]

21. it's the people power from the change.gov

that's going to get everything going. As people power grows so will the pressure to deliver. That's why Rahm Emanual is in charge... watch and see. You won't get a reprise of Clintonism.

[Le Taz Hot]

8. Oh, please.

Rahm Emanuel? Tom Daschle? Lieberman? And that change would be where . . . ????

[cali]

13. change isn't about the appointments. it's about moving what is

quite a liberal agenda- from repealing DOMA to implementing health care reform and shutting down Gitmo and withdrawing from Iraq. It's a hell of a lot easier to do that if you aren't labeled a pinko commie liberal by the right and the MSM. Who better to push Obama's agenda than people who are seen by the public and the MSM as centrists and known quantities. And please remember that his two senior advisors are not Clintonians and not particularly centrist in their views. Also, Lieberman is in no way part of Obama's cabinet.

There's no way you can effectively pass your agenda with inexperienced people. No way.

[lazer47]

9. As good as President elect Obama is, and as much as I like him

he can't control the forces that operate outside of his circle of influence,,this has been coming for at least 50 yrs,that I know of,, maybe longer

[Runcible Spoon]

16. Obama will NOT be a revolutionary. He will be a stopgap at best...

and a continuation of the last few decades at worst.

[anaxarchos]

11. "Revolution"

Revolution is not an act of nature, any more than economic crisis is. It still takes somebody (many "somebodies") to actually do it. Ask the residents of the shanty towns of Rio de Janeiro or Lagos, "How much pain is tolerable?" Misery doesn't make revolution. It just focuses the mind.

[Le Taz Hot]

14. The difference, of course,

is that the type of misery we're experiencing (and it will be MUCH worse), is not ingrained into our culture. Believe it or not, that disgusting sense of entitlement Americans have always had will actually work FOR us.

[TahitiNut]

17. It's far better for the politicians to fear the people than for the people to fear the politicians.

The threat/possibility of revolution is essential to a free nation.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Alas, the politicians fear the lobbyists, not the people.

[RedLetterRev]

18. The only thing that frightens me at the moment

are those six still-missing nukes, likely purloined by Cheneyburton. A lot of people immediately around the incident "had accidents" and the matter has largely been forgotten.

I put nothing past the neoKKKons and their cronies. Absolutely nothing.

[Two Americas]

20. no one advocates revolution

Or at least very, very few do. This is a common charge leveled against critics and dissenters. All one need do is express dissatisfaction with the two parties, or with the tyrannical rule of Wall Street and corporations over our lives and our government, and someone is likely to respond with "what's the alternative??? You are advocating revolution!!" That is just a way to discredit critics.

Many advocate justice, and fear that it may take drastic means. But no one wants or advocates civil disorder or violence for the sake of it.

We fight for justice. How difficult that fight might be, or what might be required is a separate issue.

It would be more accurate to say that those who are advocating conservative economics are "advocating war and slavery and death" than it is to say that those fighting for justice are "wishing for revolution."

[readmoreoften]

22. I agree with you in sentiment, but I'm okay with calling justice-by-any-means a revolution.

The violence of the system is so overwhelming that poor people and workers seem to be more interested in banding together to protect ourselves against the horrors of plutocracy. The issue of violence is largely a straw man in a system where people are left to die on ER room floors, where people are choosing between heating and food, and the presidential appointees of "the most liberal senator in America" acted on behalf Chiquita Banana's right to use a cocaine-funded paramilitary death squad to mow down thousands of protesting union members and workers.

Most of us would welcome a "rational" transition or a "velvet revolution" from plutocracy to democracy and freedom (as opposed to plutocracy and serfdom...) the big question is "How do we get the wealthy and their violent right-wing thugs to stop slaughtering and exploiting the people?" (Perhaps they just need a good talking-to.)

The greatest power we wield is the power to strike. But that is very difficult in an era of independent-contractor labor and the freelancification of the workforce.

[Breeze54]

23. The 2008 Election WAS the Revolution!!

:P

2010 will be even better!! ;)

[TrogL]

24. Most revolutions start with an oppressed people

[Two Americas]

27. right

What do you think we are?

We do have a class of palace guards, the 10% who act as mouthpieces and handmaidens for the corporate overlords in exchange for privilege and comfort, many of them calling themselves "liberals" or "Democrats" though they speak for the ruling class. The lives of those people are presented here by people and reloentlessly in the MSM as "typical" American, or "normal" - the so-called
middle class" that only 10% of us can afford to live as any more - but most of the people in this country, let alone in the world, are shut out from that.

If you don't think that Americans are an oppressed people, you may be traveling in too narrow a circle of people.

[earth mom]

26. A large part of the country delusionally thinks Obama is the second coming & is gonna save them...

when in reality, Obama is most obviously setting out to save Corporate America first and foremost.

I just wonder how long it will take before people realize this and how they react when they do.