Editor’s Note: You’re going to hear a lot of people talking about the possibility of social unrest in the United States if the economy craters into a double dip recession, as many economists predict it will. Here’s an intro to a piece I recently did on the subject over at ConstitutionalDaily.com which, for reasons I can’t fathom, I forgot to link here.*
Short the Revolution
‘Cause I’m hung up, on dreams I’ll never see. – G. Allman (1970)
I don’t believe in movements, at least not those started in this country. Personally, the only I’ve known of any value are those dispatched into a toilet bowl. Americans don’t do revolution well. Hell, we don’t even really do it at all. At least not anymore.
“What?” you might be thinking.
The Civil War?
Suffrage?
Civil Rights?
These weren’t revolutions. They were decent people forced to drag Neanderthals among us into the Modern Age – to compel those with indefensible positions to treat their fellow humans with a modicum of dignity and respect that should existed from the first… that should been obviously, innately due. And so no, you can’t call these revolutions. These were national embarrassments. Reminders that, as much as the country might progress, as much as it’ll flog the notion it’s a free and open society, there’s always some degenerate element with a hand on at least one of the big levers of power, seeking to re-impose medieval ideals on the masses.
But then, perhaps the masses need it. Perhaps they’ve earned the screwing they’re getting. Because really, if you look around – if you examine the reality TV with which we entertain ourselves, the narrow, self-obsessed nature of much of our youth, and the incurious oafishness that is Joe Sixpack, what can one conclude except “Yes, This is Old Rome”?
Bread and circuses for our entitlement addicted, seventy percent diabetic, gadget junkie underclasses. Stuff their mouths with government cheese… pillage the public coffers while they finger their iPhones and surf pay per view.
But our common fools, the hopeless jelly-headed cattle of the Republic, aren’t the real problem. They’re not the agents of change, and they’re not even the most deluded. The loss of their effort in any push to fix what ails this country is
immaterial. All they can do is follow.
No, the loss lies with those who think “I Can Win the Rigged Game. I’ll be a Player”… The young and silly who don’t grasp, “This is broken and it needs to change,” but instead live by the creed, “I can manipulate this system to my advantage, and Win.”
Read the rest here.
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*As I was writing this note, the stories about Gadhaffi’s collapse started rolling across the cable news networks. All the more reason, along with the possibility of Assad’s regime toppling, the media will be discussing “revolution” frequently in coming weeks. (These Arab revolutions will ultimately effect nothing more than the installation of new strongmen, of course, but that’s a point for another piece, and probably another website.)