Sara Robinson writing for Campaign for America's Future has a provocative entry about what is going on in America and where the country could be headed. She points out there are many people in America who are poised for transformative change, and may be willing to accept nothing less.
I am sure that I won't be able to do this article justice but if you would join me below the fold I will offer a synopsis of what is truly an informative piece.
In the article titled When Change is not Enough, Seven Steps to Revolution she addresses issues facing America. She takes a look at the landscape of politics today, the restlessness that Americans are feeling and where that may lead. One of the opening paragraphs sums it up nicely.
There's something implacable, earnest, and righteously angry in the air. And it raises all kinds of questions for burned-out Boomers and jaded Gen Xers who've been ground down to the stump by the mostly losing battles of the past 30 years. Can it be — at long last — that Americans have, simply, had enough? Are we, finally, stepping out to take back our government — and with it, control of our own future? Is this simply a shifting political season — the kind we get every 20 to 30 years — or is there something deeper going on here? Do we dare to raise our hopes that this time, we're going to finally win a few? Just how ready is this country for big, serious, forward-looking change?
She then goes on to explain while doing research she came across an article written in 1962 by a Caltech sociologist named James C. Davies that was published in the American Sociological Review. In this article Davies cited another scholar, Crane Brinton, who laid out seven precursors which led up to revolutions in the last 300 years. The events that preceded the Puritan, American, French and Russian revolutions are eerily similar to conditions facing us in 2008.
And even more interestingly: in every case, we got here as a direct result of either intended or unintended consequences of the conservatives' war against liberal government, and their attempt to take over our democracy and replace it with a one-party plutocracy. It turns out that, historically, liberal nations make very poor grounds for revolution — but deeply conservative ones very reliably create the conditions that eventually make violent overthrow necessary. And our own Republicans, it turns out, have done a hell of a job.
Now this could turn into a really long diary so I will offer the seven steps with a short explaination. I hope that you would take the time to read the whole article as it is a well written and very provocative piece.
1) Soaring, Then Crashing
Here she discusses the fact that societies remain "stable and static", as long as people have thier places and things they accept this and there is no reason for change. Such as after the New Deal was put in place and it was expected that each generation would be better off than the last. She points out after 1972, with the conservstive mindset taking hold things began to become more unstable.
2) They Call It A Class War
Now we have people who are having to work longer hours, the wages have become stagnant and inflation is taking a toll on the ability to maintain the lifestyle people have come to expect. Corporate America is recieving tax cuts, the powers that be fight raises in the minimum wage, healthcare and the right to unionize. Corporate policies are putting earnings disparity at depresion levels, they deny the middle and working class access to any number of recourses and people are getting mad.
3) Deserted Intellectuals
This one is substantial, she points out all revolutions need leaders and these come from the intellectuals who are feeling disaffected along with military being denied basic rights. She says it better than I could.
Davies says that revolutions catalyze when these deserted intellectuals make common cause with the lower classes. And much of the energy of this election is coming right out of that emerging alliance. The same drive toward corporatization that savaged our dreams also hammered at other class wedges throughout American society, creating conditions that savaged the middle class and ground the working class toward something resembling serfdom. Between our galvanizing frustration with George Bush, our shared fury at the war, and the new connections forged by bloggers and organizers, that alliance has now congealed into the determinedly change-minded movements we're seeing this election cycle.
4) Incompetent Government
That statement says it all, anyone who has been paying attention for the last thirty years knows our governemnt has become controlled by crooks and liars. Again she states it so well.
Between our corporate-owned Congress and the spectacularly bad judgment of Bush's executive branch, there's never been a government in American history more inept, corrupt, and criminally negligent than this one — or more shockingly out of touch with what the average American is going through. Just ask anyone from New Orleans — or anyone who has a relative in the military.
5) Gutless Wonders in the Ruling Class
Here she points out people are willing to take plenty of crap, but only so many spoonfuls before they get fed up. With the changing world from technology to climate change and beyond, when the ruling classes refuse to act the people will.
6) Fiscal Irresponsibility
Not only are they squandering our future riches but they are blatantly dispensing of our grandkids money and planet with no end in sight. The way the economy is headed and the fact we are borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, is disasterous for the future.
7) Inept and Inconsistent Use of Force
This seems to be the last straw. Uneven sentencing, police brutality, unwarranted searches and seizures, surveillance and harrassment of law-abiding citizens, restrictions on speech and assembly, the misuse of our military forces both at home and abroad. You get the picture. She has views on the presidential race that are very insightful, I hope youwould read the entire article, but I would like to end with a paragraph she provides from Dr. Davies.
"A revolutionary state of mind requires the continued, even habitual but dynamic expectation of greater opportunity to satisfy basic needs...but the necessary additional ingredient is a persistent, unrelenting threat to the satisfaction of those needs: not a threat which actually returns people to a state of sheer survival but which put them in the mental state where they believe they will not be able to satisfy one or more basic needs....The crucial factor is the vague or specific fear that ground gained over a long period of time will be quickly lost... [This fear] generates when the existing government suppresses or is blamed for suppressing such opportunity."
If you made it this far thank you.