This John Lennon challenge in his "Revolution" (released in 1968) captured the essence of the most turbulent year in my lifetime. What he knew, and what the people of the United States sadly discovered was that rebellion in the streets, while attracting large numbers of people who had little to lose, would serve as the paradigm for a media branding that television and the press had just recently discovered had the power to attract through spectacle and foment without resolution. The word revolution had great currency in those days; both the Yippies and the establishment in their opposing rhetoric used it to keep the cynicism alive.
I witnessed, close up and personal, the techniques that were used to corral well meaning but naive adults and young people, into massive marches and displays chanting slogans of the need for endings and desires for vague beginnings. Some even spilled their blood. But in the end, after people had been dragged into paddy wagons and banners and signs had been swept up into junk, the idea of revolution had been snatched and turned into something closely resembling a coup d'etat. Those of us walking the streets of D.C. and New York and New Haven eventually got it, we saw the military arrayed on rooftops and smelled the tear gas, and we eventually understood Lennon's caution, the voice of the narrative saying that the effort won't create a revolution and that everything "will be all right, all right, all right"...in other words, middling acceptable.
History tells me that revolutions arise from the citizens' court of last resort. The trials have run their course, but they bring no satisfaction. All that precedes a revolution have been episodes along a series of bandaid increments. And for each increment of solution there are double retreats into the original problems. 1968 was a major trial for the citizens of the U.S. Its verdict demonstrated two things to the people who cared: 1) a citizen rebellion is not a revolution, an actual, systemic change that takes great effort, causing much hardship; 2) incrementalism, the consequence of rebellion, plays the house's game—it allows you enough small scores so that you think the game is winnable, but when you step back and accept that the house still has the most points, the most money, the most power, you realize that it's time to sit back and wait for the next increment, the next tease the house tosses your way.
Bernie Sanders' rhetoric voices both the need for and the promise of a revolution (full disclosure: I have donated money in support of his campaign), but he does not clarify what demands that revolution will assume on the part of his supporters, indeed, on the part of the U.S. citizenry should he be elected. David Brooks (a writer I respect and often enjoy chiding) presented a low key sarcastic summary of what kinds of sacrifices would be required of the citizenry as a result of implementing Sanders' policy standards. I recommend that you follow the link, because what Brooks demonstrates is a fairly accurate picture of what the U.S. would look like and feel like in the wake of a Sanders election to the presidency.
Yes, this is what the Sanders revolution would look like. Forget about the European references, which are merely Brooks' tweak of Americans' knee jerk responses to what they believe are the intellectual elitism and nanny state-ism of all things European. What Brooks does fairly mention is that elements like stability in the provision of basic personal needs (health care, child care, food, housing) are met in such societies. What he implies is that Americans, so far, have been unwilling to swap the possibility of greater self-aggrandizement—physically, financially and socially—in their individual lives, and very much willing to let the devil take the hindmost. In other words, Americans like to gamble with their lives (according to Forbes, 90% of startups, i.e., gambles, fail in the first 3 years). And Bernie Sanders suggests that such a lifestyle currently has nightmarish consequences for what used to be comparatively small numbers of people but now are having significant consequences for all the risk takers out there...except the ones holding the house money. This is what Sanders means when he lists childhood poverty, the boom in the incarceration industry, the boom in the charter school industry, the prices of the food we eat, of the medications we need to get through our days, the housing we live in, and the health care we do or do not receive.
Sanders' opponents, no matter which of the two parties they represent, pay lip service about what kinds of things they know must be done. When they want to be kind to him, they say Sanders' vision is not realizable and practical; it's a too radical system for Americans. But, unlike Sanders, they don't identify how they represent the incremental process of the radical capitalism that supports them. No matter what they say, they cannot and do not want to change that process; they do not want to change the system to make it more responsive to the fundamental needs of human beings. Our history has passed through periods like this, for example, 1880-1900 and 1920-1930. The culture of the U.S. during those periods was full of extremes, and life for 90% of the citizenry was very unreliable.
Sanders wants the citizenry to look closely at what and how we are living. Secretary Clinton refers to him as a single issue candidate. But she carefully doesn't mention what the issue is. The issue requires change as revolution, rather than yet another series of incremental changes, that must be made in order to remedy what might become a society of extraordinary dislocation. Some minority pundits raise the question about Americans' fears of socialism. They wonder why those people do not see the dangers of financial and corporate welfare. The Tea Party people seem to think that their ideas will restore basic freedoms, yet they don't protest the usurpation of freedoms that go on in their lives every day they spend more money on food, transportation, utilities, mortgages, interest rates and so on. They accept the exploitation that goes on around them, even while they claim that they want to avoid the exploitation of so-called socialism. They accept the radicalism of the Big Banks and Big Pharma but fear the radicalism of revolution. One wonders what side they would have been on after 1775. Oh yes, the colonies were full of people like them, not the least were the farmers and small merchants. They were called Tories.
I'll end this on the despondent note that for all the reasons cited I'm fairly certain that the Sanders revolution will not be realized. Americans are mostly unrepentant gamblers. And they fervently believe that is the birthright that underpins the fundamentalism of their secular religion. The person whose face is on the $10 bill knew this better than any of the others haggling in 18th century Philadelphia. A close associate, Ben Franklin, drew a persona out of it. That's who Americans are and want to remain...apparently.
I witnessed, close up and personal, the techniques that were used to corral well meaning but naive adults and young people, into massive marches and displays chanting slogans of the need for endings and desires for vague beginnings. Some even spilled their blood. But in the end, after people had been dragged into paddy wagons and banners and signs had been swept up into junk, the idea of revolution had been snatched and turned into something closely resembling a coup d'etat. Those of us walking the streets of D.C. and New York and New Haven eventually got it, we saw the military arrayed on rooftops and smelled the tear gas, and we eventually understood Lennon's caution, the voice of the narrative saying that the effort won't create a revolution and that everything "will be all right, all right, all right"...in other words, middling acceptable.
History tells me that revolutions arise from the citizens' court of last resort. The trials have run their course, but they bring no satisfaction. All that precedes a revolution have been episodes along a series of bandaid increments. And for each increment of solution there are double retreats into the original problems. 1968 was a major trial for the citizens of the U.S. Its verdict demonstrated two things to the people who cared: 1) a citizen rebellion is not a revolution, an actual, systemic change that takes great effort, causing much hardship; 2) incrementalism, the consequence of rebellion, plays the house's game—it allows you enough small scores so that you think the game is winnable, but when you step back and accept that the house still has the most points, the most money, the most power, you realize that it's time to sit back and wait for the next increment, the next tease the house tosses your way.
Bernie Sanders' rhetoric voices both the need for and the promise of a revolution (full disclosure: I have donated money in support of his campaign), but he does not clarify what demands that revolution will assume on the part of his supporters, indeed, on the part of the U.S. citizenry should he be elected. David Brooks (a writer I respect and often enjoy chiding) presented a low key sarcastic summary of what kinds of sacrifices would be required of the citizenry as a result of implementing Sanders' policy standards. I recommend that you follow the link, because what Brooks demonstrates is a fairly accurate picture of what the U.S. would look like and feel like in the wake of a Sanders election to the presidency.
Yes, this is what the Sanders revolution would look like. Forget about the European references, which are merely Brooks' tweak of Americans' knee jerk responses to what they believe are the intellectual elitism and nanny state-ism of all things European. What Brooks does fairly mention is that elements like stability in the provision of basic personal needs (health care, child care, food, housing) are met in such societies. What he implies is that Americans, so far, have been unwilling to swap the possibility of greater self-aggrandizement—physically, financially and socially—in their individual lives, and very much willing to let the devil take the hindmost. In other words, Americans like to gamble with their lives (according to Forbes, 90% of startups, i.e., gambles, fail in the first 3 years). And Bernie Sanders suggests that such a lifestyle currently has nightmarish consequences for what used to be comparatively small numbers of people but now are having significant consequences for all the risk takers out there...except the ones holding the house money. This is what Sanders means when he lists childhood poverty, the boom in the incarceration industry, the boom in the charter school industry, the prices of the food we eat, of the medications we need to get through our days, the housing we live in, and the health care we do or do not receive.
Sanders' opponents, no matter which of the two parties they represent, pay lip service about what kinds of things they know must be done. When they want to be kind to him, they say Sanders' vision is not realizable and practical; it's a too radical system for Americans. But, unlike Sanders, they don't identify how they represent the incremental process of the radical capitalism that supports them. No matter what they say, they cannot and do not want to change that process; they do not want to change the system to make it more responsive to the fundamental needs of human beings. Our history has passed through periods like this, for example, 1880-1900 and 1920-1930. The culture of the U.S. during those periods was full of extremes, and life for 90% of the citizenry was very unreliable.
Sanders wants the citizenry to look closely at what and how we are living. Secretary Clinton refers to him as a single issue candidate. But she carefully doesn't mention what the issue is. The issue requires change as revolution, rather than yet another series of incremental changes, that must be made in order to remedy what might become a society of extraordinary dislocation. Some minority pundits raise the question about Americans' fears of socialism. They wonder why those people do not see the dangers of financial and corporate welfare. The Tea Party people seem to think that their ideas will restore basic freedoms, yet they don't protest the usurpation of freedoms that go on in their lives every day they spend more money on food, transportation, utilities, mortgages, interest rates and so on. They accept the exploitation that goes on around them, even while they claim that they want to avoid the exploitation of so-called socialism. They accept the radicalism of the Big Banks and Big Pharma but fear the radicalism of revolution. One wonders what side they would have been on after 1775. Oh yes, the colonies were full of people like them, not the least were the farmers and small merchants. They were called Tories.
I'll end this on the despondent note that for all the reasons cited I'm fairly certain that the Sanders revolution will not be realized. Americans are mostly unrepentant gamblers. And they fervently believe that is the birthright that underpins the fundamentalism of their secular religion. The person whose face is on the $10 bill knew this better than any of the others haggling in 18th century Philadelphia. A close associate, Ben Franklin, drew a persona out of it. That's who Americans are and want to remain...apparently.
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