Americans Unready to Revolt, Despite Revolting Conditions

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: loki8481
why revolt when there are elections every two years?

I think something crazy bad would have to happen to inspire a revolt, like conditions worse than the depression or a president trying to turn himself into a Caesar.

How about a government abusing authoritarian powers, permitting an invasion from our southern border, incapable of stopping the next terrorist attack, the ill effects of drought and population surge, and an entirely unrealistic social services system that is poised to go bankrupt.

Things are getting intolerable quickly in this nation.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
When you feel like the worst person in the world you don't put a lot of faith in the notion it could be better. There is only the impelling certainty, a self fulling prophesy, that things will definitely get worse.

Why do you always have some kind of weird tangent to batsh!t crazy psychology for explaining everything?

Don't be Self-Hatin'

 

[palehorse]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: palehorse74
very few members here have the balls to do anything worth while, let alone actually fight for anything.

Just like a little fanatical Republican, always looking to pick up a gun.

If there is ever a revolution in this country, I hope it comes via someone like Gandhi. We have the opportunity to fix things here, and peacefully. It takes a braver person to not fight, to take a punch in the face without fighting back. And in this country, at the current time at least, we have the ability to do it that way. We don't need guns, we need brains. We don't need IED's, we need education. We need courage, poster boards, sit-ins. And unfortunately, we also need leadership, and that is something we lack.

I never said anything about guns or other physical weapons, and im not a Republican.

reading comprehension ftw.

 

[Specop 007]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Specop 007
I was suprised to see any journalist write an article discussing revolution.

Why would you be surprised? Because I was one of the first to mention it?

As usual, I'm trying to figure out WTF your talking about??

 

[tomywishbone]

99% of all Americans are cowards. They wouldn't fight back to save their own lives. Ever.

Revolution...:laugh:

 

[keird]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: keird
This quoted article lost it's credibility at,

"The rational way to understand this is that ordinary, oppressed Americans are in a deep psychological state of self-delusion."

I think that is a false statement and misapplied logic.

I wouldn't expect any of the resident Republicans to get this one because it is they that are self deluded.

I didn't mean it from a partisan vantage point. I meant from my experience, there isn't any real oppression in the U.S. I'm living in the poorest part of Europe, right now. This place isn't doing very well.

I was in New Orleans a couple of years ago, too.

I think that there is a lack of perspective about 'oppression'. But perhaps I'm wrong. There aren't pockets of mass executions in the United States. If the worst example oppression that can be cited is re-districting or something, then I think that the rule of law is intact and that the above article's statement is invalid. I don't see disenfranchisement or anything of that nature going on in the U.S.

 

[BoberFett]

"99% of all Americans are cowards. They wouldn't fight back to save their own lives. Ever." said tomywishbone, safely behind a computer monitor.

 

[imported_Shivetya]

Originally posted by: child of wonder
Americans are so apathetic that I think the government and big corporations are learning they can get away with more and more and the general populace will do nothing.

Too bad too many people realize they can use the first to get more from the second and anyone more successful than themselves.

Nothing hurts people's outlook to see their hard earnings go to subsidize deadbeats.

Nothing hurts people's outlook to see out government officials pander to illegals over them.

Nothing hurts people's outlook than to have ex-government officials looking to get back in tell them how bad they have it and how they caused it but ex-government official can make it all right again if they get back in



Government is the problem. The Federal government is strangling the people of the United States because Congress no longer fears the voters

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
When you feel like the worst person in the world you don't put a lot of faith in the notion it could be better. There is only the impelling certainty, a self fulling prophesy, that things will definitely get worse.

Why do you always have some kind of weird tangent to batsh!t crazy psychology for explaining everything?

Because, although you think you're a one-eyed Jack, I seen the other side of your face.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: Fern
We have the power to have a "revolution" at the ballot box (theoretically at least).

If people can't be bothered to vote, do you think they could be bothered to grab weapons and march on Washington DC?

Exactly. There isn't any need for a revolution because in the case of Americans' dissatisfaction, "I have met the enemy and the enemy is us."

The question that is missing is, what would Americans revolt in favor of? Revolt--for what?

If all of our politicians suddenly disappeared they'd probably be replaced by other Americans with the same political results.

It isn't that the American government is not representative of the people, it is that it is representative of the people and that Americans have the government they deserver and politicians that are consistent with their philosophical principles. However, most Americans have mixed premises and values that contradict one another so it isn't surprising that many are unhappy.

For example, many Americans will say that they don't have a problem with illegal immigration and mass immigration, but at the same time they say that they want to help America's poor and that they support a clean environment even though they aren't concerned about the issue of population explosion.

Many Americans will say that they support unrestricted international trade and importing foreign workers on work visas, but at the same time they want to keep their knowledge-based college-education-requiring jobs.

Revolution? Against whom? Against what? For what? It's hard to have a revolution without ideas and Americans seem to be rather non-intellectual. When people stop exercising the ability to think for themselves, someone else will do the thinking for them, such as corrupt politicians who campaign on sound bites.

 

[Capitalizt]

screw this, I'm going to play my Wii

 

[RichardE]

What is there to revolt against?

The poor is mostly fat

Even the poor can afford luxuries that most people in this world only dream about. There is a huge social net so no one is really that bad off. You have a democratic process where an end is in site, most revolutions are against dictatorships. Why would America give up its luxuries because it is too impatient to wait another year and a half? It doesn't make sense.

 

[MadRat]

Originally posted by: tomywishbone
99% of all Americans are cowards. They wouldn't fight back to save their own lives. Ever.

I got a wee bit of Irish blood in me. Come here so I can knock that ignorant talk out o' ya.

 

[J Heartless Slick]

The US citizen can and have changed the course of their government by voting. The election and the re-election of FDR and Reagan represent revolutions.

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: keird
This quoted article lost it's credibility at,

"The rational way to understand this is that ordinary, oppressed Americans are in a deep psychological state of self-delusion."

I think that is a false statement and misapplied logic.

Originally posted by: loki8481
why revolt when there are elections every two years?

I think something crazy bad would have to happen to inspire a revolt, like conditions worse than the depression or a president trying to turn himself into a Caesar.

When you think that elections actually give you the option of change then I would call it a self delusion

no harm meant loki

 

[sandorski]

I've said it before in other threads, but it I'll say it again. This is where the French excel at Democracy. If the Government of France steps out of line with the Will of the People, the People shut the mofos down. The problem with the US though is that it is so diverse where in France that diversity doesn't exist. Any movement in the US needs to reach out and be inclusive, so any attempt at change needs to focus on a narrow issue. Education on specific issues are key to accomplish this.

 

[Moonbeam]

Everybody knows that if he's not rich it's because he lacks personal ambition and drive and that the only people who complain are wimps and whiners. America is a land of equality and economic justice and what you have is what you deserve.

 

[imported_Shivetya]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Everybody knows that if he's not rich it's because he lacks personal ambition and drive and that the only people who complain are wimps and whiners. America is a land of equality and economic justice and what you have is what you deserve.

while I will agree that ambition and hard work will not always make you rich, the opposite are going to make you poor most assuredly.

there are far more of the second than the first. The first are not the one's complaining about failing, they merely try again.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Shivetya

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Everybody knows that if he's not rich it's because he lacks personal ambition and drive and that the only people who complain are wimps and whiners. America is a land of equality and economic justice and what you have is what you deserve.

while I will agree that ambition and hard work will not always make you rich, the opposite are going to make you poor most assuredly.

there are far more of the second than the first. The first are not the one's complaining about failing, they merely try again.

I said what you said. The only difference is that you believe in that prison. There's only one revolution I believe in and it's the one that happens within. There is no spoon and there is no prison.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: RichardE
What is there to revolt against?

The poor is mostly fat

Even the poor can afford luxuries that most people in this world only dream about. There is a huge social net so no one is really that bad off. You have a democratic process where an end is in site, most revolutions are against dictatorships. Why would America give up its luxuries because it is too impatient to wait another year and a half? It doesn't make sense.

Violent revolutions are proven to only work in 1 of 2 ways. They are either against a dictatorship to establish a democracy, or against a democracy to establish a dictatorship.
Bad as our Bush-led government is right now, we can still vote his ilk out of next year, so it is still a democracy.
Keep that in mind when ideologues who are not getting their way right now are telling the rest of us that we're all self-deluded and full of self-hatred. Nothing would upset these extremists more than a democratic and peaceful Gandhi-esque revolution, I would think...

 

[sumguy1]

The American citizenry would have no hope of winning a revolution in this day and age if the armed forces were still under command of the government. We're not talking about a revolution with long muskets and canons and soldiers prancing around on ponies any more like it was back in the days of the first American Revolution. Modern armed forces weaponry have become far too powerful for the populace to ever be able to successfully mount an armed revolution against the gov't. The only way it could be done would be if the armed forces themselves, also being American citizens, could be convinced to stand on the side of the people. A bunch of citizens with a few shotguns and maybe some assault rifles here and there and some homemade pipe bombs and such are not going to be squat against a brigade of M1 tanks and supersonic fighter jets and the like. Just look at the Iraqi insurgents against our modern military forces. . .Sure they get lucky with the occasional road side IED, but they have no hope in a face to face confrontation, much like we wouldn't either.

 

[Jaskalas]

sumguy1, hasn?t Iraq proven how useless the modern army is?

 

[BoberFett]

You don't know anything about guerilla warfare.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
sumguy1, hasn?t Iraq proven how useless the modern army is?

Do you ever wonder about people who can correctly point out how badly the US Army is doing against the guerillas (no, I won't call them "insurgents") in Iraq, but then say that the vastly larger and more powerful American public could never do the same?

I see this kind of "logic" as similar to that of Fundie Christians -- God is kind and just but the Papists are all going to hell.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Everybody knows that if he's not rich it's because he lacks personal ambition and drive and that the only people who complain are wimps and whiners. America is a land of equality and economic justice and what you have is what you deserve.

My jaw hit the floor. You wrote something I agree with 100%.

But then I read your siggy lol