lonelyvagabond:

akagoldfish:

punkistani:

pragmatic-realist:

Anyone who advocates a revolution in this society is a small minority. The majority of Americans consent to living in this society, with all its benefits and imperfections. Thus a revolution would be a war against the majority of the people in this country, trying to overthrow a system the…

1. The idea of American centrism.

As a White American, as I assume this person is, one has to readress the idea of ‘privilege’. While he writes from an American perspective, the ideas and connotations that carries are not relevant to the rest of the world because of the way in which America operates. When he (for this sake I will say it is a he so that I am able to use a relative pronoun in this) writes he talks from a privileged and modern American perspective. I don’t know the gender, and while i dislike to make assumptions, I need to for the sake of this text. Now that’s out of the way… . 

2. He states that the “majority of Americans consent to living in this society”. With this in mind he doesn’t take into account the fact that there is no “opting out” of the capitalistic society that America unarguably is. They consent because there is no other option, but historically there have been major rebellions that are little documented that suggest otherwise. Rebellions that take place to this day; Occupy Wall Street, anyone? Firstly, let’s take the mass radicalisation of the working class in the industrialisation of the United States through trade unionism whereby in the early 1900s/late 1800s there were hundreds of strikes a year that paralysed the US. Is this ‘consenting’, or is this lawful rebellion and unarguably the most effective form of rebellion in a capitalistic society? Secondly, after WII veterans took to Washington and camped outside the White House when there wasn’t enough money to pay them; is this consenting? What about the Haymarket Bombings or the radicalisation of the ‘ethnic minorities’ in the US through the form of the Black Panthers, Red Power or various other uprisings? Native Americans occupy Alcatraz? Wisconsin Revolt? The Civil Rights Movement? Are these people consenting?

3. He references that “different native tribes in New York and Connecticut area were at war with each other for thousands of years”. The notion and concept of “tribe” is a Euro and American centric idea. Why is it that a group of people who live in one area, say, Africa, are a ‘tribe’ at perhaps 10 million people, but say, the Swedish people are a ‘people’? Tribe is a word that is a product of colonialism, a mistranslation of a myriad of terms, orientalist in its nature and dehumanises and subjugates people of colour from these “tribes”. Perhaps orientalist is the wrong adjective to use in this setting, but I can’t think of a more fitting way to articulate my feelings on the word “tribe”. Would you call Wales a tribe? No. Arizona? No. So why use it to address People of Colour?  A tribe of millions of people is a tribe but a country like Wales with less than 4 million people is a people? This isn’t my biggest beef with this; he doesn’t even mention the native people properly. The native people of America who lived there for thousands of years before either the Vikings or Columbus arrived were systematically wiped out in a genocide that killed up to 90% if not more of the “tribes”. The rest who remained who survived the American Holocaust were systematically discriminated against, had every treaty that they signed to make peace with the white settlers destroyed, their land taken, their culture destroyed along with their mother tongues, their religion outlawed (re: Ghost Dance) and their leaders killed. They had their land destroyed, and subjected to mass standardised ‘orientalism’ in the media up until the present day, and suffer higher suicide rates, rapes than the average American, higher rates of drug use and alcoholism along with higher domestic violence rates, a higher than average unemployment rate (and reliance on Welfare to go with it)…tell me, did they get the option of ‘opting out’ of American society? Or did the American government try to annihiliate these people at every turn they possibly could? He talks about a “war against the majority of people” in terms of the revolution, but the government has alreadu waged war on the majority of people in the US. It’s just they were so sucessful in this that the population decreased by 90% and continues to decrease. Make no mistake about it; war against people in the US has been waged and will be waged again; you don’t need a “revolution” to do this. It’s going on until today, but the war has been waged via media in the 1st world as opposed to guns. He talks of “opting out” of society; I’m sure that America offered it, many people would have. They were forced to obey to society or be killed, and this is the story with all colonialism waged by Europeans all over the world, from the US to Australia where Aborigine children were stolen and “westernised” in state schools, much like native American children were. 

4. ” The end result would be nothing but terror, totalitarianism, and the destruction of modern civilization. “

The “end result” of this “war” on people is the modern American society. This modern world is the “end result” Not only did they pillage the Native communites of the US but also insisted on making a transatlantic slave trade. The war that the US government has waged on its people through economic means has resulted in terror, totalitarianism and the destruction of native civilisation. The slave trade fucked up Africa. The government extends its war through the turning of a blind eye to drugs in the ghettos and cutting welfare when corporations can walk free. This is the end result, but because of the writer’s privilege that we can see clearly outlined, he hasn’t a clue as to why his ground (purified on the blood of ‘Indians’, African American communities) is the way that it is because of the wars waged on people that his government has carried out. He is oblivious because of his privilege. 

5. “And once the state were gone, it would basically be a war between all communities”.

The war has been waged and the war is ongoing. There is a war being waged by the state and it does result in war between communities. You do not need to dismantle the state to see this in action. Suggesting that people need a state to survive is like saying that animals need farms to sruvive. Both are inhumane and controlled by the few for the benefit of the few in a neo-medieval ‘pyramid’ shape but instead of kings at the top, we have corporations. Like those medieval times, the money does not trickle down the bottom. In the UK the working classes who are told that London 2012 will help the economy are being lied to; the wealth stays in the hands of the top few per cent not only of society, but of the world. The corporations and bankers hold more power in the modern world than perhaps governments do. The role of the “state” in its destruction of the earth in differnt forms (but not limited to) mass racism, fracking, drilling for oil, waging war, mass dehumanisation, contributing to economic imbalance, controlling economies, withholding medical treatment, withholding support (monetary or otherwise) for education etc etc. This is what the state does. This is how the state operates. These issues of which you speak are ones that humanity faces on a daily basis because there is a state in place. Do not be fooled into thinking the state is a good thing.

6. “Those who develop power in this system will rape, pillage, steal, and destroy any community that has less power”. BOOM. He’s hit the nail on the head. Let’s remove it from its natural place and flow in the text and look at it as an isolated subject. He has got it on the head and let’s remove the future tense. Those of us who speak up for revolution do so out of a love for humanity and the world, and our numbers are greater amplified if people weren’t scared to come out of the closet to join us because the witch-hunt that America puts on its intellectuals for being “commies”. Those in power in this system rape, pillage, steal and destroy any community that has less power. We don’t need to have a uptopian society to make these claims, because they are happening as we speak and as we write and sleep under our noses. We are a small minority to advocate revolution because we have been brainwashed into acceptance in a multitude of different forms.. It is for these reasons that we need a revolution and it is for these reasons that we need revolutionaries. 

Aside from a clumsy handling of “the state”, this is a great rebuttal to the clumsy folly of Radical Conservatism and it’s laughable pretenses of “realism”.

^^