We must wage revolution here in America. The goals of this revolution are as follows:

1. Establish genuine and true freedom here in America.
2. Eliminate the oligarchy government (this is not advocating the force of arms, but a revolution in which ideological war is waged and won in the minds of people)
3. Make America a highly mobile society (America is not a socially mobile society).
4. Make America the most economically competitive economy in the world (currently, the US is not the most competitive, Finland beat out the US)
5. Make America the best in science, math and education.
6 Establish an environmental friendly nation that completely reverses global warming.
7. Make the economy more efficient than what it already is.
8. Universal healthcare coverage.
9. Significantly reduce the prison population by reversing the trend of the US Prison system from being an oppressive instrument of class warfare (currently the US imprisons more than any country in the entire world).
10. Make America the best example for all nations to follow.
11. Support space exploration and the creation of an international space agency to put men on Mars and other planets.


These are the goals of my revolution here in America.

As much as I hate to agree with this guy, he has a point. I read a very disturbing article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution today about the plight of the mentally ill here in America. I wish I had the link. . . Anyway, the article explains that the mentally ill, especially the poor, get a bad deal when they are released from institutions. Most of these people end up on the streets, and more psychotic and delusional than ever. Most, if they don't end up in prison, will die (probably from self-inflicted wounds).

Anyhow, we have to consider that there is a valid argument here. I did find this link, written by a college History professor, which I will share with you now.

Uncivil Liberties and the Empire's War on its own Citizens

Please let me know what you think. . .

Awesome quote in the article:

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." -Abraham Lincoln

It is very true that we are an empire today and that the American empire is eating and destroying it's own citizens. We see that in our homeless, our prison population, our veterans. It's terrible what is happenning to our country. We must wage revolution. Revolution is inevitable or we will all be destroyed and crushed.

I'd start the revolution with you, if weren't for this full 12-pack of beer in the fridge. Well, that and the fact that I have to return a couple of rented DVDs by Wednesday.

The revolution is inevitable Ruffian. Nothing will stop it from happenning.

ClassWarrior wrote:People will get in the way...

That's what I thought back in the early 70's. But since then, I've aged and I used to think that I was slowing down, and that was the reason I no longer got so upset about society's imbalances and inequities. Then in a moment of lucid enlightenment it came to me - most people are just too comfortably apathetic. They tend to look into the future as far as the ends of their noses, in most cases.

If there's one thing I learned from my brief time as a revolutionary anarchist, it's that when it comes to change, a large scale revolution is unlikely to happen. Also, the chances of success are next to none with such a powerful U.S. military. Typically revolutions occur and succeed in places where a great deal of people are living in horrible conditions and where there is sufficient repression to warrant armed revolution as an option.

In the U.S., no, at least not yet. When things get FAR worse then people will get violent. Unfortunately, we're in an awkward time. There's not nearly enough political or social movement to change things in any significant way, yet it's not so bad that we need to take to the streets waving red flags. What I'm hoping for is a second time period similar to the post-civil war era, where corporate power is curtailed, more control is given to the populace, and traditional pseudo-morals, religious and otherwise, see a decline. The only requirement to this is that a significant number of people get off their asses and start caring about this country enough to make a difference.

The most revolutionary period in American history besides 1776 was in the 1930s. What prevented revolution was when the ruling class allowed and permitted Roosevelt to pass his "New Deal" legislation. The ruling class gave in just enough to save themselves from the revolutionary class, the proletariat.

And from the looks of your conditions laid out in your initial post in this thread I couldn't help but imagine that you should agree not with the revolutionary ideas of the 1930's American proletariat but the squashing of such indignation with New Deal ideology, because that's essentially exactly what it advocates.

A mere political revolution is partial and will not attain your first condition, because it only emancipates the whole of society given only that the whole of society is under the same condition of this particular strata of civil society. For example, the American revolution only achieved a political emancipation of white males, while slavery, the subjugation of women and the working classes, and the brutal murder and expansionism into Indian lands seemed perfectly alright.

You can only achieve a genuine emancipation of all people in this country with the overthrow of all existing social conditions; because the very nature of such social conditions means the enslavement and class warfare to which is inevitable and is your argument. In other words, so long as there are classes there will be class warfare, and most importantly there will be wage slavery and the exploitation of workers and especially the workers of third world nations.

For your initial condition to be a given, you must not lead a mere 'ideological' political revolution but a social revolution. If not, then it will inevitably lead us back right were we started (and many argue we are back to where we started before the first American revolution).