Summary: Again we consider solutions, how to reform America. None of the past programs presented here have held up to scrutiny and time. Perhaps this one will. Share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.
Contents
- Where do we start?
- Solutions
- For more information
- A reminder that it’s always been all about choice
(1) Where do we start?
“Choice. The problem is choice.”
Neo, The Matrix Reloaded
The FM website has many posts discussing ways to reform America, mostly about the operational details. What to do, and when. How to do it. In what sequence, by whom. In the comments are hundreds of valuable insights.
Some posts seek the answer in philosophy or political theory. Do experts in political science and sociology have answers for us about the causes of America’s problems? Can they, like scientists, describe a solution, explaining if and how to implement it? (If so, might these scientists put their superior understanding in the service of its ruling elites, manipulating the America people like lab rats to build a new America?)
All these are beside the point in one important sense. There is only one path to reform for a democracy. The solutions lies beyond theory and beyond science. America will be what we will it to be. Until we have agreement on that, in some broad fashion, we can do little. The problem is choice. Getting many Americans to make that choice will require much work.
Further steps can be taken only when there is a large body of people with a similar viewpoint, and committed to action. What steps to be taken then will depend on the circumstances, and I doubt we today can reliably guess what those will be.
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Do we have such a group of people today? The Occupy movement agreed only upon the need for change — which is insufficient for meaningful action other than street theater. But the Tea Party Movement was in many ways a near-perfect nucleus around which a substantial challenge to the ruling elites could have been mounted. Instead they were quickly and easily co-opted, becoming shock troops for the GOP.
Note the warning! Once an organization is built, a major challenges will come from the inside. Betrayal, as leaders are bought by our elites. And (as America’s Moslems have learned) from agents provocateur penetrating and destroying. Construction of The New America is far along; they will not abandon their project without a struggle.
(2) Solutions
“Do, or do not. There is no try.”
— Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back
IMO today we are where the Revolution was in the early 1760s. Their response was to form the Committees of Correspondence.
These groups spent a decade laying the political foundation for the revolution. They prepared answers to the vital questions. Why was change needed? Change towards what goal? And they built the basic machinery: organizing, collecting petitions, developing leaders, fund-raising, etc.
We have the same need; perhaps the same solution will work. We have hundreds of groups, dozens of coalitions — mostly special interest groups — and thousands of websites. Today they are either apolitical or focused on influencing the two major parties (on a local, State, or national level). This is similar to the late colonial times. They were able to knit their groups into a larger whole; we should be able to do so as well.
It will take much time and effort. This passage might be set to music as the group’s anthem: “Ulysses” by Lord Alfred Tennyson (1842)
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
(3) For More Information
For all posts about politics see the FM Reference Page America – how can we stop the quiet coup now in progress?
Posts about solutions, ways to reform America:
- Let’s look at America in the mirror, the first step to reform, 14 August 2008
- Fixing America: shall we choose elections, revolt, or passivity?, 16 August 2008 — Part One.
- Fixing American: taking responsibility is the first step, 17 August 2008 — Part Two.
- Fixing America: the choices are elections, revolt, or passivity, 18 August 2008 — Part Three.
- How to stage effective protests in the 21st century, 21 April 2009
- The first step to reforming America (the final version), 7 December 2009
- Light the fireworks – the campaign starts today!, 9 March 2010
- About the Oath Keepers: boon or bane for the Republic?, 12 June 2010
- Can we reignite the spirit of America?, 14 September 2010
- The sure route to reforming America, 16 November 2010
- Hear the cattle bellowing in the chutes. Will they revolt?, 8 September 2011
- Fixing America in five steps, 19 October 2011
- How do protests like the TP and OWS differ from effective political action?, 26 October 2011
- See the power of our ruling elites, displayed by the picture of a kitten, 28 October 2011
- We are alone in the defense of the Republic, 5 July 2012
(4) A reminder that it’s always been all about choice
“The First Choice”, oil on linen, artwork from Justin Kunz’s website:
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i like where you are going but feel you didn’t quite go far enough for concrete suggestions.
When confronted with a situation like this, I prefer to assess my strengths and weaknesses relative to my opponents. That makes the next step of designing a strategy simpler by giving me options that play to my strengths and telling me what I should avoid.
For example, one of our strengths is that our OODA loop is not broken. Most of our opponents have enormous resources but are so self-centered that they fail to orient or observe the environment around them. This causes them to go off in more or less random directions and waste a large percentage of their resources.
This post was alredy long enough! I’m trying for shorter posts than the one – two thousand words usual here. Audience starts to drop after 500, and severely at 1,000 (this is ~ 800).
“Most of our opponents have enormous resources but are so self-centered that they fail to orient or observe the environment around them.”
I wonder if that’s true. That’s true of some, as seen in their whining and self-absorbtion in media interviews. But most? Esp the most influential (eg, Koch Brothers)? Guessing, the advantage might lie on this score with them as a group, not us.
Losing interest in an essay after 500 words is just sad. It’s hard enough to write a good long essay, but it’s much harder to write a good short one. IMO 1,000 words approaches the threshold at which a topic cannot be covered in adequate detail and 500 words is almost always below that threshold. The talent required to coherently incorporate even a fraction of the relevant material in such a short essay is quite rare.
I have long considered that sort of brevity one of the most common problems with newspaper articles. In my experience it’s unusual to browse a small-market daily newspaper and not find shoddy articles resulting from a combination of severe column-inch constraints and tight deadlines. The editors have neither the space nor the time to give the subjects a proper treatment, and the result is garbage.
If Americans lack the attention span to even scan a coherent 1,000-word essay, we’re screwed.
Social media offers one venue for this kind of work.
I was going to discuss the social media, but topped out in length first. Also, it’s not something I know well.
In what ways could this help?
Bryan,
I agree. I routinely use Facebook and Twitter to publicize articles that I consider important to our self-government and to make comments of my own about civics. In a good week, maybe ten or fifteen percent of my Facebook contacts show some kind of civic engagement, but at least they exist and I’m able to have meaningful conversations with them. Facebook isn’t just a clearinghouse for pictures of drunks and cute cats, as many of its critics suggest. It allows me to stay in touch with people I simply wouldn’t otherwise, and it serves as a catalyst for conversations about subjects of mutual interest. It’s a great platform for detecting the minority who give a damn in a sea of apathy.
In 1729 an author by the name of Jonathan Swift anonymously published; “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public”. It is a satirical work that brought to light some of the ridiculousness that was occurring in The UK and Ireland during the potato famines.
Media of any kind can be a great way of getting people motivated, but I think in our generation it is even more so. We depend on the media for much of our information but also entertainment. I think that by using comedy or reality T.V type media one could reach the people, especially the working class, because they are less likely to get involved in serious discussion based media such as this site.
Here are two links that reflect what I am getting at
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQu2SVFF-cU
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http://youtu.be/bxch-yi14BE
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It brings to light some of the ridiculousness of the candidates currently running for president.
After posting the you tube videos I felt I should clarify something. The FM post is finding ways to solve our issues as a nation. Now, do I believe making silly videos like the ones above is going to accomplish that. No, what I was getting at was this is a good way to get people looking in the right direction. As it has been discussed many times, any solution, will first require numbers and voices.
What I liked about these videos is that, though the first few times I watched them I was rolling on the floor, by the third or forth time I started feeling a bit embarrassed. And, eventually got to the point where I found my self asking questions. For example, there are quite a few snippets where the first “Lady” is jumping around doing what I can only describe as her version of dancing. Could you imagine Jackie Kennedy acting in this manner? Or on the Romney take, when he is standing in a group of intercity African Americans singing ‘who let the dogs out” again could we envision either of the Kennedy brothers doing this?
To me, it is shameful the lows our current candidates will sink to for a few votes.
First post, but I have long admired the work you and others are doing here FM. We have to start with the most basic statement we can make (Mission Statement), then expound/connect the dots more specifically from there. Org’s Mission -> Objectives of the group/subgroups (prioritized) -> Goals/Challenges in accomplishing the Objectives (prioritized) -> tasks/tools/people/process needed to accomplish the Goals. Thoughts?
Thanks for the comment and feedback.
The tip jar is in the right-side menu bar!
“Further steps can be taken only when there is a large body of people with a similar viewpoint, and committed to action.”
And what is the viewpoint that we are to commit to? That seems to be the first thing to get clarified.
Agreed! It might not be easy.
Preserving the Republic is the natural formula, and has worked well in the past. Since the Republic is near death, perhaps the American people no longer care about it, or the liberties and principles of the Constitution.
See Glenn Greenwald’s column today for evidence. If so, propping it up is hopeless — just necrophilia.
If so then we must find new foundations on which to build. Any ideas?
I was already a fan of anti-federalism as a solution to the nation’s political problems. It’s easier to feel disconnected from the affairs of DC over here on the West Coast.
When political disfunction happens in my own back yard, I want to fix it. When it happens 2,800 miles away, I care of course, but mostly I just hope it doesn’t smack me in the face as it spirals out of control.
Just my perspective on necrophilia over the dying Republic; I’m sure the wonks have a different point of view.
I was watching the 3rd party presidential debate today and it struck me how close most of the candidates were on issues such as defense spending, overseas intervention, the drug war, and civil liberties. While many regard it as impossible, I do think a third party option is a good way to move forward and reform America.
People forget that a third party or some coalition of third parties fielding one opposition candidate would only need 34 percent of the vote to win in any race. This does not seem so unlikely if one considers the large amount of disaffected voters on both sides of the political fence and all those who already vote for 3rd party candidates at the local, state and national level.
What we need is an alliance of third parties that can stand on a few core issues and fight to field candidates to all levels of government, setting up the possibility for a successful presidential in the near future. This can motivate and inspire people on the sidelines to join into the political process. Furthermore, even if this 3rd party alliance never achieves a dominant position, the mere effort will force the two parties to look at issues such as drug legalization more closely and allow for pragmatic reformers within the party to gain traction. Right now both parties have it easy because they just have to compete against each other and they know that game well, lets force them to compete with another party and they will have to step up their game and look for new answers to the nations problems.
Operationally you might be correct. These kind of operational specs require more knowledge than I have.
However I question if today we are ready for such a step, lacking any core principles. On the other hand, perhaps raising the flag is the essential first step to crystalizing a body of people with the needed views.
I wonder if the subject should be peaceful revolution — like, but more peaceful than, the UK’s Glorious Revolution. As mentioned earlier, see today’s GlennGreenwald column (an analysis of a chilling WaPo article) for evidence.
Needless to say, the operational difference of the two paths are large.
As you say the operational difference of the two paths is large, yet one can naturally lead to the other if it becomes necessary.
No revolution can be successful without the support of a good percentage of the population, so that same percentage which supports the third party coalition could then be drawn to support a peaceful revolution if that were to become necessary.
“No revolution can be successful without the support of a good percentage of the population”
Yes, but that’s a late stage consideration. Like building a company, getting customers is not a consideration at the start. From Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:
” so that same percentage which supports the third party coalition could then be drawn to support a peaceful revolution if that were to become necessary.”
When I am on Route One North I can realize my mistake and get on Route Five East. But it takes time and effort.
Off topic: I really like the “First Choice” painting.
It’s always on topic to comment on content of a post! And the picture was relevant, in a sense, to the topic!
I would say, attack the widespread idea that the two major political parties represent the people’s interests on security and material well-being.
I don’t think America is fixable. We’ve crossed the Rubicon. The policies and institutions of institutional protofascism, making America into a slightly modified and much more hi-tech East German police state in effect, are already in place and now supported by so many vested interests and such hugely empowered constituencies that they can no more be changed that social security can be eliminated or medicare shut down.
A recent article in The League Of Ordinary Gentlemen describes this process very well indeed: “The Towering Legacy of George W. Bush,” 23 October 2012:
“I don’t think America is fixable. We’ve crossed the Rubicon.”
From 2007 – 2011 I warned that the Republic was dying (although I railed against the belief that it was doomed). The response in comments was a combination of ridicule and disagreement. Since then a stream of grim news has eroded away our faith in the Republic’s strong foundations. This year the evidence that More is correct has come flowed in like the tide. Look at this week’s news, and despair for the Republic:
But even if the Second Republic is beyond saving (I’m not convinced), the Third Republic lies in our future.
The Blog Chain
I have been brain storming today. Since posting the “McBama” and “The Real Mitt Romney” links I have been thinking “how did we come to this”. Often I find my self wondering, if one of our presidents got assassinated in today’s society, would people be as morose as when JFK or Robert Kennedy were assassinated? I have come to this blog and revisited it several times but, I’m sure like many Americans who are anxious about the “State of the Nation”, and who have but a base knowledge of the goings on in our government, feel completely helpless.
So here is an idea, but may be more work than it’s worth. Blog Chain. One way to get more people actively involved is to give them a wide range of venues in which they can speak. Like I mentioned in the above post,. A lot of people would not feel comfortable speaking on this blog because they lack both the understanding of politics that many of you have and they also lack the confidence to be labeled ignorant in the effort to get better informed, (that type of confidence has never been an issue with me).
So one response was talking about needing to unify people with these concerns; through a blog chain this might be achieved more effectively.
For example, there have been several professors commenting on threads. Do they have students interested in speaking out? A younger group of people could do as I was saying above, use popular media to turn heads, you can’t turn minds with out turning heads first. Then here young or less informed people could touch lightly on subjects that are talked about on FM. This sub-blog would have a link to the FM site who in turn would have links to other sites in the chain.
There was the huge economic debate as well as the global climate change debate. But, it did not appear to me those debates solved to many of our problems. Through the blog chain individuals could work to both inform and motivate by working together instead of knocking heads??? IF, it got to a point where enough people were posting and taking interest then a type of club could be formed where people who were involved could hold community meetings and gatherings and the forums for those gatherings could be discussed and prepared through the blog chain.
I have at least twice heard mention of needing a third party to represent the people. But I say the people need to represent the people.
Just an idea, thanks for looking and thanks for the conversation.
gaia
Has anyone here ever read or followed the writings of Gene Sharp. I have posted a wiki link description below. If you go to his website you can donwload a lot of his material for free. His writings are supposed to be the basis for the so called Color revolutions that have happened recently around the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Sharp
Link to a short clip from Gene Sharp’s documentary “How To Start A Revolution”
I am just an ordinary citizen, with as little or much power as anyone. What seems to make the most sense to me is that through my study of history, as much as that can accurately be done, people revolt only when the threat is much greater than it is today. The threat of physical violence, destruction of basic human rights, loss of freedom, well-being and interminable injustices. The folding of our Second Republic is nowhere near these things. People are still just intellectually brushing up against the idea that America is failing.
Even the unemployed, long term and possibly permanently unemployable are not close to considering a revolution. Occupy Wall Street was not a fledgling revolution, it was a street conference of a small strata of our population. I was there when Robert Thurman spoke. It was very interesting, but not agenda defining.
When I watch the Gene Sharpe video attached here I see one thing, people revolting against tyranny and having to endure much more suffering in the short term to even hope to get somewhere. That is the key in my opinion. Most Americans are “revolution observers” not “revolutionaries”
The media is a double edged sword that will prove to be useless. The media is much more interested in keeping the lights and services on in 99% of the country and focusing all stories on the 1% where they are not.
Some have said we can blog our way to repair, maybe. Ever read “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card? It is a great story of a supra genius child who blogs under a pseudonym and sways billions of people to follow his writings. To him it is a “game”. Is there a real person like this out there? Maybe, should be. Isn’t that how all great cultural shifts in history are made, on the suggestion of a single person?
Our problem here in America is our lifestyle. We are solitary, family and small group oriented, non-community and extremely wealthy (even now) and entrenched in the Consumerism which we love so much. Using an iPhone to read a blog about what is broken in america is not going to get anyone to take up mass protest. It is still very much a life/game to watch unfortunates on TV or read online about disenfranchised small groups here and there.
So my feeling is that we need unity more than we need anything. Any discussion about fixing problems has to be compelling to the unification of large segments of population.
The good news is that the Democratic and Republican Parties have proven that you can motivate large segments of the population through dogmatic processes like we have seen this season. Bad news is that you have to join this sick process to reach people.
Excellent article here:
The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen
http://eh.net/book_reviews/social-economics-thorstein-veblen
If this group is seriously about being active then the starting points for mobilizing a peaceful rebellion are as previously mentioned.
Start with a mission.
1. Mission: Address and correct corruption of the institution of Congress and Address and Correct the corruption in the executive branch. Reason: To have a peaceful rebellion we must go the the sources of the corruption. Sending honest men in to this cesspool is a forlorn hope.
2. Do this as a movement not a Third party. Reason: Third parties just shift the power between to corrupt political parties a movement recognizes the long term nature of the solution.
3. Start with a fundamental principle of agreement of voting out any politico who has been in office more than four years. Reason: Terms limits and other measures are long term solutions for later action. We can do something now.
4. Work together on initiating a forum like the draft issuewiki.us/forum so that the different issues and potential solutions can be worked out .
B
Henry,
Thanks for posting the link to the article I am a big fan of Thorstein Veblen he needs to replace Keynes as the best current Economist for fixing our problems.
I think Gene Sharp is in the line of Gandhi and Thoreau, who advocated non-violent civil disobedience. It works,to a degree. On the other hand, as Mao said, “power comes from the barrel of a gun.” If the power is ruthless enough, it can simply proceed by eradicating the opposition. Stalin and Mao were good at this, and so are the Israelis. This becomes truer and truer as increasingly sophisticated technology becomes almost a monopoly of the armament corporations in league with government to form the national security state; meanwhile, computer technology transfers incredible amounts of money into the hands of big finance, which with the help of neo-classical “austerity” monetarist economics keeps the people in a state of exhaustion and debt while concentrating wealth and power.
Here is a great example of one aspect of what was–still is–wrong: Project S.H.A.M.E. Recovered History: How Wall Street-Funded Self Help Propaganda Greased the Real Estate Bubble, 19 October 2012
By Yasha Levine, an editor of The eXiled and co-founder of Project S.H.A.M.E., a media transparency initiative led by Yasha Levine and Mark Ames.
Works like Project SHAME are a valuable antidotte to the waves of propaganda washing over America, carrrying our minds ever further from America. They rely on proven principles, which can be fought — but on with great effort.
From Mein Kampf: Volume One – A Reckoning, CHAPTER 6 – WAR PROPAGANDA
If America can’t be fixed, this raises the question of how things are going to play out in the U.S. of A. As Herb Stein (Nixon’s economic advisor) remarked, “Things that are unsustainable have a tendency to stop.”
Clearly America has put itself on an unustainable course what with endless unwinnable foreign wars, a broken medical-industrial complex gobbling ever more money as time passes (Obamacare has not changed this, since the ACA does nothing about the incredible cost of American health care, which is much greater than the cost of medical care in any other first world country), the limitless growth of corporate power, the infinite growth of the military-prison-surveillance-torture complex in America, and the ever-increasing wealth of the top 1% compared to the accelerating erosion of the U.S. middle class. So what’s going to happen?
Violent revolution seems unlikely. A military coup is superfluous, since the military-prison-surveillance-torture complex already effectively controls America’s domestic and foreign policy inasmuch as it has control of the purse strings. An American Ghandi seems unlikely.
So the most likely outcome is that the tax base will continue to erode, the military+police+prison costs will balloon without limit, enormous deficits will continue as far as the eye can see, college costs will continue to skyrocket far beyond the level even of the housing bubble, the rule of law will be abandoned more and more openly from the top of the American government (president ordering U.S. citizens murdered) to the bottom (police casually torturing or murdering innocent bystanders without being punished), and an ever increasing percentage of U.S. jobs will be automated or outsourced out of existence.
Over time, Americans will stop regarding their government (federal and local) as legitimate and will also stop obeying the law, as increasing numbers of “dead-letter” laws get passed which are patently absurd, and as high officials increasingly become open about their contempt for the rule of law and their refusal to even pay lip service to upholding it. We can see the start of this with massive bittorrent downloading today and widespread use of nominally illegal substances like marijuana. Presumably this kind of general disregard for the law will spread to Soviet-like levels, leading to the predictable Soviet levels of overreaction by the government in response, which in turn will further destroy the perceived legitimacy of the American government.
As more and more surveillance and public paramilitary police gum up the works, America will become a place harder and harder to do business in. With more tax cuts for the rich, our infrastructure will degenerate and collapse. Our roads will disintegrate, our bridges will collapse, our broadband will be a joke compared to other countries (these things are already happening, but will worsen), and our government will become increasingly gridlocked as the corruption grows increasingly sclerotic.
Eventually the entire American system will bog down and fall apart so badly that people will just give up on it. America will fall apart as the Soviet Union did through a general lack of credibility and confidence and a total absence of perceived legitimacy by its citizens. What comes after that remains unknown.
It’s interesting that a number of new TV shows seem to have tapped into this general sense that things are falling apart: for example, the new J. J. Abrams show Revolution. Television shows tend to reflect the mood of their times. The mood of this show augurs total collapse.
Here’s a specific example of the kind of pushback you’re starting to see from average Americans against the Orwellian surveillance society we’re getting. Scan [airline] boarding passes to discover if you’re in for deep screening; print new barcodes if you don’t like what you find.
The major difference between the American colonials of 1763 to 1775 was that our earlier countrymen and the founders understood that once the British Empire in ’63 had vanquished the French Empire and was the only existing and increasingly oppressive Empire causing all of their social, political, economic, and policing problems, they saw that their entire “ailing social order” [Zygmunt Bauman] was a single Empire — and they saw the ‘Forest’ of Empire through the hundreds of ‘trees’ of Issues and ‘symptom problems’ — which allowed most to understand that EMPIRE was their oppressor.
But today, the Empire does not wear Red Coats, and is instead highly disguised behind the facade of this dual-party Vichy facade of superficial faux-democracy — so recognition of EMPIRE as the single and seminal cancer actually causing all our ‘symptom problems’ is the greatest barrier to clear diagnosis and action toward Revolution.
If Bernie had fired a accurate, but totally non-violent “Shout heard round the world” it could have very easily ignited a real and effective “Peaceful Political Revolution against Empire” — which was exactly what our forefathers had the brains and gut to do in the First (and only successful) American Revolution against EMPIRE — and which is the only simple, easy to understand, historically justifiable, rallying cry that a massive minority of average Americans would have ever rallied behind to overcome this Disguised Global Capitalist EMPIRE, which is only nominally HQed in, and merely ‘poses’ as, our former country!!!!
Nothing will ever change until all these progressive-lite weights drop the academic BS terminology and light-up a real “Political Revolution against EMPIRE”
As Shakespeare should have written if he had really understood the seminal evil of the hidden cancer of todays’ Disguised Global Capitalist Empire:
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
Nor in ourselves, that we are underlings,
(but in the deceit of disguised Empire).”
After all, Brutus, like our founders and countrymen, knew that Empire was the death of any real self-government and Republican democracy, but he and those earlier Americans lacked the weapon of overcoming their respective Empires with anything except violence — whereas, we can now bring down this global Empire by just exposing it as an Empire.
In the first century BC and the 18th AD, there was little understanding nor scant opportunity to overthrow oppressive Empires [are there any other kind?] with anything other than weapons.
But now in this 21st century, and after the fall of what we were all assured by Ronald the ‘trust-worthy’, that the last “Evil Empire” on earth had collapsed, no longer can any system of a “truly global Empire” bear to be ‘exposed’ to we Americans, let alone all we citizens of the world, to exist —- once it is ‘outed’ as an Empire.
Today, EMPIRE, as a system of human government and existence, can no longer exist, nor be shown to exist — but it will have to vanish in the light of truth like one last huuuuge vicious VEMPIRE exposed to the sunlight.