"Imagine, if you will....."
Thus began innumerable fine episodes of Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone." And it is in that spirit that I offer this diary. This is a very diverse community...there are common workers, IT professionals, bankers, nurses, roofers, hunters, vegans, gays and lesbians, immigrants, accountants, former felons, entrepreneurs, and on and on.....
I thought I would pose a simple question to this community, and see where it goes.
What if the American Revolution were to take place today? Or in ten years? How would it be fought? What would the weapons be? What would the tactics be? Who would win? How would it be different? Because it surely would be different. How has technology changed the landscape of the battlefield? What are the implications?
Because...in my darkest moments, which aren't that infrequent, I sometimes feel that the ballot box is a distinctly impotent tool to effect political change. I will admit, I often find the call to ellect "more and better" Democrats to ring hollow. I fight it. I know that cynicism is a losing proposition. But it nags me. It nags me badly. I sometimes...more often than I care to admit, find voting to be a masturbatory action. It feels good while you are doing it, but it isn't real sex, nor is it real change.
The only real change this country has ever experienced was not the result of votes on election day...it was the result of "Monkey Wrench" politics. As in George Hayduke...author Edward Abbey's fictional character in his readable, though flawed novel, "The Monkey Wrench Gang." Most of the progress we have made in this country over the past 150 years was not won at the ballot box...I think that's a safe statement to make. It was won through conflict outside of the electoral process.
It was won, in the case of workers' rights and benefits, through the use of strikes. That's "Monkey Wrench Politics." It shut down the means of production...which made Capitalists stand up and take note. It was won through civil disobediance...which ushered in Womens' Suffrage and Civil Rights for Blacks. It wasn't won by electing "more and better" politicians of either stripe.
That's not to disparage the goal of electing more and better Democrats...it's just to recognize the limitations to that strategy in the long term.
This diary is meant to be a communal thought experiment. A "what if" diary...
What if the events of 1775 were to take place today? What if the opening shots of an American Revolution took place in today's downtown Lexington, Massachusetts? How would it likely unfold? Given today's technology, today's federal government, today's weapons?
I'll give a few thoughts of my own below the fold, but what I'm really hoping for here is a joint thought experiment...a contribution of ideas about how the landscape has changed, and what it means for the prospects of seriously confronting a political and economic status quo that will tolerate peripheral, and largely ineffective, activity when it comes to social change, but will not, at the end of the day, abide any real threat to it's hegemony.
Because I truly believe that is the world we live in. And I wonder how far it can be pushed. And I doubt that any of us know what tools the establishment has at its disposal these days to maintain that status quo, or how readily those tools might be called into action if events dictated.
Let's imagine that the anger and resentment among the 99% reached such a pitch that a majority have turned their backs upon the ballot box as a legitimate force for change. Imagine that level of cynicism, anger, desperation and resentment. It's not that hard to do. It happens in plenty of other countries around the world, and America is not magically immune. Just relatively wealthy and therefore comfortably numb.
What if that wealth becomes so concentrated, and experienced by so few, that the numbness wears off?
What if we come to the point where the distinctions between a Charles Schumer and an Orrin Hatch become...well...indistinguishable? What if the foment in the street came to a boil, and action was unavoidable?
How would The State respond? Who would the first shock troops be? How would they be reinforced?
The Police would most assuredly be the first shock troops. I'm sorry to say to those of you who are married to cops...yes they will. They will do as they're told. Their careers and livelihood, and your home security pretty much dictates that. Cops go into the business with an "us versus them" mentality, and in the event of serious social foment, they will quickly associate "us" with the entity that cuts their paychecks. That is the City. The State. "Them" will be the people they train their tear gas, or worse, guns upon. They won't be conflicted.
But that's just the most blunt of instruments. We live in a digital world. Credit cards...cell phones...online banking. The state will have the power to identify noncompliants, and alert them to all of the service industries that depend upon federal perks to protect their profits. If you are identified as a "revolutionary". how long do you think it will take to nullify your banking accounts? Render any transaction inoperative? Your cell phone service? They will rat you out faster than you can say "WTF?"
Want to travel out of town? Homeland Security has your name. Ditto for travelling out of the country. We've seen the Arab Spring, and the rise of social media in the promulgation of social change there...but Egypt isn't the USA. If The US govt really wanted to clamp down on internet communications, it has tools at its disposal that Eqypt doesn't. You couldn't swipe a debit card, or make a cell phone call in this country, without the authorities being notified. That isn't paranoia...it's technology.
Once identified as "an enemy of the state", it's really hard for a non-tech geek to grasp how many tools the state might have at its disposal to isolate and render you ineffective.
So that's where I will end this...and this is where the thought experiment begins.
Where are we, technologically, along the path to governmental hegemony? How effective are their levers of social control? How can they be avoided or circumvented?
What would a modern day revolution look like? And what would the response look like? And why aren't there any hackers who seem to have a social conscience? Cause I'm telling you...when push comes to shove...we're gonna need some seriously talented hackers, with seriously honed social consciences.
Now...your turn. What would a future revolution look like? And what would the State's response to it look like?