Wednesday, December 23, 2020

This is the revolution that I see coming to America

 

I don't want to write this blog post.  I'm certainly not calling for violent revolution, and I won't participate in the sorts of acts I'm going to describe here.  However, I've lived through or passed through violent revolution, civil unrest, insurrection and general political mayhem in three countries, and I've seen this at first hand.  The elements I'm about to describe happened in every one of them, and they are also evident in other countries that endured violent revolutions, whose survivors wrote about what they saw and experienced.  I figure someone has to put this out there for Americans to read, because there's no reason in the world why the same thing won't happen here.  I'd go so far as to say it's inevitable, if things go on this way.

We all know the polarized nature of American society.  These two illustrations from the Pew Research Center illustrate what's happened to us over the past quarter-century or so.





When a society has moved that far apart within itself, there's very little chance of peaceful reconciliation.  Instead, extremists on both sides will look for opportunities to impose their will, their perspective, their demands, on the other.  A recent example illustrates the point.


Activist members of the student government at Cornell University are waging an ideological war against fellow Cornell Student Assembly members who recently voted against disarming campus police.

From launching recall petitions and rallying against their fellow representatives in November, to earlier this month ousting some of them from subcommittees or the entire assembly, these activist student government members say they are motivated to set right what a “white-cis-het” group of their peers did in voting down the disarmament resolution.

. . .

“Many of these assembly members are white-cis-het men and women who quite literally laughed and danced in our faces when the resolution failed,” Chukwukere said.

“Their faces are all over social media,” he added. “We will never forget. … Their campus careers are over. … We must disarm, defund, and disband the Cornell University Police Department.”

In November, the Cornell Student Assembly narrowly voted against Resolution 11, a bill calling for the disarmament of Cornell police.

In the days following the initial failure of Resolution 11, vulgar language and threats of violence were directed at student assembly representatives who opposed the bill.

. . .

After weeks of intimidation, online harassment, and ultimately, the removal of several student representatives who supported keeping campus police armed, the assembly’s activist faction was able to approve on Dec. 10 a new measure, Resolution 30, calling to disarm campus police.

. . .

In a letter to the editor of the Sun, the student representatives under fire for refusing to support disarming the police denounced the attacks against them ... “These actions are undemocratic, authoritarian and a flagrant abuse of the S.A.’s rules and procedures,” the Dec. 9 letter states. “It goes without saying that these efforts are unprecedented.”

“A vocal minority of the S.A. who believe everyone must think as they do has attempted to strip power from anyone who disagrees with them and browbeat them into silence,” it adds. “Their actions have created a hostile, toxic and untenable atmosphere within the S.A., hampering its ability to function and causing unnecessary anxiety and emotional distress to its members.”

Part of the tensions during the initial vote back in November included racial ones.

Student Dakota Johnson, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who attended a November SA meeting to express his opposition to disarming police, was told during the hearing by Moriah Adeghe, the SA director of elections, that “As a white man, you cannot be the arbiter of what is and isn’t racist and who is a good or bad person. … You will never be the arbiter because you are a white man.”


There's more at the link.

The same single-minded fanaticism has been visible in many institutions and locations over the past year.  We see it in Seattle, Portland, and many other cities where progressive left-wingers control city government, and have "weaponized" that government in favor of their political beliefs and those who share them, and against those who disagree with them.  That problem will only get worse.  It will not get better.  If any of my readers live in a city or town controlled by progressive left-wing individuals or groups, this is a wake-up call:  get out now, or be oppressed.  There are no other options open to you, except to fight back - and almost every peaceful avenue of resistance has already been closed to you, up to and including elections.  I need only point out the electoral fraud that was so clearly on display last month.

So, what's the path from here on out?  Here's what I've seen in other countries, and read about in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ukraine, the countries of the Arab Spring, and others.


  • Expect the forces of law and order to be a primary target.  Law-abiding officers and agencies will be politicized, and those who resist will be demoted, harassed, and driven out.  The families of officers may become targets for rioters and mobs, and may even be killed.  Once law enforcement has been polarized, it will become an arm of oppressive government, its powers turned against citizens who resist in any way, shape or form.  Officers who object won't be there long enough to make a difference.
  • Expect business rules and regulations to be warped and twisted in favor of politically correct causes, rather than basic economics.  Crimes against businesses will be justified on the grounds of social deprivation or need, and those committing them will not be prosecuted by the authorities.  (This is already widespread in America, as we've seen in these pages several times - most recently in Los Angeles.)
  • The right of citizens to security, self-defense, etc. will be eroded to the point of non-existence.  Anyone acting to defend himself and/or his loved ones will face criminal investigation, and if an attacker was killed or injured in the process, no matter how legitimately, the defender will likely face prosecution.  The facts of the matter won't matter at all.  Instead prosecution will become a weapon with which to cow, intimidate and threaten the people into compliance.
  • The powers that be will arrogate to themselves the right to decide about your children's education, where and how you may spend your money, and all sorts of aspects of your everyday life that you're used to deciding for yourself.  Your life will no longer be under your control, because they can't trust you to live it in a politically correct way.  Therefore, you'll be forced to do that, and your children will be propagandized and brainwashed until they don't know any different.  Efforts to safeguard them from that by (for example) homeschooling, even though technically legal, will be met by the imposition of politically correct study syllabi, complete with examinations that demand politically correct answers.  If the student fails them, he'll be forced into public education to "correct" the "imbalance" in his or her understanding.  (Dennis Prager refers to the "Sovietization of California".  That's not a bad description of what's happening there in all these areas.)
  • Anyone seeking to fight back against this, in the courts, or through mobilizing public opinion, will be demonized by the powers that be.  This may include harassment by city inspectors for "code violations" or "unsafe structures" or any one of a host of regulatory transgressions that they "discover" at the drop of a hat.  Resisters can expect to be portrayed as extremists, right-wingers, racists (of course) and anything else that comes to mind.
  • Attempts at physical opposition will be categorized as insurrection or armed resistance or vigilantism.  Expect weapons to be more and more tightly controlled, except for those on the "right side", who won't have any trouble getting hold of them.  Expect courts to be merciless to everyone else.  (For example, Kyle Rittenhouse has been charged with murder, despite substantial evidence that he acted in self-defense;  but Gaige Grosskreutz, the third man he shot, who was threatening him with a handgun, was a convicted felon, and therefore illegally in possession of a firearm.  He has not been charged with anything.)

When enough pressure has built up in society, I expect there to be acts of armed resistance against progressive, left-wing tyranny.  These are likely to involve attacks against electrical infrastructure (for example, the Metcalf attack in 2014);  sabotage of transport infrastructure (for example, derailing trains, or causing blockages of vital roads, etc.);  disruption of delivery systems (e.g. distribution centers for vital supplies, commercial warehouses, etc.);  and so on.  In many cases, these attacks will seek to stop supplies being given to politically favored groups and divert them to those who are not in favor, and may therefore be deprived of what they need.  It's likely to develop into an urban-rural conflict, too, with cities trying to ensure they get the supplies they need by forcing rural areas to either provide them, or allow supplies to transit through them to the cities - without, of course, delivering any of those supplies to the areas through which they pass.

The powers that be will not take resistance lying down.  They'll try to crack down on resistance, weaponize law enforcement into the armed wing of their politically correct administrations, and generally terrorize people into compliance.  This will almost certainly include whipping up mob violence against groups and areas that are judged to be resistant to their policies (for example, richer suburbs that can afford their own private security guards, private schools, etc.).  "Lynch law" may apply, too, with resisters (peaceful or not) beaten up or killed as an example to others.  There will be more and more aggressive attempts to disarm the general public, so that they can't resist the authorities.

Meanwhile, the central government will blithely continue on its way, ignoring political opposition.  In fact, the "opposition" will probably support the overall trend, because they've been bought off.  Many people speak of the "Uniparty" in the USA, where the distinctions between Republicans and Democrats are only skin deep.  I can't help but agree with that observation.  I think that all our Congressional representatives and Senators, with a very few honorable exceptions, are corrupt and feckless.  I'd as soon throw out the lot of them, impose strict term limits so that their offices can no longer corrupt those who fill them, and then elect a clean slate of politicians with no ties to the political machines that control city and regional politics.  A plague on all their houses!

I'm not suggesting that anyone foment violent revolution.  I'm simply saying that in three violent national uprisings, this is the pattern I've seen in every case.  The same pattern is evident in Venezuela right now.  That country is likely to be a living example to many leftists in the USA as well, because they thoroughly approve of all Chavez and Maduro have done to entrench themselves in power and destroy any effective opposition.  They regard Venezuela as a textbook rather than a tragedy.  They feel the same way about Cuba under Castro.

Folks, this is what I believe is coming to the USA before long.  I hope and pray I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.  All it will take is one more major upheaval to plunge us into the morass of permanent societal conflict, including armed conflict.  I think that upheaval will be economic, when the inevitable results of our politicians spending money like there's no tomorrow will take effect.  I'm expecting severe inflation, if not hyperinflation, within the next year or two, no matter what "official" statistics may claim or predict.  (As we've seen in these pages, the real rate of consumer inflation has been hovering at about 10% per year for the last decade or more, despite the pablum figures dispensed by the authorities.). I think inflation may be accompanied by an asset price collapse (including housing), because people without jobs and incomes won't have money to buy those assets.  Those who are cushioned from the blow by having lots of money will either leave with it, or be co-opted into the ruling circle to defend what they've got against the "have-nots".  Again, that's been the classic pattern, and I've seen it before.

If you think I'm wrong, feel free to say so in Comments.  This is an open discussion, after all.  Frankly, I hope I am wrong.  I don't want to see any of this again.  Three times is enough in one lifetime!  Sadly, however, the pattern is already clear in this country.

So, I've described what I think is heading our way.  In my next post, I'll discuss how we can respond to it.

Peter


9 comments:

Mumbe said...

"War is a failure of politics" -Lois McMasters Bujold sums it up.

Fredrick said...

Those left wing college students are a fraction of the student population and are coddled by the left wing profs and administrators, the later are the ones needing defunding and having thier tenure eliminated.

"Attempts at physical opposition " ... "The powers that be will not take resistance lying down."

See the D.C. suit against BLM. That is not to hold BLM accountable for anything but to set a precedent to be used against anyone protesting, such as was done earlier in MI and VA capitals. Oh, they rigged an election too, probably did some in prior congressional and presidential elections too.

"When enough pressure has built up in society..."
I don't think it will be shooting up the electric grid on trying to sabotage food delivery logistics. I do see "carjackings" of the local librarian pushing transgenderism on kids, the cheering vote riggers in Detroit, the "code enforcement" officers who punish local businesses for not getting on board with the obedience training of their fellow citizens, and even a few "home invasions" of city council and country commission members who push all this assorted crap. There are lots of counties and cities in the US and a drive by or a car jacking here or there would just be a blip on the national statistics; locally the message sent would be pretty clear.

Once it starts the score settling will continue. It's apparent that the 'rule of law' is just a rule of obedience for the 'non-essentials' and the mask mandates and locdowns just a method to train us to obey. It won't be pretty and it certainly won't look like 1861. Other than Trump there's no one on the Right with credibility and standing enough to prevent it, or stop it once it starts. The left, they won't want to stop it until it comes after them, and they've shown they have no credibility.

Aesop said...

What those who're pushing this fail to realize is that the rules have changed, because they themselves have changed them.

We are moments away from the national epiphany that everything is no longer operative, and therefore civility is a bug, not a feature.

The formerly law-abiding will simply Go Ugly Early, and start shooting those with whom there is any whiff of trouble, pro-actively, and the brighter ones will do it quietly, quickly, and unobserved, leaving no witnesses nor evidence to point to a culprit.

The really bright ones will leave plenty of evidence, but pointing at another problem child somewhere else, and letting TPTB clean the field of a second problem, for zero risk.

This is called win-win, and it's hilarious.
Don't ask me how I know.

When the few bright (or really, half-bright) lights on the other side realize popping off signs their own death warrant, they tend to start shutting up rapidly, and equilibrium returns to the system.

If they don't, the pace of culling accelerates, and people tend to form Committees of Vigilance, to speed equilibrium along.

If I had pissed on and pissed off a former Marine bright enough to get into an Ivy League school, I'd be thoroughly unsurprised at the number of robberies and carjackings-gone-wrong that coincidentally will soon result in the instigators' sudden departure from the student body over the next 12-24 months, and the shocking rise in some of those people getting orthopedic surgery to their kneecaps with ball peen hammers and .22 pistols, and the number of loudmouths who suddenly have their jaws wired shut after falling into steel pipes 8-20 times one dark night, and having every tooth in their mouth broken off.

Especially right after holiday weekends, when any number of friends on liberty from East Coast bases might happen to be in town.

Just saying.

Everybody wants to be gangsta until it's time to do gangsta $#!^.

When the chips are down, don't bet against the people who already have CIBs and Combat Action Ribbons, and seen the elephant.

Oh, and for those who committed the original transgressions against a brother, there is no statute of limitations on doling out punishment.

It might (actually, will) even keep happening over and over again to the same people, a la Groundhog Day. For years, or for life. Even after things settle down to something like normal.

;)

Uncle Bear said...

I agree with your pattern but is there something much larger at play here?

It is only with the Enlightenment that peace is considered the normal state, prior to that 'war' or conflict was seen as the normal order of things. It is really only with the Enlightenment that democracy is seen as an effective form of government. And it has only been the industrial revolution based on cheap fossil fuels that society in the developed world has been affluent enough to ensure the first two.

So are we returning to the millennia old accepted view that war is the natural state of man? Are we realizing that liberal democracy is not a viable form of government? And this is the really scary piece, have we reached peak oil and from on energy will first cost more and then become unavailable? What happens to a planet with 8 Billion people fed (marginally) by a fossil-fuel based agri-business model?

Is the Great Reset the recognition on the part of the elites that the three characteristics that have shaped the modern world are all crashing to earth? Have Icarus' wings melted?

Fredrick said...

Uncle Bear,

No, the reset is an entrenchment of Oligarch power at the expense of the bourgeoise. Once they are forced into financial equality with the poor and the illegals the rich think they'll have nothing to fear as they manipulate the social make up of the culture.

Ryan Sharp said...

The fate of empires is upon us.

froginblender said...

Agree with Fredrick.

Additionally: Peak Oil has been predicted for decades, still not imminent. If and when oil (and natural gas) run out, there is still fossil fuel enough for a couple of centuries in the form of coal, Fischer-Tropsch is able to accomplish conversion for transportation fuel. New-generation fission reactors are safe and efficient, they stand ready to be built once the regulatory environment changes. Fusion still a long shot, but maybe it works by mid-century. Solar, wind, hydro can make a contribution depending on local circumstances.

The free market and human ingenuity are capable of meeting our energy needs for the foreseeable future.

Anonymous said...

From New Zealand with a woke government... We are getting all of the above. The only correction is that COVID knocked the living daylights out of tourism and the government killed oil and gas drilling so we are watching the rich get paper wealth while things get worse.

I don't think Kiwis will wait as long as the Boer did before revolts and riots. The last decent set of those was in the 1989s, and the government is I'll prepared for the nastier riots that happened in my Father's youth.

I agree this will end badly.

dogsledder said...

All of these left-wing academics and administrators are on the larger naughty list, along with members of the news media, political types, left-wing educators, and others who will get their proverbial lumps of coal when the spicy times start on January 20th at noon Eastern time. Cheers !