Yves here. While Tom Neuburger is correct in pointing out that our now worse-than-1788-France-levels of inequality call for a revolution, he skips over the fact that we are in the midst of a revolution, one run by reactionaries trying to cement the advantaged position of the rich and further immiserate the rest of the population. I warned from the outset that the only way to make sense of the Trump policy blitz was that he and his allies intended to create a Russia-in-the-1990s level crisis so as to facilitate elite asset grabs.
The second issue with the invocation of the “revolution” word is that that is what Sanders called for in both his presidential campaigns, while he also said he could not do it alone. We have seen that the “progressive” faction has proven to be no where near as bloody-minded in pursuing their aims as the radical right. We’ve often pointed to the Richard Kline argument, in Progressively Losing:
At best, progressives seek to convert. In the main, they name and shame—ineffectively. American ‘progressives’ distrust political power, period, are queasy about anyone having it, and suspicious toward anyone who actively seeks it, including other putative progressives. The contest as progressives conceive it is fundamentally a moral one: they believe they are right, and want their opposition to see the light and reform/conform. Thus, they don’t frame what they engage in as a fight but rather as a debate.
Now Sanders, whose position is that of an old-style European social democrat, has been severely criticized by many readers for playing too nicely with Team Dem after they went after him tooth and nail to make sure he did not become the party nominee in 2016 and 2020. And have readers have pointed out, the price of not backing Sanders has been Trump, since he consistently polled as beating Trump, and by a bigger margin than any Democrat pretender.
But Sanders could not go where his voters or his team would not go. Recall that in 2016, he was the dog that caught the car. He was polling only at 1% when he threw his hat into the ring and was initially dismissed as quixotic, running merely to get a bigger audience his political positions. DC insiders tell me that his campaign machine, cobbled together in haste, was too weak in too many states for his polling advantage to necessarily translate into victories in primaries, independent of Democrat sabotage.
In 2020, Sanders did have more professional operation. But the price of that was being beholden to “professionals” who had learned their trade working with Team Dem. When push came to shove, they showed their true colors. After the weekend of the long knives, when Obama threw his weight behind Biden and secured a series of primary wins for Biden, as reported in Politico, a significant portion of campaign team, as well as the progressive turncoat Pramila Jayapal recommended that Sanders drop his campaign. The message was that even if he continued over their objections, he could expect the objectors to resign or to dial in their work.
Sanders remains the Senator of a small state. He has to be able to play ball with Team Dem to serve his constituents. Many readers do not like what has resulted, but that is the reality of Sanders learning that in practice, his power is very circumscribed due to the “all hat, no cattle” reality of the progressive faction.
By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at God’s Spies
Back when I was a scamp, one of the jobs I held was in high tech. I labored at several small companies, each of which did their manufacturing in Asia. My colleagues employed in marketing and sales had to make occasional trips to visit the vendors — our factory associates — and before each of them left, they took orders for shoes. Slip the traveler five dollars and when she or he returned, a $100 pair of Nikes or Adidas was yours. Factory direct, new-made, unworn, untaxed, with logo attached but unburdened with the logo’s cost: $95.
To be plain: The shoe cost $5; the logo, $95. In some years the shoes cost even less: $2.50 bought you a pair, but not in the stores.
Fast forward to today: What was kept an unadvertised fact when we and our Asian suppliers were on friendlier terms, is now being trumpeted loudly by those same suppliers in retaliation for Trump’s disinterest in the mechanics of trade. In response to Trump’s queering the deal, they’re explaining the deal.
‘You Need a Revolution’
Thanks to U.S. tariff attacks on our trading partners, China and worldwide Chinese are starting to fight back, not just with tariffs, but with “soft power,” information and educational videos that tell more than the truth.
Examples include this from a Chinese citizen (I think) who’s also a real estate agent in Vancouver BC. Nothing he says here is wrong.
“[Your oligarchs] told you to be proud while they sold your future for profit.”
“What did your oligarchs do? They bought yachts, private jets, mansions with golf course driveways.”
“For forty years, both China and the United States benefited from the trade, the manufacturing, but only one of us used that wealth to build. This isn’t China’s fault. It’s yours. … You let the oligarchs feed you lies while they made you fat, poor and addicted.”
All leading to this tough love admission: “America, you don’t need a tariff. You need a revolution.”
Who can disagree with his last assessment? Trump was elected, in fact, by people who thought it was true. They just thought he’d deliver, is all. Looks like he won’t.
The Product vs. the IP
The Chinese are also fighting with pieces like those below, attacks on “luxury brands” where the “luxury” is China-supplied and the “brand” is the label slapped on. (It’s been pointed out by many that Apple is not a manufacturer, but a branding company that mainly owns intellectual property — logos, labels and “looks.”)
The Chinese writ large, now that we’ve started a war, are happy to point out that the real value is the product itself, which they supply, while the label is just most of the price.
Here’s a breakdown of the actual production cost of a Hermès bag.
Luxury is a mindset. https://t.co/SRxPI08utA pic.twitter.com/1q1oqv0Pvk
— The Creative (@thecreativexx) April 13, 2025
I’ve also seen several flavors of AI satires like this, a riff, perhaps, on Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s “army of millions and millions of [American] people screwing in little, little screws” and doing similar menial factory deeds.
The video is cruel (remember the comment above, that they “feed you lies while they made you fat, poor and addicted”). Yet this is not totally false. The U.S. is 13th in obesity of 191 nations, with 42% of our people classed obese or worse. (Of the 12 nations heavier than us, seven are peopled with genetically Polynesian bodies.)
For contrast, France is 149th (11% obesity) and China is 166th (8%).
Videos like this are painful for Americans to watch — I found it quite difficult — but an angry rest of the world is not too proud to smirk.
It’s not us; our billionaires have ruined our food. It’s swimming in sugar and “modified” (dangerous) starch, the “cheap shit” our billionaires give us while stealing our cash.
Righting the Ship
Our oligarchs have captured control of our government (thanks to Reagan); swollen the presidency fat with unwarranted power (thanks to Nixon and Ford); and turned the party of the people toward money instead (Clinton, Obama, and most other national Democrats); then stripped the country for parts and its natural wealth.
And all this for what? To add to already unnatural, unusable wealth. To quote the man from Vancouver: They bought yachts, private jets, mansions with golf course driveways. And swam in hubristic joy while the rest of us withered and died like unwatered lawns.
I suppose we could be angry at this; it’s hard not to be. But at whom? The man from Vancouver is right; we did it ourselves. So where to direct our response? At the Chinese? Or inward for once, by righting our own failing ship?
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I spent some time in Vermont and I remember it fondly (I was even a member of the Vermont National Guard). I would like to think well of Bernie Sanders. Sanders may have meant well when he started out in 2016, and perhaps even in 2020. But at this point Sanders and his sidekick Ocasio Cortez are just straight up running a screen to distract the putative left from objecting to the Isreali genocide of Palestinians. That’s it, nothing else. They are partners with Cory Booker in boosting fundraising for people who support genocide.
The overt sheepdogging of the left, and later funnel it into the center right Democratic party, is only brilliant because the left keeps falling for it. Stop voting for this party and help to create another.
It seems assumed here, that the Chinese tiktoker (whose video I saw and shared the other day) is speaking of an electoral revolution. Not sure if I am in the minority or majority on this, but I do believe he was referring to another type of revolution that is decidedly not of the Sanders-esque electoral variety. Perhaps that is just me misinterpreting his intent, though.
“…revolutions start with high-minded idealism but tend to end in a bloody awful mess…..and the last man standing isn’t there by virtue or righteousness but by ruthless and luck….”
“Blake’s 7 and Revolution Drift” Feral Historian
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1hM-H2EONxk&
The American “revolution” is the exception to the rule, and arguably the American revolution was an inter-elite war of succession and not a genuine revolution
I tend to think a lot of revolutions happen when socioeconomic discontent among the masses get hijacked by the elites (old and emerging) to advance their pet agendas thst have nothing to do with the sources of the discontent: the discobtent of late 1780s were first used by the French crown to force through “tax and fiscal reforms” through dubious means, then by the aristocrats to force through economic and political “reforms,” then by additional cast of characters to force through more “reforms” that kept piling on, while the original problems were never directly addressed and the new layers of “reforms” kept compounding things as the political leaders kept looking for “solutions” (or escape hatches, more appropriately) outside: in Germany and Italy (1790s and 1800s), in Russia (1812), Algeria (1830s and beyond), Italy (again) and Mexico (1860s), Germany again(1870), Indo China (1880s), and so on.
I prefer Mao’s quote on revolution:
“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”
There are many exceptions. Some not even violent, such as Portugal’s Carnation Revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution
Imo non-violent revolutions are allowed to happen by those controlling the army. And imo our oligarchs are not of that type. Us progressives are far too wimpy and disorganized to end on top if we had a real revolution, granted it’s hard to imagine worse masters than the ones we’ve got.
He spent the last 4 years supporting an administration that was visibly failing the American people, and was run by rabid warmongers. He knew it was going to bring Trump back, and yet he barely even complained. Even after they broke their ONE promise to him, right out of the gate! Biden immediately squashed the attempt to raise the minimum wage, even while inflation raged.
Bernie may be sincere, but he is a coward for not fighting his own party leaders when it mattered most. He’s done it over and over.
You have this wrong.
They were NOT “his own party leaders”.
He was always an independent who caucused with the Dems. So he had even less legitimacy in their eyes.
But Sanders is, for all intents and purposes, a Democrat, no? The Dems certainly hate him, despite his constant fealty, his groveling for them, but he’s a Dem in all but name.
Respectfully, JohnnyGL, I would disagree. Sanders’ “cowardice” is standard practice in a system (AKA “democracy”) that blesses compromise as the way to get things done. Recommended reading in this connection: Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate, the tale of LBJ in the Senate. How did he “get things done”? Answer: lots of compromise, ass kissing and dark money.
American “democracy” is not a system that permits unilateral action without compromise. Loyalty, not principle, is what gets things done. Sanders being loyal to Biden is a part of the power relationship that got the Inflation Reduction Act passed.
The idealists who read NC might believe that Sanders could have done otherwise, but I’d suggest that’s so naive as to be ignore-able.
Incidentally, one could make all the accusations that are supposed to disqualify Trump about LBJ. Bigotry, misogyny, philandering, dishonest business dealings, etc. would all be as true of LBJ as of Trump. The big difference: LBJ grew up poor, Trump grew up rich. LBJ gave us Medicare, civil rights legislation, and the war on poverty in addition to his nemesis, Vietnam.
How can we get Americans to stop warring? Capitalist free markets mean profits inevitably decline (the “iron law of profits” – Marx). Managers fight that decline by becoming monopolists, or doing unproductive things (warfare). Looks like war is inevitable as long as we worship at the altar of neoliberalism.
And I read just this morning on the World Socialist Web Site that Sanders and AOC had the cops arrest two anti Gaza genocide protesters after they unfurled a Palestinian banner. I haven’t voted Dem in years and this just confirms my opinion of those two sheepdogs. (RIP, Glen Ford and Bruce Dixon.) You are very missed .
I’m sorry, they were at one of their rallies, this one in Nampa, Idaho, when the above action took place. I wasn’t very specific. My apologies.
The crowd was chanting Free Palestine and Sanders/AOC just ignored it
That’s exactly right. Sanders and AOC need to be hounded at every “rally” by anti-genocide protesters. Make them squirm!
Chris Hedges´s latest Q&A would thus fit here:
55 min.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/come-join-me-now-for-a-q-and-a
My main take-away: stop talking about elections and third parties. Instead unionize and use labour strikes.
In his view 3-5% of the nation´s population would be enough to stage an effective strike.
And he is in part critical of Sanders. (AOC he doesn´t take seriously.)
He compares Sanders to Nader – whose speechwriter Hedges once was – unfavourably – and states that Sanders when Hedges asked him why he wouldn´t be more radical responded: “I don´t want to end up like Nader”.
Which means an outlaw of the Democratic Party.
Thank you, Yves.
I agree with your suggestion of an asset grab.
It’s happening here, too. The manufactured crisis takes many forms. This is one of them: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/04/17/we-are-living-in-a-fucked-up-world/. Please refresh from time to time as I have comments in moderation.
The Derek guy has some comments on the cheaper bag video.
“In the original TikTok video, the maker claims his bags are just like Hermès because they use the same materials. That’s like me saying my spaghetti is on par with a Michelin-starred chef’s just because we both use tomatoes and flour. In fact, skill matters more than materials.”
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1911866349447684466.html
Otherwise, here is DIY video to keep up with the times https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTN-WY0X5Jw
Italian law does not require that products labeled “Made in Italy” be made by Italians.
As a result, a bag made in Italy by a Chinese worker for 53 euros can be sold in a Christian Dior store for 2,600 euros.
That Derek guy is using some cheap straw for his strawman, and poor craftsmanship too. He should watch the video again, because skill is also mentioned. Chinese artisans are, well, artisans.
P.S. As far as pasta goes, I can make top-notch quality for bottom-notch price (no tyre manufacturing company involved). Only an idiot would pay big bucks for spaghetti. Making pasta is not rocket science, and neither is making bags.
The Derek guy is not touching the other video by the same guy,
https://x.com/JamesPGoddard90/status/1911300543609446734
in which he states his factory is the OEM for a lot of luxury brands, (though not Hermes)
Today’s NYTimes with the dire news of a non-event:
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Electrify Democrats Who Want to Fight Trump
Bernie Sanders and his apparent heir, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have drawn enormous crowds on their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, energizing a beaten-down Democratic Party
Brethren and sistren, let’s not kid ourselves. Yes, we all like Bernie Sanders. Yes, we sometimes think that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a progressive.
But neither of them has the influence that they claim. Bernie Sanders wants to get along, and to do so, he squandered his leads in the races, let the party bosses and Pete BootEdgeEdge trample him, and didn’t counter the ritual humiliation by Elizabeth Warren. And, yes, I understand Yves Smith’s argument that he’s a senator from a small state and, therefore, with limited maneuverability.
Both of them are tainted beyond rehabilitation by their stances on the proxy wars / proxy genocides in Ukraine and Palestine. Their public squirming is not appreciated, particularly on Russia and blowing money on armaments.
As much as I admire and recommend Richard Kline’s essay, Progressively Losing, which is a must-read here at Naked Capitalism, I will quibble with the quoted paragraph up top: The evolution of progressives, as evinced by Sanders, AOC and Nancy Pelosi, is that they want to wield power in ways that are all-too-traditional and unsuccessful and yet they are loath to make their station / their power produce results. So one gets endless fumbling gestures and failed bills in Congress combined with underhanded office politics of the likes of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Stacey Plaskett.
Tom Neuberger’s marshalling of facts and deft rhetorical style are refreshing, but then, I am in his fanboy base. To pull out his last lines as a kicker:
So where to direct our response? At the Chinese? Or inward for once, by righting our own failing ship?
Yes, inward, but not in the passive sense of “be” the change and then “be” brunch. Diagnoses such as Neuberger’s have to be repeated again and again to remind USonions that only action, only self-possession, only some whiff of principle is what remains to them. Which means boycotts (Uber, Amazon, Tesla) and strikes. Strike, strike, strike.
Thanks, DJG, and for the compliment too.
Yes, strike strike strike indeed. We’ll see if the angry masses become angry enough. They walked to the brink and back in 2000, and were walked back by Obama in 2008-09.
Will it take a Great Depression-style immiseration to make us transform the neoliberal ship? God grant us grace if it does; either way — if we do, if we don’t — we’re going to need help.
Thomas
Sorry, Mr. Neuberger, your placing all the blame on Republicans just doesn’t work for me. I think Yves’ preface to your piece is right-on.
I will admit that the video material you included, however, is stunning. Thanks for that!
Thanks, Carla. Appreciate the comment.
I’d like to say though, I never place all the blame on Republicans. Not even most of it. They’re the scorpion in the old story. The blame falls on the frog, the one with the choice. One sample of that is here: https://neuburger.substack.com/p/the-frog-or-the-scorpion-who-caused
Cheers,
Thomas
Revolt? Them muppets are too busy having fun, https://wolfstreet.com/2025/04/16/drunken-sailors-back-in-splurge-mode-retail-sales-surge-even-at-restaurants-bars-not-part-of-frontrunning-tariffs/
No doubt consumers are trying to outrun tariffs on avocados, maple syrup, etc by splurging on restaurants and bars.
The American Dream is and has always been to eventually become The Oppressor i.e. join the oligarchy.
To be plain: The shoe cost $5; the logo, $95. In some years the shoes cost even less: $2.50 bought you a pair, but not in the stores.
The statement above isn’t exactly fair is it? There’s material cost but there’s also all the design work that goes into making new styles of shoes, marketing, etc. Are companies overcharging customers? Sure, but that does not mean that the cost of something is purely the sum of the cost of its materials.
Which is why I buy items without the logo.
Yes, the costing is a much more complicated issue – the basic raw materials and factory workers wage can be very low, but the factory itself has overheads, even in the most low cost parts of the world. I’ve seen all sorts of figures thrown out there – I think as a rough rule of thumb for items like sneakers is that the overall cost plus profit for the manufacturer would be around 25% of the retail cost, with 25% the brands costs plus profit around the same, with the retailers getting 50%. In many respects, the most expensive part of your sneaker is the rent for the shops floorspace.
There are additional complications – years ago I knew a mountain tour operator in the India Himalaya who would often get his camping kit made locally. I once sat in on one of his negotiations – we were sitting on a beautiful garden in northern India overlooking a valley (the workshop was quite literally below our chairs – the owners house and garden was built on a cantilever structure over the valley side, with his small factory underneath it). The guide was simply showing tents and tarps from a western catalogue and asking how much replicas would cost. What struck me was the huge difference in price between a 100% ‘domestic’ tent, and one using imported products, such as YKK zips. But needless to say, both options were far cheaper than shipping in branded kit.
I’m in the market right now for a new tent, and doing my usual nerdy research I found that most of the upmarket US brands, both big names (such as MSR) and smaller niche brands are all made in exactly the same factory in China. This isn’t really surprising, as some of the construction techniques for high quality tents are highly specialised and only a small number of factories can guarantee the quality (I think the main alternative to that Chinese factory is in Latvia). From what I can work out from a little detective work, the same rule of thumb (25%-25%-50%) rule seems to apply to the outdoor kit world as well. But there is a huge manufacturing cost differential between those using ‘standard’ inputs (for items like zips and clips and buckles), and those using more specialised and branded parts – this really pushes up the price if you want a really high quality tent, which is why the cost differential between a big box store tent and one ‘real’ mountain hikers use can be enormous.
On the subject of Hermes, my sister is very fond of her ‘Birkin’, bought for $200 in Bangkok from a place for those in the know. A friend of my sister who is a bit of a Hermes obsessive had a close look and admitted it was very close to a ‘real’ one, but could identify a few short cuts in manufacture.
“In many respects, the most expensive part of your sneaker is the rent for the shops floorspace.”
Will no one rid us of this troublesome rentier overhead?
Steinbeck: “Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. […]
“I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist.”
Thank you, Yves.
With regard to the Hermes hand bag, I have seen one about Rolex.
That’s the dirty little secret about Swiss watches, which I learnt a dozen years ago, when, on secondment to the Swiss Bankers’ Association, observing a debate in Parliament about rules of origin and the per centage needed to attribute the phrase made in Switzerland. It’s the same in most of the west.
Rolex is one of the most vertically integrated watchmakers. Please don’t make false assumptions based on nothing, it adds little to the conversation.
All heil Rolex! Do not let anyone insult the brand that you feel so passionate about.
Crikey Yves,
I think I mentioned once before how surprised I was at your apparent call to arms.
This one is going beyond the impartial critical response. Anything that references the French Revolution can seem dramatic. But we are nearly there.
Where are the organised methods for taking power?
They obviously do not exist anymore on the Left.
But where did they exist in 1789 before the left was invented? That might provide a clue.
Imo they’re birthed in hungry, homeless people, maybe more so with such that have children. I seem to recall the French Revolution occurred during a failure of the French wheat crop, I think from drought.
Maybe GW will drive out this crop of oligarchs, but even if so lots of innocents will be hurt, too.
Wasn’t the French revolution violent? Would that revolution have succeeded without violence? Seems to me an essential ingredient is missing in calls for an American revolution. There has been violence regarding Tesla’s, but my interpretation of that is coming fake progressive norms enforcers who object to Musk working with Trump, not so much the destruction DOGE is doing to us deplorable peasants.
Violence is the prerequisite for any effective revolution.
The State’s monopoly of violence needs to be challenged after all.
But, that pre supposes an organisation that can wield violence effectively.
Like the ANC in South Africa or the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
That organisation seems lacking in the US or anywhere else in the West.
It may arise in the future which is why the Western Elites are making anti free speech laws or anti protest laws.
They expect resistance, obviously.
Violence is the prerequisite for any effective revolution.
The State’s monopoly of violence needs to be challenged after all.
But, that pre supposes an organisation that can wield violence effectively.
Like the ANC in South Africa or the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
That organisation seems lacking in the US or anywhere else in the West.
It may arise in the future which is why the Western Elites are making anti free speech laws or anti protest laws. They expect resistance, obviously.
Replace the States monopoly of violence against against citizans with the Elites violence against citizans and see how it squares with reality …
It all depends on how you define “citizen” doesn’t it. Now, expand the concept of “violence” to include economic means….
Stay safe.
Citizens United in a market place and not a Sovereign nation. Hence some peoples notions on the collapse of the economic/social global neo/liberal[tm] era … see Pilkington et al …
To quote the great Saxifrage Russell (er, Kim Stanley Robinson) “What we need is a catalyst”. I thought we had one in 2020, but the pandemic and the fires diverted things. Sooner or later, something will occur that will trigger the eruption of the deliberately constructed pressure cooker that is the USA. Things will be disorganized and unplanned at first, but the US leadership will do what they always do, which is exactly the opposite of what the sociologically structured DOD COIN manual dictates. They will be as punitive and cruel as possible toward the people they view as peasants and livestock instead of listening to demands and making concessions. Things will become increasingly well organized, and the DOD will find itself regretting that it did not structure military active duty units along regional lines, and things will disintegrate quite quickly. We are not there yet, but we are on the way. The catalyst will come, as our state security forces, corporate leaders, and various volunteer Brownshirt types have a particular fondness for atrocities.
The thing we need to really start working on is what we want for the “after”, and those conversations should be occurring in every home and workplace in the country, post haste, because if we cannot collectively reach some source of consensus before things kick off, someone, or some group of someones will hijack the opportunity and decide for us.
Whoops. Sorry, not sure what happened there.
I am an expert on nothing but I think the call to revolt is the right call in this moment. Spending time and thought on debating the how-can-it-happen is a bit foot-dragging, especially when so many of those doing this sort of cautionary tea-leaf reading probably wouldn’t join a revolt anyway.
For me, the question is what to do and so far, I can’t say I’ve found anything that seems forceful enough. But other people are out there doing things and perhaps they will strike the spark.
Yes, I think there will be a great deal of violence. Perhaps the many disasters that are coming our way from natural forces will disperse the responses but I think these catastrophes may work the opposite way and give already-desperate people the belief that there is nothing left to lose.
I’m not trying to argue with my fellow NC readers here. I’m very thankful Yves and her fellow workers have the stamina and faith to keep this blog going. Much like Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, who every weekday bring the news you can’t hear elsewhere.
I don’t think politics is party. That has been an bad design for democracy. I don’t know how a social structure.moves past that rather primitive division but I sure hope.we.can and do.
Good luck to us all.
We’ve had so many mass murders that it hardly rates when the tally is in the single digits, and our lack of leadership is defenseless to do anything in regards to the problem other than to offer hopes & prayers after the fact. We’re inured to gun violence.
When the revolution comes in earnest, ain’t gonna be of the ‘velvet’ variety like in Bohemia back in the day.
A glaring issue in regard to potential civil war is the idea that there is no clear borderlines such as the Mason-Dixon line, oh sure there are many cities and states where one side predominates-but never is it wholly one way or the other.
There wasn’t necessarily one side or the other in 1860 either. They had viable political entities.
The antebellum South was a semi-feudal society, completely out of step with non-slave states. Currently state income tax collections piggy back on the Federal government. They don’t have the mechanisms in place to collect if there was a problem.
There’s a very good Kirsten Dunst movie called Civil War that imagines what a revolution would be like. At the climax they invade the White House and execute the president.
My problem with the above post is the same objection that applies to Sanders who thought all our problems were about “billionaires.”
Whereas the truth is that many of the cohort who are expected to rise up want to be billionaires, not guillotine them. Trump even had a top rated TV show where you could watch him in action firing people. In his addled brain he probably sees his latest presidency as a return to his biggest show biz hit.
So in this wealthy country the misery level will have to be way higher before any tumbrils start to roll. Of course Trump is working on that too by threatening an economic crash. Power always defeats itself, with lots of collateral damage.
So kind of similar to the Truman Show, we’re all part of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice reality show starring an all grown up Anthony Fremont who whisks people into the scorned field?
It would likely be more “Yugoslavia in the 90s” than “Yanks and Rebels.”
If “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” exists for the “security of a free state,” what should the people do when their state becomes less free?
Any revolution can make use of Gene Sharp’s 198 methods of nonviolent action. Not all revolutions are fought on the barricades (a mug’s game in my opinion) but can take all forms that eliminate the legitimacy of a government. Wouldn’t take much research to see what methods the US/EU used in their manufactured colour revolutions and how the Hong Kong protestors fought a few years ago shows lots of innovative techniques. The big one of course is a general strike with a consumer’s strike leading up to it. A successful revolution to change how things are done would have to be decentralized with no obvious leaders and lots of low tech methods of communication. But to tell you the truth, I do not think that any of this will happen until most Americans will hit rock bottom and there is a ways to go yet. But Trump’s working on it.
Damn, I forgot to include Gene Sharp’s list-
https://wri-irg.org/en/resources/2008/gene-sharps-198-methods-nonviolent-action
I didn’t see singing Kumbya there, nor marathon dances.
Who will be the financial backer of people’s revolution?
The colour revolutiona are not cheap.
It will be “In Crowd” sourced.
An alternative interpretation of Gene Sharp is that he was the originator of key portions of modern color revolution doctrine, used by the U.S. foreign policy apparatus, externally, over the past 30 years.
He can be seen as one of the most important U.S. Defense intellectuals of the Cold War, recruited by the nuclear theorist Thomas Schelling in the mid-1960s to join the Center for International Affairs at Harvard, a position which Sharp held for three decades.
It was at this Center that he developed his framework of non-violent action, with the help of continual Department of Defense funding.
An article on this has been linked here some time ago:
https://nonsite.org/change-agent-gene-sharps-neoliberal-nonviolence-part-one/
There is some overlap between revolution, discussed here, and civil war, which is a topic that grabbed some attention. In either situation, the military, if nothing else in the form of ex-military will have some role. They did in France, Russia, Spain, post-1918 Germany. It depends on how the services split along captains versus colonels or e listed versus officers or lines reflecting civilian divisions. I don’t know. But don’t tell me military people haven’t thought about it
I agree with almost all of these comments. Strike, strike, strike. Strike their wealth, strike until they lose it, strike in whatever way that separates them from their riches. Wealth is the source of their power, and if it was detached from them it would be a successful revolution to me.
If you read several books about The French Revolution what you find in France was:
a population of well educated lawyers, tax accountants, wealthy land owners, politicians and bankers. They were The Mainstay of that Revolution.
It’s this Class of people that America does not have.They’ve all bought into Capitalism.
In 2005, a top secret memo written by George Kennan on April 30,1948 was released to the public. The title of the memo was “The inauguration of organized political warfare.” Kennan pointed out in that document that the U.S. public had been misled into believing there was a basic difference between peace and war.
Kennan insisted the reality of international relations was the perpetual rhythm of struggle in and out of war.
Consequently, he believed it was now necessary (1948) for the U.S. to practice both overt foreign policy or traditional State Dept. diplomatic activity as well as a more systemic covert political warfare implemented by the CIA.
Kennan argued that the recently created Policy Planning Staff of the State Dept. (then 3 months old) should begin “… a consideration of specific projects in the field of covert operations that could be fitted into the structure of this government, with our Department of State exercising direction and coordination.”
So, it should also be kept in mind that before there was Gene Sharp there was George Kennan.
The best book on this subject is, “A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict” by Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall. Palgrave, 2000.
It covers in detail the methods and how the methods were adapted on the fly by the people in Russia 1905, India, Poland, the Ruhrkampf 1923, Denmark & The Netherlands Resisting the Nazis, El Salvador 1944, Argentina and Chile, The American South Campaign for Civil Rights, South Africa, The Phillipines, and others. At 500 pages, it is full of detailed strategies for many different contexts.
It will open your eyes. It did mine and I went through the 60’s in California.
https://www.amazon.ca/Force-More-Powerful-Non-violent-Conflict/dp/0312240503?crid=2GBDBNHIW91YJ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.bTTpR_iVvoxaEJPFdC-aWpsXD_WYkRySnNz8zeaaNQjGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.iUdSieo686YU9iYJr3NtZBW8Ey6ryL3t6DOKlO322iU&dib_tag=se&keywords=A+Force+More+Powerful&qid=1744915318&s=books&sprefix=a+force+more+powerful%2Cstripbooks%2C1306&sr=1-1
Ann, it is possible that the book you mention is not what it seems.
Peter Ackerman, one of the authors of “A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict,” was a student of Gene Sharp and both were lauded by famous neocon Max Boot in the following manner:
“It is fair to say that Sharp and Ackerman have been indirectly responsible for more revolutions than anyone since Lenin and Mao, helping to create numerous liberal democracies.”
In other words, there is significant evidence to indicate that these two guys were instrumental in developing an extremely sophisticated regime change strategy in support of U.S. national interests, trade interests, financial interests, and security interests.
Just wait until that tool of imperial coercion redounds upon the citizens of the metropole as do all such horrors visited upon the periphery return as “blowback” …
Sharp was not a fomentor of revolutions, he was a counter-revolutionary. He and his ideological descendants all strive to overthrow what were successful revolutions. This is important to understand. It is also important to understand that there are no non-violent revolutions. All successful, and many non-successful revolutions had a violent facet, or at minimum, a threat of significant violence (including Sharp’s color revolutions, which tended to use assassinations, false flags, and disappearances- not all of the these tactics were written in his treatises, at least those available to the public. Note that Maidan, for instance, never would have succeeded without the sniper attack.) Historians and propagandist, for political reasons, simply ignore or erase the violent facets. Justin Podhur did a great piece on this not long ago, that should be findable on his substack, I believe.
Arkady, thank you for this tip.
Ibn Khaldun once warned us that a dynasty/state is close to its end once the latest generation of leaders begin to use tax money to enrich themselves while being politically and social removed from the earlier generations of leaders that were great in character and competency. America is clearly at the end. There will be no revolution.
That IS the revolution in the form of an implosion.
Will the revolution be televised?
You won’t be able to skip out for beer during commercials!
Sanders called for “a political revolution” which is emphatically not a call for a “revolution.” Bernie was correct that the arteriosclerotic American duopoly is in serious need of reconstruction, but Trump’s dictatorship is the only alternative currently on offer. No thanks. Vis Ibn Khaldun, I think that we are more likely to experience a collapse than a revolution.
The WSJ piece linked yesterday about Musk’s “legion” of DNA-dumplings reported on private texts of his Epstein-like concerns about the urgency of the coming “apocalypse” along with his racist musings about replacement. Read this along with the Asia Times piece about the Trump-adjacent stock tout urging us to profit from the collapse and you realize that Our Billionaire Overlords are “prepping” for the apocalypse. Joy.
All good “revolutions” are really just civil wars anyway. Not something I’d look forward to.
If a revolution is ever to be effective against our overlords, who control the police if not the army, it’ll be run by the far right, they’re the ones with the guns.
There are crucial differences between the right and the left (the real left, not liberals), and that is their relative comfort, who has more to lose/gain, who is most willing to TRULY put their lives on the line for their brethren, which side has a greater understanding and acceptance that extreme sacrifice will be necessary, as opposed to which side believes that a civil conflict will be a glorious orgy of violence they get to joyfully dispense upon their enemies with little opposition, and finally which side already has a profound understanding for operational security.
These things matter. One side here is grimly wary, has far less to lose, has experience on the receiving end of repression, and is already somewhat accustomed to privation. The other side is comfortable and very confident. Things are not necessarily what they seem.
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Yves’ introduction is lucid, hear.
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A kinetic revolution frays in the flux.
Until and unless the Cossacks change sides.