Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
My opinion of the situation in this country is obviously grim if one looks at the themes I tend to write on. As I see it we are either fast becoming a Corporate Feudal Police State, or already have achieved that dubious distinction. I am in favor of a movement towards reversing this situation. There are some issues that can resonate with most Americans and any movement seeking to reverse the anti-Constitutional trends afoot in the U.S. today must find the means to go beyond the falseness of the Left/Right, Liberal/Conservative ideological inanity. We have a corporate two party system, run by an oligarchic elite, whose base disagreement is how to treat those 99% of us, who in their view are the American Peasantry. The Republican Corporatists in effect believe that the majority of Americans should be left to their own devices, while the Democratic Corporatists mildly look for palliatives that won’t disturb their benefactors who are really in charge. Some may say my viewpoint is a radical one and this is possibly so, though the definitions of “radical” have blurred through the years. In my life I’ve spent a number of years as a political activist in one form or another and as I approach the age of 70, I think that my experiences have taught me much about political activism and the potential dangers it brings to the people at large. Right now I find two issues that frighten me for the sake of the future and how my progeny will experience it. The first is the notion of a coming police state and the second is the prospect of a violent, revolutionary upheaval in reaction to it. In other words I see we the People of the United States being between the proverbial “rock and a hard place”.
A study/survey done at Farleigh Dickinson University came out this week done by: Dan Cassino who is a professor of political science it was titled:”BELIEFS ABOUT SANDY HOOK COVER-UP, COMING REVOLUTION UNDERLIE DIVIDE ON GUN CONTROL”. http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2013/guncontrol/
“Partisan divisions on gun control go deeper than the legislation being fought over in Congress. Supporters and opponents of gun control have very different fundamental beliefs about the role of guns in American society. Overall, the poll finds that 29 percent of Americans think that an armed revolution in order to protect liberties might be necessary in the next few years, with another five percent unsure. However, these beliefs are conditional on party. Just 18 percent of Democrats think an armed revolution may be necessary, as opposed to 44 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of independents.
Only 38 percent of Americans who believe a revolution might be necessary support additional gun control legislation, compared with 62 percent of those who don’t think an armed revolt will be needed. “The differences in views of gun legislation are really a function of differences in what people believe guns are for,” said Cassino. “If you truly believe an armed revolution is possible in the near future, you need weapons and you’re going to be wary about government efforts to take them away.”
While Professor Cassino did this survey from the perspective of the gun control issue, that is not my focus in this piece. What concerns me is the amount of people who believe that an armed revolution in this country is necessary and what group in our population these people represent. You see I too believe that the changes needed to bring our country in line with the aspirations of our Founding Fathers would be revolutionary; however, I also believe that “armed” revolution never works towards positive changes.
The “American Revolution” and the subsequent Constitutional Republic derived was the first modern example of a revolution against tyranny that worked. Prior to that “revolutions” were in fact coups, where one “King” was replaced by another “King” and tyranny still reigned, whether or not in a more benign form. However, the “American Revolution” was not a classic revolution; it was an example of an uprising against a foreign imperialist power. History is replete with examples of this type of revolt against a foreign power, from the Egyptians throwing off 200 years of Hittite rule 1,300 years ago to the numerous examples of the Afghan rejecting foreign hegemonic rule of their country. To my mind the first major modern revolution was the French Revolution and in the end that revolution replaced a decadent monarchy with a power hungry Emperor. We have seen many modern armed revolutions all over this world since the French Revolution. How many have ended with tyranny replaced by a better form of government? Those since 1900 certainly haven’t produced salutary results.
The Russian Revolution replaced the despicable Romanov Dynasty, with two arguable sociopaths in Lenin and Stalin. They instituted as system that represented a slight improvement in living standard for the serfs, but that was every bit as much a feudal economy as under the Tzars. The nobility was replaced by “The Party” and things devolved to such a point that the USSR became the world’s largest prison camp. Under the Tzars at last my ancestors were able, if not encouraged to leave their accommodations “beyond the pale” and come to a place offering greater freedom and opportunity. Since the end of the “Cold War” Russia has moved away from Communism and towards Fascism, now under a new sociopath, Vladimir Putin.
The Chinese Revolution deposed a crumbling empire, ruled by regional satraps into a Communist State, led by another sociopath, “Chairman Mao” and his henchmen/women. Mao died and he was replaced by a faceless group of Communist Party functionaries who embraced “Capitalism”, which in fact seems to have also gone in the Fascist direction. Having known actual American Stalinists and Maoists in the 60’s, these developments since then have given me a kind of bitter amusement at the correctness of my judgment of those I knew and whose blandishments I rejected. They were a humorless lot, who had difficulty relating to people on any genuine level. Perhaps they too were sociopathic in nature, but I really think it was that they were the type of people who needed some authority to follow in their lives and in those instances chose Marx.
Many people, perhaps the majority of the populations anyplace are afraid to stand on their own judgment and seek the authority of some political/economic system, or most especially a religion. I wrote about that awhile ago: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/21/the-authoritarians-a-book-review-and-book/ . That guest blog was about the “authoritarian mindset” as detailed by the book “The Authoritarians” which was written by Bob Altemeyer, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. The book is free incidentally and a link to get it is included in the blog. To quote Professor Altemeyer from his book:
“[A] right-wing authoritarian follower doesn’t necessarily have conservative political views. Instead he’s someone who readily submits to the established authorities in society, attacks others in their name, and is highly conventional. It’s an aspect of his personality, not a description of his politics. Right-wing authoritarianism is a personality trait, like being characteristically bashful or happy or grumpy or dopey.
You could have left-wing authoritarian followers as well, who support a revolutionary leader who wants to overthrow the establishment. I knew a few in the 1970s, Marxist university students who constantly spouted their chosen authorities, Lenin or Trotsky or Chairman Mao. Happily they spent most of their time fighting with each other”
I can immediately see an objection raised in the minds of some readers regarding Authoritarians supporting established authorities including government officials. They might well think well the ultra-Conservative Movement is anti-government, so how could they be Authoritarian in personality? The answer is I think easy. ”Authoritarian followers usually support the established authorities in their society, such as government officials and traditional religious leaders.” To many “authoritarians” true authority might come from FOX News, Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, Pat Robertson, or even Adolph Hitler. The innate need that they have driving them is the fact that life itself is and always has been a very scary proposition. To deal with the anxiety that fear produces many people need to reach out for something that will give them a feeling of certainty, whether it is a God, an “Ism”, or even a Glock.
In Salon.com this week the columnist David Sirota wrote about the FDU survey linked above in an article titled Rise of the conservative revolutionaries” he begins:
“There’s plenty of proof of an authoritarian streak and animus toward democratic ideals in today’s conservative movement. There was the movement’s use of its judicial power to halt a vote recount and instead install a president who had lost the popular vote. There is the ongoing GOP effort to make it more difficult for people to cast a vote in an election. There is the GOP’s record use of the Senate filibuster to kill legislation that the vast majority of the country supports. There is a GOP leader’s declaration that what the American people want from their government simply “doesn’t matter.”
Up until today, you might have been able to write all that anti-democratic pathology off as one infecting only the Republican Party’s politicians and institutional leadership, but not its rank-and-file voters. But then this morning Fairleigh Dickinson University released this gun control-related poll showing that authoritarianism runs throughout the entire party.
Take a look at the cross-tabs on page 3 of the national survey. That’s right, you are reading it correctly: Almost half (44 percent) of all self-described Republican voters say they believe “an armed revolution might be necessary to protect our liberties.” Just as bad, more Republicans believe an armed revolution might be necessary than believe one isn’t necessary.” http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/rise_of_the_conservative_revolutionaries/
In the 2012 election obviously more Americans voted for Barack Obama than for Mitt Romney. In the total vote for the congressional election the majority by far voted for Democratic Congresspeople over Republicans, but gerrymandering skewed the outcome. My point is that currently the population clearly favors the Democrats and in a democratic system one would suppose that the populace would abide by the results of the election. Yet we now see proof, as if it hadn’t been obvious before, that 44% of Republicans believe an armed revolution to support their views might be necessary. Following that the survey also found that including the beliefs of self-described Democrats and Independents a total of 38% of the American populace believes that an armed revolution might we be necessary.
Another way of putting that is that much more than one third of all Americans believe that our system of government and our Constitution has failed, or has been failing. Now truthfully I am among that thirty eight percent, yet I am strongly opposed to the concept of change via armed revolution. This is no dichotomy in my thinking; rather it is my judgment of what I see as the reality of the situation. My background in the social sciences and mental health, combined with my lifelong interest in history and mythology, has led me to the conclusion that most of humanity’s problems are not religious, political and/or economic in causation. Those “Ism’s” are merely the manifestation of the ills of the world, or to put it another way the symptoms. The real cause is rooted in psychological and possibly genetic pathology and is called Sociopathic Behavior. Those who are said to be sociopaths suffer from what is defined in the DSM IV as Anti-Social Personality Disorder. What follows is an overview in the DSM IV “Antisocial Personality Disorder Overview (Written by Derek Wood, RN, BSN, PhD Candidate)”
“Antisocial Personality Disorder results in what is commonly known as a Sociopath. The criteria for this disorder require an ongoing disregard for the rights of others, since the age of 15 years. Some examples of this disregard are reckless disregard for the safety of themselves or others, failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, deceitfulness such as repeated lying or deceit for personal profit or pleasure, and lack of remorse for actions that hurt other people in any way.”
“People with this disorder appear to be charming at times, and make relationships, but to them, these are relationships in name only. They are ended whenever necessary or when it suits them, and the relationships are without depth or meaning, including marriages. They seem to have an innate ability to find the weakness in people, and are ready to use these weaknesses to their own ends through deceit, manipulation, or intimidation, and gain pleasure from doing so.
They appear to be incapable of any true emotions, from love to shame to guilt. They are quick to anger, but just as quick to let it go, without holding grudges. No matter what emotion they state they have, it has no bearing on their future actions or attitudes.” http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html
Read the overview above and think about how closely that description may well apply to our political leaders, corporate leaders and religious leaders. When we someone like Sarah Palin that description should come to mind. One of the points made in the book “The Authoritarians” which I quoted above is that those who lead those with authoritarian personalities are rarely, if ever true believers in the cause. My take on it is that most of those who lead us humans in the cultural, political or religious sense are sociopaths using a particular doctrine to merely satisfy their own ends. In revolutionary terms they are willing to sacrifice anyone on the altar of their own needs. These leaders then are willing to commit any deed to achieve their ends. Was this not true of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao?
To paraphrase John Lennon “you say you want a revolution well you can count me out”. So we come to my own personal conundrum which is that I see how bad things are, yet I don’t have any real solution to change them. An American Revolution in this current climate will only lead to a Fascist Dictatorship of those who would make the “Tea Party” seem moderate. When one defines the problems in this world in religious, political and/or economic terms one can propose solutions, but I believe that ideological solutions lead to the same dead end, because the problems are the result of sociopathic behavior, with some genetics thrown in. The issue is how do we deal with that successful, yet anti-social behavior and change the country and or the world for the better? I really don’t know, nor have I any long term solutions. I cope with that by trying to report the world around me as I see it and hope that someone much wiser than me, who is not a sociopath, nor a barker of a some palliative nostrum, will come along to help provide ideas that can save us all. Perhaps that someone is you the reader. If so please share your ideas with us and any comfort they may bring.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
“Here’s the type of revolution (or March on Washington & Wall Street) that we need:”
RWL,
Malcom X was an intelligent and very perceptive man. He was one of those whose thought I learned from as I grew up from my teens. As he personally evolved he became dangerous to the powers that be, just as MLK did when he started commenting on poverty and foreign policy. Their murders were premature and highly suspicious, but then that was the 60’s.
Tim Mac was more succint, intelligent and interesting on this subject. Of course, Fidel is more succint in his polemics than this author.
Tony C.,
A well said and concise summary of the flaw in laissez-faire economics.
A violent revolution would probably only be last resort. You will see economic strikes first. An economic strike would be pretty damaging to the govt. Starving the beast.
In any event the military will not remain under control of the govt for long. Their oath is to the US Constitution above all else and most take that oath very seriously. Check out oathkeepers.org.
Any revolution economic or otherwise will require people both left and right to unite. That is already happening. Liberals are beginning to turn on the progressives. Progressives are as dangerous to the constitution as the Religious right. Meanwhile many of the conservatives are also turning on the religious right. I actually expect a new party to form. Sort of a midway neutral Libertarian. A common ground meeting place for liberals and conservatives.
Most people do not realize that liberals conservatives and libertarians actually have much in common. I mean the true forms like Goldwater conservatives and not the progressives who call themselves liberals for example. The bill of rights is pretty much the holy grail for them all.
We can pretend that a Revolution is not coming all we want, but it is. Clearly our govt is a corrupt uncontrollable train off the rails.
“I think your fundamental theme is flawed…….specifically the notion that the problem is ‘sociopaths in charge’…..I’m sure its a viscerally appealing theory, but it really is just a clever way of demonizing those who disagree with a given set of beliefs.”
Tim Mac,
If you look at what I wrote and follow the links to my “Authoritarians” article you will see that one of the characteristics of sociopathic leaders is that they “use” the ideology, rather than “believe” in it. This is true on the Left as well as the Right. In truth I think that almost anyone that aspires to the Presidency is probably a sociopath, be it Bush or Obama. Who in hell of a normal mind would want a 24 hour per day job, dealing with insoluble problems, that significantly ages you during your term? I think that only a sociopath would aspire to it.
Bron: how would free market capitalism be authoritarian? It is the only economic system where you have to use your own judgment and take responsibility for your decisions good or bad.
That depends on how one defines “free market.” The way you define it, a market that begins free evolves in a few decades into a market that is no longer free. A purely competitive market gives more power to the wealthiest competitor, and without regulations on practices that they can engage in, the result has proven again, and again, and again, in one country after another, to be oppression of workers, lack of choice for consumers, and virtual slavery of the consuming population because the products they need to sustain life (food, shelter, clean water, medical care, protection from toxins, carcinogens and pollutants) are controlled by monopolies that are free to crush any competition the moment it shows the slightest threat.
Monopolistic practice is authoritarian by its nature, and without regulations, monopolies are the obvious eventual result of competition. It is inevitable by simple evolutionary theory and the survival of the fittest. Do you think you can put down Coke and Pepsi? Or Exxon, or Heinz? They all started with good original products, but at some point, when they become clearly dominant, their attention turns from pleasing customers to acquiring and or crushing all competition that presents a potential threat.
Without regulation a monopoly can under price you to the point you cannot make a dime. They may not make a profit either (or they may, since their cost of goods and labor can all be significantly lower than yours), but that is just temporary until you are driven into bankruptcy; then their pricing will come back higher, when consumers no longer have a choice. They can open stores next door to yours, without regulations they can buy the road TO your store and close it, without regulation they can air ads that lie about your product and you, without regulation they can buy your suppliers and then refuse to supply you. Without regulation, they will overwhelm you with unfair and despicable practices in order to maintain their monopoly.
The proof of this thesis is in evolutionary science; we typically see one species dominate a niche in a geographic area, having starved out or killed all competitors.
Typically one species will have a monopoly on the resources it uses to make a living and reproduce. If there were competitors, bad luck or less efficient exploitation or reproduction have made them extinct. The present species took over their territory, and the present species now consumes so much of the resource that no new species can ever get a foothold to challenge them, they (a new species) is preemptively starved out.
Another great harm to the United States’ Rule of Law is this now embraced “Preemption Doctrine” where the “experts” place a figurative Scarlet Letter on it’s citizens who haven’t actually committed a crime YET – but the experts know they will someday! Great movie “Minority Report” about this flawed notion as is the book “1984” by George Orwell. This is extremely dangerous and the polar opposite of how the Bill of Rights are designed to work: the chronology is the crime happens first which then creates the probable cause that justifies a search and investigation. There is no criminal penalties when the “expert” profiler is wrong and destroys innocent Americans by blacklisting them within their own communites by placing them on the radar screen of their local and federal police agencies.
Huge problem today!
“A valid concern but you don’t address another segment of the population – the segment that thinks revolution is inevitable, but that the outcome of that action is uncertain.”
Gene,
There is nothing in your comment that I disagree with including the above. Yes I do believe revolution is inevitable and that the outcome is uncertain but that uncertainty is in the sense that once it starts the possible outcomes can go in many diverse directions. This then goes to the nature of the Revolution and in mentioning Ghandi you strike on a methodology that I think is more promising but still problematic.
There is an HBO show called “Vice”, produced by Bill Maher, that I watched last night. It’s an interesting, sometimes very good news show. Last night there was a segment regarding Mumbai, which is a City of more than 20 million. More than 10 million of the people live in abject poverty in “jerry-built) slums that abut and overlook the skyscrapers of the City. This was also portrayed in the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”. The slums are abominable and the population that lives there barely supports themselves by recycling the waste from the “other half” so to speak. The rich billionaires in contrast build forty story skyscrapers as homes which are readily identifiable by looking at the skyline. I wrote this piece in the afternoon and had it saved on WordPress so I could publish it after midnight using my Kindle. As I watched the segment I came to the conclusion that at some point a “breaking point” for the slum dwellers may well be reached, such is the nature of the horrible conditions they live under in close proximity to the wealth of their City. How do you put down 10 million angry and desperate people who are in walking distance of the torment displayed by the arrogance of wealth?
Yet this too is the legacy of Ghandi’s magnificent “revolution” from the British. It all comes back to the fact that in any movement the sociopaths seem to prosper, rather than the ideals of the movement. This is also why I purposely offered no solutions in my piece. Somethings coming, but who knows what the end game will be?
Those who have the fantasy of some kind of armed revolution are spitting into the wind (I cleaned that one up), but they are nevertheless dangerous. As for the survivalists and “preppers,” if they want to stockpile food and supplies, let them. Back in the 1950s and 60s, the big thing was fallout shelters. Those worked just fine…as tornado shelters.
The revolution, if it ever comes, will not look anything like the preppers and those who stockpile large store of arms expect. I am not sure myself what it will look like. There may be a revolution, but it will be on paper, electronics and by political maneuvering. Furthermore, there will not be a glorious battle of the “end times.” Revolutions have come and gone in this country before. The country was founded by revolution, and in those days the populace was divided into Loyalists and Patriots. Many Revolutionary War battles were as home grown as the Civil War which came less than a century later. The most successful revolutions have been economic, not at the point of a gun.
Part of the reason the American Revolution succeeded for the Patriots was that the British were fighting an unpopular and expensive war far from home. Does that sound familiar?
The reason the Confederacy lost the Civil War was because the Union was fighting from their own front doorstep and had almost unlimited materiel and economic resources upon which to call. Again, sound familiar?
But to reiterate, the splinter groups and individuals who want armed revolution are still fringe people who have zero chance of succeeding. Charles Manson thought he could start a race war. Timothy McVeigh had a fantasy of initiating the final battle when he blew up the Murrah Federal Building. McVeigh reportedly said, when he learned how many kids had been killed, that it was a shame because it was bad public relations for his (hoped for) movement.
It is the ‘lone wolf’ who is dangerous, not the armed militia groups. The lone wolf is usually grandiose, thinking others will follow if they blaze the trail. Lone wolf types cannot be tracked if they are at all smart. Fortunately, the lone wolf is just that. A prophet without followers.
So back to square one. This country has had a way of surviving the most awful things; however, I worry about the increasing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a relative few. This is something new in our history. They have been able to sell their ideas to the extent poor people vote against their own self interest. One day the populace will wake up and break out the pitchforks and torches.
” In my mind a free market means an economic system free from government coercion”
Which is a market system devoid of any kind of enforcement. One cannot have ” oversight to protect the players from bad actors” without coercion. As the situation stands right now, the mechanisms we put in place to protect players (and citizens) from bad actors has been coopted and corrupted by the monied interests that represent the ideals of your beloved laissez-faire via the campaign finance and lobbying systems that are – at their bidding with the help of compliant pols in their conspiracy – little more than formalized graft.
” yet you still think I am some sort of anarchist who believes in the strong devouring the weak.”
No. I don’t think you are an anarchist. I think you are a well intentioned but misguided person who does not understand that the outcome of unfettered capitalism is tyranny of the strong over the weak. An extremist economically but not politically. Communism, the extremist form where there is no private property, failed miserably. Laissez-faire capitalism, the extremist form where private property is all, is in the process of failing again and again. If both extremes of the economic spectrum are failures, then the answer must lay somewhere in between.
Gene H:
We have had a socialist/fascist state for years, as for the police state? Do you think the patriot act was just cobbled together in a couple of months? I imagine it had been sitting around in Washington for years waiting for the right time to drag it out.
Otteray Scribe 1, May 4, 2013 at 8:50 am
Well done Mike. Psychopaths are a particular interest of mine. New research indicates some are born that way, and in others a learned behavior. Dr. Stanton Samenow, in his book, Inside the Criminal Mind, has observed psychopathic traits in kids as young as four.
Dr. Stanley Milgram, back in the early 1960s, showed that ordinary people could be, for lack of a better word, “trained” to engage in antisocial behavior. Milgram was trying to understand how ordinary German citizens could (and did) become the monsters who ran the concentration camps during WWII.
Dr. David Lykken’s experiments found that threat of punishment does not deter the true psychopath because they have little or no anticipatory anxiety.
Born or made? Looks as if the answer is ‘both.’ Here is an article from Psychology Today by Dr. Nancy Darling that is food for thought.
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The last doctor you quoted (I read the article in Psy Today you linked to) is an example of those who conflate sociopath with psychopath.
It is common enough that it makes our current psychiatry and other matters of psychology suspect.
Especially in light of the recent genetic discoveries:
(Smithsonian, May 2013, emphasis added). The diagnosis of psychopath has traditionally involved genetic hypothesis in addition to biological, so this new direction that is changing “150 years” of practice may lend assistance to the political realm.
Check out this very cool doctor who found out “the shocking way”:
Gene H:
from Merriam Webster:
b (1): a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2): a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government
Gene H:
the only thing you and others have been doing for years is thinking I dont believe in the rule of law. In my mind a free market means an economic system free from government coercion, not free from ultimate oversight to protect the players from bad actors.
You cannot sell poison to people and label it as medicine; you cannot pollute your neighbors well and not expect to pay restitution.
I have probably written that at least 500 times and yet you still think I am some sort of anarchist who believes in the strong devouring the weak.
Tony C.,
It is a fine line between the amount of coercion a government needs to enforce laws and tyranny, but it is an increasingly blurred line to be certain. The balancing act of mutual benefit versus societal and individual sacrifice is more art than science as circumstances play a large part in the analysis.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/11/white_power_usa_the_rise_of The number of right wing militias has definitely on the rise since Obama was elected. The gun issue has further empowered these groups. Now they are obsessed with “false flag” operations.
Bron,
I didn’t make a comment about gerrymandering. I would not be in favor of gerrymandering done by Democrats either. I was just posting information about the 2012 popular vote for the House.
Elaine:
yes, I understand that the cities are more populated than the rest of the country. But the electorate is split, by your own admission, about 50/50, so dont you think conservatives/republicans are entitled to some representation?
Swarthmore mom 1, May 4, 2013 at 8:54 am
Dredd, House districts in Texas are extremely gerrymandered. You ever hear of Tom Delay? Well, last year’s legislature expanded on his plans.
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Indeed.
Bron,
“I guess that is why we have a Republic and not a democracy. ”
By the terms of the Constitution, we are supposed to have a presidential constitutional democratic representative republic. Not either a democracy or a republic. Both. That binary thinking is providing you a disservice again. However, what we have is a fascist/corporatist oligarchy which is morphing into a fascist/corporatist police state. If you want to talk about forms as described by actions that is.