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Is Revolution The Only Viable Solution?


Robin Of House Hill

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With right-wing authoritarianism on the rise, in the US, UK, Australia, Turkey, and possibly, France, is there any way for the democratic process to stem this tide?  Electorates are totally polarized and no one wants to consider any compromise that benefits all.  Everyone has become an advocate of "my way, or the highway."  How does this get resolved without revolution?

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1 minute ago, DunderMifflin said:

I think the meaning of revolution needs to be clarified here.

I agree.  That OP could be interpreted as "can I justify autocratic rule by my political tribe because the others are too unreasonable?"  Benevolent tyrants as a hypothetical concept are always in fashion somewhere.  The practical reality tends to disappoint. 

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One of the countries in the original post is not like the others. Turkey really does appear to be transitioning to a more autocratic system and it's not obvious what will happen there.

Everywhere else, the rise of the right is part of the usual oscillation between political parties. It is slightly more extreme than usual this time around, but not nearly enough to seriously trouble the existing establishments. Populism has given the right some victories, but once it becomes clear than they are unwilling or unable to use the power on behalf of most people who voted for them (and this certainly seems to be the case), populism will be their downfall and some other ideology will get their votes.

Ironically, the people in the best position to carry out a revolution are actually part of the winning coalition right now (at least in the US). I'm not sure who else could do it.

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44 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, that's a solid point. There could be a technological revolution that changes the rules to such a degree that political compromise is not even necessarily required.

A fair point, but the only technological revolution I can think of that might work, gives the left and right the means of mutually assured destruction. Then it's "play nice, or you get sent to the room of no return."  Maybe a PR firm could come up with a name that won't scare the kiddies.

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Apart from in Turkey, what would be the end-goal of a revolution here? The 'wrong guys' are in power coz they're winning democratic elections- if you reset back to voting after the revolution then, unless you've slaughtered the opposition, you're right back where you started. And if you don't, coz it's so close, they're just going to revolute back at you.

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Revolutions in the context you're suggesting - over politics/government/etc - have historically involved violence, ie force, in nearly every case.  Violent - as in not throwing fireworks and bottles, but smaller much faster, and harder projectiles, in the 3000 foot per second range.  In the USA, which side, the left or the right, has the majority of such weapons, ammunition, and more importantly the training and ability to use them?

If you think any kind of revolution using force from the left has a hope of winning vs the right, you aren't being very realistic.  That's such a non starter that it's almost laughable.
 

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Ironically, the people in the best position to carry out a revolution are actually part of the winning coalition right now (at least in the US). I'm not sure who else could do it.


 

Exactly - it takes more than bandanas, black clothes, a backpack, some dreadlocks, and the ability to throw things or hit people with bike locks.  What's funny is that one of the heroes of "the revolution", said things perfectly clearly, and accurately.  Mao Zedong, said nearly 80 years ago that "all political power grows/flows from the barrel of a gun".   Strangely, you don't see many Antifa people picking up Mao's mantle.  The other side however....

So far as some technical/technology miracle that somehow would overthrow those evil Republicans and right wingers, and give power back to the nice, thoughtful, and competent left wingers and Democrats...I wouldn't be holding my breath.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Apart from in Turkey, what would be the end-goal of a revolution here? The 'wrong guys' are in power coz they're winning democratic elections- if you reset back to voting after the revolution then, unless you've slaughtered the opposition, you're right back where you started. And if you don't, coz it's so close, they're just going to revolute back at you.

That does present a problem.  I suppose you could create political tests to prevent people "of the wrong pursuasion" from voting after the "revolution".

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15 minutes ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

A fair point, but the only technological revolution I can think of that might work, gives the left and right the means of mutually assured destruction. Then it's "play nice, or you get sent to the room of no return."  Maybe a PR firm could come up with a name that won't scare the kiddies.

That's one angle, sure, but what if you took it in the opposite direction. Say a tech breakthrough or two that opened up a whole new frontier to humanity wherein those political ideologies could actually segregate themselves from one another without fear of conflict with one another. Say faster than light travel coupled with an extremely cheap, almost inexhaustible energy source.

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4 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Apart from in Turkey, what would be the end-goal of a revolution here? The 'wrong guys' are in power coz they're winning democratic elections- if you reset back to voting after the revolution then, unless you've slaughtered the opposition, you're right back where you started. And if you don't, coz it's so close, they're just going to revolute back at you.

If that's the case, should voting require an IQ test and psych evaluation?  Otherwise, the Xenophobic, homophobic, racists who want nothing but hegemonic power will win, in perpetuity.

 

4 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

That's one angle, sure, but what if you took it in the opposite direction. Say a tech breakthrough or two that opened up a whole new frontier to humanity wherein those political ideologies could actually segregate themselves from one another without fear of conflict with one another. Say faster than light travel coupled with an extremely cheap, almost inexhaustible energy source.

If only the red a blue states were all on opposite sides of a line, we could divide the country in half.  Then, we'd have a good reason to build a wall.

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1 minute ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

If only the red a blue states were all on opposite sides of a line, we could divide the country in half.  Then, we'd have a good reason to build a wall.

Yeah, I'm not suggesting that this would be a good thing necessarily, just that different sorts of revolution might affect different sorts of changes.

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1 minute ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, I'm not suggesting that this would be a good thing necessarily, just that different sorts of revolution might affect different sorts of changes.

True.  There would always be the problem of people who didn't want to relocate.  The problem would start all over.  After all, the rust belt states that caused this problem, or the Kentucky or W. VA coal miners that would rather kill the whole planet, than find employment elsewhere. and yes, government controlled by either party that was too busy kissing corporate ass to fix the problem before people voted for Orange Hitler.

 

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Right-wing authoritarianism isn't on the rise in the UK. Even if you count UKIP in that number - which I don't, they're reactionary and buffoonish, not dangerous - they are in steep decline. The Tory Party is explicitly not anti-Muslim, anti-LGBT, anti-POC, it's in favour of The Paris Treaty, in favour of the commitment to spend 0.7 of GNP of foreign aid, etc, etc. It's a ridiculously hyperbolic claim.

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8 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Right-wing authoritarianism isn't on the rise in the UK. Even if you count UKIP in that number - which I don't, they're reactionary and buffoonish, not dangerous - they are in steep decline. The Tory Party is explicitly not anti-Muslim, anti-LGBT, anti-POC, it's in favour of The Paris Treaty, in favour of the commitment to spend 0.7 of GNP of foreign aid, etc, etc. It's a ridiculously hyperbolic claim.

If I misstated something, my apologies, but I'm curious about, "explicitly."

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I mean that their party rules, the government's policy and all statements by the leadership are loudly and clearly against any kind of discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin, religious affinity or sexual orientation.

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47 minutes ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

If that's the case, should voting require an IQ test and psych evaluation?  Otherwise, the Xenophobic, homophobic, racists who want nothing but hegemonic power will win, in perpetuity.

FIrst, I hope you're joking, but I somehow know you're not really.

The way I see it, the xenophobic, homophobic and racist folk aren't "winning." When they "win," almost everybody loses, and them first and foremost. Because xenophobia, homophobia and racism are so pointless and absurd that they are symptoms and consequences of much greater issues that remain unresolved. This isn't a case of "us" versus "them" ; this is the narrative that neo-fascism seeks to impose on us all. This is us, together, still having to deal with our collective backwardness ; as much as we want to say it's "others" we still live in these times, in these societies, and have to somehow address these issues together, even if we are not directly responsible for them.
I would propose that the real question is why is our societies' social progress stagnating, and even, in some cases, reversing? I would suggest that the reason is that the fruits of our civilisation are not truly being shared. Inequality and unfairness breed anger and resentment and some very cynical people are able to manipulate that hatred and direct it toward "difference." It's an age-old story that keeps repeating itself: if you want to control the masses, you need scapegoats. Angry people don't think, don't question, but follow. If you look at the narative presented by the current version of neo-fascism, you almost always find the peculiar idea that minorities or immigrants are to blame for people's woes. And when the enemy is not "within" it is to be found "outside" in the concept of a clash of civilizations.
Not that I have any easy solution to propose as anger and hatred are not easy to fight. What I do know for certain however is that seeking to deprive angry people of whatever little power they have left will only further fuel their anger. There is no amount of force, no "revolution" that can magically turn the tides. On the contrary, I am tempted to believe that any inkling of solution will be counter-intuitive, and that what we need is more democracy, not less. Right now, it seems that xenophobia, homophobia and racism are strong, because our institutions allow them to acquire a disproportionate amount of power and influence. In actuality, such impulses still come from a minority. Were the masses to hold any significant power, they would not waste it by turning it against themselves. The reason we are stagnating and regressing is because we are losing sight of what there is to achieve, what the next step in our collective progress should look like. People in whose interest it is to preserve the statu quo are using their influence to spread the idea that collective social progress is impossible, that "there is no alternative" to the current structure of our societies. This is of course a lie. And that lie will need to be exposed to move past the current situation.

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3 hours ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

With right-wing authoritarianism on the rise, in the US, UK, Australia, Turkey, and possibly, France, is there any way for the democratic process to stem this tide?  Electorates are totally polarized and no one wants to consider any compromise that benefits all.  Everyone has become an advocate of "my way, or the highway."  How does this get resolved without revolution?

The forthcoming tidal wave of postcapitalism is going to completely redraw the map on how the political parties worldwide approach things. Most of them don't seem to grasp the magnitude of the problem, even as they mess around with the symptoms: Trump proudly declaring that jobs will return to the US from China, for example, apparently unaware that was will come back is not factories ready to employ thousands of Americans but factories full of automated production lines, robots and AI-driven ordering systems, and media reporting on the exciting advances in driverless cars and trucks without pondering what will happen when millions of drivers are made jobless in a very compressed space of time. And this is something that governments are going to be grappling with on a small scale imminently, and on a very large scale in the space of the next generation.

Otherwise, the primary problem of the left is the degree to which it appeals to ethical and moral behaviour and decisions taken on behalf of society as a whole. It requires people to be profoundly unselfish, especially with their money, which sounds great when you're a penniless student but less so when you're a forty-something parent with two kids. Some countries have cracked the problem (like those in Scandinavia) but the UK and US certainly haven't, and shows no sign of doing so soon (as the immense scorn poured on Sanders and Corbyn - in the latter's case, not helped by his own limitations as a public figure - shows).

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6 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The forthcoming tidal wave of postcapitalism is going to completely redraw the map on how the political parties worldwide approach things. Most of them don't seem to grasp the magnitude of the problem, even as they mess around with the symptoms: Trump proudly declaring that jobs will return to the US from China, for example, apparently unaware that was will come back is not factories ready to employ thousands of Americans but factories full of automated production lines, robots and AI-driven ordering systems, and media reporting on the exciting advances in driverless cars and trucks without pondering what will happen when millions of drivers are made jobless in a very compressed space of time. And this is something that governments are going to be grappling with on a small scale imminently, and on a very large scale in the space of the next generation.

Don't forget jobs like cashiers, warehouse employees, and even a lot of white collar jobs. There are robots replacing lawyers.

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