Should We Bother to Vote When Revolution Is Inevitable?

“Even supposing the chief good to be eventually the aim for the individual as for the state, that of the state is evidently of greater and more fundamental importance both to attain and to preserve. The securing of one individual’s good is cause for rejoicing, but to secure the good of a nation or of a city-state is nobler and more divine.” –Aristotle

Richard William Posner Illustration

Richard William Posner
Activist Post

It should be kept in mind that the words nation or city-state may very easily be replaced by tribe, family, society, civilization or species.

“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.” — Thomas Jefferson in a Letter to Richard Price (8, January, 1789)

The American working class is on the brink of extinction. A strong, financially secure, educated, informed and cosmopolitan middle class is a serious threat to tyranny and totalitarianism. That’s why there has been a vigorous, systematic dismantling of ours since the Nixon era.

That’s not to say that efforts toward that end were not made prior to Nixon, but that those efforts were redoubled and became more obvious, even to the casual observer, at that time. Does your vote matter?

“The United States has only one party – the property party. It’s the party of big corporations, the party of money. It has two right wings; one is Democrat and the other is Republican.” — Gore Vidal

The entire menagerie of the political, with a couple of impotent exceptions, is a zoo of corporatist oligarchs. Their only real interest is self.

The Republicans are brutal, violent and cruel. They’ll cut us up with a chain saw.

The Democrats are utterly corrupt, duplicitous and cynical. They’ll use a scalpel.

The Democrats; Jim Jones.

The Republicans; Vlad the Impaler.

Will The Revolution Be Televised?
I don’t think that the sabotage of systems inherently destructive to Life can fairly be classified as violence, so long as those actions don’t directly cause preventable injury or death. Actually, I think it qualifies as self-defense.

Even if such action causes short-term hardship, I don’t think it can or should be categorized as violence per se.

Where’s the Rubicon?
At some point, and it’s probably not too far off, a majority of people will reach that limit beyond which they cannot be pushed. Massive, prolonged demonstrations and significant acts of civil disobedience will become regular, daily occurrences.

Such disobedience may, and I think should, include the sabotage and neutralization of certain systems and institutions. It is absolutely essential, however, that such activity must stop short of violence.

If The People are careful not to cross the line into armed insurrection while engaging in sustained, nation-wide, peaceful revolution, they place the ostensible government in an awkward position; choose to submit to the will of the people or use force in the violent suppression of massive numbers of citizens engaging in their first amendment right to peaceably assemble and petition for a governmental redress of grievances.

If the latter course is followed, the hypocrisy and tyrannical nature of the American police state becomes impossible to ignore, even for the closest of allies. Would the UN then be forced to take action against the US? Would sanctions be imposed, a NATO peace-keeping force sent to restore order?

A revolution is coming. The only questions are; exactly when, and will it be peaceful or bloody? These questions then become a point for consideration in the coming elections.

Does your vote matter?
If a sustained, peaceful, national uprising doesn’t begin in earnest before November, 2012, which party would most likely respond to one after the election with tactics of shock and awe and full spectrum dominance?

Corrupt, deceitful and irresolute Democrats. Ignorant and reactionary Republicans.

“Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.” — Mahatma Gandhi

A non-violent revolution could ultimately transform our government into one that does in fact work to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Actually, it’s the only thing that will. A violent, bloody uprising, even if successful, will simply perpetuate the cycle of human suffering our species has been locked into for millennia. Witness what has become of the American republic, born of violence, turned to empire by genocide, covert conquest and ruthless exploitation.

However well intentioned the leaders who plant and cultivate the seed of bloody revolution, the tree that grows from it, spawned of violence and death, will inevitably spread identical seeds of its own.

When two forces oppose each other violently, there can be no winner. When the killing is paused, when one violent agent declares victory over the other, what remains is what was there before the killing began.

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” — President John F. Kennedy

Does your vote matter?

When it finally comes, against which half of the corporate money party will a nonviolent revolution stand a better chance?

What does matter?

Will we even rise up for the best of reasons or do we simply wish to become the cause for the next revolution?

Can we admit that our non-negotiable lifestyle is the problem, not the solution?

Do we yet understand, despite the efforts of parasitic profit worshipers to make it so, that welfare is not a four letter word?

Are we yet capable of doing any more than replacing one evil with another?

“Listen. Your friends have been broken. They tell us of your poison. Now we know.” — Jon Anderson, YES, Relayer, The Gates of Delirium.

What is the poison?
Those who take unearned wealth by manipulating the perception of the mythical value of shiny metal and fraudulently commodified paper are the real drain on human society.

Those who only take, who produce nothing of value but instead create war, destruction and endless debt are the cause for revolution.

It is from these very people, or at least their minions, we are expected to elect our government, our leaders.

These are the parasites, leeches and free-loaders; not the elderly, poor, jobless, crippled, ill and homeless who are, in fact, their victims.

Shall we do unto them as they have done and become as they are?

It’s not up to me to answer any of these questions for you. I was just wondering.

Let the Revolution Begin.

“There is no way to Peace. Peace is the way.” — A.J. Muste

Richard Posner is a writer, computer graphics and image editor, and is skilled at electronic music applications. The full range of his political and ideological views, and the background for those, can be found on his own site. Richard can be contacted directly at [email protected]