Posted on 08/30/2009 11:48:09 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
As a writer with an academic past in philosophical analysis of political events, one of the issues which captures my attention is the idea of government overthrow: Its feasibility, the causes of its ideology, its agenda and its members. In my internet trawlings, I found this poignant piece, excellent in its backward look at an era paralleling our own in sensibilty and tone. From ObamersDotCom:
More and more each day, we hear people like Michelle Bachman inciting conservatives to stock up on guns and ammo and launch the revolution against Obama. Will they really do it?
It wouldn't be the first time. The first rightwing attempt to overthrow the government was driven by an alliance of big business and army veterans. The Liberty League consisted of very rich men in the 1930s who loathed FDR. They included leaders from DuPont, GM, EF Hutton, General Foods, GM, Montgomery Ward, JP Morgan, the Hearst newspapers, Lehigh University, Princeton, Yale, U.S. Steel, Standard Oil (Exxon), Chase National Bank, Goodyear, Birdseye Foods, Colgate, Heinz, Mutual Life...and Prescott Bush. Some Democratic leaders belonged. The group was so powerful that even New York Times gave them dozens of positive front-page stories. Prefiguring today's rightwingers, they screeched that FDR's policies betokened "a trend toward Fascist control," and "the end of democracy." Their aim was to use WWI veterans to overthrow FDR so the fatcats could put their own man in. Their first choice to lead the charge was Douglas MacArthur, but the veterans hated him because he had crushed the Bonus Army march a year or two earlier, so they turned instead to another general, Smedley Butler, who (luckily for us all) had the good sense to blow the whistle on these loons in Congress.
Source: my.nowpublic.com Source http://www.obamaers.com/will-the-rightwing-loons-try-a-coup-detat/
Apparently there are groups who think seriously on the idea of coups, not only in the FDR era, but in our own time:
Another enabler which makes both small groups and large groups dangerous is the Internet. The net can help lone wolves set up their own operations and acquire materials, and it can help larger groups organize without as much external scrutiny. A site to watch is Stormfront, owned by a former Klan leader. Stormfront encouraged their followers to join the army to learn military skills, and set up stories for kids, and computer games allowing kids to "kill" blacks and Jews. They skillfully use texts from the U.S. Founding Fathers, the Bible, and even Darwin for their survival-of-the-fittest philosophy. They are a better fit for the new century that the Liberty-League model or the Klan model would have been. In April 2009 one of its members killed three Pittsburgh cops and tried to kill nine more. Even if Stormfront is not the vanguard for an outbreak of violence, it might be the model for whoever does launch the Crazy Season.. Source: my.nowpublic.com
The real brilliance to be found in this analysis in the understanding, set forth by Howe and Strauss in 1997, of the very real chance of a return to the idea of secession of states:
Also, secessionists: last year 22 percent of Americans believed that a state has a right to secede from the United States. Sarah Palin supported an Alaskan secession group, and Mike Huckabee's most valued supporters include secessionists as well. Some militia groups have been involved.
Watch the Northwest in particular: when white separatists start mooning about setting up their own all-white utopia somewhere, separate from the United States, the talk usually revolves around any state within shouting distance of Montana. Also, obviously, watch the South. For a while there, some New England liberals were talking secession, but a lot of that was a reaction to Bush and Iraq, and now that the Iraq issue is resolving itself, such tree-hugging folk are unlikely to get in bed with the Obama-haters of the loony right.
One thing to watch on the map: spikes in unemployment. When you have a small army of poor white trash sitting at home with no jobs and lots of guns, the recruiters for the nut-fudge groups roar into action. Look for one-factory towns that are losing their factories, and obvious places like the Auto Belt in Michigan and throughout the Midwest.
Also, watch the gun shows. They are not known (yet) as hotbeds of extremist activity but they have been known to sell the Turner Diaries and they are linked to criminal activity as well. Easy networking tool. . Source: my.nowpublic.com
Looking ahead to the real possibilities of right wing coups and secessionist revivals, the author is wise enough to analyse the stressors and the reality-based factor of timing. Having read - and taken seriously - the epic book by Harvard historians and futurists, Howe and Strauss, "The Fourth Turning: What History Has to Say about America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny" (Broadway Books, 1997), I learned that the saeculum of histoy indeed reveals cyclical and return events and motifs. Ergo, the Civil War is never really over; resentments from the FDR reign rage on, surviving in the right wing blogosphere, etc. . . .
Normally I would also watch for stressor events, but right now Obama himself is the stressor, like FDR before him: essentially the entire Obama administration is clearly going to set off gongs at Tin Foil HQ until the day he leaves office. He's a black guy who is being forced by economic circumstances to expand the scope of government, and he's pro-choice and sympathetic to gays; although Obama (and his AG, also black) have repeatedly affirmed his support for the Second Amendment, and have tiptoed away from Obama's earlier rhetoric on assault weapons, the loons simply don't believe them, and are already collapsing into hysterics and stocking up on guns and ammo.
One thing working against the extremists, is that they may have waited too long. The popularity of Reagan's mix of snake oil & tax cuts for the fatcats, holy wars for the anti-abortion and anti-gay forces, brain-dead militarism and gun worship, contempt for the government began its arc across the sky in 1980 and crashed to earth in 2008. The exact mid-point, the high-point of that parabolic arc was 1994, when they conquered Congress. At that point they should have launched the revolution. Instead, they launched Oklahoma, which backfired badly, and ensured Clinton's landslide reelection. Now it's a bit late in the day. The paradox of revolution is that when your ideas are in the ascendant, whipping up the anger among your hard-core adherents is difficult, but once your ideas are exposed as fallacious, everyone but the hard-core abandons you and the revolution won't go anywhere unless a million Joe Blows buy into it.
Query: will this chap feel the bullet?
The guy's a real historian, eh?
The funniest aspect if the article is that the author probably thinks he’s intelligent and is likely proud of this nonsense.
Nope. It means nothin' to me.
When the left gets tired of trying to provoke me with inane jabber and actually do something I'll be here.
Trawelled the internet heh? He seems to mention but 2 sites and one, it seems, refers to the other. This guy gives himself away throughout as a Liberal shrill. This is 5 mintues of my life that I will never get back and I feel somehow dumber for having read this piece of historical and journalistic dog waste.
Mel
Sometimes it's good to be feared.
Let me guess—this joker was one of Obama’s classmates at Haaavaahd, right?
Who's doing all that "watching?"
Looks like whoever it is will be "watching" and "looking for" the whole damned country.
The Northwest, Montana, the South, New England, "one-factory towns", Michigan, the Midwest.
That leaves the Northeast from DC to Boston - and of course California - safe from secession movements by us right wing loons.
I think this lunatic has his finger on the pulse of America: "You take the Northeast and California, and we'll take the rest. Thanks. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
If the right acts, it will be a counter-revolution because left-wing radicals already succeeded in taking over the White House 11/05/08
Look for one-factory towns that are losing their factories, and obvious places like the Auto Belt in Michigan and throughout the Midwest.
Contempt to the core. This person hates people who aren't exactly like him.
Even if this guy is white, he's racist (I like pointing out leftists who are what they say I am for simply using words they don't like) and an elite "coaster" since he obviously doesn't like midwesterners.
I think it's interesting he picks on "one factory towns" that are bastions of liberalism and failed left policies. His point does have some merit in that respect. It is areas where liberalism has failed miserably that could rise up against the RATS eventually.
And the perfect example of a successful coup is squatting in the White House right now.
What we engage in shortly is called "Restitution" and "Payback".
These honestly are the kinds of people who think the world started with themselves and before that was whatever they want to pretend it was. Not only does Obama defying the Constitution and taking over the economy prove that citizens have ignored things too long, the mental state a lot of his supporters are in proves that their parents and their education system didn't even try to make them into educated and responsible individuals. These are the people some conservatives are still afraid to take on? Please, the right fairy tail before their nap time one afternoon and they'll scatter like the cockroaches do when you turn on the light in a Cuban hospital ward.
I hope the author was no more than ten years old, otherwise it's downright painful to realize what an easy life people in this country have had when people like these can get by just fine in spite of their lack of curiosity and knowledge. Information Age my left butt cheek, it's the Insulation from Reality Age. It's even more painful to recognize that conservatives have been in a coma so long that we could now lose this great nation to corrupt socialists as our just reward for ignoring the amount of brainwashing and fantasy that has been promoted by the gang of thieves who call themselves "progressive" or "democrat" in this country.
Semper Fi, Vet and thanks for the good links and posts Bro
The author obviously considers himself “intellectual”, but has the writing skills of a remedial freshman at the local junior college.
But if only the Northeast, the Northwest, the South, and the Midwest are loons, what else is left?
I can feel the contempt, see it, smell it and taste it too.
This guy’s about to blow a gasket with his handwringing and loathing. Amazing.
Yes, this guy is very shallow in his assessment of the situation and interpretation thereof.
What he DOES grasp is that a non-trivial fraction of his opposition IS expecting to “go there”. He may not grasp the details and reasoning, and may attribute the situation to whatever demons his philosophy prescribes, and may not grasp that it is his own axioms which will induce such conflict, but he DOES observe that our society is on the path to the “fourth box”.
Yeah, he hates us. That’s OK, we can live with that. What we can’t live with is “his side” denying us our agreed-on Constitution.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.