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> people will eventually go “French Revolution.” With a powerful army & technology controlled by government, this isn't an option anymore. Anybody trying to st
by user1212 9y ago
> people will eventually go “French Revolution.”
With a powerful army & technology controlled by government, this isn't an option anymore. Anybody trying to start something will be quickly and silently removed.
Masses can be brought down easily by a few professional soldiers (not with rudimentary rubber batons, as in Spain this weekend)
See how having an encrypted phone at border control is a felony, you can be locked up instantly, even if encryption is only to protect your work and personal family photos.
What to do? Just obey and continue working to collect $$$, the only instrument which can guarantee your semi-independence?
- chewz 9y agoRevolutions don't follow this logic. They don't happen when oppression apparatus is weak but when it decides to turn against establishment or at least stay neutral. The spirit of the times decides. Louis XVI still had largest army in Europe of 1789, Soviet Union had enough tanks in 1989 and powerful control over media and society. US is actually similar to France in 1798 and Soviet Bloc in 1989 in many regards. Costly distant wars, pauperized middle class after very long period of growth and prosperity, sclerotic establishment in total denial that times have changes.
- Ygg2 9y agoRevolutions aren't also a necessity. If most people are entertained/distracted enough, revolutions won't happen. Junkies don't rebel if they keep getting their fix.
- reacweb 9y agoPanem et circenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
- liberte82 9y agoI'd love to understand the fall of the Soviet Union better, it still seems so sudden and mysterious to me. Like the whole society just decided all at once that they were done. Does anyone have any good books on the subject?
- chewz 9y agoTry Timothy Garton Ash - The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague - https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Lantern-Revolution-Witnessed-Budapest-ebook/dp/B004089I5Q/ https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Lantern-Revolution-Witnessed-Bu... - The Polish Revolution https://www.amazon.com/Polish-Revolution-Timothy-Garton-Ash/ https://www.amazon.com/Polish-Revolution-Timothy-Garton-Ash/ But Ash is controversial author with strong opinions not a historian. Also Victor Sebestyen Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-1989-Fall-Soviet-Empire-ebook/dp/B002U3CB84 https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-1989-Fall-Soviet-Empire-eb...
- nine_k 9y agoAccording to Yegor Gaidar (look him up), USSR basically ran out of resources, including food supply, around 1985. However much army do you have does not matter if you can't feed it. The problem was not only very high military spending (thanks Mr. Reagan, you won the Cold War), but also very low efficiency of industry and agriculture. Having lived in the late USSR, I can attest that the scale of waste was enormous. It was not only because of the inadequate planning, but mostly because the population did not care. Without the feedback loop which a market provides, the only reasonable action for a worker was to steal; the fact that 10x more resources are wasted as a result was totally inconsequential: getting fired was hard, and unemployment was seriously negative.
- yardie 9y agoThis is eerily the same thinking the Bush Whitehouse was using when it sold the American public on an Afghanistan and Iraq invasion. As if somehow a few professional soldiers and advanced technology would rule. Yet here we are 15 years later in our forever war.
- rayiner 9y agoWe just spent the better part of two decades proving that the most powerful military on earth can’t effecticely control a bunch of poor people in Iraq and Afghanistan who have guns but not much else.
- liberte82 9y agoIf you listen to hard-right wingers on the subject, the difficulty comes because we were "nation building" rather than simply ruling over them.