Why You Can't Overthrow the Government

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By D. L. Corvin (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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So even if you can convince a substantial number of people that revolution is needed and that they're the ones to do it, you're now faced with the problem of defining a goal for the revolution that they can all get behind. Oops! You forgot that progressives and liberals are notorious for disagreeing about things. We can't agree whether or not to impeach perhaps the most criminal president in history, whether it's a good idea to vote for third party candidates, or even, sometimes, on what street corner we should protest. It appears that we can't agree about whether or not revolution is a good idea. We can't agree, even in broad terms, about whether the system we're striving to create is socialistic, anarchistic, communistic, democratic, or something else. How can we agree on a fine-tuned system and a well-defined plan of action for implementing a new system?

So assuming that you've somehow managed to elude the government and develop a network of revolutionaries, you're now going to have to compromise your goals. In this case, that probably means accepting inconsistent ideas from all the different progressive factions and coming up with an incoherent result. In order to avoid conflict, there will be a lot of temptation to be vague on the details. But vagueness could be a recipe for disaster when you've overthrown the government and the country's social and economic systems collapse, chaos reigns, and the people of the former United States are waiting for someone to fill the void. On that day, there will certainly be many contenders. Here's hoping it's your vision of society that's implemented in the vacuum and not some fundamentalist nut job's, or some much better funded foreign country's!

But let's say that somehow you've beaten the overwhelming odds, and now the government has collapsed. You've also, somehow, successfully made sure you have totally trustworthy people in all the key places at the time of collapse, ensuring that your group is in control of the entire region, and that no specific parts of these 3.7 million square miles are taken over by anyone else in the world who might want to try their hand at nation building.

Now you need to worry about what you can do to make sure that the people of what used to be the United States will listen to you. What penalty is applied to those who refuse to acknowledge your authority? Prison? Death? You'll have to make people obey you in order to implement your plan, but weren't you trying to create an improvement over the current system - a coherent, reasonably fair and efficient system of governance?

Another thing you might want to consider is that although the U.S. has been instrumental in creating this unique brand of oppressive, imperialistic first world capitalism, the real problems with our society are, quite simply, not local to this country. The top one percent of U.S. Americans own about a third of the total wealth, and the top five percent own over half of it. Much of this is invested in multinational corporations based overseas, The wealth that doesn't evaporate when the government falls will simply be transferred overseas, stranding you and your would-be utopians in a collapsing economic and social structure. World capitalism and its power structures will endure, except that the area between Canada and Mexico will now be a poverty-stricken wasteland. You'll be starting almost from scratch as you scramble to divide the remaining resources in an equitable fashion, build systems which motivate people to continue to be productive, and put down looters, rebellions, and other revolutionaries who think they can do better than you. In order to do this, did you and your group seize absolute power? It sure is going to be difficult to accomplish your goals without it, and surely it's an understatement to say that creating an equitable and functional alternative will be challenging, but as I recall the aim of this revolt was not a benevolent dictatorship. Don't say it's temporary; dictatorships have a tendency to endure.

If you really want to create positive change, forget revolution. Gradual positive changes aren't nearly so glamorous as an imagined revolution, it's true. But demanding immediate perfection is unrealistic and counterproductive, and too easily turns into a cop out for failure to do the hard work of creating real change.

If we can learn anything from the problems of revolution, we can learn that social change requires an informed and engaged population living in a society with a minimum of systemic conflicts of interest and where checks and balance prevent power abuses. So if you really want to make a better world, help improve the education system so our children learn to care about others. Work to improve the media used to disseminate information so that people know what's really going on. Fight for campaign finance reform to prevent powerful companies from buying governmental legislation. Fight for instant runoff voting so that when people do figure out what's going on, they have a choice that reflects their views. Oppose politicians who defy the law and claim supreme power by working to impeach them .

Anything you do to improve these things strikes at the core of the problems of our society and brings us one step closer to a just world.

It won't happen overnight. But then, neither will revolution.

D. L. Corvin
Chapter Organizer
ImpeachForPeace.org

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D. L. Corvin is a progressive impeachment activist in the Twin Cities, MN, USA.

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