After a friend asked me if i am a member of anonymous (by the way i am not) it got me thinking about activism and then onto revolution here in the western world and I can say with absolute truth the thought of revolution scares the hell out of me.
I can understand why a person reading my blog may come to the conclusion that I may be into some kind of political activism but there is a difference between being a kind political analyst and activist, I like to think of myself as a conduit for information to get people thinking outside of the box we currently live in.
When the Egyptian people stood up to oppression and stood shoulder to shoulder against Mubarak they was able to shout louder than the national press a message of peace that went beyond the borders of Egypt and gave the population a voice and a legitimate claim against the oppression from the government that could not be ignored nationally or internationally.
But since then we have seen a hijacking of the Arab Spring from a voice of peace to a fist of violence that has been spread throughout the middle east with devastating consequences both politically and socially. What we saw in Libya and Syria is international powers playing politics in civil disputes with little regard for the people caught in the cross fire.
European Spring
Since 2007 we have seen a rising discontent as governments of all of the European nations stumble blindly on trying to save private investment banks from bankruptcy and in the process they impoverishing the working class for decades to come just to protect their future employers and six figure sum jobs.
Unless the ruling elite start listening to the people and remember that they are only supposed to be enforcing the will of the people for the people and not just fulfilling their own ambitions we will see major civil unrest in most if not all of European and north American states from the USA to Mexico and Canada.
But our political discontent is very different from those of the Arab spring nations and our gripes considerably minor in comparison to the daily persecution but our anger is no less. I am sure that most with the exception of the most hardcore anarchists understand that although our society is broken it is certainly repairable and any calls for revolution are premature to say the least.
Wake up and fight
When I say you need to wake and fight I do mean this metaphorically, we do need to fight for our rights through mass protests and deliberation and diplomacy wile we still have this process available to us now there have been many times in history when normal men and women have had to take up arms to ensure freedom from oppression we saw this in the french, American and more recently Egyptian revolution where the ignorance of the oppressors becomes so much that talking will no longer work and violence is the only answer.
However here in Europe we are not even close to that stage yet and I hope for my children’s sakes that we never are. We still have a largely free judicial system and it is they who need to start ensuring that the politicians return to listening to the people and not the boardroom. The corruption in the west is deep and far reaching but it is a cancer that can be cured if people with courage are willing to take the actions required.
Mob Mentality No Thank You
The judges should start to reverse the rot by refusing to enforce ridiculous laws set down by half wits call for the rewriting of a bill of rights to ensure the citizens safety, only they can stop the slide to Anarchy and If you ask me do we need mob mentality I will say no thank you. When people start trying to enforce the law themselves all kinds of terrible things happen that further legitamises the elites way of thinking that we can not govern ourselves. In order to succeed however We are going to need to be structured in our thinking, clear concise and overall determined.
If we allow mob rule it will be a return to the dark ages and could mean the loss of nearly a thousand years of history and culture and a return to the feudalistic days of the 1500’s, this is not an exaggeration after the fall of Rome we went from living in stone towns with paved roads and sewers to mud huts and turf roads that turned to rivers every time it rained so as far as I am concerned a western revolution is the worst case scenario.
There are big social differences between Europe, North America and the middle eastern nations here in west people have become slothful and relaxed over a generation of convenience and relative safety since our last war on European soil was sixty years ago unlike the middle east that has seen plenty of action.
Another important difference is our middle class we are underestimating the importance of having a small enough gap between the rich poor in Europe we can actually climb up the social ladder to a point that our lives can become considerably easier and we can pass that down to our children albeit very slowly but this allows people a life goal and from it a level contentment and from that point of view is extremely important to public happiness. In places like Kuwait Bahrain and the Saudi Kingdom the gulf between the rich and the poor is insurmountable to the point that the majority don’t even bother making any attempt to better themselves and this leaves room for a very unhappy but hardy lower class.
The European psyche simply can not survive the destruction of social mobility and this is why it is so important to stabilize the flow of money currently rushing upwards in ever increasing amounts. Removing this dream will be the underlying cause of a revolution on a scale close to the 1776 war of independence but unlike the colonies in the Americas modern people are heavily reliant on the government for food water and energy and any social unrest risks disruption to these essential services not just for convenience but literally our very survival.
Not only are we physically soft but we simply cannot feed ourselves due to having such a large population and very little if no farm knowledge or suitable soil to grow crops in while we fight for independence. The result could lead to many deaths simply from starvation not to mention untold numbers from conflict and disease.
And lastly but just as importantly over the last decade our western governments have been allowed to disarm us and monitor every aspect of our daily lives allowing them the type of intelligence that the middle eastern dictators could only dream of. If the government thought for one second there was even the slimmest chance of a mass insurrection they would swoop in and arrest and disappear anyone connected with the plans as was seen in the soviet west German state regularly by the stasi.
The resulting crackdown would lead to a cycle of distrust between the authorities and the electorate causing more yet unrest and then even more arrests effectively destroying the western way of life which we covet so much.
What do we the people want
The current round of distrust is because people are sick of being ignored what we the people want is a voice like the one the people in Tahrir square found and Sooner or later we will find that voice but I fear that the longer it takes the more likely it will sound like a violent shout and frighten the leaders in becoming defensive and even more prone to stupid mistakes that could inflame the situation. What the politician’s need to do is stop the austerity reduce taxes and let the market forces purge the toxic waste in the financial sector. Yes it will be hard and yes it will probably end up in that party leaders political suicide but at least it will not end in revolution or the collapse of society.
The basic belief in capitalism is the market decides what lives on and what dies out as necessity dictates unfortunately this rule has been abandoned with the dropping of the gold standard and the creation of the debt society created the elites superwealthy companies that manipulate the markets by keeping decaying old corporations rotting away the worlds wealth. Until we return to true capitalism and remove the government mushrooms we continue to slide deeper under the water line and sooner or later we will drown resulting in a Western Revolution that could drown us all.