Ted, have you looked in the mirror lately? Or listened to your own pipsqueak voice?
I’m a flabby 49 year old nerd who hasn’t been in a fight since I was 11 or so. And even I could kick your pathetic butt without working up a sweat.
So, for your own good, please remember: wussies who try to talk tough don’t scare anybody. Stick to drawing bad cartoons. In anything resembling a REAL revolution, you’d be useless at best, and an early casualty at worst.
Well, I think he’s got a point. Certainly the threat of possible violence (or at least interference in the normal business of the nation) can affect politicians.
And being a pipsqueak is no real impediment to being a leader of revolt.
To advise puppy dopers who are too young for classic sci-fi, this is a coy reference to Harlan Ellison’s famous story, I Have No Mouse and I Must Stream. Carry on.
The host of the show, whose name is Dylan, rhetorically asks if things are so bad in America that only revolution can fix it. Scary pictures, like war and the BP oil gusher, are played. The host answers his own question in the affirmative, suggesting that violent revolution may be the appropriate type.
Dylan introduces Ted Rall and his new book, “The Anti-American Manifesto,” and asks Rall what the title’s all about.
Rall states the title is both ironic and a way of prophylactically guarding himself from inevitable charges of anti-Americanism, stressing that he is, in fact, American, and loves America.
The host then asserts that there are four ways to change government; political processes, “bond and financial markets” (e.g. by changing them), passive resistance, and violence. A graphics appears listing these points. Note that this is the HOST saying this, not Rall. It is unclear if this claim is from Rall’s book.
The host asks Rall why he “Goes to the fourth option” in his book, the “Fourth option” being violence.
Rall then states that his book holds violence only as a last case, worst-option scenario. He states that the political process is in fact best, but then complains that over the last two years the GOP and Dems have not been able to do this, and that they are in bed with unspecified financial interests. (Rall refers to something Dylan said earlier on the show about this but it’s not part of this video.)
Rall seems to be stating that since things have not moved forward from 2008, political process change will never happen again.
He then states passive resistance does not work because the left has been peaceful “since the Kent State shootings,” e.g. 1970, though he does not actually cite examples of actual passive resistance.
The host states that a useful form of passive resistance would be to stop paying your mortgage. Rall suggests this would only work if everyone did it.
Dylan then seems to be suggesting that the passage of time will somehow cause people to tell Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner that “the scam is up,” though he does not explain what he means. Rall says this will not happen fast enough because “the real unemployment rate” is “almost twenty percent,” though he does not define this term. He states the economy is in trouble and “the planet is unsustainable.”
Dylan asks Rall a question that is, to be honest, rambling and incoherent, and he might actually have answered his own question in the affirmative - again, it’s awfully hard to pin down what he is saying - but the jist seems to me “are the GOP and Dems just as bad?” Rall responds by saying that jobs are “the #1 priority” and states the GOP’s plan will increase unemployment further by firing government workers, and that the Democrats “haven’t done squat” with two years in power. Rall then asks “What are we going to do?” and “it’s up to the people, as John Locke said.” He states the people have an obligation to revolt when their government fails, and seems to be implying the U.S. government has failed.
Dylan the Host then refers to “The behaviour we see in France and England, where they love to revolt,” but states that the revolutions he is referring to are “semi-violent,” e.g. strikes and whatnot, and asks Rall if Americans are capable of this.
Rall states Americans will be capable of this due to economic pressures and wealth inequality.
Dylan the Host agrees, and states this all happened during the Industrial Revolution, and that Teddy Roosevelt stopped it. Precisely how Teddy Roosevelt did this he does not explain. He then expresses disappointment that the US has not now, or recently, had a President like Teddy Roosevelt.
Rall says “We need an FDR.”
I’ve never heard this Dylan guy before, but he’s retarded. Rall is not retarded, but I would suggest that a person who thinks the U.S. government is “failed” does not know what a failed government really is.
Lenin’s Bolsheviks represented the most extreme position, and the mood of the people was extreme. Essentially, they ran out in front of the mob and pretended to be leading them, but if they hadn’t been there leading, the people would most likely have gone the same way regardless.
The slogan “Bread and Peace” was a nearly perfect example of a political slogan as empty promise. A seperate peace with Germany was largely unavoidable, Russia simply could not sustain an army in the field any longer. And, of course, the Bolshevik’s emphasis on the industrial proletariat nearly ensured that they were the very last people in Russia who could supply bread to anyone. Pig iron and coal, maybe, bread, no.