An interesting read, one that makes the case that our current predicament won't change by voting and protests alone

[indusurb]

The book is by Walter Scheibel, called The Great Leveler. In it he makes the historical case that without at least one of the following catastrophes, mass war, revolution, collapse of the state or plague, inequity in a society will continue and increase. The system needs a violent shock to make major change. We saw this with the ending of the southern slave oligarchy by the Civil War. Likewise the Gilded Age was ended by the combination of the Great Depression followed by WWII. What will it take to end our current state of affairs?

https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691271842/the-great-leveler

I think the man has a good point, peaceful protests, civil disobedience and elections aren't going to do the job.

[Lovie777]

1. The violent shock is coming full circle....

[gab13by13]

2. Peaceful protests and civil disobedience are a must,

without them we give the dictators what they want, apathy. complience.

[indusurb]

3. I agree, but wil they fundamentally change our society and its inequities?

During the Gilded Age the Labor movement was strong, lots of protests, even small scale violent clashes. Yet the fundamental order of things did change until there was a massive economic collapse and World War.

[FirstLight]

4. We're on track, and frankly overdue, for a big shift/shakedown/catastrophe

Hate to say it, but the thing that everyone fears (civil war) is kind of what it might take. Gotta burn in all down before we can rebuild kinda thing... It's been in our collective consciousness for too long NOT to happen. Whether it's a pandemic, zombies, war, etc.. look at all the movies in the past 30 years or so... the collective knows time is coming for us.

Remember in the Matrix? When they first enter the simulation and Morpheus explains that it's modeled on the end of the 20th Century, when we were at a pinnacle? I tend to agree, we had the internet, but it wasn't in control of our lives. We had cell phones, and they were just a utility, not our personalities.

Also, geologically and climate-wise, we're overdue for some big tectonic shifts and the earth isn't cooling down anytime soon. That's all gonna back up on us somehow too. We could get a Yellowstone event and another Ice Age, that would do a job on civilization as we know it. Which would create a population bottleneck or complete collapse (who's to say the earth won't be better off?)

Collectively, we know this.

[moniss]

5. When government is rigging how you can register,

how you can vote, who you can vote for, how votes get disqualified, why votes get disqualified, gerrymandering districts into eternal noncompetitive "kingdoms", rigging the referendum process, destroying implementation of referendum results and so much more it is clear that the will of the people is not what determines the conduct and outcome of elections in the United States.

Ask the residents of cities in Michigan how they woke up one day to find that the fascist Governor Engler had simply taken complete and total control of their city by declaration and now the officials the citizens had voted for to run their city had no say in anything whatsoever. Moves like this were "practice runs" for the fascists in America.

[unblock]

6. They are the ones who will bring the violence. Their bloodlust is palpable.

Best case scenario is 1960s-style resistance and government violence like Kent state worse. But more likely, this government will crack a lot of heads.

One way or another, the right will push and push until the people have no choice but to resist. The right will be quick to escalate into wildly disproportionate violence, which will further force our hand.