Death and Rebirth of a Republic

Spot on! The sound of hands clapping is heard.

The life expectancy of a republic is about 200 years and they are fairly few and far between in human history.

It’s perfectly rational at this point to believe there’s nothing to be done within the system. We must cultivate our garden, or if you like, the revolution. That’s quite different from merely “waiting”, as anyone who has attempted to physically break with the military-industrial-agricultural-commercial-financial knows all too keenly.

when it gets bad enough, it may be too late.

While I think Citizens United was bad, I don’t think it was a death blow. The left is often a bit money-reductionistic, but the electoral graveyard is littered with bodies of campaigns that thought they could win by outspending. What happened in CA this year is a testament to that.

…the crises that she/he/it/entity believes, not necessarily unreasonably, will be the destruction of the human race.

Not just me. The Ian Welsh entity wrote these posts:

Climate Change: a fighting retreat

I don’t usually write about climate change, because as dire as my views are on economics, they’re even more dire on global warming.

Global Warming: a localized pause and then the end of our civilization

If world population is only reduced by a billion, I will be amazed. I also expect some serious wars. Our civilization will not go quietly into that long long night.

Similarly, economist James Galbraith, among others has repeatedly said that we should be working on real problems, not the fake problems such as “fiscal responsibility” (that is, cutting spending on programs that don’t make profits for private companies).

And writer Ted Rall has come out with his book The Anti-American Manifesto, which calls for Jeffersonian action*

*Letter to William Smith

Instead, the republicans are gearing up to have “hearings” on the “scientific fraud” about global warming.

But why would you anticipate the rebirth of a Republic?

For one brief sentence, Mandos and I are in agreement. If things are so bad that Americans don’t care about how their government works, why would we expect us to form a new republic? One thing I’ve learned about chaos is that it never produces the results you expect.

This posting (or comment by T-Bear) succinctly summarizes our situation, and the only thing that’s controversial is where we go from here? I’d like to inject this snippet from a newsletter I received from Carolyn Myss, a well known medical intuitive and author:

…the politics of this nation has taken its toll on me and on many of my friends. But what has inspired me to write this piece is not really my own political sentiments but the dark matter that is the fallout from all the political madness that we breathe in each day, fallout that is so pervasive that unless we stop to take note of what is happening, we may never be able to turn the tide.

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting the CEO of the Girl Scouts of America because she attended my last workshop. I was absolutely delighted to discover that she was one of my participants. I had to admit to her at the onset of our conversation that the Girl Scouts was not an item on my radar. Essentially, I said, I associate the Girl Scouts with cookies. She said, “As does everyone else.”…

CEO Tamara Woodbury asked me this question, “What do you think the biggest obstacle is to inspiring girls to becoming leaders in our society?” Having just spoken about the values that the Girl Scouts stand for and consciously make an effort to communicate to their girls – honor, integrity, loyalty, courage, and patriotism – I replied that they must view leadership as a choice that would interfere with other interests.

“No,” she said. “The majority of girls feel that in order to be a leader in today’s society, they have to become liars and they do not want to compromise the values they are learning as Girl Scouts in order to become leaders.”

In the minds of these young women, leadership and lying have become one and the same choice. A leader is a liar – simple as that. Obviously we can find leaders who are not liars – sure we can. But that’s not the point, is it? The point is that these girls now associate the entire call to leadership as a compromise of integrity and honor….

…Leaders are a reflection of the times we live in. Chaotic times provide the setting for the rise of barbarians and I think it is fair to say that we have barbarians champing at the political bit. The mad and insane messages pouring out of the mouths of the people who actually believe they qualify to run for office – much less actually win – should have us shaking in our boots. These are not people qualified to lead us through the storms facing our country. These are people whose qualifications guarantee our ship will hit the rocks….

What young people think and believe in these times (or in any time) is telling (and chilling), for they are the future.

For the prepared, chaos is an exciting place to be. The powers-that-be, who had a lot to do with engineering our current chaos, are in full motion, taking advantage of it. Chaos permits the rise of barbarism, in a variety of forms, but this is only part of what chaos permits.

There are many possible scenarios for “what happens next”, and there will be many opinions. Politically, my guess is that we’ll reorganize around smaller, more manageable geographic regions, something along the lines of the Russian Federation. I’d expect the wealthier and more educated areas to embody more of T-Bear’s “Philadelphia construct” than elsewhere, but even that might be a reach. I don’t expect all of this construct to completely vanish, it will just be transformed in various ways, good and bad.

I do see a confrontation at some point, between the people of the USA and the hollowed out polity of the USA. It might be physical, involving force, it certainly is mental (as the Girl Scouts and others quietly demonstrate by their beliefs and actions). At some point there will be a moment of truth, a general, we-can-no-longer-turn-away-from-what’s-staring-at-us-in-the-face, reckoning about the true state of what our country has become. It’s possible that the country could pull together and harmoniously resolve the forces tearing it apart, but it’s also possible that things could completely fall apart.

It’s very similar to the lead-up to the first Civil War – with all the polarization and crummy leadership leading up to Abraham Lincoln – but we were a much younger country, with lots of pioneer stock back then. I’m less optimistic about our rebirth, but very cognizant of the kinds of opportunities chaos presents.

It’s over. The Hyperpower will co-opt all possible challengers. Eventually it will all be Empire. You think it is ruled from NYC? Nah, it’s a global elite. Over. Nothing can be done.

The internal or external circumstances that could effect positive structural change by this time need to be devastating and catastrophic, likely much worse than the 30s and 40s. Not only do we not want to accelerate the apocalypse, but we won’t recognize the world come after, and the survivors won’t want anything to do with us.

So go fishing or whatever. You can’t matter.

And the wild card is a leader arising – and that may very well happen. The right candidate in 2012 can fix a whole lotta mess and renew the process.

Isn’t England a republic? It’s been around as such for well over two centuries.

@ Cujo359

Switzerland, according to the Wikipedia article, seems to be an outlier. But I’d like more depth than Wikipedia…

It’s interesting that we’re having this discussion, isn’t it? Thinking back to other times when topics like this came to the fore, I see this as a sign of hope, more than anything.

@ Cujo359

Using the link to wikipedia above and that definition of Republic, most of the Italian peninsula was occupied by non-monarchial city-states which, involved in war against Rome were conquered. Much of the mediterranean was occupied by city-states originating from Greek sources, IIRC Carthage would have provided a fine specimen of that. The aforementioned “Discourses …” elaborates that as well as reports that many city-states re-established themselves after the power of Rome had passed, many times from retained traditions from before their subjugation. Using narrow definitions or specific kinds of Republic will change the population that is being considered. The American example of Republic is a very narrow definition and the population of similar Republics is quite limited. Even earlier, many of the Greek city-states were governed by res publica (commonwealth) in some form or another after the failure of monarchial governance, one form developed was the forerunner of our modern “democracy”.

There is a failure being shown here, somewhat of language, somewhat of education, and somewhat of horizons. English-speakers “obtained” their millionth word some time last year and yet, the most populous english speaking country cannot remember or use the difference between Republic and Democracy. Not all Republics are Democracies; Not all Democracies are Republics. Both statements are true, go figure. This makes it difficult to carry on a dialogue when the language is so plastic as to become meaningless and even more difficult to find another with which to have such dialogue.

FWIW Britain is a MONARCHY, their population are SUBJECTS of the CROWN. It is also an ARISTOCRACY having both ARISTOCRATS of lifetime merit in addition to those of inherited title. Members of Parliament ARE democratically elected, their selection is another matter. The PRIME MINISTER is the leader of the majority party or (if Parliament is “hung”) the majority coalition of factions in Parliament, in no case is the PM elected to office by any more constituents than are in his election district for Parliament – some democracy that.

I think the burden of proof is on those who wish to continue to participate in the Republic, not those who are seeking to create alternatives to it. Somewhere in the last decade or so, the default setting flipped. In other words, it’s not necessary to prove — as Mandos would have it — that an alternative exists; all that is necessary, as of today, is to seek one. And the burden is on Mandos to show why the alternatives should not be sought.

Why do you identify the last decade as the time the bit flipped? It seems a bit too, um, convenient to me. If the burden-of-proof bit ever flipped, I’d have put it at 1984 or so. The 70s Arab oil embargo *should* have precipitated the one move that could have avoided a great deal of this—concerted mass retrofitting of an oil-based infrastructure—but by 1984, the second election of Reagan, it should surely have been clear that the Normal Politics of the USA wasn’t going to provide the impetus for a rational changeover into a sustainable technological future in the time frame that would make it painless.

No, if anything it’s been the case that people who want to work within the system have had the burden of proof on them for decades, actually. The problem is, it has been repeatedly provided that the following is true: that alternatives do not arise during Republican governments. That is, a party or an alternative political effort attempting to outflank the Democrats (or the entire system) from the left does not work or even occur when the Democrats are not in power.

And that’s the crux of the disagreement. If we decide that Something Changed in the 2000s, then this is all new, nothing could really be worse. To me, not only did nothing really change in the 2000s, but believing so is a recipe for an endless political Groundhog Day, where we relive the same electoral moment over and over and over, until we hit, as Lambert mentioned, the limit case. But there is nothing new or innovative about concluding the obvious fact that right-wing interests are well-entrenched in the Democratic party.

The challenge is to make the Democratic party the public, acknowledged right wing, and relegate the Republicans to extremist irrelevance. We’ll see if that happens on *this* spin of the roulette wheel.

Randall Kohn PERMALINK
November 7, 2010
Something DID change on 12-12-2000. The rule of law was officially destroyed and brute force became our new way of governance – even though hardly anyone ever talks about it. How often do any of us ever even think about it?
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Hmm, good point. A stolen election is very significant of course.

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(From Formerly T-Bear)
Maybe then, enough of the Philadelphia construct can be recalled and a new edifice built in such a manner that no individual, no group, no corporation will be allowed enough power by themselves or in conspiracy to endanger the new edifice. The life expectancy of a Republic averages about two centuries before the political impulse is spent; this Republic is no exception. Those things that extend the life of Republics were not done and profound corruption prevails.
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I still think T-Bear’s summation is spot on; however, as much as I like the last paragraph, the last sentence is very important and is the operational reality of today and probably the foreseeable future. That doesn’t bode well for us.

It’s about culling the herd.

Water, not oil, is going to become the scarcest resource as global warming melts water reserves, untimely floods/draughts occur. Already major US cities are starting to feel the pinch. Within 20 years water will be unaffordable for all except the very wealthy.

The destruction of the economy, the withholding of decent housing, health care, food; the offshoring of jobs and driving down of US wages to poverty levels is all about culling the herd. As the price of fuel rises and with it the price of food, heating oil, etc., more and more millions of Americans will drop off into abject poverty, homelessness, starvation, disease and hopelessness.

All of these foreclosures, legal and illegal, fraudulent and above board, are for re-gentrifying the land. In feudal times only the gentry were landed and the coming feudal times in the USA are no different. Why? So their wealthy friends can come to the US and live here comfortably while global warming destroys other presently habitable places.

At least the Bolshies had the balls blatantly to kill their middle class and be done with it.

Sorry to be such a downer but there is no way to put lipstick on this pig. The world banking families have got us by the balls and after they have disposed of a sufficient number of us, those remaining will happily work night and day in exchange for room and board.

Welcome to the Global Plantation, er, I mean economy.

To put this to bed, in history there are seldom signs posted “You are here” when they are needed most. “You are here” places you within a terrain that, if you notice your surroundings, you can start to plan a course to your desired destination through those landmarks. “Here” is the unwritten present and the desired destination lays in the future. Your surroundings are the geography you find yourself; swamps of ignorance; marshy bog of beliefs; dark forests of deception; arid deserts of unemployment; hidden quicksands of debt; the badlands of despair. Security may be had in the open range where what approaches can be seen and accommodated, or on the hilltop giving view all about of resources of the land surrounding.

The unwritten present and the destination are temporal and give no direction. Direction is given by knowledge of need and the experience of satisfying need; need for food; need of shelter and of clothing; need of transport and of communication; needs of communal support and protection.

That journey begins in knowing from where you came and where you are; “You are here”.

Mandos has a new bottom line:

The challenge is to make the Democratic party the public, acknowledged right wing, and relegate the Republicans to extremist irrelevance.

So that’s the new strategery? Good to know. Glad the burden of proof argument smoked that one out.

Seems to me, though, that the best way to make that clear is to support emerging parties, and possibly even new modes of political engagement. So it seems we’ve been in fundamental agreement all the time.

In other words, third parties can’t come into being until you’ve found a way to crowd out the Republicans, which unfortunately must happen first.

In this case, it obviously means that the Democrats become the Reagan Republicans, thus pushing the Republicans over into Palinite territory – all of which is pretty much a done deal.