It’s a 4th-O-July Misc., the column old enough to remember back when many Americans were all worried sick that Japan and those other Pacific Rim powerhouses were gonna economically bury the U.S. under a tide of “principle-centered leadership,” “total quality management,” “work-team networking,” and hi-mileage compact cars. Could still happen one o’ these decades, I suppose.

JUNK FOOD OF THE WEEK: Dick’s frozen concentrated chocolate shakes are now at QFC. Frozen, they’re like that Darigold Frosted Malt. When thawed, diluted with a couple tablespoons of milk, and whipped up in an open-air blender, they’re just like what you get at Seattle’s favorite drive-ins. Even when whipped in a lidded blender (or even just stirred vigorously), they’re mighty tasty.

@ LAST!: By the time you read this, US West was supposed to have finally started advertising (and maybe even installing) its “MegaBit” high-speed Internet-access service, using the ADSL technology written about here nearly three years ago. It’s been delayed by state regulators, who complained the phone company hasn’t done enough to welcome independent Internet Service Providers into its ADSL connectivity. So maybe MegaBit will start taking installation orders next week, maybe not. Scrappy li’l Summit Cable, meanwhile, sez it’ll start offering cable-modem service in its neighborhoods (chiefly downtown, Belltown, the Central District, and Beacon Hill) perhaps as early as September; big TCI still promises to do the same sometime within the next year or so. While the hi-bandwidth revolution (enabling decent-quality live video, audio, and telephony thru the Net to home users) has been and will continue to be slow-emerging, at least it’s now underway. Maybe by this time next year, the whole media landscape will have begun to change, further away from the big boys and towards more decentralized structures. Speaking of revolutions…

REVOLUTION ONE-OF-THESE-DAYS-MAYBE!: I’ve talked to four people in recent weeks, who’ve mentioned either their desire or fears of a new American revolution. I have a hard time imagining a violent overthrow of the US of A, especially in these times of relative prosperity for So what would such a revolution be? (I mean a real sociopolitical revolution, not some advertised “fitness revolution” or “style revolution.”)

• The revolution will be televised. It just won’t be made possible by a grant from Archer Daniels Midland.
• It probably wouldn’t be led by the English-department radicals. As Achieving Our Country author Richard Rorty notes, the tenured left’s too obsessed with poststructuralist theory to actively care about economic injustice; too focused on folks a few rungs beneath the top of America’s caste ladder (such as professional-class women and gays) to seriously bother with those closer to the bottom.
• It also wouldn’t be led by today’s Religious Right, though it wishes it could. The Pat Robertson gang’s “reconstructionist” dream, of a palace coup that’d smash constitutional democracy but leave corporate power intact, won’t sell to enough would-be troops in a time when the real threats to mass well-being come from the consolidation of wealth and power by the business elite Robertson’s gang really serves.

  (To be more precise, Robertson’s relationship with the “reconstructionist” faction of the religious right’s a bit more complicted than I have space (in the print version of the column) to explain. He’s supported many ideological points similar to theirs, but at least for now he’s still a registered Republican. And Robertson’s former right-hand man Ralph Reed’s publicly come out against the reconstructionist agenda; Reed believes the religious-right platform (an authoritarian culture, under the twin thumbs of Fundamentalists and corporations) can be realized without dismantling the nation’s political foundations.

• The militia cults might have a part in it, but only if they give up their romanticism of conquest and their ethno-religious exclusivity. They’d have to join efforts with all those facing diminished opportunities, whether from the ghettos, the barrios, the abandoned factory towns, or the depleted mining lands.
• To succeed, it wouldn’t be about the Good People vs. The Bad People (as defined by such inaccurate criteria as race, gender, language, sex-preference, religion, diet, etc.). It’d be about changing an unjust system, while recognizing such a system has innocent beneficiaries as well as innocent victims.
• It wouldn’t promise an instant Golden Age. Most folks are too cynicized from decades of misleading advertising to believe anything as abstract as a new governmental organization could bring eternal peace & prosperity. What it could claim would be to build a healthier, more just society. One where all our races and subcultures don’t just learn to get along but to work together. One where money and power counted a little less and wisdom and love a little more.

(Think you know how to accomplish any of this? Share your fervor at clark@speakeasy.org.)

Subject: Revolution

Sent: 7/4/98 1:59 AM

Received: 7/4/98 8:07 AM

From: Jason Foster, loosenut@scn.org

To: ‘clark@speakeasy.org’, clark@speakeasy.org

It’s about time. Didn’t Thomas Jefferson say that there should be a revolution every 50 years? Aren’t we long overdue?

The statement that the revolution will not be led by the Religious Right made me think of something I read in Hakim Bey’s Millennium. He suggests that the religious right will have to band together with the anarchists and everybody else that thinks our current system is bullshit. They should be able to see the effect that greed has had on our government as much as anyone else.

I don’t think the revolution will be something to accomplish. I think it will just happen as result of social conditions. The destruction of the environment, dumbed-down mainstream media, super-greedy corporations, fucked-up politicians, grassroots politics, and real access to real information raising awareness (like through the internet) will be all be catalysts. Hopefully it will be bloodless.

And as for the revolution being televised: Do you think they will know what it is they are televising?

Misc. is a great column. Thanks for keeping me entertained and informed. (And thanks for reinforcing a lot of my belief system 😉 In an age severely lacking in heroes, you are one of mine.

Peace,

Jason Foster

————-

Subject: Re: revolution bullets

Sent: 7/9/98 8:29 PM

Received: 7/10/98 7:52 AM

From: JJAXX@aol.com

To: clark@speakeasy.org

It has seemed that at one time or another most everyone either anticipates some coming revolution or hopes for one. At the most personal level this is just wanting to get revenge on ones “boss” or parent.

The singular item that stopped my casual disrgard for another jeremiad was the phrase “unjust system.” Now that is something to think about! What exactly IS an unjust system? And, gosh!, relative to what other system did you have in mind?

At this point in history, about every culture I know of favors the powerful and wealthy (redundant?). There is good reason for this. And to various extents the less so are battered by the inequity. This does not mean there is a pending revolution. Most people are well aware of their own vices and shortcomings, regardless of their anger. And the consequences of poor impulse control are seldom long term positive for anyone. What comes after any revolution, any overthrowing impulse? These concepts are weighty to most people who have good memories or education. History is not kind to successful revolutions.

The establishment of a constitutional united states that has endured 200+ years is startlingly freaky when one compiles all of the governmental, corporate, and traditional upheavals the planet has supported in the last couple millenia. As it is, far too many people in this country have a huge economic and health incentive to suppress any so called revolution. The portion of the population that sees itself as the recipient of unjust treatment, I suspect, if gathered together, would never be able to agree on their own manifesto.

The result of this is scattered, small clubs of “revolutionaries” whose main goal is to “overthrow” their unworthy oppressors. Unfortunately, the number of “oppressors” in the US in something like 1 to 2 orders of magnitude larger than any of these groups. Focusing only on the superelite misses the size of the benficiaries numbers. In a country as armed to the teeth as the US, if the superelite were really threatening peoples well being their tenure would be so risky that their identities would be eyes only secrets. And that is a situation that the system itself could not support.

Conclusion: for all intents and purposes, people in the west, and surprisingly, even third world countries, are living in a time that, viewed over a millennium, is a golden age. To posit a successful revolution one must have some vision of a future that betters all 5 billion plus the ecosystem. The only people with that kind of vision are already creating that future. They tend not to be tearing down the current institutions (which have the current reins of power, and tons of money), they are building new institutions, creating new pathways of power and vast arrays of wealth. Individuals that are incapable of participating in this generation…first must look to themselves. If I elect to not pick up a book on HTML and front a web page, it isn’t BIll Gates to blame. If I cannot read to learn HTML it isn’t my teachers to blame.

Revolution is already happening. Show me someone on top in the US who was there 10 years ago. The better future is more like a river than a rock. It requires more in the sense of ability to navigate it than to stand on it.

JJ

————-

Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 11:02:42 -0700

From: hbarron

MIME-Version: 1.0

To: clark@thestranger.com

Subject: vive le revolucion!

im writing in response to a misc of a week or two ago in which the ? was something like ‘how to save the world’

id like to mention an org im active with that i think if succesful will greatly increase the joy and peace in the world.

its the party of non-aggresion and non-intervention -the Libertarian Party!

libertarians know that all human interaction can go one of two ways -either peaceful and mutually beneficial(commerce, charity) or coerced and destructive(drug prohib., slavery). therefore the more we can increase voluntary, peaceful, tolerant living and decrease violent social interaction(of which our government is the worst example) the better off we all will be!!!

please drop me a line if you want or if i can answer any ? re/ Libertarianism for the Stranger!!!