The Second American Revolution: A premortem

Disclaimer: This is a "premortem" on the Old Republic. It was written before the Second American Revolution (Or AmRev II, as it will become known) actually happened. Call it unusually prescient, but it highlights what will eventually become common knowledge in the aftermath of the coming Second American Revolution. Tenses are going to be fucked up. Deal with it.

The United States of America was created during what can be described as "class warfare" between the Haves in England and the Have Nots in the Colonies. Yes, there was a lot of talk about taxation without representation, freedom, self determination and what not, but basically, England was trying to finance its war with France by raping the American colonies of its wealth, transferring it to the Old Country to indulge a mad king's desire to expand his Empire.

Fast-forward 245 years.

In 2011, it became fairly well known that the gap between the haves and have nots in America had widened to the largest gap in history. The wealthiest 20% of Americans controlled 85% of the country's wealth, leaving the other 80% to divide 15% of the wealth of the nation amongst themselves. What was worse, is that those 85%'ers only paid 35% of the taxes, leaving the 15%'ers with a 65% tax burden. Further, corporate tax incentives, subsidies, deregulation and other conservative policies pursuing the fallacy of a "free market" oversaw more transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in 20 years than had ever happened in the history of the world.

Given this state, other things happened which finally pissed off the citizens of the country enough to incite revolt.

The first was the fact that the rich controlled Congress, the Judiciary and the Presidency. Despite popular demands for the removal of corporate and special interest group money, the right wing stacked the courts with the rich elite who sided with (naturally) the rich elite, who declared that special interest groups couldn't be curtailed in the amount of money they could spend to buy politicians. Let's face it, regardless of the protestations of innocence from the politicians who were rounded up and shot, no one honestly believed that someone could receive a large campaign donation from a corporation or special interest and still remain impartial enough to vote against the interests of that donor if doing so was in the better interests of the country. With unfettered access to special interest group money, congress was 60% millionaires and the rest certainly not hurting in any way shape or form. In short, our entire government was no longer representative of the people demographically, philosophically, socially or financially.

When one looked at tho controlled business and industry in 2011 versus 1775, it gets worse for the citizens of the United States of America.

By 2011, businesses were raking in money, but the common man wasn't. "Small business" was still very common - businesses making very little money, but able to make it in the world. The large corporations, however, gained a competitive edge over these small businesses and for the most part ended up with an overwhelming percentage of the business to be had. Regulations and other conservative policies made it far easier to create a tax loophole for a large corporation (who gave generously to the representatives voting for it) than tax breaks for small businesses. Unfair competition was rampant, despite strong lip service to the contrary on the part of business executives and politicians. While there would always be a need for "small businesses", they failed over 90% of the time in the first year.

Back in 1775, most American businesses were "small businesses". But they had the financial clout to help finance revolt and revolution. The haves didn't have 85% of the wealth of the nation. And the population didn't like being fleeced.

But by 2011, mass communications allowed the ruling elite to distort and misrepresent the truth. They started with propagandist radio, telling the masses what they were intended to think without mentioning that it was an opinion. Presented as "news" these "reports" were so biased that if they were allowed to be broadcast without the proper disclaimers today, the producers would be tried for sedition, if not executed for treason.

But these broadcasts were all done at the behest of large corporations headed by the rich elite. In short, they could control the information the masses received and when that information was slanted to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class, it was assumed by the rich elite no one would be the wiser.

The most insidious aspect of this was the attempt on the part of the ruling elite to divide the population. They did this by catering to the prejudices of the poorest. These deluded folk, who made up much of the fighting units for the rich elite until the deprogramming process was started about a third into the fighting, were led to believe that the rich, ruling elite actually had their best interests at heart. They actually thought that deregulation, less oversight of companies practices and fewer taxes on the wealthy were in their own best interests.

This brainwashing program was accomplished through overt appeals to a malignant form of nationalism which resulted in their politics being adhered to much like a religion. They became absolutists in policy: Dogmatic, unyielding, uncompromising. Obviously, in politics - which can be defined as the art of compromise - this situation led to the stagnation of American politics that marked the early parts of the 2010's. Nothing got done.

This is also why the revolution could happen - nothing got done to stop it or alleviate the situation so that the then status quo could be maintained. In short, it eventually backfired on them. But while it was in effect, the poor got poorer and the hands of the very people they voted for, and the poor thought it was the other guy's fault.

This created a ruling elite which rivaled England in the late 18th Century, along with a working class which was as equally oppressed by the ruling elite as the colonists in the Americas. Worse, the many who were oppressed had few resources to discern the truth of their predicament.

But that very phenomenon of mass communications which was usually controlled by the rich elite helped spark AmRev II. Basically, the rich elite couldn't be everywhere all the time. They could try to spin the growing dissension into something that benefited them, but in the end that failed.

The spark for AMRev II began when Warren Buffet - himself one of the "ruling elite" - called for more taxes on the wealthy. A discerning individual he knew the process of social pressure and recognized that the media could not control thought, try as it might. He knew that growing dissension among the 80% of Americans who were "have nots" would create gigantic social unrest. This declaration was pretty much shouted down by his more conservative peers, but the idea was sown. At the time, the growing US deficit and the lack of jobs had created an economy in which everyone was wathcing their money carefully, and the disparity between the rich and poor became more apparent. When then President Obama called for more taxes on the wealthy, the reaction from conservative (and generally rich) politicians was "It's class warfare!" without mentioning that the rich were grossly under-taxed.

An unfortunate choice of words, as it happened.

Their defeat of the increased taxes created a groundswell of protest. The little-noticed Wall Street "sit-in" became much more noticed. Republicans called for their forceful removal. And history has shown that when police actually fired on a protestor (whether it was by accident or not is still debated), history repeated itself with the "shot heard around the financial markets".

The descent into armed revolution happened with surprising swiftness after that. The three people shot were elevated to the status of martyrs and the rallying cry, "Remember Wall Street" helped drive a desperate population with nearly 9% unemployment to rise up and tear down the bastions of the rich.

Some called it the second civil war, but it wasn't a war so much between states or political philosophies as it was one between classes. Unfettered capitalism, aided and abetted by paid-for politicians enriching the wealthiest at the expense of the poor. It was a revolution against greed and self-indulgence. We still have a population who differs in political goals, but they're more a matter of policy than philosophy today and utterly lacks the violent rhetoric and vehemence back before AmRev II.

Unfortunately, enlightenment came at a high price.

Once the Americans revolted and started armed fighting, fighting broke out all over the Western world. Some claim that it was all part of the Arab Spring of 2011. Perhaps it was. People all over the world rose up to throw off dictators and oppressors that year and in the next few years. 100 million died in the bombings and fighting. But the bastions of the rich were torn down. Whole economic models were revamped. Democracies were revised so that no single philosophy can gain dominance over another. The standard of living for the "haves" has dropped while it has risen considerably for the "Have nots". Classes are closer these days than at any time in history. Wealth is no longer determined by things or money. People are considered wealthy if they work hard and are happy doing what they do.

Averting global destruction was a sudden, painful process, but in the end, it will have been worth it.