[Before you read this, I want to assure you all I won't be deported or get in trouble by Chinese authorities. I asked a Chinese computer software developer staying at the hostel if it was okay to write about such things in China even if it's about the United States. He said it's fine as long as I'm not rallying people in China to do this here, which I'm not. The most serious thing they'll do is delete this if it even gets to government-level, which he says is very doubtful so don't worry.]
I secretly want to start a revolution in the United States. Those who know me well know this about me. This desire stems from wanting to change the broken system that serves nobody but the powerful and the rich and continues to trample on everybody else's rights and needs. I could go on and on about specifics, but if you understand this desire, then I think you also probably know what I'm talking about. Just read the news. It's everywhere. We have become a greedy nation with no morals and conscience, and we live by no principles. We live by a Constitution which is interpreted for individual benefit and gain. Our president, a Constitutional scholar, could even use some brushing up on some of the basics in the Constitution. Our voting system creates the stupid two-party gridlock we're currently stuck with. Our votes are just pieces of paper, we still don't have any power over what's going on over there on Capitol Hill. Legislators are too protected by their long terms. There are many institutional fractures, and only institutional changes and creating a new system will remedy the failures of our current system. The problem is that the institution itself sure isn't going to make these changes, they benefit too much from the brokenness. The only way is if we demand it, and show those in power that governments can't suppress the power of the people. They work for us. Changing the system. Reform. What a feat. Impossible some would say, but I'm an idealist and my mind just doesn't function in this way. If you start out thinking that way, then it truly is impossible, you leave no room for possibilities and potential. I think this is how they want you to think.
I've been inspired by people like Howard Zinn and his “A Power Governments Cannot Suppress”, and I'm currently reading Henry David Thoreau's “Civil Disobedience”. They believed reform is possible and that governments exist to serve the people, and not the other way around. I will show no respect for any institution that doesn't deserve it. A government can't just command respect and obedience from its citizens: it needs to give us reasons why we should respect it, and why we should support it. As Thoreau points out, it is our duty to “... make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.” Of course there are many people, journalists like Glenn Greenwald (much respect) who already do this, but there are plenty who write about it, and gripe and pleasure in griping about the injustices of the government, but not one who stands up and demands for revolution, for reform. Not one who marries her words to her actions. Thoreau has helped me realize this. To our credit, it's difficult. It is true there is no built-in way in which revolution is possible in the Constitution or in the American system. Revolutions can be tumultuous, but not all revolutions require blood to be shed for it to be complete. What the Constitution does allow is the right to petition. But I ask what good does petitioning do? How much does it do? A petition will not force the government to do what the people want it to do. I think this is a disadvantage of the Constitution-- it doesn't provide an avenue for true reform. The government is too stubborn to acknowledge that it is failing for a lot of people. I think once something fails, like our current capitalist system did, that it's time to see what went wrong and change those things. It's hard when we have a system as entrenched as ours currently is, but we're humans, we keep on adapting-- that is how we survive. Thoreau puts it in this way:
How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due, but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see to it that you are never cheated again.
If the government refuses to listen to its people who demand basic services like healthcare (a human right), then how can a citizen respect this government when the government barely respects its citizens. The government asks and asks of us, asks us to pay taxes so it can shed blood and strengthen the military machine, and it asks us to be loyal, but without giving us any reason. We're like servants now, providing an allegiance to our country and even fighting in a war that perhaps our heart does not find true-- in a war that's disguised with lies, a war in which the government does not mind sacrificing a soldier's life if it means we have more oil. The government can't even be honest with us. A government that can treat its people like that deserves no respect. Thoreau again: “the mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.”
I know what a good government would look like, although I'm not entirely sure on how to go about it. A good government would respect its people, protect them, not send them away in a fruitless war to secure oil stores. A good government would wants its people healthy and happy, and would ask the richest, most privileged to help provide happiness and security for those who cannot. A truly good government would “anticipate and provide for reform” (Thoreau). Most importantly, the government would “encourage its citizens to put out its faults, and do better than it would have them.” Yet it doesn't listen to us, we're not men and women, but subjects. I'm not happy with what our government does, and so I want to stop providing allegiance and support for it because I cannot agree with its principles or actions any longer. But how? What does a 21st bloodless revolution look like in America? Thoreau offers these statements in “Civil Disobedience”, which I will leave for you as food for thought:
“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.”
“Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was.”
“Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.”
“If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.... When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned from office, then the revolution is accomplished.”
Now I ask you this. What can we do? How can we start a revolution? How can we speak as one nation, and demand a better government? Don't say we can't. Look at the youth in Egypt who overturned their government, look at the inspiration of people like Nelson Mandela, or Martin Luther King Jr. I'm sure countless people told them it couldn't be done, but it was done. I have a whole year in China to think about this. Thoreau suggests an action like not paying your taxes, even if it means you'll go to jail for it. Just men can be sent to jail. Yet for a mother or father who has a family to worry about, how can this be asked of them? Or someone who is trying to finish college? It seems almost impossible... but there will be those who will anyway. If not this, what other ways? What would we want? What do we need exactly? I'd appreciate your comments and thoughts on the matter. These are questions I am thinking about myself and will continue to do so. I know reform like this doesn't happen overnight, it requires careful thinking, consideration, and planning, but perhaps something can be done. By no means is America's government the worst. In fact the government and its origins is a rare thing, and it was built upon strong, admirable ideals, but we've come a long way from those initial intentions and America deserves better. I think the American people deserve a better government, a more honest one-- one with a conscience. I don't want to complain anymore like Thoreau cautions against, I want to take action.
“Cast your whole vote, not on a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.”
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