There are 100 million people with day to day access to arms in the U.S. (granted, of all ages, not all of fighting age).

There are 1.4 million military members.

Bombs destroy the very assets you wish to control. Nukes would be useless.

Tanks run out of fuel, as do jets, without a civil population to resupply them.





I already mentioned the Arab Spring. Governments with tanks and Jets fell to people with rifles.

Soldiers have families. When their families participate in revolt (and become targets of the government), soldiers change sides. Good example would be the Russian revolution against the Tsar, where the army stood down and abandoned the monarchy.

But yes, the military can do its own thing.
Afghan military in the 70's siding with Russia against its government.
Turkey's military ejecting their government whenever it goes bad (*minus this last attempt)

Or even the people can coup vs the people.
The 2014 Ukrainian coup, ethnic Ukrainians ejecting their government to make a new one that deprives ethnic Russians of representation.

-scheherazade

And Chomsky! flies his hypocritical colours at full mast in those comments. So the Spanish anti-fascists/anarchists (that he loves so dearly) were fighting the good fight but Antifa and Redneck Revolt are mere tools of the Neo-Nazis? The first time the US left has displayed some chutzpah in years and he's spouting slander!

Those comments are so woefully off that I wonder if he's just been massively taken out of context or something.

I think it's silly to say "treason is wrong period." The USA was born of a revolt against England.

If the south had wanted to secede for almost any other reason but the right to own human beings, then Lincoln would have been a monster to pursue such a bloody war to hold the union together. It would be as if the EU sent troops to force the UK to stay part of the EU.

I think there are plenty of examples in history of groups justifiably wanting to replace their leaders or separate from a political union.

And yes, Steven Miller truly is a revolting human being.

If the media had more of this kind of stuff in the past few decades instead of sensationalist or partisan bullshit, we wouldn't be in a position to need it.

It's easy to call media fake - a lot of it has been for a very long time. We who watch and discuss politics videos here would be celebrating Sanders if he was on TV right now talking about how biased a lot of media was.

The left and the right have a lot that makes them different but essentially they want the same things - security, happiness, prosperity. They disagree on how to get those things and that's all ok, but we agree to a level playing field so that things like Hitler, Trump, etc. can't happen. The playing field has to be level for everyone or people get angry. When people get angry under a theocracy or dictatorship they revolt. When people get angry under democracy, they vote for populists.

We need to hope that the playing field can be levelled again. People aren't happy with a rigged system - crony capitalism, profits before people, corporate welfare, tax dodging...

You know how people were saying it should have been Bernie vs. Trump? Well, that's because ordinary people on the left and right saw unfairness everywhere.

The left weren't going to seriously mobilise for a wishy washy weathervane like Clinton. But the angry right had their ideal candidate and they DID seriously mobilise. The kind of mobilisation that has teeth? You only get that when people believe they've got the right guy.

In my opinion, an Ocean's Eleven style heist occurred some time ago involving, basically, businessmen. People who wanted money. The best way to make money was to be involved in politics. So some businessmen joined political parties, or donated money to them and demanded a few favours. A few politicians think, hey i could use some extra money, and make a few promises. This goes on for long, eventually business and politics become the same thing and policies are designed around business and profit.

People aren't happy, the system is rigged. Trump is the immediate problem, but concessions must be made by those with money and power or another Trump will happen. He is a symptom not the cause. Desperate people place desperate votes.

Mark Blyth is my third favorite Scot, right after two brothers who are dear friends of mine. After his famous interview for Athens Live, every video of his released by the Watson Institute has pretty much been a must-watch, particularly his takes on "The Deplorables" and the Front Nationale.

I got his book "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea" after it was praised heavily over at NakedCapitalism 3-4 years ago -- to me, there is no bigger compliment for an economist than praise by Yves and the commentariat over at NC.

His takes on the mercantilism of Germany are among the best, and by far the clearest. Bill Mitchell had some great pieces on it as well, but Blyth's capacity for facilitating understanding of these concepts is on a different level entirely.

So do I disagree with him on parts of his economic analysis? Yes, but only on the fringes where MMT/functional finance is concerned.

Check out the companion talk to his book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQuHSQXxsjM

And a recent bit:
https://youtu.be/vGiHiZyKuAE?t=43m2s (juicy, this one)

I'm revolted by the light-hearted way this story has been handled by this TV show and in the press, where I've seen it reported on the last few days. Sulking? I don't buy it. The husband's behaviour is bizarre and cruel and he doesn't change until he's called out on it. It's manipulative and abusive, not just to his wife, but to the whole family who've had to live with this hole in their family life for decades. It's not heartwarming or relatable, it's monstrous.

I'm so angry this man is not my president elect right now.

Good work douchebags. You thought you were so clever with your fucked up voting strategies, bitching about "lesser of two evil" choices, refusing to vote and taking a stand against...whatever the fuck you thought you were doing. Now we have a thin skinned, narcissistic, ignorant, man-child for our president.

Stop trying to rationalize this. This is not a voter revolt, this is not a paradigm shift in politics, this is not Hillary Clinton's fault or Debbie Wasserman Schultz's doing; this is the result of the masses falling for decades of misinformation combined with an emotional appeal to our worst instincts by a demagogue. You fell for it while you patted yourself on the back for being so much smarter than everyone else. Now we're fucked.

So grow the fuck up and do something to fix this.

I'm as surprised as most everyone at how the election turned out. In the week or so leading up to election night, I considered the possibility that Trump might win the popular vote but lose the electoral college, but not the other way around.

Still, as someone who thinks the electoral college is bullshit, consider this thing from all angles:

Hypothetical Possibility 1: At first, when I thought that Trump might win the popular vote but lose the electoral college, I thought that would be a good thing going forward. Both sides would have been screwed out of a victory by the idiotic system in recent memory, which might push for bipartisan support to scrap it.

But thinking further ... I don't think that would have actually panned out. The GOP establishment wouldn't have seen that as "their" candidate getting screwed, they would have been happy. They might have had to pay lip service to the idea of reconsidering the electoral college to pander to angry Republican voters who felt cheated out of a Trump presidency, but they could easily have just left it at that and sat on the issue until apathy took over again.


Possibility 2: The likely reality. Trump will win by electoral votes but lose the popular vote, and that will stand. The Senate and House are both Republican controlled, and the Supreme Court will very likely swing further in that direction. Possibly a LOT.

That sounds terrible. And it definitely means that in the short term, there will be absolutely zero traction for anyone wanting to push the idea of getting rid of the electoral college. BUT -- it also sets up a gold-plated opportunity to see real, actual movement on that front in 2 years. Think Trump is going to be horrendous? Think GOP-controlled Legislature will be abysmal? Look on the bright side -- if those expectations are correct, the blowback in midterm elections won't be a "wave". It'll be a fuckin' tsunami. And that's what we need to have a shot at killing the electoral college.


Possibility 3: Faithless Elector rampage. You can argue, with some merit, that the electoral college was intended to prevent or safeguard against exactly the kind of situation that we are in now. And I'd love to see President Bernie myself. But what would actually result if enough electors swapped to make that happen?

First, NYTimes projects Trump getting 306 electoral votes. That would mean that 37 faithless electors would have to happen to flip the election. You have to go back more than 100 years to find an election where there has been more than 1 faithless elector. There has only been 1 election with more than 37 faithless electors, and that was in 1872 because the candidate died. So realistically, it would be close to impossible to pull this off. (all info from wikipedia)

But forget the odds and just assume that it did happen. I think that would be a strategically terrible idea for Democrats, liberals, etc. Trump won because enough people didn't like the prospect of President Hillary and/or actually wanted to see what Trump himself could do. In either case, his voters generally aren't going to give him a whole lot of leash to screw things up or fail to deliver on their expectations. It will be next to impossible for him to keep those swing people happy. If Trump is 1/10th as terrible as the average Democrat expects him to be, he will alienate all of those people in very short order.

But if faithless electors "stole" the presidency from him (and you know that's how it would be perceived)? Oh, man ... he'd effectively be a political martyr. The anger and backlash would likely be apocalyptic and/or lead to revolt. Worse than almost any realistic way that Trump himself might fuck things up as the President. Even if that was somehow avoided, which I tend to think would be impossible, whoever got installed as President would have the shortest leash of all time, and a massively hostile and motivated Legislature that they would be forced to attempt to work with. Better have some sacrificial lamb to put in there that has zero political future, and even then they would probably cause massive damage to their party by association when they inevitably fall.

No, I think the clear best option is to let Trump (and the GOP) dig his own grave over the next year or two, and then graciously ride the wave of comeuppance.

@newtboy,

Why do you insist on trying to contort things?

The stats I found showed 8% in mid 1930's....Before the war.
Provide a source then, I did and it's over 16% as of 1931.

You said the Palestinians stood alongside the Nazis....in 47?....so.....what Nazis?
I observed that the Arab revolt between 1936 and 1939 was led by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Who later found himself in Germany talking with Hitler and advocating a 'solution' for Palestine ala Italy and Germany. I didn't present an opinion for you to disagree with. I presented a statement of fact which stands regardless of whether you refuse to believe in it or not.

As for partition, stop trying to win points or something, it's inescapable that the partition agreement that the Jewish Palestinians accepted when they declared independence in 1948 was the 1947 UN Partition Plan, on account of the other partition agreements having not yet come into existence yet and all.

I didn't say the tensions didn't begin when Nazis existed, I said they were gone when the events you describe happened.
I think that was addressed earlier what with Arab uprising in the 30s, and the conflict between Arab and Jewish Palestinians continuing on from then all the way till it hit an all out civil war.

Nothing I'm saying here has to justify, forgive or declare Israel a saint and Arabs the sinners. I AM however pointing out some very basic facts that refute the argument that Jewish invaders just came in from Europe and seized Palestine from the Arabs as payback for the holocaust. That simply was not what happened.

Jews were unwelcome and persecuted in Europe long before WW2. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1925, and he wasn't exactly putting pen to brand new ideas nobody had been circulating in Europe already. The Zionists for their part were also busy and in action long before WW2, in no small part for reasons above. The Zionists were absolutely looking to take back 'their' homeland and by invasion if need be. That doesn't mean every Jew in Palestine was a Zionist anymore than the above makes every European and Arab nazi sympathizers. The reality was a lot more muddled and complex.

In the end, the big events driving the Arab-Jewish civil war in Palestine was as you say, an inability of the immigrants to live together with the natives. So on that front we are well agreed. You seem content to place 100% of the blame on the immigrants(which I must insist we refer to as refugees given they are largely European Jews between 1940-1947). I disagree. I believe I've given adequate evidence to demonstrate that the inability to live together was as much to blame on the Arab Palestinians as it was on the Jewish. If we want to blame anyone in the whole mess, the strongest blame still lies with the Axis powers for creating the refugees in the first place.

You are factually wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region)

What to you count as "before" the war? Jewish population in Palestine at set times looks as below:

1890 had 43,000 making your 8%
1922 had 94,000 making 13.6%
1931, still before WW2 broke out in 39 had 175,000 making almost 17%

As for the nazi's being long gone by 1948, most obviously Hitler was still alive 3 years earlier which is hardly most people's idea of a long time. I'm afraid that even that is but the gentlest error in your statement. Palestinian tensions and revolts were ongoing in the 1930s already. Those tensions broke out into a full blown civil war in 1947.

Th 1970s two state UN mandate is obviously NOT the mandate accepted by Jewish palestinians in 1948. I can not fathom how you honestly make such a mistake? Plainly the UN Partition Plan for Palestine from 29 November 1947 as a proposed resolution to the civil war there is the mandate I meant. Given that it was a proposed resolution to a conflict that was simmering on and off throughout WW2 it hardly seems a conflict in which the Nazi's were "long gone".

Read up on Haj Amin al-Husseini, he led the Arab revolt in 1930's Palestine. He later bounced his way to Nazi germany and in 1941 declared
Germany and Italy recognize the right of the Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements, which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries, as required by the national and ethnic (völkisch) interests of the Arabs, and as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy.

So no, I don't believe you can really honestly say that the Arab-Jewish tensions that led civil war in Palestine occurred in an environment were the Nazi's were a distant memory.

Once upon a time there was a bear and it was put onto a flag waved by Americans who had entered Mexico illegally and were denied the right to own or rent property. They were sick of being treated poorly as immigrants, so they said fuck the Mexican government, we are gonna revolt. And they did. And for a small time in history, they ruled their slice of Mexico as The California Republic.

Then the really real American military showed up and said, "Fuck you, you're gonna be drafted into the really real republic and yer gonna fight the Mexicans for real. And we're gonna take your land that you took from the Mexicans, and it's gonna be called America, bitch."

True Story.

The punk who stole the car and hit the police cars "was" revolting.

The shooting was justified.
Just like Trayvon Martin
Just like Michael Brown.

Sorry that you don't see wrong for wrong sake.

You're a revolting human being, but you sure are a good christian.

Seems like this kind of fits: "You're now something to be policed. You're now something to have your behaviors changed."
http://videosift.com/video/Mark-Blyth-on-Brexit-revolt-against-technocracy#comments