What Will Revolution Look Like?

[Adam Shostack]

	The distinction between civilians and soldiers, which came
about in the 17th and 18th centuries, is close to meaningless in the
context of a modern revolution.  However, this distinction, and the
Clausewitzian claim that war is the continuation of politics by other
means, underly the 'law of war.'

	War as the continuation of politics implies that the State
sends soldiers to war against other soldiers to fight for policy
rights.  War to gain teritory, war over insults or honor, religious
war, is seen as a thing of the past.  Barbaric.  Modern warriors can
not understand people who play by other rules.  To some extent, this
has been good for us civilians.  The firebombings of German cities
were an exception, not the rule.

	However, as the anti-colonial movement demonstrated, a people
can effectively fight a modern army, and win.  They are marked as
terrorists, defamed for their capitalist activites such as drug
smuggling to finance the struggle, and hanged when caught. 

	A modern revolution, as Mao taught, is based on forcing people
to decide if they are with you or against you.  There are no neutrals
who simply want the status quo to continue, because once the
revolutionaries have started to do their job, the state lashes out,
passing facist new laws (see Northern Ireland, Peru, the United
States).  The status quo disappears, and the revolutionaries are
committed.  It is only by making starkly clear who stands where that
enough people to fuel the revolution can have the manpower to sucseed.
The alternative to the revolution becomes living under the government
that killed your family members.  In Algeria, once the first few
thousands of martyrs died, every additional person the French killed
was a new reason to fight.  Surrender, to the Alerians, became
inconcievable.  Life as French was not worth living.  So they fought.

	When the revolution comes to the United States, it will not be
a pretty thing.  Our best hope is for a rapid surrender of the current
government, which is not likely.  By deploying now the tools of
communication (remailers, strong encryption, directions for building
bombs and traps, cheap radio transmitters), as well as the tools for
deception (how hard is it to build a fake GPS transmitter?), and the
understanding that the US governemnt has grown cancerous, we bring
closer the begenning and the end of the revolution.

	We bring its start closer by forcing the Government to show
its true colors, turning more people against it.  We bring its finish
closer by having ready the tools to render ineffective the large
fighting machines we have paid for, by making it clear tht the
government does not have the support of the people, and by making it
clear that once committed, we will have to fight.

	So, Tim, we disagree that it will be like nothing seen before.
It will be like many modern revolutions, because we can't force the
government to fight on our terms today.

	20 years later, we will look back, and realize that
governments have murdered most of the innocents they will ever kill,
because will can deploy technology to make government voluntary.  But
we're not there, and getting there may be bloody.

	There is, of course, Duncan's Berlin Wall theory, but I fear
things will have to get worse before they get better.

Adam


Tim May wrote:
| Some of the questions by Mark Rogaski and others ask about the nature of
| the revolution I and others are predicting and encouraging.
| 
| What will a just revolution, like those anticipated by Jefferson, Franklin,
| and others, look like?
| 
| The British thought the colonial rebels were "playing dirty" by shooting
| from behind trees instead of marching in bright uniforms with drums and
| bugles to herald their way.
| 
| Modern armies think freedom fighters are "terrorist scum" for not fighting
| honestly and fairly in their own M-1 Abrams tanks and aircraft carriers.
| 
| So, too, will revolutionaries be seen as fighting "unfairly" and being
| unethical sneaks, child killers, and terrorists.
| 
| (As if children and other innocents did not die in various incidents in
| past wars, on all sides.)
| 
| When Jefferson predicted that a revolution was needed every 20 years or so,
| he surely was not saying that throwing one party out of leadership and
| putting the other party in was an example of such a revolution, or that
| "campaign reform" is such an example. Nor was he saying that the only valid
| revolution would be when a buch of citizens or states got together their
| own army and marched on Washington.
| 
| (Actually, raising such an army is in violation of numerous laws about
| heavy weaons, licenses to carry weapons, etc. No doubt illegal. Ironically.)
| 
| No, the revolution, when it comes, will likely be different from anything
| quite like we've seen to date.


-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume