The Three False Hopes That Could Kill Millions... and the One Thing That Could End the Nightmare
October 16, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
In just this past week we have witnessed criminally irresponsible threats of nuclear war... eugenic and racist attacks on the health care of millions of poorer Americans and patriarchal attacks on the right to birth control... threats against the major media outlets and complaints that the press “writes what it wants”... the denigration and demonization of a whole people trapped in a terrible disaster... a theocratic speech to an assemblage of Christian fascists... and more. No doubt by the time you read this, still more and perhaps worse will have been done. But even—or especially—trapped in a nightmare, the normalization nevertheless creeps in, abetted by three false hopes.
False Hope One: The generals will save the planet from nuclear holocaust. Really? You do not become a top U.S. general without the ability to follow orders and kill lots of people in patently unjust wars like the ones waged against Iraq or Vietnam. Nor is there any law that enables anyone to override the “commander in chief” when they make a decision to use nuclear weapons. Beyond which—as the Republican senator Corker has pointed out—Trump could, through his actions, set the country on a course in which nuclear war erupts either by accident or because none of the principals feels they can back out.
False Hope Two: Mueller will save the rule of law and in doing so set in motion getting rid of Trump. This does not reckon with the fact that not only is Trump doing irreparable damage now to people and the planet, but that the regime is moving on the rule of law itself and by the time Mueller gets around to prosecuting anyone for anything, it may well be game over on that and other fronts.
False Hope Three: We can elect Democrats and they will impeach Trump. Let’s just start by noting that as of today there is a grand total of TWO Democrats who are publicly entertaining the idea of impeaching Trump. Yet even were the Democrats inclined to impeach and then follow all the way through to remove Trump (which would still leave Pence and the rest of the ghouls in office), the setup of the electoral districts in the U.S., along with the denial of voting rights to large numbers of those likely to vote against Trump, makes it very unlikely that the Democrats will even win majorities in the House and Senate in 2018. And again—that is a YEAR away, and it is at the least very possible that, even if millions are not incinerated in a nuclear holocaust, the fascist regime will have consolidated and people will be in a qualitatively worse and more difficult spot from which to fight.
In short, neither the generals nor Mueller nor the Democratic Party will save humanity. The only ones who can save us are... US. Through massive sustained nonviolent action, the regime can be driven from office. Millions in the street, refusing to leave, could create enough of a political crisis to compel every power center in society (including some of the above) to act in response to that movement and to forge a consensus to remove and replace the regime, and to find a way to make that happen.
This is not a dream. Things like this have happened in the recent past, including in Korea. It can happen here and now... if we ALL act.
Consider the alternative—the real, and nightmarish, alternative.
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