What Can We Do?

Six Things that Probably Won’t Work and Four Things that Might

I have been considering the possible outcomes that can be imagined at this juncture.

We can accept subjugation. If we all just play along most of us may survive. But that is not acceptable to most of us, is it?

Here is a list of things that likely will not work:

• We can rely on the traditional guardrails, which have not yet kicked in. Congress is not going to stop this. The Democrats are as useful as a turtle on its back. The Republicans are in alignment or too cowed. I don’t say this out of disrespect for the Democratic Party, but let’s face it— they can’t do much to help. What they CAN do is speak up firmly and loudly. They already have targets on their backs. And they are the LEADERS. They signed up for this. They can put up a united front, voting no on every piece of business the GOP puts before them, never breaking rank. And they can condemn every vile act committed by the regime, publicly and loudly.

• As for the courts, the power struggle is in motion right now. There is one contempt order on the books and one in the works, both over the El Salvador atrocities. Spoiler alert— the regime will ignore all of it and the courts have no enforcement mechanism.

• We can protest, but it won't affect a regime that no longer needs public approval. And could easily become far too dangerous. How do we keep them from shooting us or sending in ICE to scoop us up en masse?

• The military could step in but that is a crap shoot.

• There could be a civil war, but if so, at this point we would lose. They have 80% of the weapons, 10 times the trained personnel, and ALL the nukes. A frontal assault would be suicidal.

• The rest of the world could come to our aid but that too has logistical issues, to wit- Russia would join with the now fully authoritarian United States and between them it is unclear whether the entire free world could beat them. And the two governments together have almost all the world’s nukes.

So, none of these possibilities seem promising, even the ones that don’t rely on others to do something out of our control.

Even so, I have not given up. No evil lasts forever. The oppressed have overcome obstacles over and over again. There are more of us than there will ever be of them. I do believe that in time the arc does bend towards justice, and freedom.

So here is the other list. Things that might work. Nothing is ever certain, but each of these relies on our own actions and minimizes being made a target. No signing things. No being out on the streets in large numbers.

But NOT doing certain things could be both effective and safer. Hit the MONEY with a general strike on a MASSIVE scale and sustained boycotts of almost everything.

There are reasons why a strike has not happened yet. Lack of organization, yes, but also, funding. Most workers can't afford to strike. The answer would be sponsorship by the well-off. Adopt a Striker and make sure they still eat and have a home.

For massive sustained boycotts to work WE have to confront our inner consumer and be willing to reframe our needs. It would have to cover most companies and go on for a long time.

Which brings me to method three--self-suffiency. If we got off the teat en masse the control would diminish. Tim Leary said to turn on, tune in, and drop out. The first to are nice, but the third could end capitalism as we know it.

And, finally, there is a role for those disrupter groups that stage hits on various parts of the establishment edifice and then disappear so fast they don't get caught. Groups like anonymous have a specialized role to play.

If we could pull off these four things, I think we might step their asses back a few paces. Maybe all the way back--so we can elect a new slate that want to create a real democracy.