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Bradenton, FL, USA - In 1998 I wrote an essay about how we needed a new "ism" to replace Communism as a boogeyman to frighten the rich people who control our government and major corporations into treating the rest of us decently. You can read that essay here. Sadly, I think I now know what is going to replace Communism as the threat that keeps our country's wealthiest 5% from becoming even richer by making life harder for everyone else. It will not be an "ism" with a charismatic leader. It will be series of individual acts of violence against wealthy corporate leaders and their political cronies, carried out by people who feel they have nothing to lose.
Consider the position of a 60-year-old American factory worker who, 10 years ago, had a decent house, comprehensive health insurance, and a decent pensions plan he expected to kick in when he turned 65. Let's lay that worker off and close the factory where he worked. Let his health insurance run out. Let him get cancer or another financially ruinous disease. Let him lose his house. Have his wife leave him as he descends into hopelessness, and possibly alcoholism or drug use.
None of this is unrealistic. Thousands of American men endure similar scenarios every year. They are sick, broke, and bitter. They have nothing to live for. And a lot of them own guns and know how to use them.
Years ago, when I was in the Army, I read several studie
s by military officers who said tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons were a bad idea. They weren't concerned about the environment, but about how a nuclear blast in the middle of an enemy troop concentration would leave many of the enemy's soldiers alive but contaminated. They would still be able to fight, but they would know they only had a few days to live before radiation sickness killed them. They would be dead men walking -- and heavily-armed, very angry dead men at that. They would become suicide soldiers, and no military commander who values his people's lives wants them to go up against soldiers who court death.
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Take a young Saudi or Iraqi or Palestinian, get him to believe he has no hope of living decently because the Israelis, Americans, Shi'ites or some other group has wronged his family or
religion, and you get a suicide bomber.
Only a very few young Muslims become suicide bombers, but it doesn't take many to make life miserable for their enemies.
I doubt that many dispossessed American workers will decide that assassinating corporate or political chieftains is the best way to cure our country's social problems. But, just as in Iraq and other Mideast countries, it only takes a few to make life miserable for everyone else.
It doesn't take an organization -- or even much planning -- to assassinate an executive, especially if the assassin isn't picky about which executive he kills. He can find the headquarters of almost any major corporation he feels has done him wrong on the Internet, then shoot anyone prosperous-looking who goes in or out of the main door or main parking lot gate. If corporate headquarters are too well-guarded for this kind of action, our theoretical assassin can start cruising
neighborhoods where executives and other high-enders live and find his victims there. A fast look through Realtor.com will show plenty of neighborhoods where homes cost so much that only wealthy people can afford them.
An assassin with more than basic Internet research skills ought to be able to find specific politicians' and executives' addresses and photographs, then do a little elementary reconnaissance to learn what car they drive and where they like to go. After that, the rest of the job requires nothing but rudimentary concealment and shooting skills, plus (if desired) an escape plan.
This is not the same as a wild-eyed mob setting fires and throwing rocks at police. Riots almost always destroy the neighborhoods where the rioters live, and do not harm their perceived oppressors at all.
Politicians who vote to cut social programs while cutting taxes on unearned wealth see riots as reasons those nasty poor people don't deserve government help, not as a reason to change their ways. On the other hand, if a few of our country's more noxious poor-hating Congressmen died because of policy choices they made, it might make their colleagues a little more hesitant to enact blatantly unjust legislation -- even though those colleagues will never admit they changed their minds out of fear, any more than they currently admit that many (if not most) of their decisions are bought by lobbyists, business groups, and wealthy individuals. Instead, you would see and hear lots of posturing about how a few bad guys can't be allowed to dictate our country's future; we must all pull together to hunt down and eliminate the perpetrators of this senseless violence; we must stand firm and stay the course; blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But despite the brave talk (and more security guards protecting politicians and executives whose actions have ruined lives), you would see a shift in rich people's behavior, especially if an assassin who got caught explained why he did what he did in a calm, rational-sounding manner. That would get huge media play. So would the assassin's trial. Suddenly a man who was
otherwise doomed to die broke and unknown would become famous -- and would be held up by at least a few fringies as a martyr and hero.
In due course, others assassins would follow in his footsteps. Politicians who built their reputations by advocating businesses' freedoms to tromp workers and consumers -- and by advocating the right to keep and bear arms -- would be so busy backpedaling on their support
for an armed citizenry that they wouldn't have time to pass more anti-poor legislation even if they wanted to.
What really depresses me is that I think there's a good chance "social assassins" would become heroes to many ordinary Americans, who would wear their faces on t-shirts the way so many middle-class Latin American teens wear likenesses of Che Guevara. But I think that at the same time we would see some major, positive changes in the way the U.S. government and large companies were run; there is no better way to get a wealthy, power-lusting person to "do well by doing good" than to threaten him with death or dismemberment, whether the threat comes from an organized revolutionary movement or from a lone gunman lurking in the trees.
Conclusion and Disclaimer
I do not personally advocate violent revolution or killing the people who run our government and major corporations. I would rather see our "leaders" realize that running everything for the benefit of the top 5% of the population while making life less secure and less fulfilling for the bottom 50% is a condition that inevitably leads to social breakdown. Many countries -- France, Russia, China, and Cuba are leading examples -- have had bloody revolutions brought on by the arrogance of their ruling classes. I do not want that sort of thing to happen here, but I suspect that it will unless we start electing representatives who take the constitutional mandate to promote the general welfare and their own Oaths of Office seriously.
ROBIN MILLER is an author, editor and journalist. He is an alumnus of The World's Magazine who has contributed frequently over the years. He is also a Managing Editor with Slashdot.org and NewsForge.com.
WEB SITE PICK OF THE WEEK: Robert Scheer's new Web publication TruthDig just launched this past week. We recommend you check it when you're not here.
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