02-09-2017, 10:15 AM
(02-08-2017, 04:55 PM)David Horn Wrote:Theater, effectively, oh yeah. The "Days of Rage" in 1969 was a big, fat flop. Only a few hundred activists showed up to join with the Weathermen rampaging down the streets of Chicago, a demonstration roughly on a par with the WTO demonstration in Seattle in 1999.(02-07-2017, 05:04 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: I would never discount the potential for violence. After all, I'm old enough to remember the "revolutionary" violence of the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers (the latter "more sinned against than sinning," perhaps.) Indeed, in order to refresh my teenage memory and gain a more mature perspective, I watched the recent documentaries about these two militant groups.
As for armed conflict, I'm not hearing the calls for violence, much less the kind of eliminationist rhetoric, that might spark an outright civil war. It takes a militant leader with a "megaphone" to begin an insurrection against the state. I don't see any Mark Rudds and Huey Newtons on the horizon. Do you?
No, I think the violence is all still at the theatric level: break windows, burn cars (perhaps), but no direct attacks on the police. You were a teen; I was an adult activist. I got pulled-in by the FBI, because they were certain I knew the whereabouts of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. It was an enlightening experience. Even then, theater trumped revolution.
I'm not sure what would push the country far enough to try ACW 2.0, but we're not even close at the moment.
A rebellion maybe, but hardly a revolution.