On 2010-09-07, at 10:31 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> Marv: "The most chilling aspect of Dave Eggers’s heartbreaking book,
> Zeitoun, is that the federal government’s fastest and most efficient
> response to Hurricane Katrina was the creation of a Guantánamo-like prison
> facility (in days!) in which 1,200 American citizens were summarily detained
> and denied any of their constitutional rights for months, a suspension of
> habeas corpus that reads like something out of a Kafka novel."
>
> [WS:] Enough said. Does anyone still believe that a popular rebellion in
> the US - if it took place by some odd chance - has any chance of success?
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By you quite rightly noted this morning that revolutions don't succeed by some "odd chance". They're the result of a "crisis of legitimacy" of the ruling regime, when efforts to repress a popular rising effectively contribute to the further radicalization of the masses. You cited the shooting of demonstrators in Tsarist Russia, British-ruled India, and Soviet-dominated Poland as notable examples where the overwhelming firepower of the state redounded to its detriment. I'd expect if the US were to pass through a crisis of this magnitude, you'd see similar processes at work, notwithstanding the advances in repressive techniques and technology. The decisive moments of a successful insurrection would see police and military units refusing to fire on unarmed civilians and joining the revolution arms in hand (attack helicopters and drone aircraft included) while the gates were being opened to political prisoners.
This all seems quite fantastic today, but would not be if US capitalism and liberal democracy were to be delegitimated in the way you describe. At the present time, the most we can say is that discontent with the leadership of each of the two major parties is presenting itself, but there is as yet no indication of any serious and coherent challenge to the parties themselves and, beyond that, to capitalism and the present political system.