On Demonstrations And What's To Be Done

I found this on comment on a Bob Higgs post...

[A] simple demonstration in Washington DC is ineffective. The MSM downplay it, and everyone else ignores it.

It also seems that voting and writing to representatives are also ineffective. They are no longer listening, and in most districts have safe seats, so they are not very afraid of being thrown out of office. A Congressional incumbent has a very good chance of remaining in office as long as he or she wishes.

So, what do we do? I have three answers, an easy one, a much harder one, and a much, much harder one.

1) Easy: Withdraw our consent. Stop voting. Stop helping them pretend that they represent us. Volunteer nothing, just do what is absolutely required. Get as many people as possible to stop participating in the political system. Then we wait for the system to collapse due to lack of support. The problem is that the system may not collapse for a long time. Even if effective, this approach could take decades.

2) Much harder: Apply the program of Gandhi, “Satyagraha” or “Holding on to truth”, that gained freedom for India from the British Empire. We would take dissent to the level of breaking the law. This takes enormous courage and dedication as we have to be willing to be put in jail not once, but many times. We have to be willing to suffer injury. And, very important, we _must_ have truth on our side. If so, then, in the words of Gandhi, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Many may say that we are not yet at the point of the people of India under the British Raj. But, it seems we are not far off. They were not citizens, and could not vote, and their protests were ignored.

So, if our votes are ineffective, and our protests are ignored, are we much farther behind? Does being a US citizen mean much of anything any more?

3) Much, much, harder: Secede. The program under 2) can be applied with a small group of people, as long as they have popular support. Secession requires a large organization, and is fraught will difficulties. We have to find or create a suitable political subdivision, and we have to get most of the people within it to adopt our program to create a separate nation-state. Then, we have to try to execute a separation in the face of certain resistance up to the level of civil war. This has been done, of course, in our own “Revolution” 200+ years ago, and more recently in other parts of the world, typically in places were there is a ethnic, linguistic and/or historic basis for a new nation-state. In my view, the situation here is not yet to the point that most people would consider this very serious undertaking justified, even though the taxes and regulations and other invasions of liberty we face today are increasingly heavier that those our ancestors rebelled against in the 1770’s.

So there you are, take your pick, or suggest something else.

Things I Found September 12, 2008

September 12: Today In History.

Foreign Affairs
U.S. Sanctions Ratchet Up Pressure on Venezuela: ELORZA, Venezuela -- The U.S. government, ratcheting up a diplomatic crisis with one of its leading suppliers of crude oil, placed sanctions on several high-ranking Venezuelan officials Friday, accusing them of aiding the drug trafficking of Colombia's main guerrilla army.

US Reported to Kill 12 in Pakistan: Islamabad, Pakistan - As the American campaign against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal areas seemed to intensify on Friday, two missiles fired from remotely piloted American aircraft killed 12 people on Friday in an attack on a village compound in North Waziristan, according to a local journalist and television reports.

Weather
Hurricane Ike could be "potential catastrophe": GALVESTON, Texas (Reuters) - Massive Hurricane Ike bore down on the Texas coast on Friday with a wall of water that threatened a potential catastrophe for the United States.

Economy
Credit Crisis Strains: A year into a credit crisis that started with troubled mortgages to sketchy borrowers, the financial system is reeling once again, casting a pall over a widening array of financial institutions just days after history-making efforts by policy makers to contain the problem.

Ticking Time Bomb Explodes, Public Shocked: The failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, setting in motion the biggest government bailout/takeover in U.S. history, brings a grim sense of fulfillment to competent economists. After all, what did people expect, that water would flow uphill forever?

New York Fed Holds Emergency Meeting On Lehman's Future: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York held an emergency meeting Friday night with top Wall Street executives to discuss the future of venerable firm Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the parlous state of U.S. financial markets.

Science
Near-Death Experiences: What Really Happens?: Many reports of near-death experiences sound the same: a welcoming white light and a replay of memories. But now scientists aim to study what really happens to the brain and consciousness when someone is on the verge of dying.

Commentary
Secession and Slavery: An interesting commentary, “Lincoln, Secession, and Slavery” by Tibor Machan, published by the Cato Institute on June 1, 2002, was recently brought to my attention. I should say at the outset that I have long been a fan of Machan, and have the utmost respect for his positions. I just think he got it way wrong here.

Our Trillion-Dollar War: No, it’s not the War in Iraq—it’s the War on Poverty. Incredible as it may seem, Americans transfer more than a trillion dollars each year to low-income families through a bewildering variety of programs, all in the name of fighting poverty and inequality. That’s about seven times the cost of the Iraq war.


More to come...

Things I Found September 11, 2008

September 11: Today In History.

News
Russian bombers will return in days from Venezuela: Two Russian long-range bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons will return to base from Venezuela in four days, the Air Force was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying on Thursday.

US expels Bolivian ambassador: The US has ordered the expulsion of the Bolivian ambassador in an escalating diplomatic row after Washington's envoy to Bolivia was expelled by Evo Morales, the president.

Venezuela expels US ambassador: Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has ordered the US ambassador to leave the country amid a series of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions between Bolivia and the US.

Weather
Hurricane Ike takes aim at Texas coast, Houston: GALVESTON, Texas (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of people fled coastal areas in the path of Hurricane Ike on Thursday as the storm gathered strength on a collision course with the Texas Gulf Coast, threatening to swamp populous areas around Houston under a massive wave of water.

Economy
Small Fannie, Freddie Holders Take Issue With Washington: Adam Freid, a general contractor in Thousand Oaks, Calif., says he was through day-trading stocks and instead looking for a promising long-term investment when he read some of Henry Paulson's recent comments about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Lehman in sale talks as survival questioned-sources: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc was forced into talks about a possible sale after the Wall Street investment bank's shares plunged more than 40 percent on Thursday, raising questions about its survival.


Commentary
The American secessionist streak: In a recent poll, one in five agreed that states have the right to peacefully secede from the Union.

Stop the Bailout: It was the singular achievement of Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression to have demonstrated that the Great Depression was a crisis manufactured and prolonged by the attempts to stop an inevitable downturn. The policy response – creating more money, propping up prices, ginning up employment, and a host of other devices – took a stock-market price collapse and a banking liquidation and spread the mess throughout every sector of the economy. What might have lasted a year to 18 months instead lasted 16 years.

More to come...