Coup or Revolution? Does it Matter? And Do You Really Want a Revolution Anyway?

America, its way of life and its governmental structure, is clearly under attack.  This post addresses three questions about that attack:  1. Is it a coup or a revolution? 2. Does It matter? And 3. Do the warriors even understand what they are doing?

Anyone who doesn’t see that America as we know it is under attack from within has been asleep for at least 4 and probably more than 12 years.  That attack has been called a witch hunt and a coup.  I would add another possible label: a revolution. 

A coup or coup d’etat (literally blow to state) is usually defined to include both suddenness and violence in the overthrow of an existing government.  One of the chief prerequisites for a coup is that those waging the coup have control of a major part of the peacekeeping and military elements of the government.  

A coup generally does not alter the country’s fundamental social or economic policies; rather, its purpose is to either remove a leader by force or to maintain a current leader or his successor by force.  It is a change in power from the top that merely results in the abrupt replacement of leading government personnel.

A revolution, in contrast, is a challenge to the established political order, government, and its related associations and structures.   It is generally radical and profound, establishing a new order that is radically different from the preceding one.  For example, both the French and Russian revolutions changed both the system of government as well as the economic and social structures and the cultural values of those societies.

Historian Clarence Crane Brinton in 1938 wrote the Anatomy of Revolution, likening a revolution’s dynamics to the progress of a fever.  He described a pre-revolutionary society as having both social and political tensions caused by a breakdown of the values of the society.  He saw that as leading to a fracture of political authority.  As the existing political order loses its grasp on authority, diverse forces of opposition band together to topple the existing authority. 

Socialist doctrine believes that social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes to society.  That is, socialism believes that revolution is a necessary precondition for the transition form capitalism to socialism.  Socialism does not believe that revolution is necessarily violent; rather, it is seen as a seizure of political power by mass movements. 

I would argue that while the political battles that we see going on may have started out as a coup attempt by Democrats and Never-Trumpers simply to remove President Trump from office and replace him (and the will of the people) with someone of their own choosing, the battle they are waging is becoming, if it has not already become, more in the nature of a revolution.  That is, there is a war being waged against our fundamental system of government with the hope of replacing our society with a radically different one.

We now see not just the attempts to remove the President from office.  We see attacks on our very system of government.  Our Constitution is no longer valued by those waging this war.  The First Amendment, and especially free speech, is easily dismissed when ideas expressed are not those of the revolutionaries.  The second amendment is being similarly dismissed.  Constitutional protections such as freedom from unreasonable searches, privacy rights, the belief in innocence until proven guilty are all ignored when it serves the revolutionaries’ purposes.  Hence, we have significant violations of such things as protections against wiretapping or other surveillance of U. S. Citizens; we have political assassinations being staged based on testimonies unsupported by any real facts (not unlike the encouragement of the Soviet regime of neighbors to inform on neighbors without any factual investigation or regard for truth). 

We have the continuing attempts to overturn the results of an election, not by vote but by investigation upon investigation, the current one being conducted in secret by Adam Schiff and his cronies with hearings to which he bars Republican members of his committee and, other than telling us what he chooses and claims is true, he keeps all evidence secret from any and all who are not on his team; he denies the people’s right to know. 

We have attacks on our Supreme Court:  threats that if it does not render decisions acceptable to the revolutionaries that they will “pack the court” – that is, add enough justices of their own persuasion that any and all contrary voices will be silenced.

Silencing the opposition, ignoring the facts, making up the narrative as they choose.  These are key tactics of the revolutionaries.  Their intolerance has no exceptions.  While America has always demanded tolerance while allowing individual and diverse views, the revolutionaries would deny the holding of any view, value, or belief contrary to that which they approve.  And, their attacks on many traditional values, the mere right to hold such values, is increasing every day.

Yes, this is a revolution, not just a coup.  It’s intent, whether there at the beginning or not, is now to fully replace our government and our culture with something new.

Brinton, in his study of revolutions, also observed the different stages of a major revolution.  After the government is overthrown, there is usually a period of optimistic idealism; however, this phase does not last long.   A split usually develops between moderates and radicals which ends in the defeat of the moderates, the rise of extremists, and the concentration of all power in their hands. For one faction to prevail and maintain its authority, the use of force is almost inevitable. The goals of the revolution fade, as a totalitarian regime takes command.   Again, one can see this pattern played out historically in both the French and Russian revolutions.

Hence, it is significant that this initial anti-Trump movement has now morphed into an all-out revolution.  It would have been bad enough to witness a coup in which unhappy Democrats wrested the presidency from the people and took it for their own.  But, if that had been all they accomplished or sought to accomplish, the country could have been put right again at the next election.  With a revolution on the other hand, things cannot and will not be rectified so easily or so quickly.  The Russian revolution began in 1917, the resulting Soviet Union did not fall until 1991, and Russia still feels its effects today.

America can survive a coup; it cannot survive a revolution.

The final question posed at the start of this essay is whether these revolutionaries even understand what they are doing.  That is, did the warriors enter this revolution blinded by a hatred of Donald Trump and now are being pulled along by those who do truly seek the demise of America as we know it to fight the revolution?  Do these warriors even realize what they are fighting for? 

I come back to the description of a revolution as the progression of a fever.   When President Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, many people were angry; this anger was ginned up into a hatred.  That hatred is the fever which continues to progress; its flames are fanned by those who do truly hate America as we know it and would happily see it destroyed.  This fever, this illness, was simmering before 2016 as identity politics and challenges to those holding traditional values were being used by astute politicians to begin tearing the country apart into warring factions.  Those factions and their fever are now uniting into a dangerously combustible whole, encouraged to band together to topple the existing form of government and the very fundamentals of our society.

America is under attack.  What was an angry outburst against election results has moved from a childish outburst to a coup and now a revolution - a full out challenge to the established political order, government, culture, and their related associations and structures.   This matters.  This is a challenge to every American.  And every American who is involved in this revolution needs to be very clear on what they are doing while those of us not involved need to do everything we can to educate those warriors and defend our country from their attack.

So, you say you want a revolution?  Perhaps we should end by reconsidering the lyrics of the 1968 Beetles song “Revolution”:

You say you want a revolution

Well, you know

We all want to change the world

You tell me that it's evolution

Well, you know

We all want to change the world

But when you talk about destruction

Don't you know that you can count me out

Don't you know it's gonna be

All right, all right, all right

You say you got a real solution

Well, you know

We'd all love to see the plan

You ask me for a contribution

Well, you know

We're doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate

All I can tell is brother you have to wait

Don't you know it's gonna be

All right, all right, all right

You say you'll change the constitution

Well, you know

We all want to change your head

You tell me it's the institution

Well, you know

You better free your mind instead

But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao

You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow

Don't you know it's gonna be

All right, all right, all right

All right, all right, all right

All right, all right, all right

All right, all right

Columbus Day; Indigenous Peoples Day

Today I am celebrating Columbus Day.  It is a Federal holiday.  It celebrates the courageous feat of a daring and persistent explorer Christopher Columbus who, with his 3 small ships the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa Maria, discovered or rediscovered the land we now call America.  He found this place that the people of Europe did not know existed.

His discovery was enormous and something to be lauded in the same way that we laud the manned moon landing.  The consequences of this discovery were not all positive, and those people who were living here already, their ancestors having discovered it much earlier, suffered many negative consequences as the result of European exploration that one can argue would not have occurred but for Columbus’s journey.

But that does not diminish Columbus’s feat itself.  And, I celebrate his courage and ability to seek beyond what is known and to fearlessly go where he believed no one had previously been.  

Most every action has both foreseen and unforeseen consequences.  I do not believe that many of the negative consequences experienced by Native Americans were  foreseen or intended by Columbus.  For example, how would he have known that people living in this country would contract smallpox?  How is he responsible for the actions of Spaniards 100 or more years after his journey?

My state, like some others, has replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.  The intent is to celebrate those peoples that we refer to as Native Americans who believe that Columbus’s journey resulted in a variety of negative consequences for them.  I have no problem with the concept behind this.  I believe that Native Americans can and should express their perceptions of and feelings about Columbus and his consequences and should educate those of us who are not Native American about those views.

But, why do we have to blot out Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day?  Why not have both?  We can celebrate and learn about the feat of a great explorer on one day, and on another day we can celebrate and learn about the people who were living here before Christopher Columbus.  Both are a part of our country’s history.  And history is important not only as a way to understand the past, but to understand why the past unveiled itself as it did and what effects that past still has on us in the present.  And history can also help us to make more thoughtful and better decisions in the future.

Moreover, I think that the use of the word Indigenous is erroneous.  In my state we have several Pueblo Peoples as well as other Indian Reservations, all inhabited by people whose ancestors were in this country before Columbus, but who, it is believed, originally came to this country from elsewhere – mostly from Asia across the land bridge that once existed during the Ice Age. 

Indigenous means something that occurs naturally in a given place or environment.  Merriam Webster clarifies the difference between the terms NATIVE, INDIGENOUS, ENDEMIC, ABORIGINAL, all of which refer in one way to something or someone belonging to a locality. NATIVE implies birth or origin in a place or region and may suggest compatibility with it.  INDIGENOUS applies to that which is not only native but which, as far as can be determined, has never been introduced or brought from elsewhere.  ENDEMIC implies being peculiar to a region.  ABORIGINAL implies having no known others preceding in occupancy of a particular region.   

I would argue that the Native Americans whom the Indigenous Peoples Day is intended to honor, are not indigenous since they originally migrated to this country from elsewhere.  The better term would be Native or Aboriginal.  I think that this misnomer does not cloud the current understanding of the purpose of the day.  But, it does blot out another key fact of history – the fact that while the Native Americans were likely the first to settle in this country, they are not indigenous but simply arrived well before any others.

Many years ago, when I was in elementary school, I learned about Columbus and his great voyage of discovery.  I learned about the negative impact that his discovery had on many native peoples.  I learned about the Asian origins of our Native American populations.  I learned about the positive and the negative consequences of European settlement of this country.  But, this fuller version of history is no longer acceptable.  Instead we seem to want good guys and bad guys and no grey area in between.  We blot out those whom we have determined to be “bad” (in this case Columbus, making him the representative for every perceived evil of European exploration and conquest in this country).  We ignore facts that don’t fully fit our purposes or our narrative (for example,  that Native Americans are ultimately not indigenous, having migrated here from Asia centuries ago). 

History, like life, is complicated.  We can celebrate Columbus, his exploratory feat and the fact that without his introduction of this part of the world we likely would not have the United States of America, probably the greatest country ever and a shining beacon of democracy for the rest of the world.  And, we can understand that other consequences of Columbus's journey brought great pain to those people already living here; we can listen to their stories and try to understand their feelings and why they may not want to rejoice in Columbus and his “discovery.” 

But, that is the beauty of America.  We allow and are tolerant of many viewpoints.  We can have Columbus Day and we are free to celebrate or not.  We can also have Indigenous Peoples Day as a time to celebrate and understand those who lived here first.  We can have both.  America does not blot out one view, one piece of history, in favor of another.  It accepts all.  And we should too.  So, while I am not opposed to Indigenous Peoples Day, I am opposed to it replacing Columbus Day.  Both Columbus and our indigenous or native peoples are a part of our history to be both celebrated and understood.  Our feelings or judgments about one should not and cannot eradicate the other.

So, happy Columbus Day and happy Indigenous Peoples Day.  May you celebrate one or both or neither as you choose, but may you learn about the people and the history of both.

We’ve Seen This Scam Before – Don’t Be Fooled – It’s Just A Weapon in The Ongoing Coup Attempt

Today we learned that Adam Schiff had advance knowledge of the whistle blower’s potential allegations.

Haven’t we seen this story before? 

You will recall that Diane Feinstein and other Democrats had advance knowledge of Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Justice Kavanaugh and she, along with other Democrats, helped her to prepare her presentation, find lawyers, etc.

Now we learn that Adam Schiff, the Democrat who will be in charge of the impeachment investigation based on the complaint of a whistleblower, had advance contact with and knowledge of the whistleblower’s possible allegations.  We can reasonably assume that Schiff gave the same sort of “assistance” to the whistleblower that the Democrats gave to Ford.

These two cases are frighteningly similar.  A few days ago the mainstream media was upset that President Trump re-tweeted the comment that impeachment would result in a coup.  At that time I noted that we were already in the middle of a bloodless coup. That fact, if it wasn’t clear then, just gets clearer every day.

Coup, short for coup d’etat, literally means stroke (death) of state.  It has come to refer to the overthrow of an existing government, an illegal and unconstitutional seizure of power.  While coups are usually quite violent, they can be carried out in other ways.  And it is a coup that the Democrats are pursuing.

Let’s just look at their impeachment push.  They have a complaint from a whistleblower that we now know they consulted with before the whistleblower actually came forward with any complaint.  They are basing their impeachment push on the fact that the President had a phone call with the leader of another foreign country, the Ukraine, in which he asked that leader to investigate both that country’s involvement in any interference in the 2016 election and the known fact that the son of the former vice president received certain favors from Ukraine while his father was in office and made some questionable demands upon Ukraine and its leaders.  The Ukrainian President has said that he was not coerced or compelled to do anything by President Trump.  There is no evidence of any demand or quid pro quo in the transcript of their phone conversation.  The whistleblower says that second hand sources told him there was some sort of demand or quid pro quo.  The evidence simply does not support the whistleblower’s claims.

That’s it.  Not unlike the claims that Ms. Ford made against Justice Kavanaugh.  After meeting with Democrats she came forward with allegations that initially sounded damning.  But once the evidence was revealed – evidence that the Democrats did not expect to be presented – her story fell apart.

And, here we have the allegations of a whistleblower that initially may sound damning, but then, the President released the transcript of the actual call – an act that the Democrats surely did not expect – and the whistleblower’s complaint does not match the facts.

But facts don’t matter when you are waging a coup.  The goal is not to find truth or to stand for and protect our country.  The goal is to destroy this country or at least its form of government.  That is perhaps why Rep. Schiff felt empowered to read into the record in a serious committee hearing, a “transcript” of the phone call that included statements by Trump that were not there and which Schiff knowingly made up.

Everything that the Democrats have done since the election results of 2016 has been an attack on our form of government.  First and foremost, they have sought and continue to seek to overturn the will of the people.  That alone is an attack on our form of government - it is the people who vote for and choose our president and their voice and their vote should be protected, even when you do not like the result.

Beyond their attack on the people, the Democrats are attacking our government.  The President is under constant attack from his enemies – not a political disagreement about policy, but a full out attack.  Every action he takes is assaulted from every direction possible – filing of innumerable and at times frivolous lawsuits to stop or at least stall legitimate presidential directives; media that rather than objectively report facts serves as simply an opinionated mouthpiece for the President’s enemies; demeaning and attacking the character of the President’s supporters in a continued effort to silence them. 

Beyond the President and his office, the Democrats attack the other departments and personnel of the Executive Branch of government.  They are currently threatening to take action against the State Department and Department of Justice if they investigate questionable and possibly unconstitutional actions of the prior administration or that might implicate Democrats.  That is, they want to silence any possible investigation that might reveal their illegal and coup-directed actions.

The Democrats also fail to respect and support the judicial branch of our government when they threaten to impeach judges and justices whenever they render an opinion that the Democrats do not like and when the Democrats threaten to pack or otherwise change the makeup of the Supreme Court if it does not render decisions that the Democrats find acceptable.

In addition to direct attacks on the President and his supporters (i. e. the people),  the Executive Branch and the Judicial Branch of our government, the Democrats are more than willing to ignore constitutional and legal requirements when it serves their purposes.  Hence they persist in silencing speech, denying due process, ignoring presumptions of innocence, selectively enforcing laws, etc. 

We could go on and on.  But the point is that we have clear evidence that the Democrats are not only attacking President Trump himself but are attacking the office of the President along with the Executive and Judicial branches of our government.  Our form of government requires the three but equal branches along with the concept that the government is of/for/by the people.  The Democrats’ attacks on two of the three branches along with their attempts to overthrow the will of the people are nothing more than an attempt to overthrow an existing system of government and to unconstitutionally seize power – that is, the Democrats’ actions are the very definition of an attempted coup d’etat.

The current impeachment probe is nothing more than a well-staged battle in their attempted coup.  A coup requires support, and the Democrats along with their media spokespeople will use the whistleblower allegations along with the many claims that Democrats will create as growing out of those allegations to try to gain support for their impeachment push which they envision as providing support (perhaps unwitting) for their overthrow of our form of government.

There has been no impeachable offense committed by the President unless an impeachable offense is now defined to mean anything that the opposing party says it is.  Anything.  Just a way to overturn the will of the people and accomplish a coup.

The Democrats have a president whose style many do not like.  The Democrats use his style to fault the many accomplishments that it has achieved.  And they will try to convince the American people that an unlikable style is somehow an impeachable offense that will allow them to overturn the will of the people.  Yes, they are using the people to destroy the voices of those very same people.

At this point it doesn’t matter if you like President Trump or not.  It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with his policies.  What matters is that there is a coup in process and if the people do not stand up for the Office of the President of the United States of America, if they do not stand up for our Constitutional form of government, if they do not stand up for our Constitution itself and our Laws and the rights of the People, then they will have no right to complain when the will of the people is no longer a voice in our government.   Because if the Democrats succeed they will have destroyed our form of government which gives voice to and listens to the people; they will have stolen our voices and our power and instead will speak and make our decisions for us. 

If the Democrats succeed in their coup attempt, they will have replaced our form of government with one in which a select few who think they know better than we the people will have overpowered, usurped, and stolen the will of the people.  That is, we will be at the mercy of people like Adam Schiff and other Democrats who are willing to lie, cheat, and destroy lives in order to obtain and maintain ultimate power over all of us.  That sounds too much to me like a dictatorship, and not the Democratic Republic that gives us a voice and the power and the right to make our own decisions and have our own individual voices.  And, for that reason if for no other, every American should stand against the ongoing coup attempt and stand for our American Democratic Republic.