Popular rebellion, state response and our failure to date: a debate

[TheCurmudgeon]

In summary, for an effective response to a 'popular rebellion' in the early stages, we should NOT focus on the rebellion, but on the organization that SUSTAINS it.

I respectfully disagree. I think, since the end of WWII we have entered into an era where popular rebellions can be (or have been) sustained by ideas, not organizations. Ideas have no structure. The right idea at the right time is like a match in a field of dry grass, it rapidly can turn into a wildfire if not suppressed early. "An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come" Victor Hugo. In my mind the change has occurred for three reasons. First, communications is so much faster now than it had been in the past. Second, the mechanisms of state repression so popular prior to WWII are no longer viable in the international community. The third has to do with why the popular uprising happens, that is an entirely different theory.


I also think that it is human nature to want to put a face with a name (or in this case, a revolution). Even with faceless ones, we tend to put an person, in an iconic image, at the center of the storm. A man standing in front of a tank. Otherwise it is just too confusing, to hard to gauge who to trust. Plus, since so much of modern politics is business, too hard to figure out who is going to sell me the oil.

I don't know the answer. There was a time when a foreign power would send in military envoys to determine the likelihood of a revolution's success. Perhaps that is an idea whose time has come again.