Here is a thought:
First the preamble: Citizens United opens the door to a corporatist state, where the government looks out for the interest of corporations because the corporations have the money to drown out all dissenting voices.[1]
Now the question: How long do you expect that the relatively unrestricted right to purchase and possess firearms will last in a corporatist state?
The Second Amendment is, at its core, not there so people can carry weapons for personal protection or go target shooting or hunting. Its basic purpose is to give the American people a last-ditch option to stop tyranny. It is almost novel in the history of the world when you consider it that way: A government has freely granted its people the right to possess the means to overthrow it.
Joseph Stalin purportedly said: "The only real power comes out of a long rifle." Mao Ze Dong said: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." The Founding Fathers would have, in my opinion, agreed with both sentiments.
Once the corporate interests have managed to buy enough legislators to dominate the political process, which, admittedly, they are pretty much close to doing anyway,[2] how long do you expect that it will be before the corporations start a drumbeat of advertising and news stories about the evils of firearms ownership? They will demonize the possession of firearms, much like the Brits have done for decades. Then there will be laws passed, incrementally, to make it harder and harder to buy weapons and ammunition. The concealed carry laws will be rolled back.
Of course the laws will be written in such a way that the wealthy and their security companies will be able to own and carry weapons, much like the Jim Crow firearms regulations were enforced against Black people and in the same way that the rich and powerful in New York City have little problem obtaining carry permits.
But as for the rest of us, we will be shit out of luck. Which will suit the rich and the powerful just fine, as they have never been comfortable with the idea that the people are armed.
[1] If you want a micro-level story of how monied interests buy government policies that both directly impair people and cost government money, the story of the bail bondsmen buying out the Broward County commissioners is worth listening to.
[2]What, you really thought that Max Baucus's fervent opposition to a public option for health insurance didn't have anything to do with the six million dollars in campaign donations that he got from health insurance companies?
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Saturday, January 23, 2010
5 comments:
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Here's what I can't figure out: If the government ever did try to oppress me, whom would I shoot?
ReplyDeleteIf you were a dictator who felt threatened by me, you'd cut off my phone and internet, freeze my bank accounts, flag my credit cards, and just wait me out. After a month or so, I'm reduced to subsistence farming. No brown-shirted thug would ever call.
So I'm not sure the 2nd Amendment can protect me from anything, any more. Maybe over-reaching by the local police force, but nothing bigger.
Comrade, how will the corporations eliminate firearms in the face of opposition from corporation that profit from firearms and ancillary products? I believe wholeheartedly that the decision was a disaster, but I doubt you will ever see the unanimity of purpose in corporations, anymore than you can see it in people. One corp. will fight another corp. hammer and tongs if their perceived corp interest is at stake. Just as so many conglomerates spun apart, so will corporate interests until we are back in a feudal state. We will still be fucked but we can choose our corporate sponsor.
ReplyDeleteOur corporate overlords don't care whether we have personal firearms or not. Mao was wrong. Yes, he was correct that power grows out of the barrel of a gun. But he was wrong in that he did not take into account that MONEY IS GUNS -- or, rather, can buy sufficient guns and the men to carry them as to be no difference. And our corporate overlords have more money -- and thus more guns --than the rest of us combined.
ReplyDeletePoint: Our corporate overlords now control the U.S. military and most of the paramilitary police forces of the United States. Small-scale resistance will be ruthlessly quashed with the same techniques currently used in the War on Drugs -- heavily-armed paramilitary teams swooping in on heavily-armed resisters and overcoming them via surprise and concentration of forces. Large-scale resistance will never have a chance to happen, because, as with the UPA in the Ukraine in 1948, any large-scale resistance will be so infiltrated by NKVD agents as to be wrapped up and wiped out long before capable of rising up in outright rebellion. The recent history of indigenous revolutionary movements with no outside support is clear -- it sometimes takes a decade or two, but they are always wiped out.
Yes, guerilla wars can make occupying forces miserable -- and I think we can consider the United States to be occupied territory today, Corporate Occupied Territory to make it blunt -- but there is not a case anywhere in the past 50 years where indigenous guerillas with no source of outside support have been able to defeat an occupier militarily. Even *with* outside support, military victories have been pretty much nil -- their sole goal has been to make occupation so expensive that the occupier goes home. See, for example, Vietnam -- the U.S. won every battle there, but it eventually became so expensive and pointless that the troops were withdrawn and South Vietnam fell. Well, in the case of Corporate Occupied America, the occupiers ARE home. So doing a NVA/VC is not an option. And besides, unless you've suddenly found a source of weapons that can take out tanks and helicopters, we're not even as well armed as Hezbollah was in Lebanon when they made occupation so expensive for Israel that Israel withdrew. But given that our corporate occupiers control every aspect of American life, from what we eat to what we do on the job, even if we did have the weapons, we're still f*cked if it comes down to guns as the answer -- they can just starve out any resistance they can't overpower militarily.
Bottom line: We're f*cked. The only way to overthrow Soviet America is the same way the Soviet Union was overthrown -- which was NOT via guns, in case your memory is unclear.
- Badtux the Apocalyptic Penguin
Joe, rebellion takes more than one person.
ReplyDeleteMontag, the firearms companies are pissants in the overall scheme of corporatism.
BadTux, maybe so. But I suspect that they will be concerned enough about it to try and persuade most people to disarm. I gather that the level of outrage has truly frightened a few of them.
Hey, Tux -- wouldn't it be funny if we had to get support for our revolution from the French again?
ReplyDelete