On Revolutionary Patriotism
On Revolutionary Patriotism
Patriotic citizens have the duty to rectify this situation
Patriotic American citizens today have the moral duty to be revolutionary and to seek to forge a non-violent people’s revolution.
Even when non-violent, a revolution does not dodge the issue of power. A revolution involves the quest for the taking of political power by and for an underdog class. Non-violent revolutions have taken power through electoral means in political systems with representative democracy, like in Venezuela and Bolivia; they are examples for us in the USA.
In the case of the United States today, what is needed is a people’s revolution, where all the diverse sectors of the people unite in capturing control of the institutions of the nation, beginning with the executive and legislative branches of the federal government in alliance with parallel movements in many of the states. The methods ought to be legal, except in conditions in which the established order enacts unreasonable laws in order to stop the movement; but the methods and strategies must always be non-violent, for both moral and political reasons.
A people’s revolution is necessary in the United States today because the corporate elite has taken control of the institutions of the nation, governing through politicians who pertain to a political establishment.
It wasn’t always so. To be sure, the American Revolution of 1774 to 1776 was declared and led by an educated elite of large merchants and farmers. But the popular sectors were present almost from the start, and their presence was decisive. Following the triumph of the Revolution, the two visions of the revolution were both present, involved in a competition—but not an ideological civil war—between two visions for the future of America.
We ought to remember today that Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were the principal formulators of the people’s vision. They envisioned a democratic republic of small farmers, merchants, craftsmen, shopkeepers, small bankers, schoolteachers, and pastors that would lead the economic and social development of the nation on an agricultural economic foundation.
The fact that Jefferson and Jackson owned slaves and Jackson led battles against indigenous nations should not obscure the fact that the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian political movement was the core of the forces of democracy before the Civil War, constantly pursuing an agenda in opposition to the interests of the elite.
There was, of course, an immoral and undemocratic dimension of the American story: slavery, the denial of rights to blacks and women, and the conquest of the indigenous nations. But structures were in place to overcome these social evils. The abolitionist movement, for example, was a major force in the first half of the twentieth century, although it would have been far better to resolve the question of slavery gradually and peacefully rather than through a violent confrontation between the inconsistent allies of radical abolitionists and the allies of slaveholders.
The abolitionist movement itself was merely the first step toward the development of a movement for the attainment of full citizenship rights for African Americans, which emerged and attained maturity from 1917 to 1988. At the same time, and intertwined with the black movement, there was a movement for full citizenship rights for women. And structures were in place that allowed for the signing of treaties with indigenous nations, which could and should have been done in a far more respectful form that sought a harmonious balance between the rights of the indigenous nations and the drive of the nation to acquire land for the expansion and development of its economy.
We should be aware that the moral evils of slavery, discrimination, and conquest were not unique to the United States. They were universal patterns, reflecting the concepts and common prejudices of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And most importantly, the nation was on its way toward addressing these evils, seeking fulfillment of the promise of democracy for all that was inherent in the founding of the American Republic. The promise of democracy is the moral foundation of the nation.
During its first century, therefore, the nation was a declared democracy evolving toward its fulfillment. However, the promise of the first American century was eclipsed by one of the most undemocratic forces that the world has known, namely, the concentration of industry. The story is told by Matthew Josephson in The Robber Barons, The Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901, originally published in 1934. He describes how Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan built empires in steel, oil, and banking, using methods that violated the capitalist rules of fair and free competition, enabling them and their class to arrive to control not only the economy but also the political, educational, media, and religious institutions of the nation. They forged a concentration of wealth and power in their own hands, compromising if not negating the American promise of democracy.
An important positive consequence of the concentration of industry, which we should always keep in mind, is that it greatly increased the productivity of the economy. However, this led to a problem, namely overproduction, that is, the production of goods in excess of the capacity of the nation’s market to buy, which became evident during the 1890s. Unfortunately, the wealthy and the powerful did not attend to the problem in a form that was beneficial for the nation or humanity. Their response was to develop a new foreign policy, which they called imperialism, which sought access to new markets outside the USA, enabling U.S. corporations to sell their manufacturing and agricultural goods in other lands.
Imperialism has been the persistent foreign policy of the United States during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Imperialism, however, is a short-term solution, and only a solution for some. Imperialism, as it seeks access to the markets of other countries, is compelled to interfere in their internal affairs, which generates conflicts, because numerous actors in other countries have an objective interest in economic policies different from those that favor U.S. interests. Often such interference in the internal affairs of nations takes the form of military intervention, such that persistent imperialist policies generate a situation of endless wars. Moreover, to justify the endless wars before the people, the elite is compelled to disseminate distortions with respect to the world situation, thereby confusing the people and undermining their right to act in accordance with their true interests.
Thus, nation today is controlled by a corporate elite that guides the political establishment toward policies that systematically deny the sovereignty of other nations; and when the peoples of such nations effectively organize resistance, our nation launches wars against them in various military, economic, financial, and ideological forms. The targeted nations, whose actual crime is the political will to attain sovereignty, are portrayed as the essence of evil, fundamentally distorting their true character.
Inasmuch as those that have political power have demonstrated their incapacity to govern, we the people must take political power from their hands, not as a quest for power in its own sake or to acquire wealth, but for the purpose of using political power to develop more intelligent policies based on cooperation and mutually beneficial trade. The quest of the people for power must be based on the premise that, in the long run, we cannot solve the problems of our national economy by superexploiting and dominating other peoples and nations.
We need to envision an alternative world order based on cooperation. Although largely hidden from view by a distorted public discourse, an alternative world order is already under construction, in a worldwide process led by China and Cuba and driven by the anti-colonial movements of the world. Fortunately for us, and as one would logically expect, the alternative world order under construction is constituent to the fulfilment of the American promise of democracy. Indeed, once upon a time, there were those in Latin America who looked to the American Republic as the first step in their own liberation. But with the undemocratic turn of the nation to uncontested elite control and to continuous imperialism and endless war, they now look to China and Cuba for help and inspiration.
RFK Jr.
A word on the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has spoken of the need for a non-violent revolution. Inasmuch as Mr. Kennedy seeks the nomination of the Democratic Party, it should be noted that the triumphant people’s revolutions of the world during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries formed third parties or alternative political movements, rather than capturing control of an established political party. However, revolutions must always be guided by the particular conditions of the nations, and there are conditions that favor the success of RFK Jr.’s plan, including the prestige of the Kennedy family in American politics. Most importantly, Kennedy correctly recognizes that the government regulatory agencies have been captured by the corporations they are supposed to regulate. He therefore has identified one of the structural sources of corporate power in the current historic moment, and he proposes a remedy, namely, the appointment of high officials in the regulatory agencies who possess the political will to serve the interests of the nation and the people, acting with the support of the federal government.
And Mr. Kennedy is a peace candidate. He proposes the negotiation of a peace settlement with Russia with respect to Ukraine. And he proposes a “fortress” approach to military defense, in which we bring the troops home from the numerous military bases far and wide, concentrating on the defense of our own national territory.
However, RFK Jr. is not a consistent anti-imperialist. He wants to disengage from the world because he recognizes that the nation does not have the resources to police the world, which is true enough, but it does not get to the heart of the matter. He does not demonstrate appreciation of the fact that U.S. imperialist foreign policies continuously violate the right of other nations to sovereignty, and thus in essence are undemocratic. Nor does he indicate awareness that a peaceful and prosperous future for humanity can only be built on a foundation of cooperation, and that the U.S. could and should make an important contribution to such a common human effort. Nor does he show consciousness of the historical and contemporary worldwide struggle—in which many nations of the world are participating—for the construction of an alternative, more just international world order.
Mr. Kennedy indicates a desire for a non-violent revolution in the United States. But all true revolutionaries in today's world are anti-imperialist. However, he is more than the lesser evil; he stands in the name of a truly progressive and patriotic political force.
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