How to Overthrow a Government Part 1: What is Revolution?
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Overthrowing a government is a long, difficult, costly, and potentially messy situation. Generally, after a government is overthrown, there is a period of anarchy - which can last years - where the people of the land are hurt more than anyone else. Still, if you’re pissed off at your government and you can see no way your society can survive under the current regime, removal of the current system is probably your best bet.
Part 1: What is Revolution?
Ah, revolution. The sound of the word makes a man stand up with his chest held high and pay attention. Sure, revolution has a few downsides, but it has some really nice perks.
Generally, a revolution has the support of the majority of citizens - the lower, poor, and destitute citizens of a country. You’re shit out of luck with the middle and upper classes - they’re more than content to watch football every Sunday and play golf.
(As an aside: if you don’t have the support of the people, it’s generally called an insurrection or terrorism, depending on the buzzword of the day)
Since you have “the people” behind you, there’s a good chance that you can also grab the media’s support: if the vast majority of people support your actions, media outlets would be insane to ignore it or downplay it.
Also, your government has undoubtedly made more than a few enemies (unless the government you’re trying to overthrow is Luxembourg. Nobody hates them). So, you can use that to your temporary advantage - but be warned: if you succeed you’re going to have to try and remain on good terms with that country, even if you don’t support their outlook on life.
Beyond the support of the people, the media, and some fanatical governments, you really don’t have much. You’re certainly not going to have support of the armed forces, and that can be a huge obstacle.
You also don’t have support of allies of your soon-to-be-overthrown government, and this can be a big hindrance: blocked supply lines are just as bad as blocked arteries.
By the way, in case you have not noticed, you also lack political power, so if your little revolution fails you are personally fucked: your entrails will be paraded in the capitol city of your country to trumpets and a marching band.
Another thing you don’t have is money or training. Remember, your support comes from the majority of people: the poor, the homeless, and the otherwise untrained. You lack funds, food, weapons, ammunition, strategy, and just about everything else an organized mob needs to take on the enemy.
Who is the enemy? Why, with a people-supported revolution, you’re going head to head with the army of your country. Now, this may or may not be a huge obstacle. For starters, if you live in a country where the army is about as well trained as a circus troupe, you’ll probably find that firefights are easy to win; however, if you live in a modern country, where armed forces are trained 24/7, your chances of winning any battles decrease drastically. War is about mind-fucking your opponent into giving up, and a well organized army can mind-fuck you better than your unorganized mob.
Revolution is best suited to the extremely oppressed: it’s a last-ditch effort to improve the quality of life for the poor. Its success hinges heavily on outside support (from governments you may not trust) as well as media sympathy
[tags]overthrow government, revolution[/tags]
One Comment
shadowmyth
July 20th, 2007
at 11:01pm
How sad that you see the worse case scenario. This is an incredible moment in reality, a plateau we have never attained before. Our capacity to understand the world we live in, and the magnitude of scientific understanding we have attained…have enabled us to recreate this world into something new. Because so much data has been collected into one area…on the Internet, it is now possible to create a Renaissance worldwide, and solve these issues globally. One idea, one science, one of anything is always going to be limited in it’s capacity for growth;combining our knowledge worldwide, we can bypass the need for war. There is no need for war in a revolution. A smart revolution creates a network that is legal, informative, and undermines the establishment in a completely peaceful way. War is not desired, we have had enough of that crap as a race. The most important thing to remember is that there are far more of us us than there are of them. My daughter who worked for a *whole week* at GreenPeace, said that people who worked for the military or in a government office sited that they could not help GreenPeace, because it would label them a terrorist. She said though that a large portion of these people were sympathetic to the cause, and would have donated if they could. Do these sound like people willing to fight against their own families, neighbors and friends? As far as other nations go, armies prefer not to invade a land where it’s citizens are the military. Vietnam is a good example. These people fought using low level technologies…but because all of the people fought as one, instead of in military groups, none of the soldiers knew who to trust. War is not a desired thing, but if it must be used to maintain freedom, if we are not to live in slavery. I personally have no desire to leave one rule behind for another. I do believe though that if deals are made with lands that are angry with us, and we agree to leave them and their situations alone…they probably would like to go back to their lives. Everyone has their price, and deals can be made. Anarchy is not preferable, and also is not necessary. There are other factors though, such as the world weather issues that scientist predict will continue and increase in force until 2012, and the nature of environmental collapse. It will soon not matter, as the government will not be able to maintain control over the ever increasing chaotic weather wreaking havoc world wide, or the starvation that is going to occur because of destroyed crops resulting from such. Religious and political upheaval are at an all time high, and the machine can no longer fund it’s self…it has consumed beyond it’s limits, and now it’s consuming us. People very soon are going to be dying in very large numbers…in fact it has already begun. Everyone has people dying around them, in the hospital, getting tested for some disease or dealing with a variety of weird health issues….how many healthy people are left? Anybody asked why? This situation is about survival. Very soon, there will be no one to run the government, because destruction and disease will be everywhere. If now we plan, and put our heads together, we can prepare and take advantage of the moment of chaos. This is how many people prospered during the 20’s, they bought out what others lost. Every bad situation holds within it the key to fix it, and the ability to profit from it. We can point out all the reasons why something won’t work, or we can find all the reasons why it will.