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there are all kinds of scenarios that would render the firepower of a vertically organized military more or less useless.
faced with the outcomes of a legitimation crisis of any real proportions, statements like "we have guns" would be about as functional as the wolfowitz "plan" was for iraq.
such statements reflect little beyond simple-minded arrogance.
the question is not whether and insurrection could happen, but rather which one--which ideology would be used, what the goals would be, how these goals would be reflected in organizational structure, etc.
mass actions do not just happen.
they are not purely spontaneous.
historically, mass actions have articulated themselves around available discourses, have taken them over and reworked them practically as they fashion themselves as movements.
it is not obvious that the logic of civil war leading to revolution is rational.
the history of the revolutionary tradition has shown this pretty clearly: if you think about revolution as a military operation, you tend to get military organizations runing the show. when they get power, they impose their internal logic on the situation they come to control. so the notion of a revolution organized around small armed groups is problematic in itself--but the trick is the politics of that organization...
a far more effective strategy would involve a variant of the general strike.
a very large, entirely peaceful withdrawl of consent could bring any government to its knees.
no amount of weaponry would make any difference: who would you shoot at? everyone? and what makes anyone think that the military would be outside of such an action?
any action on the part of the state is such a context would simply speed its implosion.
the only real problem from my viewpoint is that there is no revolutionary politics that offers anything like a coherent countermodel to the existing order. i would entirely oppose any rightwing nationalist action. further, i do not think such an action would be able to gather any meaningful support--the bush squad has already stolen the thunder of such politics, and a rightwing movement would offer nothing but more of the same.
in the end, the right faces the problems that the left has been dealing with for quite a long time--the hollowing out of its rhetoric, the collapse of any meaningful purchase of the terminology it relies upon.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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