Strategy for World Revolution: A Discussion Between Rick Staggenborg and Gilbert Mercier

News Junkie Post Editor in Chief Gilbert Mercier recently noted that the gains of 250 years are being pushed back as the world is forced by a group of influential men into a new dark age of feudalism. In Egypt, Brazil, Turkey, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, and many other countries, protests have erupted against the onslaught from global corporate fascism. While the breadth and spontaneity of some of the actions show that people still have heart and give hope that change is possible, many of the protests have been crushed by a growing militarized police apparatus. Clearly, a Global Revolution is called for. What conditions are required for such a revolution?  On Saturday August 17, Mercier and Rick Staggenborg, MD, a psychiatrist, the Editor of Soldiers for Peace International (SFPI) and host of SFPI Radio, engaged each other in an unprecedented and comprehensive discussion of this topic.  Sub-topics included the importance of giving priority to urgent issues like climate change and overpopulation, the necessity to recognize real versus puppet enemies, the need to identify and withdraw our own contributions to the world-wide killing machine, the insidious effects of weapons sales and religious fanaticism on movements like the Arab Spring, the reasons why movements such as Occupy have floundered, the shortcomings of alternative news, and the historical uses of electoral politics versus violent overthrow.  Mercier and Staggenborg agreed that resistance is possible on a global scale; the advancing juggernaut can be stopped, but only with a sustained demonstration of solidarity from a unified world population.

Climate change

GM: “The assessment of people who are scientists is that within 20 years or so, our situation on this planet will be extremely precarious and this concerns the powerless and the powerful. Basically, we are at a turning point, and time is not on our side….”

RS: “We absolutely have to make this a fundamental issue. We have people who accept climate change, and they are completely clueless about what that means about how active they have to be right now, not to prevent, but to mitigate the disaster that’s going to come. Hundreds of millions of people are going to die because of decisions we have already allowed other people to make for us. [Climate change] is essential and focal to any worldwide movement…. There is a central theme, and we can relate this to war. We can relate this to abridgment of our civil rights because of war…. We can relate this to religion….”

Electoral politics in the US

GM: “Basically, the US stopped being a democracy and became a one-party system since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. It doesn’t really matter: a cardboard cutout from California, somebody who is ex-CIA and then his son, and then this and that, and then somebody who basically worked for WalMart and set up stuff like NAFTA. It doesn’t matter. They all blend in. People who call themselves liberals need a reality check. They are sort of delusional…. Richard Nixon would be a liberal now…. Richard Nixon would be like Bernie Sanders.”

RS: “Everybody needs to wake up and realize that both parties are controlled all over the world by the same people. Republicans don’t have a monopoly on hypocrisy…. We have a political system that is very dysfunctional, and we the people are doing as much to maintain it as the people who presumably benefit from it… the people in charge… Get past ego. You can’t think of yourself as Democrat, or Republican, or Green, American, or whatever, before you think of yourself as a human being. We are all in this together. And that’s what we’re talking about: how to build a united front against international fascism and war.”

Worldwide action

GM: “There cannot be any action in this sort of nightmare situation we are in without global movement. The only way to deal with this sort of global corporate fascism, where political powers are figureheads that don’t really represent anything is the unification of people absolutely worldwide. What I mean is very simple: when there is a strike, let us say, in Oakland, Oregon…, there should be a strike in Bangladesh, in Paris, in Berlin. What’s happening in Greece, or in Egypt, or in Turkey, or in Syria concerns all of us. We have to start thinking that everything has worldwide ramifications and all the actions should be coordinated….”

The above statements are merely some excerpts from an entertaining and lively two-hour discussion packed with important ideas. For more, click below to catch the original show.

Editor’s Note: Photographs four and five by Antitezo.