"Revolution is the Solution"
Joel Hirschhorn interviewed by Jason Miller
For several days I had been bedeviled by the recurring memory of a jingle from an out-dated television commercial. My recollection of the product they were promoting lay tantalizingly close to the edge of my consciousness, but remained stubbornly out of my reach.
So my “mind’s ear” was left listening to, “It’s time for a new beginning…” ad nauseam with no tangible context. (If I had had that, I would at least have known which company to despise for etching such an inane little tune into my brain).
At last I had an epiphany. Sometimes frustrated subconscious minds of Gen-Xers recovering from television addiction transmit their contents into our consciousness in markedly bizarre ways during our waking hours. Or to put it another way, if we ignore our dreams long enough, bad television forces its way into your unsuspecting brains. My hat goes off to Madison Avenue, Viacom, Fox, and the rest of the masters of the agitprop universe for their immense success in embedding their tripe deep within the human psyches of many of us.
My unconscious was obviously attempting to convey an important message with this horrid little refrain. My interview with Joel Hirschhorn, writer and political agitator, put things into perspective.
Joel provided me with a sober reminder that unless one has been dwelling under a pile of boulders in a cave reaching deep into the bowels of the Earth, it is painfully obvious that the United States and its nearly countless victims around the globe are in desperate need of a “new beginning.”
Shaken to its very core by the ravages of Military Keynesianism, neoliberal economic policies, crony capitalism, corporatism, corruption, and wanton disregard for the Constitution, international law, and standards of human decency, our Constitutional Republic is hanging by a very slender thread.
Even before plutocrats, corporations, lobbyists, and the rest of the malevolent cabal (who together represent a very small percentage of the populace in the United States) acted in concert to further their mutual interests by eviscerating the law of the land, the United States was far from being a democracy. Our Constitution, unique and progressive as it was prior to reactionary forces gutting it, was written as a framework for a limited form of representative democracy.
Like many activists, writers, Leftists, populists, and enraged US Americans of virtually all political stripes, occupations, and races, I have been longing to find a viable means of inciting or collaborating with a mass movement that will force the plutocracy to yield their stranglehold on wealth and power. I have come to the conclusion that dedicated and sustained individual efforts by tens of millions coupled with multiple collective actions carried out by substantial numbers of people will eventually reshape the political and socioeconomic landscape of the United States. If that fails, the increasingly hubristic, avaricious, and emboldened ruling class will most likely face a violent insurrection.
As he will tell you in the interview, Joel Hirschhorn has provided those of us in the “lower classes” with a tangible means of acting in unison to attack the entrenched power structure. His suggested strategy is peaceful, legal, and practical.
Here is Joel giving me the details:
1. Your biographical sketch indicates that you advocate a “Second American Revolution”. How do you envision this revolution playing out?
"Despite the massive gun ownership in our country, I only foresee peaceful revolution acting within the law. Specifically, my hope is for an Article V convention, requested by 2/3 of the states and, if Congress obeys the Constitution, called by it. For over 200 years Congress has resisted granting a convention. Such a convention could consider a broad array of possible constitutional amendments offering many needed electoral, political and governmental reforms. It would be such a historic event; it would receive monumental public and media attention. So many groups on the left and right have always opposed a convention. Status quo power elites obviously fear such a convention. Talk of a runaway convention is used to create fear; this is ludicrous, mainly because any convention proposals must be ratified by ¾ of the states. I co-founded Friends of the Article V Convention (www.foavc.org) to build national support for a convention."
2. What are the implications behind the title of your most recent book, Delusional Democracy?
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