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Gore Grovels

False Hope, Naivete’, Careerism, and Cowardice In High Places

[Updates below]

A quick note today on denial and delusions –

No, not the well documented delusions of Donald Trump – but rather the delusions of Al Gore and whatever “environmental activists” Coral Davenport of  the NY Times was referring to in this absurd headline:

• Trump’s Meeting With Al Gore Gives Environmental Activists Hope

The media’s pack coverage of the Gore/Trump meeting is just more of the same “horrid coverage” of the climate change issue (Counterpunch):

– The horrid “coverage” of global warming and climate change in the U.S. media, which has consistently embraced the false claims of fossil-fuel funded think tanks and pundits claiming that the planet is not warming, and if it is, that it is due merely to natural fluctuations in temperature over time.  This position, if one could even call it that, is rejected by virtually every climatologist on the planet, and is nothing more than blatant propaganda in service of the fossil fuel industry and their useful idiots in Congress (and now the White House), who are dead set on dramatically escalating the threat of global warming.  As more societal attention has been directed as of late to the scientific consensus that global warming is real, almost entirely caused by humans, and a serious threat to ecosystems, species, and possibly even human survival, corporate media have sought to obscure this reality at every turn. Media outlets like Media Matters for America should be commended for documenting the journalistic efforts to downplay climate change, as seen in the overwhelming majority of media weather reports on forest fires, coastal flooding, and heat waves which simply refuse to situate these extreme weather events within the broader context of climate change, despite numerous scientific studies concluding that extreme weather becomes more probable with global warming.

Did Al Gore think that a Ted Talk to The Donald would change his mind or alter the politics on climate? That he could use Ivanka Trump to manipulate him? That he could derail the Trump Transition juggernaut, overcome corporate expectations and lobbyists, and derail the massive political momentum of Trump’s climate denying base and campaign commitments?

Gore symbolically crawled on his belly to Trump Tower to kiss the King’s ring. What a tool.

Worse, Gore did so at a critical time when he should be standing with Standing Rock and calling for rebellion and organized resistance to the Trump agenda.

In that regard, Gore follows and serves the same symbolic and political purposes as Obama’s White House meeting, which served to legitimize and normalize Trump. Obama’s trip to Europe (Greece and Germany) was designed to do the same thing, e.g. to assure allies and world financial markets that Trump’s remarks about NATO would not undermine “continuity” in US foreign policy. (Ironically, scaling back NATO and US imperial hegemony and trade agreements were about the only sane things Trump said. Leave it to Obama to nix all that – just like his “look forward, not back” policy let the Bush War Criminals off the hook and institutionalized and provided “continuity” with much of the Bush wars, Wall Street bailout, and post 9/11 National Security State. Trump can be viewed as the bookend of Obama’s Bush Neoliberal consolidation.)

Similarly, as I’ve previously noted, new Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer raised the white flag almost immediately.

While the NY Times has found historical resonance in the fact that Gore – like Hillary Clinton – won the popular vote, it’s also worth recalling that, historically, Gore played exactly the same craven role in the Bill Clinton Administration’s politics of concession and appeasement in response to the “Gingrich Revolution” and the Republican Congress’ “Contract for America”. (Just call me Al, Democratic envoy to the corporate Right wingnuts.)

That was the political impetus for the Clinton Administration’s “Reinventing Government” initiative.

Policy Wonks may recall that initiative created a “partnership” with States that reflected right wing Federalist Society views. It promoted market tools and basically gutted the federal role in supervising State implementation of federal laws, like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, RCRA, etc. and dramatically weakened the enforcement of environmental laws.

But I am getting far too deep in the policy weeds – back to Gore’s Trump meeting.

Gore’s delusions about Trump are echoed in the environmental community and media punditry.

Repeating major mistakes of the campaign coverage, the media seems to be walking on eggshells in failing to accurately characterize the reckless and radical nature of the Trump regime.

Meanwhile, the response from the beltway environmentalists seems muted, cowardly, and in disarray.

Not only do media and environmentalists underestimate the radicalism of Trump, they exaggerate the capacity of “checks and balances” to soften or moderate Trump.

I’ve heard multiple excuses and forms of denial, which reveal not only naivete’, but a complete lack of understanding of executive power, including:

• “It’s too early, he hasn’t done anything. We need to give him the benefit of the doubt and try to work with him on issues of common concern (e.g. jobs, infrastructure, trade).”
• “He won the election and should be given a chance to govern.”
• “Trump has backtracked on many of his extreme campaign statements – maybe if we are nice to him, he won’t follow through or change his mind on the radical climate and environmental rollbacks. Don’t criticize and get him mad, because he is thin skinned and vindictive and we will surely lose.”
• “Congress, the Courts, whistleblowers, and the media will expose, check and prevent abuses.”
• “The Generals (or the bureaucrats) will not follow illegal orders.
• “We can play defense for 4 years and then resume progress in 2020.” (I actually heard this on NPR WHYY Philadelphia from a climate reporter who claimed that climate activists in Marrakech expressed hope and confidence in the wake of Trump’s election).
• “The wheels of government turn slowly and career bureaucrats are sure to resist Trump’s Agenda. So we’ll have time to convince the American People to rise up and block the worst of Trump’s agenda.”
• “The environmental groups can use lawsuits to block Trump’s EPA rollbacks.”
• “Environmentalists should refocus and redouble efforts at the State and Local level.” [Deft move, after 7 years of giving NJ Gov. Christie a pass.]
• “Free market forces (low natural gas prices, declining solar costs, etc) will produce as much GHG emissions reductions as EPA regulations so it really doesn’t matter, Trump can’t change the direction of the market towards lower emissions.”

In a future post, I will explain why each of these assumptions is delusional.

For now, just consider the massive destruction Trump plans in his “Day One” initiative.

As I’ve written, that first day “go large” with Executive power strategy mimics NJ Gov. Chris Christie’s first day in Office.

Where do you think Trump got his “Day One” idea from?

[Update – 12/8/16 – I need to make a few points on delusions in NJ Spotlights’s coverage of Trump’s EPA pick:

• TRUMP’S PICK TO HEAD EPA COULD BE BAD NEWS FOR NJ’S AIR AND WATER

1. The headline gives him the benefit  of the doubt (“could be bad news” versus “would be”)

2. The NJ ENGO’s adopted the delusion I mentioned above, i.e. focus on State issues. Not only is that delusional with respect to Trump and his EPA head –  climate change effects us all. We can not escape the damage that Trump/Pruitt will do on the energy and climate front – but it is self serving and cynical.

NJ LCV gets paid (grant funded) to endorse Democrats. They are pimping off the Trump debacle to attempt to be a policy player in Trenton. The same cynical partisan politics can be seen in NJ LCV (and others’) support of the NRD Constitutional amendment ballot question SCR 39, which is designed to increase voter turnout in a gubernatorial election year and benefit the Democratic candidate for Governor.

As I’ve written, they are getting played – what use would it be to have NJ voters go through a Constitutional charade to dedicate money from a DEP NRD program that is not generating any revenues or recovering just pennies on the dollar?

3. This was my favorite quote in the Spotlight article – and it goes to exactly the history I wrote about above: (boldface mine)

“Pruitt has been a vocal critic of federal overreach and understands that state agencies are well-positioned to take on a larger role in protecting the environment, while also allowing for responsible and necessary commerce and energy production,’’ said John Nothdurft, director of governmental relations for The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank based in Illinois.

The origin of the “federal over-reach” attack on EPA was Newt Gingrich and the Contract on America (1994). Those attacks were led by the fledgling Federalist Society.

The Clinton Administration, in a classic “triangulation” move, compromised with Gingrich and incorporated a radical State’s rights “federalism” in their “Reinventing Government” initiative. Under the banner of the “partnership” slogan, it crippled strict EPA oversight of State enforcement of environmental laws and weakened implementation of environmental laws across the board.

That Clinton compromise was led by none other that Al Gore.

Gore just signaled the same craven compromise in his meeting this week with Trump on climate.

History repeats itself.

[Update #2 – The NY Times does not share NJ Spotlight’s timidity or headline ambivalence –

• Trump Picks Scott Pruitt, Climate Change Denialist, to Lead E.P.A.

Relevant highlights from the NY Times coverage:

Mr. Pruitt may be the right man to do that. As attorney general, Mr. Pruitt created a “federalism unit” in his office, explicitly designed to fight President Obama’s health care law and environmental regulations.

“You could see from him an increasing effort to delegate environmental regulations away from the federal government and towards the states,” said Ronald Keith Gaddie, a professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma. …

As Mr. Pruitt has sought to use legal tools to fight environmental regulations on the oil and gas companies that are a major part of his state’s economy, he has also worked with those companies. A 2014 investigation by The Times found that energy lobbyists drafted letters for Mr. Pruitt to send, on state stationery, to the E.P.A., the Interior Department, the Office of Management and Budget and even President Obama, outlining the economic hardship of the environmental rules.

NJ Gov. Christie was part of the State attack on Obama EPA Clean Power Plan rules and shares much of the Pruitt anti-regulatory ideology and slogans (command and control, one size fits all, job killing red tape, etc), but I don’t think he went this far down the fraud road:

Mr. Pruitt’s office also began to send letters to federal regulators — including the E.P.A. and even President Obama — that documents obtained through open records requests show were written by energy industry lobbyists from companies including Devon Energy. Mr. Pruitt’s staff put these ghostwritten letters on state government stationery and then sent them to Washington, moves that the companies often then praised in their own news releases, without noting that they had actually drafted the letters in the first place.

But I could be wrong.

[Update #3 – Washington Post  notes ideology and quoted Trump doubling down:

Pruitt has spent much of his energy as attorney general fighting the very agency he is being nominated to lead.

He is the third of Trump’s nominees who have key philosophical differences with the missions of the agencies they have been tapped to run. …

“For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs, while also undermining our incredible farmers and many other businesses and industries at every turn,” the release quoted Trump as saying. He said Pruitt “will reverse this trend and restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe.” Trump added, “My administration “strongly believes in environmental protection, and Scott Pruitt will be a powerful advocate for that mission while promoting jobs, safety and opportunity.”

WaPo also notes the federalism issue, but provides no history or context:

After he was elected attorney general in 2010, Pruitt established a “Federalism Unit” to “more effectively combat unwarranted regulation and systematic overreach by federal agencies, boards and offices,” according to his online biography.

To their credit, they do note industry support:

Industry representatives expressed satisfaction with the choice Wednesday. “The office he headed was present and accounted for in the battle to keep EPA faithful to its statutory authority and respectful of the role of the states in our system of cooperative federalism,” said Scott Segal, head of the policy group at the lobbying and legal firm Bracewell. …

“General Pruitt has been the leader among the AGs in defending federalism, the key feature of our constitutional architecture,” said Rivkin, a partner at Baker Hostetler, adding that he believed Pruitt would “ensure both environmental protection and constitutional fidelity.”

[Update: 2/10/17 – vindicated again – I get tired of “I told you so”. Krugman today:

We’re only three weeks into the Trump administration, but it’s already clear that any hopes that Mr. Trump and those around him would be even slightly ennobled by the responsibilities of office were foolish. 

[Update – 12/16/16 – SCR39, to dedicate NRD money discussed below, was amended to increase the cap to 10% and include a local nexus requirement. Those are good amendments we and others requested and I now support the Resolution and obviously the criticism of NJ LCV et al must no longer hold on the NRD issue. ~~~ end update]

Is This What Trump Meant When He Said China Was “Raping” The US?

Did China approve the local zoning and State permits?

 Public infrastructure money invested to promote corporate interests, not public interest

Who’s zoomin’ who?  ~~~ Aretha Franklin

[Update below]

Sometimes, a dead elephant lies right in your backyard rotting in the sun, un-noticed.

I found one this weekend while looking for Burlington County’s Crystal Lake Park, just a few miles from my house (a photo post forthcoming on the Park).

They certainly didn’t keep it a secret – guess I just wasn’t paying attention:

BORDENTOWN TOWNSHIP — Grainger, a leading distributor of industrial supplies, equipment, tools and materials, announced plans today to build a 1.3 million-square-foot distribution center — the largest commercial warehouse in the state — on 96 acres in the township.

I guess you have to see it to believe it – wedged between the NJ Turnpike and I-295, is a massive transportation infrastructure on former farm fields.

The most recent addition is the Grainger distribution facility pictured above.

As I drove past the humongous Grainger facility, I noticed that the local road was closed (Axe Factory Road). Unable to get to the park, I had to turn around and find an alternative route:

The juxtaposition of crumbling and closed public infrastructure so close to massive new investments in corporate infrastructure made my head explode.

I thought maybe this is what Trump meant when he said China’s trade policies were raping the US?

The Grainger facility is fully automated – not so good for all those working class jobs he promised.

The facility will distribute cheap imported Chinese products and undercut US manufacturing – again, not so good for all those manufacturing plants and working class jobs Trump promised.

I haven’t done any research, but I assume that Grainger got all kinds of taxpayer backed public subsidies and “incentives” (corporate welfare). Again, not so good for Trump’s promises of relief for the working class.

Bottom line: Local residents get higher taxes, traffic, noise, a visual scar on the landscape, more greenhouse gas emissions, toxic diesel truck air pollution, water pollution from stormwater runoff from the massive 1.3 mill square foot complex, and longer drives to avoid the road closure (and there is no solar on the flat roof).

Meanwhile their local public infrastructure continues to crumble and public money is invested to promote corporate interests, not public interests – potholes, flood risks, and bridges closed:

However, it certainly would be fair to say that the Grainger facility “raped” the former agricultural rural landscape – so Trump’s campaign rhetoric was not all lies and hyperbole:

 BTW, this is what public infrastructure looks like:

[Update – 11/16/16 – We told you exactly this was coming – and it sure didn’t take very long (NY Times story):

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats, divided and struggling for a path from the electoral wilderness, are constructing an agenda to align with many proposals of President-elect Donald J. Trump that put him at odds with his own party.

On infrastructure spending, child tax credits, paid maternity leave and dismantling trade agreements, Democrats are looking for ways they can work with Mr. Trump and force Republican leaders to choose between their new president and their small-government, free-market principles. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, elected Wednesday as the new Democratic minority leader, has spoken with Mr. Trump several times, and Democrats in coming weeks plan to announce populist economic and ethics initiatives they think Mr. Trump might like. ~~~ end update]

[Update below]

Conventional wisdom (CW) is that Donald Trump just threw Gov. Christie under the bus by demoting Christie from head of his Transition Team in favor of VP Pence.

CW is wrong – again.

Trump has paid Christie the ultimate compliment: emulation. (can you imagine what a Trump Inaugural will look like? – hit link – photos below from Christie’s first Inaugural, Trenton, NJ, Jan. 19, 2010)

Trump is following the same strategy Christie used in NJ. Christie’s fingerprints are all over the Trump strategy.

Now that the press has framed the post election narrative as  “Trump won due to support of the working class that was betrayed by Democrats”, the stage is set for Trump to forge the same “bi-partisan” “Christie -Crat” coalition of timid corporate Democrats that Gov. Christie did.

(CAPTION: tens of thousands of protesters came out early against Christie, on May 20, 2010)

This manufactured political dynamic will enable Trump to impose a corporate right wing agenda (tax cuts, privatization, deregulation) under the guise of promoting jobs and working class interests – all with “bi-partisan” support in Congress.

The first issue to cement this coalition and illustrate this strategy is likely to be infrastructure, where timid corporate Democrats will be promised union infrastructure jobs in exchange for huge corporate tax cuts.

Of course, the Trump infrastructure deal will include privatization (“public-private partnerships”) and unrelated items like deregulation, attacks on unions, Wall Street financing giveaways, and environmental rollbacks too. (Obama already set the stage for all that with his Executive Orders to “streamline” NEPA and environmental reviews of infrastructure projects. Congressional Democrats – including corporate Wall Street Dems like Cory Booker – have already introduced “public private partnership” infrastructure bills, just like NJ State Democrats supported Gov. Christie’s privatization of water infrastructure and anti-democratic elimination of prior local voter approval requirements).

Just to show that Trump is not serious and is playing the same divisive political games Christie played, take a look at how Trump’s “100 Day Action Plan” proposed to pay for infrastructure:

Of course there are no UN Black Helicopters, just like there is no “billions in UN climate change payments” honeypot (while Trump doesn’t mention that the cost of infrastructure upgrades is in the trillions).

The same emulation of Gov. Christie’s strategy can be seen in Trump’s pledge to repeal Obama Executive Orders and take bold Executive actions in the first hour of his first day in Office –

That’s exactly what Gov. Christie did by issuing Executive Orders #1 – #4 – declaring a moratorium on regulations and granting “regulatory relief”. At the time,  Christie bragged about this to the NY Times.

Just like Christie abandoned the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), Trump will exit the Paris Climate accords.

Just like Christie scrapped the Corzine Energy Master Plan renewable energy goals to promote fossil power plants and pipelines – all with the support of Democrats –  Trump is all in for fossil:

[Update – 11/16/16 – We told you exactly this was coming – and it sure didn’t take very long (NY Times story):

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats, divided and struggling for a path from the electoral wilderness, are constructing an agenda to align with many proposals of President-elect Donald J. Trump that put him at odds with his own party.

On infrastructure spending, child tax credits, paid maternity leave and dismantling trade agreements, Democrats are looking for ways they can work with Mr. Trump and force Republican leaders to choose between their new president and their small-government, free-market principles. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, elected Wednesday as the new Democratic minority leader, has spoken with Mr. Trump several times, and Democrats in coming weeks plan to announce populist economic and ethics initiatives they think Mr. Trump might like. ~~~ end update]

Drought puts DRBC Resolve and Climate Adaptation Leadership to the test

[Update: 11/27/16 – Did we light a fire under DRBC or what?

• DRBC Approves Drought Management Special Permit – Basin Placed in “Drought Watch” Stage Effective Immediately (11/23/16) ~~~ end update]

NJ Spotlight has a good story today about the drought situation in the lower Delaware, see:

• DRBC CONSIDERS DROUGHT EMERGENCY TO BOOST SLUGGISH FLOWS IN DELAWARE RIVER

Essentially ignoring the science and more dire assessments of his professional staff, DRBC Executive Director Tambini downplays the problem and shows no sense of urgency:

Despite the expectations of little new rainfall, DRBC Executive Director Steve Tambini said there are no immediate plans to declare a drought emergency, and that the commissioners don’t plan to meet to review the situation until December 14.

A drought emergency would be triggered by reservoir levels, the weather forecast, and the status of the salt front. “Our objective is to make sure we’ve got enough water in storage to repel the salt front,” Tambini said, in an interview. …

“At this point, the salt front is well below the intakes,” Tambini said.

This is not good, particularly given DRBC’s historic leadership and excellent work on adaptation to climate change, including drought related impacts.

Tambini is doing the legal minimum.

The Spotlight story failed to note the legal obligations that force Tambini’s hand, while leaving the wrong impression that State drought indicators were more stringent and/or scientifically sound than those relied on by DRBC:

By contrast [with DRBC focus on the salt line], state authorities look at a broader range of indicators including groundwater levels and stream flow in deciding whether to declare drought watches or warnings.

This is doubly misleading, because NJ DEP delayed issuing a drought warning, a posture DRBC seems on a path to repeat, see:

• NJ Reservoirs Drained While The Christie DEP Diddled

The Spotlight story also left important facts unmentioned.

DRBC is legally obligated under the Compact to order reservoir releases when the river flow at Trenton falls below 3,000 CFS for 5 consecutive days – and that power plants are major water users that would be subject to DRBC water curtailments –  as we’ve written.

Ignoring that fact and suggesting that States have “broader drought indicators” creates the false impression that Tambini is exercising his expertise and DRBC management powers prudently by downplaying drought conditions.

Also ignored by Spotlight is the fact that Mr. Tambini may face conflicts of interest, given his prior private water company corporate experiences. 

Mr. Tambini has led efforts to delegate certain DRBC management powers to states, a questionable posture and deferential approach, particularly with DRBC drought powers. 

Private water companies would face economic and regulatory issues under a DRBC drought emergency.

Creating additional controvery is the fact that DRBC powers would trump State water management decisions – again, Tambini may not have the spine to pull that trigger, despite the science and recommendations of his professionals.

I am very troubled that Mr. Tambini’s judgement and DRBC’s lack of diligence may be unduly influenced by the private water companies – and the energy utilities – who would face restrictions under drought emergency.

DRBC must not repeat policy and management errors of laggard’s like the Christie DEP.

A Love Letter to Trump 

Call for “Propaganda of the Deed”

 By actions which compel general attention, the new idea seeps into people’s minds and wins converts. One such act may, in a few days, make more propaganda than thousands of pamphlets.

Today, we go with a timeless classic, ever more so relevant right now as climate chaos meets Trumpism, a pamphlet by Peter Kropotkin (1842 – 1921):

The Spirit of Revolt, 1880

 

There are periods in the life of human society when revolution becomes an imperative necessity, when it proclaims itself as inevitable. New ideas germinate everywhere, seeking to force their way into the light, to find an application in life; everywhere they are opposed by the inertia of those whose interest it is to maintain the old order; they suffocate in the stifling atmosphere of prejudice and traditions. The accepted ideas of the constitution of the State, of the laws of social equilibrium, of the political and economic interrelations of citizens, can hold out no longer against the implacable criticism which is daily undermining them whenever occasion arises,–in drawing room as in cabaret, in the writings of philosophers as in daily conversation. Political, economic, and social institutions are crumbling; the social structure, having become uninhabitable, is hindering, even preventing the development of the seeds which are being propagated within its damaged walls and being brought forth around them.

The need for a new life becomes apparent. The code of established morality, that which governs the greater number of people in their daily life, no longer seems sufficient. What formerly seemed just is now felt to be a crying injustice. The morality of yesterday is today recognized as revolting immorality. The conflict between new ideas and old traditions flames up in every class of society, in every possible environment, in the very bosom of the family. The son struggles against his father, he finds revolting what his father has all his life found natural; the daughter rebels against the principles which her mother has handed down to her as the result of long experience. Daily, the popular conscience rises up against the scandals which breed amidst the privileged and the leisured, against the crimes committed in the name of the law of the stronger, or in order to maintain these privileges. Those who long for the triumph of justice, those who would put new ideas into practice, are soon forced to recognize that the realization of their generous, humanitarian and regenerating ideas cannot take place in a society thus constituted; they perceive the necessity of a revolutionary whirlwind which will sweep away all this rottenness, revive sluggish hearts with its breath, and bring to mankind that spirit of devotion, self-denial, and heroism, without which society sinks through degradation and vileness into complete disintegration.

In periods of frenzied haste toward wealth, of feverish speculation and of crisis, of the sudden downfall of great industries and the ephemeral expansion of other branches of production, of scandalous fortunes amassed in a few years and dissipated as quickly, it becomes evident that the economic institutions which control production and exchange are far from giving to society the prosperity which they are supposed to guarantee; they produce precisely the opposite result. Instead of order they bring forth chaos; instead of prosperity, poverty and insecurity; instead of reconciled interests, war; a perpetual war of the exploiter against the worker, of exploiters and of workers among themselves. Human society is seen to be splitting more and more into two hostile camps, and at the same time to be subdividing into thousands of small groups waging merciless war against each other. Weary of these wars, weary of the miseries which they cause, society rushes to seek a new organization; it clamors loudly for a complete remodeling of the system of property ownership, of production, of exchange and all economic relations which spring from it.

The machinery of government, entrusted with the maintenance of the existing order, continues to function, but at every turn of its deteriorated gears it slips and stops. Its working becomes more and more difficult, and the dissatisfaction caused by its defects grows continuously. Every day gives rise to a new demand. “Reform this,” “reform that,” is heard from all sides. “War, finance, taxes, courts. police, everything must be remodeled, reorganized, established on a new basis,” say the reformers. And vet all know that it is impossible to make things over, to remodel anything at all because everything is interrelated; everything would have to be remade at once; and how can society be remodeled when it is divided into two openly hostile camps? To satisfy the discontented would be only to create new malcontents.

Incapable of undertaking reforms, since this would mean paving the way for revolution, and at the same time too impotent to be frankly reactionary, the governing bodies apply themselves to halfmeasures which can satisfy nobody, and only cause new dissatisfaction. The mediocrities who, in such transition periods, undertake to steer the ship of State, think of but one thing: to enrich then.selves against the coming débâcle. Attacked from all sides they defend themselves awkwardly, they evade, they commit blunder upon blunder, and they soon succeed in cutting the last rope of salvation; they drown the prestige of the government in ridicule, caused by their own incapacity.

Such periods demand revolution. It becomes a social necessity; the situation itself is revolutionary.

---

When we study in the works of our greatest historians the genesis and development of vast revolutionary convulsions, we generally find under the heading, “The Cause of the Revolution,” a gripping picture of the situation on the eve of events. The misery of the people, the general insecurity, the vexatious measures of the government, the odious scandals laying bare the immense vices of society, the new ideas struggling to come to the surface and repulsed by the incapacity of the supporters of the former régime,– nothing is omitted. Examining this picture, one arrives at the conviction that the revolution was indeed inevitable, and that there was no other way out than by the road of insurrection.

Take, for example, the situation before 1789 as the historians picture it. You can almost hear the peasant complaining of the salt tax, of the tithe, of the feudal payments, and vowing in his heart an implacable hatred towards the feudal baron, the monk, the monopolist, the bailiff. You can almost see the citizen bewailing the loss of his municipal liberties, and showering maledictions upon the king. The people censure the queen; they are revolted by the reports of ministerial action, and they cry out continually that the taxes are intolerable and revenue payments exorbitant, that crops are bad and winters hard, that provisions are too dear and the monopolists too grasping, that the village lawyer devours the peasant’s crops and the village constable tries to play the role of a petty king, that even the mail service is badly organized and the employees too lazy. In short, nothing works well, everybody complains. “It can last no longer, it will come to a bad end,” they cry everywhere.

But, between this pacific arguing and insurrection or revolt, there is a wide abyss,–that abyss which, for the greatest part of humanity, lies between reasoning and action, thought and will,–the urge to act. How has this abyss been bridged? How is it that men who only yesterday were complaining quietly of their lot as they smoked their pipes, and the next moment were humbly saluting the local guard and gendarme whom they had just been abusing,–how is it that these same men a few days later were capable of seizing their scythes and their iron-shod pikes and attacking in his castle the lord who only yesterday was so formidable? By what miracle were these men, whose wives justly called them cowards, transformed in a day into heroes, marching through bullets and cannon balls to the conquest of their rights? How was it that words, so often spoken and lost in the air like the empty chiming of bells, were changed into actions?

The answer is easy.

Action, the continuous action, ceaselessly renewed, of minorities brings about this transformation. Courage, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice, are as contagious as cowardice, submission, and panic.

What forms will this action take? All forms,–indeed, the most varied forms, dictated by circumstances, temperament, and the means at disposal. Sometimes tragic, sometimes humorous, but always daring; sometimes collective, sometimes purely individual, this policy of action will neglect none of the means at hand, no event of public life, in order to keep the spirit alive, to propagate and find expression for dissatisfaction, to excite hatred against exploiters, to ridicule the government and expose its weakness, and above all and always, by actual example, to awaken courage and fan the spirit of revolt.

When a revolutionary situation arises in a country, before the spirit of revolt is sufficiently awakened in the masses to express itself in violent demonstrations in the streets or by rebellions and uprisings, it is through action that minorities succeed in awakening that feeling of independence and that spirit of audacity without which no revolution can come to a head.

Men of courage, not satisfied with words, but ever searching for the means to transform them into action,–men of integrity for whom the act is one with the idea, for whom prison, exile, and death are preferable to a life contrary to their principles,–intrepid souls who know that it is necessary to dare in order to succeed,– these are the lonely sentinels who enter the battle long before the masses are sufficiently roused to raise openly the banner of insurrection and to march, arms in hand, to the conquest of their rights.

In the midst of discontent, talk, theoretical discussions, an individual or collective act of revolt supervenes, symbolizing the dominant aspirations. It is possible that at the beginning the masses will remain indifferent. It is possible that while admiring the courage of the individual or the group which takes the initiative, the masses will at first follow those who are prudent and cautious, who will immediately describe this act as “insanity” and say that “those madmen, those fanatics will endanger everything.”

They have calculated so well, those prudent and cautious men, that their party, slowly pursuing its work would, in a hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years perhaps, succeed in conquering the whole world,–and now the unexpected intrudes! The unexpected, of course, is whatever has not been expected by them,–those prudent and cautious ones! Whoever has a slight knowledge of history and a fairly clear head knows perfectly well from the beginning that theoretical propaganda for revolution will necessarily express itself in action long before the theoreticians have decided that the moment to act has come. Nevertheless, the cautious theoreticians are angry at these madmen, they excommunicate them, they anathematize them. But the madmen win sympathy, the mass of the people secretly applaud their courage, and they find imitators. In proportion as the pioneers go to fill the jails and the penal colonies, others continue their work; acts of illegal protest, of revolt, of vengeance, multiply.

Indifference from this point on is impossible. Those who at the beginning never so much as asked what the “madmen” wanted, are compelled to think about them, to discuss their ideas, to take sides for or against. By actions which compel general attention, the new idea seeps into people’s minds and wins converts. One such act may, in a few days, make more propaganda than thousands of pamphlets.

Above all, it awakens the spirit of revolt: it breeds daring. The old order, supported by the police, the magistrates, the gendarmes and the soldiers, appeared unshakable, like the old fortress of the Bastille, which also appeared impregnable to the eyes of the unarmed people gathered beneath its high walls equipped with loaded cannon. But soon it became apparent that the established order has not the force one had supposed. One courageous act has sufficed to upset in a few days the entire governmental machinery, to make the colossus tremble; another revolt has stirred a whole province into turmoil, and the army, till now always so imposing, has retreated before a handful of peasants armed with sticks and stones. The people observe that the monster is not so terrible as they thought they begin dimly to perceive that a few energetic efforts will be sufficient to throw it down. Hope is born in their hearts, and let us remember that if exasperation often drives men to revolt, it is always hope, the hope of victory, which makes revolutions.

The government resists; it is savage in its repressions. But, though formerly persecution killed the energy of the oppressed, now, in periods of excitement, it produces the opposite result. It provokes new acts of revolt, individual and collective, it drives the rebels to heroism; and in rapid succession these acts spread, become general, develop. The revolutionary party is strengthened by elements which up to this time were hostile or indifferent to it. The general disintegration penetrates into the government, the ruling classes, the privileged; some of them advocate resistance to the limit; others are in favor of concessions; others, again, go so far as to declare themselves ready to renounce their privileges for the moment, in order to appease the spirit of revolt, hoping to dominate again later on. The unity of the government and the privileged class is broken.

The ruling classes may also try to find safety in savage reaction. But it is now too late; the battle only becomes more bitter, more terrible, and the revolution which is looming will only be more bloody. On the other hand, the smallest concession of the governing classes, since it comes too late, since it has been snatched in struggle, only awakes the revolutionary spirit still more. The common people, who formerly would have been satisfied with the smallest concession, observe now that the enemy is wavering; they foresee victory, they feel their courage growing, and the same men who were formerly crushed by misery and were content to sigh in secret, now lift their heads and march proudly to the conquest of a better future.

Finally the revolution breaks out, the more terrible as the preceding struggles were bitter.

The direction which the revolution will take depends, no doubt, upon the sum total of the various circumstances that determine the coming of the cataclysm. But it can be predicted in advance, according to the vigor of revolutionary action displayed in the preparatory period by the different progressive parties.

One party may have developed more clearly the theories which it defines and the program which it desires to realize; it may have made propaganda actively, by speech and in print. But it may not have sufficiently expressed its aspirations in the open, on the street, by actions which embody the thought it represents; it has done little, or it has done nothing against those who are its principal enemies; it has not attacked the institutions which it wants to demolish; its strength has been in theory, not in action; it has contributed little to awaken the spirit of revolt, or it has neglected to direct that spirit against conditions which it particularly desires to attack at the time of the revolution. As a result, this party is less known; its aspirations have not been daily and continuously affirmed by actions, the glamor of which could reach even the remotest hut; they have not sufficiently penetrated into the consciousness of the people; they have not identified themselves with the crowd and the street; they have never found simple expression in a popular slogan.

The most active writers of such a party are known by their readers as thinkers of great merit, but they have neither the reputation nor the capacities of men of action; and on the day when the mobs pour through the streets they will prefer to follow the advice of those who have less precise theoretical ideas and not such great aspirations, but whom they know better because they have seen them act.

The party which has made most revolutionary propaganda and which has shown most spirit and daring will be listened to on the day when it is necessary to act, to march in front in order to realize the revolution. But that party which has not had the daring to affirm itself by revolutionary acts in the preparatory periods nor had a driving force strong enough to inspire men and groups to the sentiment of abnegation, to the irresistible desire to put their ideas into practice,–(if this desire had existed it would have expressed itself in action long before the mass of the people had joined the revolt)–and which did not know how to make its flag popular and its aspirations tangible and comprehensive,–that party will have only a small chance of realizing even the least part of its program. It will be pushed aside by the parties of action.

These things we learn from the history of the periods which precede great revolutions. The revolutionary bourgeoisie understood this perfectly,–it neglected no means of agitation to awaken the spirit of revolt when it tried to demolish the monarchical order. The French peasant of the eighteenth century understood it instinctively when it was a question of abolishing feudal rights; and the International acted in accordance with the same principles when it tried to awaken the spirit of revolt among the workers of the cities and to direct it against the natural enemy of the wage earner–the monopolizer of the means of production and of raw materials.