Link: https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/i-dont-know-how-you-can-look-at-minneapolis

Your book, like Elizabeth Hinton’s “America on Fire,” delves into a decades-long cycle that’s played out in many US cities: Police violence, followed by uprisings, followed by promises for reform and blue ribbon commissions that ultimately produce only “modest change and a photo op.” Did you come out of your reporting with a solid idea of what a better process would look like?

Ellis: I don’t know how you can look at Minneapolis today and say they are better for choosing reform over revolution. The mayor reorganized the public safety department, then there was turnover in the leadership there. The chief who was supposed to lead the transformation of the police force recently resigned in disgrace. Like most police departments in the country, the budget continues to balloon thanks to overtime costs. And at the moment the city is failing to even meet the basics of its court-mandated reforms. By definition this is insanity, right?

I think like anything in local government, having a process for the community to guide designs and offer feedback is important. But I think the starting point has to be a total tear down, not a rebuild. That sounds simplistic, but look at where making changes on the edges has gotten us? Revised training standards and use of force policies have amounted to departments that are effectively the same. The aim needs to be so much higher.

Well North Korea, China, and the USSR chose revolution and they're a plague on this earth.

If people had an essentially monolithic and precise idea of the state after the revolution, it would work. Otherwise civil war and instability ensues. If Chaos is, for the people, still a worse Option than the tyranny at Hand, there wont be a Revolution.

If authoritarian Marxist-Leninists are helming a revolution, history has shown it results in disaster every time, as they never dismantle centralized power or hierarchies.

History also shows us that Anarchist revolutions, such as when Spanish Anarchists chose revolution in 1936, it can result in one of the most promising egalitarian and non-authoritarian societies in the last century.

The Anarchists lost to the pro-Nazis government, idk why everyone tries to use that as an example. Really depressing to think about.

There are really only two large scale examples of revolution ending in a democracy: France and USA.

In the case of the USA it led to a lot of genocide of natives but you could argue the crown would have eventually done the same.

The way I see it is if reform is an option: take it. If reform is not an option then, and only then, will violent revolution have a chance at resulting in a better or equal system.

In response to this you go can read the response I made to it before they deleted their own comment.

The Anarchists lost to the pro-Nazis government, idk why everyone tries to use that as an example. Really depressing to think about.

There's a really fantastic 6-part documentary that goes over the conflict in great detail, but to give the short version:

It failed for a multitude of reasons, but when I did my own deep dive on this, Anarchism itself wasn't one of those reasons. I found that the specific time it took place, as well as the previous industrial capacity of Spain itself, were likely two of the biggest contributors.

The civil war occurred during a period when there were powerful states on the world stage, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, who were ready and willing to supply needed logistics and manpower to other right-wing states. It also happened when both of those states were not yet embroiled in their own world war, giving them the opportunity to send more resources and aid than they would've have been able to justify a handful of years later.

On the other hand, the Anarchists (and Liberals) of Spain had no allies on the world stage willing to help them besides some meager aid from Mexico (who lacked the ability to send airplanes or tanks), and a few secret shipments of aid from France. The USSR ended up sending the most weaponry, but only to the Marxist-Leninist faction so they could control the country if they won, and those same marxist leninists targeted the Anarchists towards the end of the war in an effort to shore up their power.

Spain simply hadn't developed enough military industrial capacity before the war to avoid being so reliant on foreign logistics. As General Pershing supposedly once said, "Infantry win battles, logistics win wars." That's ultimately why the allies were able to defeat the Axis in WWII as well, since the combined industrial and logistical capacity of the allies (especially with the introduction of the US's industrial capacity), simply become overwhelming.

Any system or ideology in the same circumstances as the Anarchists in Spain is not going to have good odds of succeeding.

The point of people such as myself using it as an example is that it proved out that society organized around Anarchist concepts does work, and it doesn't result in authoritarianism like revolutions from other ideologies tend to.

And if there is a civil war in the USA between anarchists and fascists, I expect that the fascists will be better funded.

How would revolution work?

Name one revolution that actually ended happily and positively?

The one where we ended up with slaves? Remember the English ended slavery in 1772, interesting timing

The one where they went on a killing spree? Then RETURNED to monarchy?

How about the one that resulted in a tons of death from drastic economic change?

How about the ones that resulted in theocracy, financial and economic ruin? Ecological disaster?

Revolutions make space for reform sure but we can do better. Education and safety is always going to lend itself to change better than anything.

A straight up confrontation like Spain was able to do would indeed be impossible without part of the military fracturing and joining the resistance.

A more feasible scenario would probably look like the Irish Troubles.

Even then, the agreement has led to a dysfunctional devolved government and conditions of the agreement which are in jeopardy due to Brexit.

To be clear, I don't think a troubles like civil war would be a good outcome, but if that's the only tool left in the shed, I could see some people going that route in the hopes that it avoids the US turning into an oligarchic mafia state like Russia.

Ideally we can avoid that outcome by mass civil disobedience, unions banding together in a general strike, and grassroots communities building up an alternative system via prefiguration.

The issue is that virtually every previous revolution did not have the goal of completely eliminating power hierarchies, they instead generally just shift who is in control of those hierarchies.

There have only been two large scale Anarchist revolutions with those goals in mind (the Ukrainian revolution during the Russian Civil War, and the Anarchist revolution during the Spanish Civil War), and both appeared to be having excellent results until an outside force violently stopped them.

The distinction between those two different types of revolution is an important one.

I understand you're talking through the process, which is what I'm asking about.

I look at it as, if it gets to that point, there is a significant amount of risk that the right team will win and then there is a significant amount of risk that the right team will actually do what they are saying. It then gets into what other actions are out there which are viable and which other actions are easier to implement.

I feel like people forget there was a lot of violence and bloodshed over civil rights and that was political action through non-violent means. There also becomes the issue where a political movement has to implement the policies they are supporting; policies requiring greater government involvement require better administrators than what is currently out there and there will be tradeoffs.

And there will be conflict, but it is a lot easier to win a conflict with an army of voters than to try to muster an actual army.

Voting only works if both parties are willing to accept an outcome of a vote. There's usually a tipping point where a group angling for dictatorship through violent means is not going to care about whatever the outcome of a vote is once they feel they have enough ability to force any opposing group to submit through violence.

Going back to the Spanish Civil War, the conflict kicked off because the fascists attempted a military coup, as they did not like the outcome of the votes. The options left to the non-fascist factions were to either peacefully accept the new non-democratic military dictatorship, or violently oppose it.

Hitler and Mussolini both had to play the political game only up until the point they had enough military might that was both loyal and willing to follow orders (Blackshirts and Brownshirts), enabling them to threaten or kill any faction that opposed them in their respective parliaments. At that point a populace voting no longer has any effect.

We are currently witnessing the US right-wing attempting as best they can any method available to achieve that loyal military might, mostly through ICE currently, but also trying as best they can to convert the US Military and three letter agencies to become loyal arms of the regime by replacing their leaders with loyalists.

Hopefully they will fail to suppress the midterms simply due to the sheer scale of the country and the still inadequately sized ICE to cover it, but should they succeed, it is likely the tipping point will be reached, and voting beyond that point will have no meaningful effect toward slowing or preventing a dictatorship, leaving only unions, individual states resisting, etc. If the dictatorship then increases violence to try to crush those forms of resistance, and unions submit, disobedience dissolves, states cease fighting, that that would leave essentially a troubles situation along with less overt everyday resistance (slowdowns, trying to make the machine less efficient, etc).

Because when you think about it, you can't.

If you have a revolution, you're forming a hierarchy to replace another. The concept of anarchism even in its smallest form is unrealistic.

Those revolutions were winning the fight but once the dust settled it would not have continued, anarchy is a lot like a shadow it can really only exist if there is an -archy to be the an- of. You know?

During both conflicts the anarchists had to from a hierarchy to function to some degree and had they won, they would've had to form a bigger one to run a nation

Regarding organization, BLM was organized how many years and didn't get its political goals implemented? I bring up BLM because that is what the article is about.

There were protests for months and the burning of a police station, but then what? Why wasn't BLM able to sustain a political movement long enough to actually fix the problem?

I hear a lot of people saying to focus on protest and organization instead of voting, but did that get anything actually done? Hell, Trump is back as President in part because leftist organizations pulled support and said both parties were the same.

If you have a revolution, you’re forming a hierarchy to replace another.

An Anarchist revolution explicitly has no hierarchies, there is no replacement hierarchy.

The concept of anarchism even in its smallest form is unrealistic.

The anarchist collective in Catalonia compromised over 3.5 million people, and how the people operated within it without hierarchies was well documented in Sam Dolgoff's book from 1974, The Anarchist Collectives
Workers’ Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936–1939, along with Gaston Leval's 1975 Collectives in the Spanish revolution, if you'd like to investigate the specifics, such as how they organized transportation, universal healthcare, food production, etc.

Even the Anarchist militias had no top-down hierarchy, they instead adopted a bottom-up fighting force, where a squad of volunteers would elect their squad leader (with the ability for them to immediately recall the elected leader outside of battle if they weren't performing to the satisfaction of the squad). All the squad leaders then elected a commander above them with the same recall ability, and so on up to the general. This is totally unlike any military structure in any centralized state military.

Those revolutions were winning the fight but once the dust settled it would not have continued, anarchy is a lot like a shadow it can really only exist if there is an -archy to be the an- of. You know?

Without trying to offend, this statement shows a clear lack of knowledge on Anarchist political theory. It is a well fleshed out idea that has all of the traits needed for long-term stability. In fact, were Anarchism adopted on a wide scale, it would be very difficult to put that genie back in the bottle, as most people in the world (except the rich or powerful hungry elites) would vastly prefer it over any other societal system tried before.

How do you convince a person who now has access to universal basic housing, food, healthcare, and transportation (where people only need to volunteer about 3 months out of the year to keep those basic needs met for everyone), to instead go back to a system where most give up most of their waking hours to working a job for the benefit of shareholders and CEOs, where most are poor and live at the whims of the rich and powerful, and where whether you potentially live or die is at the whim of Insurance companies, landlords, your boss, etc?

I hear a lot of people saying to focus on protest and organization instead of voting, but did that get anything actually done?

Voting doesn't take up much time, maybe a couple hours for the few people who do a deep dive on different candidates. Do you believe that organizing your community when not voting is a bad thing?

It literally does have hierarchies though that was a controversial thing among them during the time, they realized just by forming goals a hierarchy would form around how to accomplish the goal. Even if the way you organize is bottom to top, that is a hierarchy which leads some anarchists to break away and form their own anarchist factions which give way to the same problem over and over. You just are choosing not to see it as such, the majority holds the power over their superior officers, that is a form of order. It's not that big of a deal I'm not saying anarchy isn't real but this is common in anarchist spaces. Any form of organization of any sort, is genuinely forming a hierarchy and stops being anarchism. Anarchists start to suffer from the "no true scotsman" thing.

Anarchist political theory. It is a well fleshed out idea that has all of the traits needed for long-term stability

You realize this is a bit of a contraction? A well fleshed out idea does not equal long term stability unless it does in fact create long term stability. Maybe in theory but as time went on anarchists took positions that placed them above others; police captains, government positions, even if it was just social where one anarchist was seen as smarter than another that is forming a social hierarchy. Saying it is a well fleshed out idea with long term stability is like me saying my well thought out d&d campaign is going to be completed solely because it is well thought out, it's neglecting the reality that other's autonomy actually can directly lend to its downfall. Hell even forming a plan is even slight steps away from anarchy, which they understood and constantly debated over.

You genuinely cannot have anarchy, it is only in the face of a differing usually opposing hierarchy can you engage in being an anarchist and practice anarchy.

This is why many anarchists started embracing socialist tendencies, because their anarchist goals ended up forming socialist systems. You can totally form systems with the mindset of reducing a hierarchies power and aiming for anarchist goals but again, it soon becomes not anarchy once the system is formed.

Convincing a person isn't really relevant to what I'm saying. My whole point is revolutions always start off strong and once the need to handle a system appears, it's not seamless typically kinda dangerous and often extremely prone to issues because being well thought out is only just that, it doesn't suddenly become functional and reliable. When the founding fathers formed America after their revolution this was understood and they tried to make a system that was flexible so as their system formed they could adjust as needed. When the anarchists began accruing power, you see plenty of them fall back into a system hierarchy because that's really just how organization works especially when you're talking about millions of people, then they understand they're drifting from anarchy and they shatter into smaller and smaller groups while the more effective ones with a hierarchy will full steam ahead accomplish their goals and leave the rest in the dust.

I remember learning about this in school, a big reason why the anarchists lost is because they started to collapse from infighting and feeling conflicted about what it meant to be an anarchist and what was required to run a system.

Spanish anarchists specifically really relied on the concepts of situational leadership which directly contributed to their defeat and fascist and communist groups were able to make decisions while anarchist groups were stuck in a crisis of decision making. Power vacuums are inevitable and will always lead to the direct downfall of anarchist movements once they acquire a degree of power. People will say superior outside fascist forces or communist forces but the reverse to that is inferior, slow moving anarchist forces that failed at the one thing that wins wars and battles -- logistics. It's much easier to unite anarchists when they share a common threat.

At the end of the day anarchy in all forms in all goals is directly made to destroy a state or hierarchy and abolish a power structure. Once they do, a power vacuum forms and whichever in-group holds the most power or can organize the fastest will overtake the general anarchist movement and no longer be anarchist. Anarchy is like an ouroborous by nature.

I think it is very counter productive. After all, you're trying to get a political goal implemented. Why wouldn't you want to influence which people make the decisions?

Even if the way you organize is bottom to top, that is a hierarchy which leads some anarchists to break away and form their own anarchist factions which give way to the same problem over and over.

I'm sorry, but to suggest that the most egalitarian way to fight fascists was the cause for Anarchists leaving is... A bit absurd. What source informed you this was common?

Any form of organization of any sort, is genuinely forming a hierarchy and stops being anarchism.

Hell even forming a plan is even slight steps away from anarchy, which they understood and constantly debated over.

Again, this is showing a severe lack of knowledge of what Anarchism is. Where did you come across those ideas?

This is why many anarchists started embracing socialist tendencies

Anarchists embraced socialism/communism from the very beginning. That has been their goal for over a hundred years. I'd advise reading about Mikhail Bakunin and the First International.

Spanish anarchists specifically really relied on the concepts of situational leadership which directly contributed to their defeat and fascist and communist groups were able to make decisions while anarchist groups were stuck in a crisis of decision making.

People will say superior outside fascist forces or communist forces but the reverse to that is inferior, slow moving anarchist forces that failed at the one thing that wins wars and battles – logistics.

Could you provide the sources for that? I have not come across any source that says the Anarchist militias were slow to respond or ineffective with the meager supplies they had, where did you learn this?

Once they do, a power vacuum forms and whichever in-group holds the most power or can organize the fastest will overtake the general anarchist movement and no longer be anarchist.

In Ukraine, they were crushed not due to a power vacuum, but because their allies the Bolsheviks betrayed them completely and utterly after the White Army was on the run. This was an unprecedented event in history, it was not generally expected at that time that the Communists would become violent toward people who shared supposedly similar goals. It was not due to a power vacuum, there was no threat that emerged from the already Anarchist controlled areas.

The same in Spain, they were not destroyed from within, but from ML's betraying them sooner than expected, and ultimately by overwhelming logistical firepower from Fascists.

If we were to follow your own logic; the reason France, Poland, and all the other nations that fell to the Nazi's in WWII must've mainly been due to them being capitalist liberal democracies (when in reality, it was mainly due to modern military strategies by Germany combined with their logistical ability).

What do you believe people should be doing with their time in-between voting days?

Organizing, showing up to government events, meeting with government officials, trying to verify government claims, demonstrating at key times if demands aren't being met, trying to convince others why your cause is just, developing candidates and running them if an existing candidate isn't worth it.

Organizing

Uh... Isn't that the thing you said is counter productive in your last comment? 🤨

As to the rest, I personally think getting deeply involved in electoral politics besides tossing in a vote on election day is a road to quick burnout, disappointment, and ultimately barely moving the needle on the issues that matter most.

It also leaves people with their pants down if fascists are able to negate the vote, as there are then no systems or community to fallback on.

But that's just my 2 cents.

I said one without the other feels counterproductive. If you can mobilize a few percentage of the voting public who will vote for who you say, you are far more likely to get included within the political process to create legislation and policy to your looking, which is the point of organizing.

I don't see why someone would throw away a tool to implement change they are pushing for.

Look I learned this in school I don't run around collecting sources for what is essentially a blip in human history. I understand what you're saying but in general this is the huge flaw in not just anarchist movements but liberal movements entirely, purity tests.

I think my favorite description heard of it is the concept of a circular firing squad. Once an individual or faction starts making moves others don't consider anarchist/libertarian/liberal enough they begin infighting and fracturing. And once that cooperation stutters even a little the machine starts to struggle.

If we were to follow your own logic; the reason France, Poland, and all the other nations that fell to the Nazi's in WWII must've mainly been due to them being capitalist liberal democracies (when in reality, it was mainly due to modern military strategies by Germany combined with their logistical ability).

Yes to a degree. It's long been argued that fascism's greatest strength is the speed at which decisions can be made, they will rip through everything to put their man in charge. The Nazis military structure literally leans into this and relied heavily on Nazi high command to orchestra its movements. They had an over-centralization, which directly led to them losing some fights. On the flip side of that anarchist movements have a lack of centralization that can often paralyze decision making in a crisis. Democracies tend to be in between with decentralized representation in the form of elections and some degree of centralization with their military structures. But democracies also had the unfortunate benefit of being well-established. Obviously this is a super watered down version but you want a like 60 page essay on an analysis of centralized vs decentralized command structures I'm sure people have already written about this.

Could you provide the sources for that? I have not come across any source that says the Anarchist militias were slow to respond or ineffective with the meager supplies they had, where did you learn this?

It did take me a bit to find but I think "the CNT in the Spanish revolution" by Jose Peirats was one I've seen countlessly cited. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jose-peirats-the-cnt-in-the-spanish-revolution-volume-1#toc14

It's pretty fucking exhausting to read but it basically just outlines the consistent battle between how local groups fought against larger regional influence and often at times just neglected calls for higher degrees of organization in favor of their own autonomy. If I had to sum it up it's just showing repeatedly how often they had to form an assembly that resulted in representatives asking for people to come together time and time again, often without a degree of success that was needed for victory. And sometimes lending itself to further infighting cause once they start doing or saying things people didn't agree with, their hype and motivation wanes which kills collectivism.

I'm also pretty sure Orwell has written about this detailing the lack of supplies that are tied directly to a failure of logistics although I'm not sure he touches upon that exactly, I think he just talks about their lack of supplies and the situation they found themselves in.

It's very easy to try and paint it that they were simply overpowered which is true but part of them being overpowered was their own weakness to establish a central command necessary for wartime decision making. They also refused outside help in fear it would kneecap their revolution. Logistics wins wars that's history 101, anarchism does not lend well to large scale logistics.

Look I learned this in school I don’t run around collecting sources for what is essentially a blip in human history.

Your teacher was not an infallible source of knowledge, and clearly was not as well versed as they should've been when teaching this subject.

Yes to a degree. It’s long been argued that fascism’s greatest strength is the speed at which decisions can be made, they will rip through everything to put their man in charge.

As you mentioned, Nazi Germany was defeated much quicker due to its centralized, all powerful leadership making incredibly bad military decisions repeatedly over the course of WWII. No one could say no to Hitler or his staff, even if people lower in chain actually fighting near the front lines had a clearer view of the situation.

On the flip side of that anarchist movements have a lack of centralization that can often paralyze decision making in a crisis.

They did have military centralization, in the form of the voluntary bottom-up command structure that you previously declared wasn't Anarchist.

Individual platoons and squads having autonomy results in the exact opposite of what you describe, as they can make decisions on the fly based on what is actually happening in real-time in front of them (while still coordinating with the larger bottom-up militia).

This is proven out even today in the Ukraine war, where Russia continues to suffer incredible losses due to their extremely strict top-down command structure, where lower level units can't do virtually anything without approval or orders from much farther up in the chain, which takes forever and doesn't allow them to respond adequately to emerging threats. Ukraine on the other hand has been willing to update their command structure from the outdated Soviet style, instead adopting the modern squad level independent decision making that the US adopted decades ago, which has made them far more effective in their ability to defend against the invasion.

part of them being overpowered was their own weakness to establish a central command necessary for wartime decision making.

They didn't want to join the Republican army for good reasons. Being under their command with no option to refuse bad orders or to recall bad commanders, especially in an Army that was quickly taken over by tankie Stalinist leaders who would likely try to use the Anarchists as shock troops to cull their numbers and leave the Stalinists more poised to betray them (which they ended up doing anyway, even as the Fascists were winning).

They also refused outside help in fear it would kneecap their revolution.

They repeatedly asked the Republican for supplies and help, but only ever received meager supplies and worn out old weapons, the scraps, essentially. The Anarchists put in a call for the Republican government to purchase more weapons for them, and suspected they never would and even seriously considered robbing the Republican bank to finally buy their own supplies, but decided to simply wait for the Republican government to do something so as not to disrupt their alliance, which ended up being the wrong decision, as the government later just gave virtually all of their gold reserves to the USSR in exchange for low quality weapons at extortionist prices, and once again the Anarchists got fuck all from it.

Logistics wins wars that’s history 101

Yes, that's true, but the Anarchists lack of logistics and supplies had nothing to do with Anarchism itself, but purely due to literally no outside force being willing to help supply them. The Allies and USSR in WWII would've been fucked if the US hadn't have been constantly supplying them with its massive, unbombable factories churning out supplies to keep the Allies supplied, regardless of their political system.

Your teacher was not an infallible source of knowledge

This literally also applies to you. Did you read what I sent? It literally outlines the consistent lack of centralized power by anarchists. You can't just decide they had central power when that's literally the exact opposite of anarchism, you have said that yourself in this thread.

As you mentioned, Nazi Germany was defeated much quicker due to its centralized, all powerful leadership making incredibly bad military decisions repeatedly over the course of WWII. No one could say no to Hitler or his staff, even if people lower in chain actually fighting near the front lines had a clearer view of the situation

You have said this was explicitly not why Nazi Germany lost. I had to tell you it was. Again, you are not an infallible source and have just proved it again.

They did have military centralization, in the form of the voluntary bottom-up command structure that you previously declared wasn't Anarchist.

Literally a contradiction. You keep saying the same things and I think in your mind you have built up what it means and have decided this is true about anarchy and it is correct and it cannot be wrong, you're not being honest and challenging your view. This is not a centralized command structure this is genuinely 100% entirely the opposite of such and I have directly outlined and provided a source that says exactly that.

This is proven out even today in the Ukraine war, where Russia continues to suffer incredible losses due to their extremely strict top-down command structure, where lower level units can't do virtually anything without approval or orders from much farther up in the chain

Because democracy like I said. The west especially after the Americans joined the fighting was fluid and relied on forces that worked together but their command structure wasn't as centralized

Example - Roosevelt was the president and definitely had overall decision making process however unlike Germany he relied on Eisenhower to run the European theater and MacArthur in the Pacific theater. And below them they each had their own subordinates who had the power to make decisions without the need for higher up approval which continues down the line to a point where smaller platoons and companies could orchestrate themselves but did not hold a level of authority to be totally autonomous and so it was a fluid top down structure. Unlike Germany who specifically relied on high command to tell them what to do. And also unlike anarchists who, as you said, was bottom up. Ukraine is most similar to America's structure where Zelensky has the most decision making power but the men below him have a ton too and that structure continues until you get to smaller platoons who don't really have that level of decision making because it becomes less effective if they are not coordinated properly which is exactly what the anarchists struggled with.

They didn't want to join the Republican army for good reasons

I agree. But they also were not as united as you're saying. You are treating it essentially as a hive mind and not appreciating how individualistic people and factions are.

They repeatedly asked the Republican for supplies and help, but only ever received meager supplies and worn out old weapons, the scraps, essentially.

Yes and they also completely failed to work together at times as detailed in what I linked. There are times when members outright refused direction from national leadership. The logistical consequences from lack of a ACTUAL centralized power(not what you keep asserting which is not centralized power) resulted in shortages because they could not agree where weapons went, which fronts and groups received priority and overall who controlled the general military production.

Overall none of this is hard to understand you can literally see this unfold in a group project. If you do not communicate who does what, two people are gonna show up with written essays, two will be prepared to present and nobody made the actual presentation. That's essentially what happened here.

Again you are not infallible either, and I do take a degree of offense on you saying my teacher wasn't also. Of course he wasn't. But he wasn't wrong. Read what I linked, it outlines everything. Read Orwell's writings he talks about it. Historians from today will literally tell you the same. Just because you don't agree or decide not to see it doesn't make it true.

Name one revolution that actually ended happily and positively?

• Velvet Revolution
• Euromaiden
• 1986 People Power Revolution, Philippines

They didn't though. I did admittedly have to Google about the velvet revolution but that instantly turned into the velvet divorce which was an interesting read in itself but doesn't seem to be very great.

The other resulted in Ukraine's economy basically crashing and the people's power revolution opened up the Philippines to mass corruption and handed wealth into the hands of elites.

Look my entire point is revolutions are good for society but it's a joke to think they are peaceful and leave a place totally better off. They genuinely just cause a coin flip that usually results in a similar or worse situation, typically placing wealth in the hands of already wealthy or reaffirming a social hierarchy that was the core of the problem in the first place.

My point in responding to the above comment is how everyone views the concept of revolution through rose tinted glasses even though it never ends the way they're asserting it does. Anarchists did not have an egalitarian society where everyone held hands, liberals did not create a free society they enslaved people, socialists did not make a fair economy that caused everyone's needs to be met. In every instance the poor are usually still poor, fighting continues or gets worse or the revolution instigates more fighting, factions shatter once they're in the seat of power and their ideals bleed away because that's all they were ideals

Yes everywhere will always have issues but truthfully the better process is a slow democratic focused reform, educating the masses so the next generation has the brain to do so and aiming for non-violence. Drastic changes cause drastic issues.

So no those weren't magical successful revolutions they brought further problems for the people in many ways, some were justified but it's a complete lie to assert that.

I say all of this because the entire world is expecting America to grab guns and kill the bad guys and save something but it won't unfold like that, you'll end up just creating a worse situation.