We are at war right here in our own country. The war is going on somewhat unnoticed because many do not realize the extent to which it is happening. It is generally a war of subversion rather than direct armed takeover, but it is war on the American population nonetheless.
There are two elements of the conduct of war activities (which in the instant case is the war on the American Population by the Corporate Oligarchy).
- Strategy:
The action that you plan to take against the opposing forces based on your guess of what the opposing forces will do.
- Tactics:
The action that you actually take against the opposing forces based on what the opposing forces actually do.
In war, sometimes a well-considered tactic can be effective and sometimes not.
Ineffective Tactics
An example of ineffective tactics was the ill-fated action of the British and French Forces in northern France in 1940.
- Strategy:
The German army advanced on France in World War I, resulting in a long, costly stalemate. As the German army advanced toward France in 1940, France and England assumed the same German strategy and decided to be ready for them, sending a substantial force of French and English troops to northern France.
- Tactics: The German army didn’t do the same thing that they did in 1914 (Surprise!), ran virtually unopposed through central France and virtually surrounded the British and French forces. Having seen what the opposition was actually doing as opposed to what was expected, the British and French tactic was retreat as fast as possible with however many soldiers survived.
Effective Tactics
An example of effective tactics was the Doolittle raid on Japan in 1942.
- Strategy:
Conflict in Asia, like the conflict in Europe had been boiling for years before what was, for the US, the beginning of World War II in December 1941. The US was sort of watching what was going on in Europe and Asia with the attitude that it is too far away to affect us. That was the plan; watch what is happening and avoid involvement.
- Tactics:
The Japanese navy attacked Pearl Harbor as well as come coastal areas in California and Oregon and invaded a couple of the Aleutian Islands that were part of the Alaska Territory (before it became a state). The US was in no position to repel a serious Japanese attack on the west coast, but didn’t want the Japanese military and government to know that. The US government needed a tactic that would be effective until a strategy for winning could be developed and implemented.
The US was seemingly too far from Japan to launch a counter attack, but some sort of counter attack was needed in order to demonstrate capability and leave the Japanese military questioning their own ability as well as ours. Were the remaining US navy forces to come within striking distance, they would have been swiftly overwhelmed.
General Jimmy Doolittle, the architect of the counter attack on Japan said:
The Japanese people had been told they were invulnerable … An attack on the Japanese homeland would cause confusion in the minds of the Japanese people and sow doubt about the reliability of their leaders. There was a second, and equally important, psychological reason for this attack … Americans badly needed a morale boost.
The tactic involved figuring out how to do the impossible. The planes associated with aircraft carriers were small, had a short range, and lacked substantial attack capabilities. They were intended to be used against other airplanes. A plan to modify long range bombers to be launched from an aircraft carrier was devised and implemented. On April 1, 1942, the US planes flew a seemingly impossible bombing raid on Japan, getting the full attention of the Japanese population, government, and military as well as the American population. The purportedly invincible Japanese military might was not invincible. This tactic put sufficient pressure on the Japanese military to prevent further attacks until the strategic plan was ready to implement.
How does this apply to us now?
We are engaged in a war with a seemingly invincible Corporate Oligarchy. The strategy must remove the US government form control of the Oligarchy.
Strategic Options:
- Elect Democrats to Congress in 2018 to the extent that is feasible and regardless of the fact that some Democrats are typically merely another name for Republicans. Prepare for the 2020 elections and obtain control of the White House. That, folks will look like the British and French strategy in 1940. If that is the goal, there may not be a 2020 election in which to do battle.
- Prepare for the 2018 election. There are several movements engaged in starting the battle against the Corporate Oligarchy in 2018. Among them are Our Revolution, Justice Democrats, Brand New Congress, and starting a new party to effectively replace the Democratic Party.
The ineffectiveness of the first strategy should be obvious. The Republican Party controls almost enough of the US to effect changes to the Constitution that would be disastrous for America as we know it. We are surrounded as the British and French were in northern France in 1940. The only available tactic will be the equivalent of retreat into the sea, hoping for someone to rescue us from the water.
The second strategy consists of two sub-strategies with the same goal.
- Recruit progressive, non-corrupt candidates for the 2018 election, taking over and reforming the Democratic Party in the process. The Democratic Party will demonstrate the likelihood that this action is possible by the result of their election of a party chairman at the end of February 2017. There is a substantial part of the Democratic Establishment who are actually in the employ (virtually, figuratively, or literally) of the Corporate Oligarchy. If they remain in power, they will continue to use their current tactics of selecting their candidates for office and prevent progressive “outsiders” from challenging them. Many in the Democratic Party consider progressives to be the enemy. The parties run the primaries, so they are automatically rigged for the Establishment parties.
- Start a new party to replace the Democratic Party. Merely electing status quo Democrats is not sufficient when the Democratic Party is effectively a branch of the Republican Party, controlled by the Corporate Oligarchy. Starting an effective new party is not a trivial activity. It can be done. It has been done before (the current Republican Party replaced the ineffective-for-its-constituency establishment Whig Party over a period of six years 1854 – 1860). A new party was a bad strategy during the 2016 primary election and Democratic National Convention debacle. It may not be an effective strategy now. We will know much more at the beginning of March, 2017.
Right now, both sub-strategies can be pursued concurrently, with an alliance forming, or not, after the Democratic Party shows its intentions. The second strategy promises victory, albeit after a very likely long and exhausting effort.
Tactical options:
We are not in a position to deflect the war that the Corporate Oligarchy is waging against us. The tactic we need looks like the Doolittle Raid. We demonstrate that we are united, have strength, will power, and the means to overcome them. That involves protests, boycotts, publicity, vast attention-attracting marches, and other resistance activity until we can implement the strategy for the first real counterattack in 2018.
We can prevail if we know that we can win and we apply ourselves to the mission. Division between the two strategies is not a way to win.
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Thos