a) God help us, a revolution is brewing.

                  b) A revolution is brewing, thank God.

                  Is it a), b), neither or both?

                  Revolutions are incredible until they occur. Human nature extrapolates the status quo. For many, it’s impossible to envision a new way of being. What has been will always be, plus or minus.

                  Revolutions are scary as hell. The more you have to lose, the likelier you are to temporize, moderate, urge caution, “one step at a time.” Revolutionaries in principle turn reluctant in practice if they’ve got some dough.

                  The less you have, the less you risk when the state turns upside down. Why fret flushing “the baby with the bathwater,” if you’ve got no baby? As Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.” Sans-culottes are seldom the best dressed.

                  No one sees a revolution coming. In theory, maybe, as I’m doing here. But in fact? The rich and powerful are just too rich and powerful. Not a chance! Revolutionaries tend to be amazed by their success. Sam Adams, Robespierre, Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh may have talked a big game, but did they really believe such transformation possible?

                  The likelihood of a second American revolution jolted me awake. The recent victories of self-described Democratic Socialists remind us of a volcano’s grumbles. Democracy, American style, is broken. The proof of the pudding is in the White House – both the man and the mess he’s making. The only beneficiaries of this regime are the one percent. The other ninety-nine percent are gradually waking to their folly. We the people got screwed. Tax cuts for plutocrats; benefit cuts for the rest of us. Bad wars, poison climates, inflation, price at the pump, civil violence, soaring deficits, algae, you name it, Joe Sixpack got the short end of the stick – and more of us are joining the Joe Sixpack Brigade daily. Nervous, the one percent are plotting to cancel elections – democracies aren’t pleasant for plutocrats. My bet is they won’t succeed. A close election the fat-cats might steal, but not a blowout. My crystal ball’s flashing blowout potential. (My crystal ball is more often wrong than right.)

                  Revolutions never unfold as envisioned. Crane Brinton (1898-1968) traced a revolution’s probable progress in his classic book, The Anatomy of a Revolution. The old regime loses legitimacy, moderates take charge, radicals seize control, all hell breaks loose, the radicals get heaved, and a tough guy leader emerges. Few revolutions follow that exact playbook, but his sequence provides a yardstick by which to measure upheavals. For sure, America’s “old regime,” that is, the money bros, is losing legitimacy – faster than you can say Elon Musk. What comes next? November’s midterms and the Nameless One’s panicked anticipation will provide clues.

                  Personally, I’m in no mood for a revolution. Old and sedentary, I’m addicted to quiet. Then again, I’m in no mood for enslavement to a greedy, inept, cruel, lying thug. Plus, I’m a patriot, who believes America’s worth fixing. It was grand idea once and, with some revisions, might be again.

                  The battle lines in this civil war are clear: it will be the rich versus the rest of us, screwers versus screwed. The sad besmirched Republican party has been shanghaied by the rich. The pro-people party, this time around, will be the Dems.

                  Whatever happens will be ugly, agonizing while the battle rages. Both sides will grotesquely misbehave. Lives will be destroyed. Reason will be reviled. Prose, my darling, will be pummeled by propaganda. I shudder at the prospect. Only, the absence of a revolution would be worse. It is time.