Tough times call for a revolution of spirit

Most Americans seem to have a bit of revolution in their hearts. And even though our country was born of revolution, the heart is generally where it stays.

We are lucky to live in a nation where mobs don't shut down airports or take over television stations. But there may be cause for worry when people become too docile.

When the government of Iceland bankrupted that nation, there was a revolt. In China, migrant peasants forced to leave the cities because of rising unemployment are battling police. Greece recently experienced eight days of riots and demonstrations in more than a dozen cities. The turmoil later spread to France, Spain, Denmark and Italy.

But in the United States, where more than 500,000 lost their jobs in November, there is calm.

An exception was a spunky group of workers in Chicago who were told their plant would close in three days. They were informed there would be no severance pay or earned vacation pay. So the 240 laid-off employees at Republic Windows & Doors held a six-day sit-in.

Their act of defiance got them their severance and vacation pay, plus two months' health coverage. More important, perhaps, they showed that every one of us has at least a little power.

The early revolutionary leaders in America knew this. That's why they sought support from bands of artisans and workers. When the time was right, these were the people who would get terribly drunk, storm the mansion of the Tory governor, sack the place, and send him running into the woods.

Helping to firm up this alliance of the elite and the common were new ideas: that all men were created equal, with God-given rights. The artisans and workers saw something in this for them. They agreed to fight in a poorly paid, poorly equipped army. And they won.

Afterward, those in power had to persuade the mobs to go back to their farms and jobs and let the elite run things again. In A Leap in the Dark, historian John Ferling wrote that James Madison drafted our Constitution not to facilitate democracy, but to make it very difficult. America, after all, was still a place where a certain type of man took his hat off in the presence of another type of man.

Even so, common people, newly empowered by the Revolution, tried challenging their leaders by forming lobby groups called Democratic Societies. If the societies decided a new tax shouldn't be paid, many would listen. The societies were roundly denounced as self-created - a foul term of the times that Ferling equates with the more modern red or pinko.

Since then, protests and antigovernment acts have seasoned our history like coarse pepper in a stew. There were slave revolts, revolts against conscription, labor revolts, civil-rights demonstrations, and antiwar demonstrations - all usually met with force.

But in the past few years, as the underpinnings of our economy have shifted and cracked, there has been resounding deference. Recently, without too much objection, we allowed our government to give more than $700 billion to once-wealthy corporations that may soon be wealthy again.

When the people do fight for themselves, the charge of "class warfare" is often heard. This usually quiets everyone down. But the very wealthy and very candid Warren Buffett said it well: "If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning."

The founders of our country worried that the Revolution would produce mobs of "levelers" trying to unravel the fabric of society. In an odd twist, the levelers of today come from Wall Street. The biggest may be investor Bernard Madoff, who took $50 billion from his well-to-do clients and lost it. Such redistribution of wealth by a single person is almost unheard of.

I'm sorry to see anyone lose money, and all of us want to see an end to the economic turmoil. But Madoff and people like him are unintentionally bringing us closer together.

In the end, that may give us all a more equal voice, and a revolution won't have been necessary. Madison may have objected, but I approve.