Richard Crim
3 min readMay 13, 2022

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Well, remember you asked. ;-)

It sounds like you are calling for a "White Mutiny".

A "White Mutiny" is a mutiny or protest in which the 'mutineers' follow orders and regulations exactly; no more, no less. It may also include volunteering information only when asked, and interpreting orders as literally as possible.

"you just said to turn on the machine, you didn't say anything about starting to work!".

This can be quite effective. Because the primary value of a good worker is the ability to adapt to unforeseen conditions. For example, turning a smoking machine off before it burst into flames, without having to be told to do so.

Employers and bosses count on employees doing more than "just what they're told".

Even when the job has been deskilled down to the level of the modern meat packing plant. Where workers typically do one task, thousands of times a day. Until carpal tunnel "repetitive motion" damage cripples them.

Even in places like that. Employers count on workers doing more than "just what they're told".

Under the right circumstances it can be effective.

It also has the great advantage of not requiring the rebels to break any rules, ideally giving the current authority no reasonable grounds for complaint.

A "White Mutiny" is less dangerous than calling for a "General Strike".

But basically it requires those in charge to be reasonable in the face of resistance. That's a BIG ask.

Historically, what has happened in authoritarian regimes is that the secret police came for people like you in the middle of the night.

"The blade of grass that stands out is the first to be cut down" - Chinese proverb.

In Pinochet's Chile you would have been taken to the main sports stadium. Hauled before a tribunal, and if one of your neighbors had reported you for something. Taken to a room and shot in the back of the head.

Your body would have been thrown on a truck and then hauled off to a barge. To be dumped at sea.

Or perhaps hauled off to an old quarry or mine. To be buried forever.

You could disappear.

You know what happens after a few hundred thousand people "disappear"?

People go back to work.

Not cheerfully. Not happily. Not at peak productivity. But they go back.

This has consequences for everyone.

In the old Soviet Union the bitter joke used to be,

"They pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work"

The poor quality of Soviet made goods became legendary. Every component or feed-stock that could be cheapened or stolen was. Nothing that the average citizen had access to was well made in the former Soviet Union.

Including pharmaceuticals.

Going to the drugstore to get a prescription filled was like playing Russian roulette with your health. Everything was like that though.

Electrical systems were shoddy. Plumbing systems were leaky and used dangerous materials. Cars blew up, caught fire, or fell apart. Sometimes all at once.

Nothing worked, except for the elites. For as long as they could keep the lid on.

You have heard of the "gulags". That's how you can run a country when the "uppity workers" decide they want more. It's not a high productivity system but the bare minimum gets done.

For Authoritarian Fascists it's a very appealing model. They love the social control aspect of it and as "elites" they don't suffer any privation. The elites in Franco's Spain were OK with it.

Calling for White Mutiny or a General Strike is historically the sort of thing that starts happening just before civil wars, coups, or revolutions. Is that really where you are prepared to go?

Not saying no. Just saying, have you really thought it through?

The Trumpublicans aka White America may leave the rest of us no choice. They are whipping themselves up into a frenzy of rage over on FOX. Pledging to Impeach Biden and have him removed from office. Charged with treason for his "Election Crimes" in 2016 and hustled away to Gitmo.

So, that Trump can return in his Radiant Glory and restore order to our troubled land. With an iron hand and a boot in the face of any troublemakers.

I'm serious. I have a degree in Anthropology and my dissertation was on civil wars and revolutions. The kind of shit they are talking on FOX right now, is the stuff you hear just before a pogram or a Rawanda style bloodbath.

White America is getting really unhinged. The rest of us need to decide by the November elections how we want to deal with it. Losing an election to them right now is a really bad idea.

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Richard Crim
Richard Crim

Written by Richard Crim

My entire life can be described in one sentence: Things didn’t go as planned, and I’m OK with that.

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