raiha
03-30-2010, 03:03 AM
I came across this article on LRC and it voiced some back-burner thoughts I've been gently stewing:
A Change Is Gonna Come
If (a revolution) happens, I expect it will more closely resemble the French Revolution than the one in 1776."
~ Wendy McElroy (2010)
Today, give me liberty or give me death no longer rings true, the typical American is content to put up with any outrage because he’s so ideologically stripped as to no longer have any idea he should be outraged. Harboring a completely materialistic view of politics that equates material comfort with freedom, he’ll bear any assault on liberty with timid submission so long as the hi-def cable stays on. The intellectuals fare no better in this regard, as they are the very ones who spread the ideas that made hi-def cable more important to us than trial by jury.
In the event of rebellion, the American people would lack any leadership with the ability, or even the urge, to guide them back to liberty. Even if the occasional outrage morphs into a tea party, the vast majority of Americans, lead by the intellectuals, take most assaults with quiet approval, and for now I thank God for it. To go to war is something even the most ignorant savage does with relish; but to start a revolution requires the ability for calm, rational thought and a manly courage to risk it all that does not currently exist in this country. Where once our forefathers shot at government troops marching through the Massachusetts countryside towards Lexington and Concord, today we are a frightened little flock that goes to pieces at the thought of Goldman Sachs suffering a well-deserved bankruptcy. 2010 America does not possess what successful revolutions are made of.
So, thank you all who sent me a kind invitation to share a mess kit and a fight, but when you Thomas Jefferson wannabes grab your AK-47s, pull on your surplus camouflage uniforms, and go rushing off into the mountains please count me out and don’t wait up. I’ll be watching the slaughter from afar, Barcelona perhaps, Amsterdam more likely, and doubtless I’ll wish good luck and God speed to you all.
As of right now this country is simply not prepared for secession, civic disobedience, or rebellion; and under the current regime they all would be considered the same in the eyes of the ruling elite. Any move in that direction would be setting you up for a hopeless task; to free a people that neither wish for liberty or could handle it if won.
Read the op-ed pages and editorials of any newspaper, glance at the comments section to any Internet news site, and listen to the interviewed "man on the street," read our intellectuals’ monthly journals and agree; modern America is too uncivilized and savage for freedom.If you wish for a change back to liberty, forget your rifle – grab your pen.
It's a long article..i just posted the last segment...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/maloney/maloney20.1.html
I think all of us humans are capable of becoming monsters...just give us the right conditions and either the monster or the hero emerges. I don't think we can know which which one we will become until the conditions arise.
Like Conrad's Lord Jim having fantasies about saving all the drowning people in a shipwreck, but when push came to shove, he saved himself and everyone else drowned. Then he had to live with himself and his collapsed fantasies.
There is a helluva lot of PTSD flying around America...firstly inter-generational from the Civil War, then the unnecessary wars of last millenium and so the rage and the madness grows.
A Change Is Gonna Come
If (a revolution) happens, I expect it will more closely resemble the French Revolution than the one in 1776."
~ Wendy McElroy (2010)
Today, give me liberty or give me death no longer rings true, the typical American is content to put up with any outrage because he’s so ideologically stripped as to no longer have any idea he should be outraged. Harboring a completely materialistic view of politics that equates material comfort with freedom, he’ll bear any assault on liberty with timid submission so long as the hi-def cable stays on. The intellectuals fare no better in this regard, as they are the very ones who spread the ideas that made hi-def cable more important to us than trial by jury.
In the event of rebellion, the American people would lack any leadership with the ability, or even the urge, to guide them back to liberty. Even if the occasional outrage morphs into a tea party, the vast majority of Americans, lead by the intellectuals, take most assaults with quiet approval, and for now I thank God for it. To go to war is something even the most ignorant savage does with relish; but to start a revolution requires the ability for calm, rational thought and a manly courage to risk it all that does not currently exist in this country. Where once our forefathers shot at government troops marching through the Massachusetts countryside towards Lexington and Concord, today we are a frightened little flock that goes to pieces at the thought of Goldman Sachs suffering a well-deserved bankruptcy. 2010 America does not possess what successful revolutions are made of.
So, thank you all who sent me a kind invitation to share a mess kit and a fight, but when you Thomas Jefferson wannabes grab your AK-47s, pull on your surplus camouflage uniforms, and go rushing off into the mountains please count me out and don’t wait up. I’ll be watching the slaughter from afar, Barcelona perhaps, Amsterdam more likely, and doubtless I’ll wish good luck and God speed to you all.
As of right now this country is simply not prepared for secession, civic disobedience, or rebellion; and under the current regime they all would be considered the same in the eyes of the ruling elite. Any move in that direction would be setting you up for a hopeless task; to free a people that neither wish for liberty or could handle it if won.
Read the op-ed pages and editorials of any newspaper, glance at the comments section to any Internet news site, and listen to the interviewed "man on the street," read our intellectuals’ monthly journals and agree; modern America is too uncivilized and savage for freedom.If you wish for a change back to liberty, forget your rifle – grab your pen.
It's a long article..i just posted the last segment...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/maloney/maloney20.1.html
I think all of us humans are capable of becoming monsters...just give us the right conditions and either the monster or the hero emerges. I don't think we can know which which one we will become until the conditions arise.
Like Conrad's Lord Jim having fantasies about saving all the drowning people in a shipwreck, but when push came to shove, he saved himself and everyone else drowned. Then he had to live with himself and his collapsed fantasies.
There is a helluva lot of PTSD flying around America...firstly inter-generational from the Civil War, then the unnecessary wars of last millenium and so the rage and the madness grows.