You Say You Want A Revolution

There are days with certain people I have seriously contemplated and discussed this with certain others, but it has not gone far beyond the planning stages – well, that I'm aware of – so you're safe. (For now.) That's that small annoying problem with revolutions; you never know how they will turn out. You can look at our own human history, you can look at accounts of fictional revolutions, and the end result often turns out to be something not even close to better for the masses who see a successful revolution as simply a change in the names of their rulers. Why do I bring this up?
 

The lyrics for the 1968 Beatles song I quote in today's title (come on, you KNOW you were singing that in your head if you're old enough to have heard or remember it) have been going through my head all weekend, and there are a few things I've read lately that make me think and believe not only is revolution possible, it's most likely inevitable. AND there are people in my reading audience who will say I'm going way too soft with this, and some that will say that I am out of my mind. Some might even send the black vans after me.

America: Imagine A World Without Her. Dinesh D'Souza's book version (ISBN 9781621572039) of the documentary/speculative film 2016: Obama's America about the further the United States turns its back on Israel (seriously, does any other nation on Earth get its right to exist contested as regularly as that one which is the size of New Jersey?) and its own Judeo-Christian heritage (I use the term because I will not make this post a polemic, read into it what you will) and traditions and institutions in order to be “progressive”, in today's buzzword. And there are nations sitting waiting to watch America fall.

But they're willing to pay lip-service to “progressive” values until America's gone, and then jettison them because they don't want their lands to fall the same way. I wonder if Mack Reynolds had a similar idea outlining and writing his 1978 novel Trample An Empire Down (SBN 0843905859) where three men in an almost-utopian future (as seen in the seventies, automated and with everyone guaranteed an annual income) are so bored that they form and rapidly expand their own Subversive Party (motto: What's In It For Me?) which mushrooms quickly.

Apparently there is no law against organizing yourselves and getting yourselves voted into power, and everything is above board (in the story, courtesy of National Data Banks that have everything on everybody). It's a question of getting organized … which in my real life, we have done approaching the end of June. Heh. My family has anyway; after church Sunday we got home to mow the lawn before it rained again and with our family friend Donovan's help we moved a rusting playground set the kids are too big for anyway and sawed off a few branches from a dead tree that I smack into when I mow!

You almost would not recognize the front of our house right now … Martha and the kids and I got some rest in before going to the third play of Minot State University's Summer Theater, Greater Tuna. In this case Tuna is the third-smallest town in Texas, and the two actors in the play rotate ten roles among each of them from radio announcers to reverends to over-coddled children. More fun that I admit I thought it would be besides being the only play this summer that's NOT A MUSICAL! I thought it was tough in middle school in one play I was in playing two characters, but I digress.

Seventh paragraph, to tie this all together (or not). It will be a short week for me to post here since the USA has the Fourth of July – Independence Day, say Independence Day – on Saturday and both Martha and I will be off work Friday. July's got as many in-family celebrations as February does, technically more since Valentine's Day in February is a general holiday. One son this coming Thursday, check. One nephew a week from Saturday, check. Mine and Martha's twelfth wedding anniversary on the twelfth of July, check. (Oh nuts …)

David