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Revolution is not an AOL Keyword*
pdw writes "Revolution is not an AOL Keyword* is an entertaining piece of prose, which has been floating around the blogspace for the past month. In reinterpreting Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Eddan Katz has given us quick worldview, common to most Slashdoters, and of course reminds us of what is most important to all, to go out and enjoy life!"
Actually that piece isn't prose ("Ordinary speech or writing, without metrical structure." - dictionary.com) but poetry. Albeit the kind of poetry that doesn't rhyme.
uh, he's not making a geek refrence, what he's saying is pretty much what you say in your last sentence
"Besides, the revolution, if there is one, will probably have a web site, but it will run on Apache and Perl Scripts. There won't be an AOL keyword...."
hence his line
"revolution is not an aol keyword."
The Soviet Communist revolution happened shortly after their democratic revolution, although that was short lived and unstable.
Chile was a democracy prior to Sept 11, 1973 when it was overthrown by a US-supported military coup and became a brutal dictatorship. A new leader wasn't elected until 1989.
The primary issue of the civil war wasn't slavery - it was the balance of power between the federal government and individual states.
;-)
Lincoln didn't abolish slavery until late in the war, and not for the reason that many believe. The war was going badly for the north. General Lee, a graduate of West Point, and before the war one of the best commanders the US Army had, had won victory after victory. Many northerners were calling on Lincoln to recognize the secession of the south and sign a treaty with the Confederate States.
Putting an end to slavery was, for Lincoln, a means of gaining support for continuing the war from the abolitionist movement. If the north and south were to remain separate, it would have been largely symbolic, as slavery was not widely practiced in the north at that point anyway. The new law would only have teeth if the war continued, and the south was brought back into the union and subjected to its laws.
An interesting bit of history: Before the civil war, the US was referred to using the plural form - i.e. "these United States are..." It wasn't until after the civil war, and the post-war rise in the power of the federal government, that the singular form began to be used - i.e. "this United States is..."
This post brought to you by Ken Burns - and viewers like you.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
Looking back at it, the military "victories" the South won were phiric. In no battle was there a clear winner in terms of causualties, and from the beginning it was clear that the North's greater population (why Lincoln won to begin with) and industrialization (the South couldn't even manufacture the bullets for many of the Northern guns they captured) was going to eventually lead to its victory. The Southern politicians assumed that since the cotton for the world's textile mills came from their states that France and/or Britian would come to their aide. This was bad reasoning since Egypt was already producing higher grade cotton and European and Industrial warehouses were full at the beginning of the war. Of course we all know that the war turned at Gettysberg where Lee (despite what you may have gotten from the Ken Burns specials) basically killed 15000 of his own men by ordering Picket's charge over the strong objections of the other southern generals (Longstreet included).
Also, remember that the American Civil war was much more costly for the South than for the North. A greater portion of their 18-40 year old men were killed, what industry the south had was destroyed by Sherman, and the way the social and economic elites lived was fundamentally altered. No Southerner should attempt to glorify the civil war. What the Confederacy stood for, and the war planning of its politicians is an embarassment to all true Americans.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
Part of the peace-treaty with Soviet Union (for those who do not know history: we fought two wars against them during WW2) was that Finland was required to build a railroad from the eastern-border to the Swedish border. Soviets wanted that in case there was a war with Sweden so they could use it as a supply-line.
As to the Soviet "aid". Well, we didn't really get any aid from them, quite the contrary: we had to pay huge war-repatations to them (not to mention cede large amounts of the country to them). Yes, later we did have big trade-agreements with them, and they did benefit Finnish economy. It was transito-trade, as in Finland provided Soviet Union with goods, and SU paid back with their own goods (usually oil).
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
This reference sounds more like Mao's quote:
"A revolution is not a dinner party."
While it is close in idea to "the revolution will not be televised," this also got its base from Mao; "... is not an AOL keyword" is closer to the original germ.