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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!"
The one thing that seemed off about the langauge in the homage to GSH's insightful song about the ultimate irreverence of mass media was the attempt to address "geeks" via a reference to AOL keywords.
I don't know any geeks that use AOL.
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....
The web isn't mass media, it just has mass distribution.
The best way to do is to be.
Dude, relax. I'm sure George Washington stopped to have a beer at least once during the American Revolution. I'm sure Abraham Lincoln read a nice book, just for fun, during the Civil War, and I'm sure that FDR spent a night with his mistress not thinking about the Depression or World War I. I'm sure he spent a hundred.
Has a revolution ever happened in a true democracy (or at least as true as you find in North America)?
Considering up here in Canada we've held referendums to determine if we should divide the country (first Quebec, and now Alberta is talking about it too) I find it hard to believe we would ever see such an event take place.
Even with Bush going a bit nuts with the whole "You must give up your rights to be safe, citizen." power grab in the US, he can easily be voted out at the next election. No revolution (violent or otherwise) necessary.
You need the support of the majority to have a revolution, otherwise it's called other things.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Here's a bigger hint to the clueless moron: If everyone sat around and ate "shreddies" while watching TV, there would be much less violence in this world, the problem is that people put down their toys and picked up guns. Just because some people in this world fight each other doesn't mean I will destroy my life. My life is made of many things, my life is made of the people I know, My life is made by a consumer culture and it's governing systems. My life is made of the plants in my yards and the shows on my TV. Whether or not I choose to watch TV is a different matter, it's a choice I make in my life. Personally, I don't have time for TV, I've not watched it in a long while. But if I did have time, I would watch all the cartoons I wanted.
YOU WANT SOME DAMN PRIORITIES? How can you solve your problems?!, in your life?!, right now?! If you are so concerned over the deaths in this world, why don't you go do something about it. Don't sit in front of a computer and tell everyong else not to talk about anything but the wars. Go solve the damn problem. Fight against the war, fight against the iraqis, fight with the iraqis, whatever you want. If I want to sit at home and play diablo, I will. If I want to go down to the store and buy a sandwich, I will. And nothing you can say, about any other part of the world, will make me feel guilty about eating my sandwich.
I don't like death, I agree with you, death is bad. But life includes "shreddies" and "cowboy bebop", so get over it.
For any newfound Gil Scott-Heron fans, my favorite GSH piece:
Whitey's on the Moon
A rat done bit my sister Nell
With whitey on the moon
Her face and arms began to swell
And whitey's on the moon
I can't pay no doctor bills
And whitey's on the moon
Ten years from now, I'll be payin' still
While whitey's on the moon
You know, the man just upped my rent last night
'Cos whitey's on the moon
No hot water, no toilets, no lights
But whitey's on the moon
I wonder why he's uppin' me
'Cos whitey's on the moon?
Well, I was already givin' him fifty a week
And now whitey's on the moon
Taxes takin' my whole damn check
The junkies make me a nervous wreck
The price of food is goin' up
And as if all that crap wasn't enough
A rat done bit my sister Nell
With whitey on the moon...
answer...
Do you realize that on balance that income equality became much greater over the last century? Yes, it really sorta peaked during the 50s in the US, but on the whole, the industrial revolution and the end of the Guilded Age created and cemented the concept and notion of the middle class. Before that, you had subsistance farming (everyone was poor) with a very few well to do people in the ruling class and the later robber-barrons of the 19th century. You will never achive perfect income equality, and even if you could, the costs of doing so would be far greater than whatever benefits it would provide. At some point, the redistribution of wealth ceases to be productive to the overall well being of the people.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.