According to the “News”, we should all be approaching revolution by now, as the worst snow storm ever recorded plunges us all into dark misery. It has been snowing all day, but none has settled (even on the massive piles of snow which remain from the last storm). We even had to work at home today to avoid the return of snowmageddon and all day got to watch the perpetual snow, and its perpetual inability to do any more damage than very light summer rain.
So I’ve been working at home, which is the same as working in the office except that I get to have a bird on my shoulder, watch The Sweeney, and end up working later than normal. We also got a short lie-in, and a moment of panic when we discovered our cable and Internet were cut off. This only took an hour to resolve tho and, despite that, I still think Comcast are an enormous set of bastards…sorry Matt.
A good friend gave me a copy of A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present, which is a really good guide for helping people who live in North America to feel guilty, ashamed and angry; it certainly has that effect on me anyway. Obviously the people who should read it, won’t. But the more depressing it is to read the history of genocide, enslavement, and torture of native Americans, Africans and the poor of any colour, the more difficult it becomes to feel like progress hasn’t been made over the last few hundred years. The general feelings of despair, disappointment, and anger I feel normally when listening to the “News”, especially when it describes what all of those deluded tards in the “teabag movement” are banging on about , seem a bit silly compared to the state of the U.S. in the late 17th century. There used to be a slave code, explaining how slaves (and “servants” AKA slaves) should be punished for trying to rebel. The “Puritans” considered the act of massacring entire villages of native-Americans as positively Godly. There was also cannibalism amongst the poor – another thing that doesn’t get mentioned too often in history textbooks.
Whatever Obama turns out to be, the fact he was elected is something I will forever remember as being one of the most wonderfully significant events in modern history. It reminded me that getting depressed and cynical doesn’t help – we have to try to change things! For lazy bastards like myself, that’s difficult to acknowledge.
Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it
Karl Marx – Theses on Feuerbach.
Alternatively, just make sure you enjoy the nice times – not everyone is privileged to have such a luxury.
