Re: This was effing brilliant!!

This was much better than anything I could have written, and for the first time since your first few years on GC, I have started to admire you greatly and look up to you for something more than just great fiction writing! :-) You sound much more like the Markaba of those early days than that dude "Todd" who took over his body for a few years between then and now. It's nice to have Markaba back, and I hope this time he has submerged the "Todd" persona for good. If only I Love Green Olives was here to see this! (Remember him?)

Well gosh, I mean, er, um, that is to say . . . aw, shucks. :-D Yes, I do remember ILGO, of course. I designed his siggy.

You've always been a borderline genius, but it's nice to see that intellect pointed in a positive direction again. The metaphorical creation of Big Daddy Sam was awesomely memorable, and I'm going to start using that archetypal dude in the future now too, with your permission! (Get a patent on that, dude!) All you need to do now is acknowledge his partner-in-crime, Big Papa Elephant (the personification of the Corporate system, the conservative worldview, and the Republican Party in the U.S. and the Tories in Britain).

Only borderline genius? ;-) Whatever, I'll take it, and thanks. You are welcome to use any of my language or creations. The thing about the Republicans though is that, I love elephants. They're one of my favorite animals, and I hate that they are associated with Republicans. I would come up with something more general anyway to personify the corporate-political-military complex, since some Democrats also belong to it. The Hungry Hippo maybe? A hippo seems like a pretty good combo of an ass and an elephant, I think. But it isn't immediately reflective of the problem like the others are. Well, I'll come up with something. My creative juices aren't running today like they were yesterday. I don't know what it was, but it just smacked me when I read that post and replied to it. I had no intention of writing that long post, but thar it be.

I would be more than proud to put a polished version of this post up on the Newgon Wiki as soon as I get back to that (which I am now planning).

Yeah, that's fine, but it will need some major cleanup. A lot of grammatical issues I couldn't stop to fix when I was in the zone, you know. And actually, I did have at least one other point I wanted to get into, but I figured I had already spent two hours on it and didn't feel like investing another hour into a post that originally was intended to take only a few minutes.

My only disagreement, of course, is that I don't believe we are stuck with a close variation of the current state and family unit for eternity; I agree overthrowing the state like in the old days is not an option today, but there are other options available to us now that didn't exist in the past. The Second American Revolution must be done in a civilized but firm manner, and only by eventually getting the great majority of the "free world" to agree to stop worshiping Big Daddy Sam and Big Papa Elephant with the same degree of zealousness that the religous fundies worship their conception of God, and to join together in class solidarity just as most of the 1 percenters always have. The Occupy Wall Street movement is a nice little step in the right direction, and a sign that large numbers of the working class have finally had enough. A lot more work has to be done, of course, because the first little step is only the first of many that need to be done.

Well, I suppose what I could do there is outline how there are basically three options available to us: we can do nothing and let the state continue to steamroll us; we can tinker here and there and continue to just stay afloat; or we can have a "quiet revolution." But I absolutely cannot advocate a violent overthrow, which would never work anyway. Personally, I just am very skeptical that we can ever get to the quiet revolution stage--too many people are just too comfortable. Too few Americans who are in a position to affect genuine change have ever experienced real poverty (which, I can attest, becomes the only priority you have--you simply cannot concentrate on anything else when you are stressed to the max over whether you're going to be able to pay your upcoming bills or not; it's why so many people stay trapped in poverty, I think, and why crime is so high amongst the poor), although they are a little bit closer to it than they used to be, I reckon.

Anyway, I have some other projects I need to get out of the way first, including my contribution to VoA's e-zine, but I will rewrite this when I get those done.

Btw, I thought it was interesting how you followed up the endnotes demarcated by asterisks with endnotes designated by the upper direction symbol and the pound symbol. I never saw that done before.

Eh, I just used what was easily available. After two asterisks, I didn't want to have three, four, etc. asterisks, and I didn't know how many footnotes I was actually going to have, so . . . :)