Well, it’s only been a month or so since I said to myself, “Self, you’re wasting a lot of time looking at animal videos.”
So of course, I have to admit that watching this porcupine trying to eat out of a mug is pretty much all I want to do with my day today:
In a slightly more thoughtful vein: Leo and I went to see The Iron Lady yesterday. I have lots and lots of thoughts about it, in several different areas, but one of the things the film forces the audience to reflect on is the violence that erupted in Great Britain in the 1980s. People were poor, out of work, the economy was tanked, leadership was terrible… alarmingly familiar and close to home! Like, right here in these United States! Perhaps because I’ve been reading about the founding fathers and am therefore feeling a little more sensitive to these issues (rather than the other issues the movie dealt with about women in power, and the roles people play in families, and what conservative really means, and OH MY GOSH THE FALKLANDS) I started quizzing Leo over dinner – why, I asked, do you think we haven’t gotten to that point yet? What will it take to get our citizens to take action? I am well aware, and agree, that “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” But I also agree that “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” And it may be that we are well on that path!
Leo thought for a moment, and suggested that perhaps it is because the critical mass of poverty hasn’t been reached. People in our country are are poor, very poor indeed. But until and unless the population at large has to suffer deprivations – you can only have 3 gallons of gasoline this week! – it is unlikely that the critical mass will take to the streets. Occupy was a step in this direction – obviously – but the weight just isn’t there.
And I worry about the day when it is.
