TS-Si Opinion

America's Game of Electoral College Roulette

Lancaster, PA, USA. It is our flawed presidential electoral system and not us that inhibits solution of our most vexing political, economic, foreign and social challenges. In this most contentious election year, one proposit...

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Conventional Wisdom

Lancaster, PA, USA. Let’s say it clearly. The Democrats had a good convention, one clearly reflected in a respectable post-convention bounce — the Republicans, not so much. Not that the GOP had a really bad or a dr...

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The Conventions Won't Matter, But The Debates Might

Lancaster, PA, USA. The endless campaign, also known as the 2012 American presidential election, isn’t quite ending yet. But as Churchill might have put it, we have at least reached the beginning of the end. With less than...

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Books I Have Read But Lately

Fairfax, VA, USA. Summers come, summers go, but the summer reading list is forever and I recline on the edge of somnolence, roused by our books waiting to be shelved or boxed away. This is a partial list of my summer reading...

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Springfield, VA, USA. Being a revolutionary has always been difficult. People tend to get angry when you revolute and, if you push too hard, they might decide to push back and then, if that doesn’t work, use something more serious to stop you from disturbing them.

I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute. — Mark Twain

Agreeing with Oscar Wilde that “when liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood it is hard to shake hands with her,” here is a list of Revolutionary Acts for Radical Americans too busy to place their bodies on the line. 

We pause here for a word of advice from our publisher: violation of civil or military laws may result in fines, incarceration, or death. If you can’t do the time, don’t be a rebel. If you are going to live outside the law, you have to be honest.

1. Call all the girlfriends and have them throw their sanitary napkins into the toilets at City Hall.
    
2. Drive to the busiest intersection in the city at rush hour. When stopped at the stoplight, turn the engine off, open the hood, rip out the spark plug wires, and walk, do not run away (after kissing your car goodbye).
    
3. Enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps. Refuse to go to the war zone when ordered to deploy. Accept the consequences.
    
4. Accept a full ROTC scholarship for college. After graduation, refuse to fulfill your service obligation and accept the consequences.
    
5. Start a radical slogan email chain letter. Sent to ten of your friends. Ask them to add a radical slogan and forward the email to ten of their friends (and so on). Eventually shut down the internet as your email propagates across the world. Eventually be arrested for creating a virus.
    
6. Create a cutting edge radical video and post it to MySpace.com (do not post it to my space). Confuse new technology with revolutionary acts.
    
7. Audition for American Idol dressed as Leon Trotsky, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, or Emma Goldman. Curse violently about the unfairness of the system when Simon sarcastically tells you that you aren’t right for the competition.
    
8. Go viral and breed (once or twice a day if you are male, every 10-11 months if you are female). Don’t let The Man tell you that you can’t breed because of the number of people in China and India.
    
9. Read the Great Books of Western Civilization and the writings of the revolutionary founders of the United States. Denounce the ones that were written by white males (young or old).
    
10. After using your government grant money to write a book that denigrates capitalism, go on Oprah, Maury, and Jerry Springer to promote it.
     
11. Proclaim yourself a champion of the working classes at least once daily in every class you teach at your state and federally subsidized university. Adopt faded jeans and tee-shirts or blue work shirts as your normal work clothes. Limit footwear to scuffed boots or expensive running shoes.
     
12. Make sure everyone knows you own an Apple computer. Repeat your statement of ownership any time an Intel or Microsoft product is mentioned. Whatever you do, never mention that your Apple runs on an Intel chip or that Microsoft Office is your office suite.
     
13. Change your sex. It’s relatively quick, only modestly expensive, and no one will doubt your commitment to the cause afterwards.

• Working Class
   
• Patriarchy
   
• Oligarch or Oligarchy
   
• Plutocrat capitalists
   
• Power of the wealthy
   
• Cisgender
   
• Feminist analysis
   
• Self-identification
   
• Male Privilege
   
• Subjugation of women
   
• Heterosexist
   
• Queer Theory

• Socially mandated gender characteristics
   
• Entrainment of cultural roles
   
• Oppressive male  _________  (fill in the blank)
   
• Eco consciousness
   
• Bifurcated sexual identification
 
• Socio-political Opportunist (with thanks to Kelly M)

We have a lot of people revolutionizing the world because they’ve never had to present a working model. — Charles F. Kittering

Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson is a Co-Founder & Principal of TS-Si. She also serves as a Contributing Editor and columnist for the TS-Si website. She maintains another site, StarPoet.com, for her poetry and literary works.

Ms. Thompson's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. Lisa welcomes your comments. Use the form below or email via her TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.