On having a revolution

It's often said that the British people no longer care enough about being free to have a revolution. Some do, of course, but the naysayers respond that those who care are too few and too cowed.

I thought of this, when I read the back of a book that was lying on my bookshelves waiting to be read. It was David McCullough's "John Adams", the biography of the second American president which formed the basis of the recent TV series (if you missed it, it was brilliant). Here's the quote:

There was no American nation, no army at the start, no sweeping popular support for rebellion, nor much promise of success. No rebelling people had ever broken free from the grip of colonial empire, and those we call patriots were also celarly traitors to the King.

Maybe we're not so badly positioned after all.

Comments

[wonderfulforhisage]

One big difference; by definition the American settlers were the get up and goers and pioneers. Rather different from the welfare scroungers, public sector outreach walahs and jobsworths that drag down today's GB.

[Linda Morgan]

"Rather different from the welfare scroungers, public sector outreach walahs and jobsworths that drag down today's GB."

Yes, but these are the slow-witted defenders of the government, the shoddy bulwark against revolt. The right blow could topple them right over. Well, okay, that and a few harrowing bloody battles and years of hardship and uncertainty.

The John Adams blurb is brilliant encouragement for all of us who wish to see our hopelessly downtrodden position* as something of a, um, strength. I mean, stranger things, right?

*yet again, in America