Sipsey Street Irregulars: Back to Absolved.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Back to Absolved.

More later.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...: I obviously missed something, which is not all that unusual. What is the meaning of these references to a "black dog"?

-Old Greybeard; June 23, 2013 at 9:27 AM
Dick B said...: I'm a writer. Mostly 'Alternative History' and seditious political crap.

I've got a trilogy 'in progress' on an alternative outcome to the War for Southern Independence. The time it takes for research (I like my stuff to be plausible.) is killing.

The story line has to be consistent, the time for back checking and proofing is killing.

And the efforts to incite rebellion are also time consuming.

People who don't do this stuff don't understand.; June 23, 2013 at 4:41 PM
William Flatt said...: OGB, go to startpage.com and search for "Winston Churchill" + "Black Dog". You'll see that it's how MV refers to his writer's block & his mood. Churchill had a sour temperament and you'll be hard pressed to find ANY pictures from the history books that show a cheerful Churchill.

I'm actually surprised that you've missed the explanation of 'Black Dog', given that Mike has referenced it so much over the last several months. But the original post where Mike explains the reference is at Monday, December 5, 2011
Another comment upon the obvious. Had a touch of the black dog lately, at exactly the wrong time.; June 23, 2013 at 6:53 PM
redcrown said...: As I recall, Churchill's "black dog" was depression.; June 23, 2013 at 7:49 PM
Anonymous said...: Will someone please answer my question about a black dog in the first comment?
Please...

-Old Greybeard; June 23, 2013 at 9:17 PM
Dutchman6 said...: OGB -- The readers above are correct. Churchill's black dog was depression. Mine is not so clinical, but it is how I refer to my writer's block.; June 24, 2013 at 5:21 AM
William Flatt said...: Mike, I just want to clarify and say I don't think you suffered from depression (as Churchill did)... but ya gotta admit, suffering from writer's block at a time when you want to make significant progress on your novel will still put you in a black mood. I know I'd be in a black mood if I was stuck! ...It's probably why I haven't taken up writing as a profession even though many people tell me I'd be articulate enough to have a go at it.

Here's to your victory over the Black Dog as I'm still praying for you in all you do. ~ Will; June 24, 2013 at 7:47 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Back to Absolved.

7 comments:

Blog Archive

Followers