Spinfilter: January 2012

"When did radical become a term of disapproval? If you have a thorn bush and you'd rather have an apple tree, the cosmetic approach is to get some string and tie a bunch of ripe apples to the thorn bush, so it looks like an apple tree.

Of course, a week later all the rotted apples will fall off. But that only shows that you haven't hired enough trained specialists, and given them a large enough budget, to keep hanging apples on the thorn bush.

Today, such a scheme would be described as 'sensible moderate reform, by working withing the existing system.'

If I propose to simply dig up the thorn bush by the roots, throw it away and plant a real apple tree where it stood, that is judged radical. It's an 'unrealistic, childish, and perhaps even mentally aberrant refusal to acknowledge reality and work within the existing system.'"

- Vin Suprynowicz, Send in the Waco Killers, Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998