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The Turtle is pleased
to welcome Uncle Rosa to the pages of the People's Organ.
Uncle Rosa's first forays into the world are here for all to see. If
you've a problem, or you've got a friend with a problem, why not Ask
Uncle Rosa?
Dear Uncle Rosa,
problem = i love
my wife but she is a member of the bourgeoisie and wants me to get a
job so we can have a "normal" life. I want to be a full time
revolutionary. what am I to do?
Yours ,
help
Dear help,
After the
revolution, the life your partner considers 'normal' will at best
be considered hopelessly backward, but more likely will be seen as
an impediment to the flourishing of true workers' consciousness. The
best solution would be to persuade your partner of this, so that you
can toil together, two hands of the same revolutionary worker, towards
inevitable triumph. The second-best solution involves your partner
having a 'normal life', using the ill-gotten gains to bankroll your
revolutionary activities. Failing that, Uncle Rosa thinks you should
devote yourself full-time to building a time-machine, with which to
catapult your wife into the future. On seeing what happens to people
like her, she'll quickly come around.
Uncle Rosa
Dear Uncle Rosa,
I have a problem.
Lately, I have been pondering about this Burden of I. It appears
to be a futile task. The more I try to get away from it, the closer
it gets -- from Left, Right, Centre and their extremeties.
Is there another
Way that could relieve me of this burden that I cannot seem to escape
from?
Confused in
Canberra.
Dear Confused,
It
is propitious that you seek the Way. Imperialist Orientalism would
point you towards Taoism, a breed of Wayism avant la lettre.
Luckily, the Turtle has mustered its revolutionary forces, and has
updated Tao in a way that, while fully preserving its Chinese characteristics,
has made it accessible to the masses, and to younger comrades in
particular. I urge you, therefore, to lose the Burden of your I
in the transcendental moment of revolutionary fervour that will
inevitably follow a reading of this month's first instalment of
"The Mao of Pooh".
Yours in
Struggle, Uncle Rosa
Dear Uncle Rosa,
I have a problem.
I'm amazed by this cute Turtle yet hard to convince myself that it
could really either announce or symbolize the coming of Springtime.
To me, Spring is a sudden warm breeze alienated from the freezing
winter wind. Pondering social improvements for years, I could never
get hold of any solid answer, as this world is clad with diversities
engendered by dead histories. Is there really an excuse for me not
to be cynical?
Jay Solo
Dear Jay,
Uncle Rosa often
gets accused of being an old biddy. But with age comes wisdom, and
another of my favourite Biddys has this to say:
"What leftists
have criticised in the feminist movement as fragmentation, lack
of organisation, absence of a coherent and encompassing theory and
the inability to mount a frontal attack may very well represent
fundamentally more radical and effective responses to the deployment
of power in our society than the centralisation and abstraction
that continue to plague Leftist thinking and strategy."
Biddy Martin
leads us toward clearer thinking and a stronger optimism of the will.
Cheer up, Jay!
Uncle Rosa
Dear Uncle Rosa,
I recently discovered that most of my immediate family would rather
die than
live under the socialist system that I've taken on as my moral/political
ideal.
Will it be unfair of me, once the Revolution comes, to re-educate them
at gunpoint,
all the while insisting that true liberty only comes by succombing to
our mind-opening
coercion? What ramifications might this have at port-Revolution reunions/family
get-togethers, assuming that families as such even exist under the post-Rev.
social paradigm?
When my dad accuses me of advocating a kleptocracy, how can I convince
him
that his property is not his own and that it is out of a sense of love,
not
personal gain, that I want it all taken away from him to serve interests
that
are not his? How can I let my friends and family know that stealing
at
gunpoint isn't really stealing when it's done with their best interests
in mind?
Please help me repair
my personal life!
yours sincerely,
Confounded in Clemson
Comrade C
in C!
Uncle Rosa
feels your pain.
Luckily, President
Bush's imminent repeal of the Death Tax provides an antidote.
[Uncle Rosa
encourages you to savour, and act upon, the wisdom behind the
NRA slogan "Guns don't kill people, people kill people".]
Shoot and
redistribute at will.
Avanti!
UR
Dear Uncle Rosa,
Many of my comrades
are getting hitched in one way or another over the next few months.
But I'm worried. Do their impending nuptials mean that they're party
to a bourgeois, exclusive and heteronormative institution?
Many thanks,
Always a bridesmaid, Harare
Dear Always a
Bridesmaid,
This is a serious issue, and one that demands a fuller response than
I can offer at the moment. Until I can devote my full attention to this,
read this email circular from my
friends at the Think Again Artist collective, on the marriage industry.
By the time you've spread the word, I'll have had a chance to reply
a little more constructively. A word of advice in the meantime, AAB:
pink isn't your colour.
Dear Uncle Rosa,
I have heard
that my green anarchist crusty friend Piers / smart cool civil servant
friend Clare has had a bath and become a management consultant: what
is the appropriate response when she tells me the terrible news in
person?
Dear Friend
of Piers and Clare
I'm sorry to
hear about your deviationist friends. Sadly capitalism sometimes works
like this. Many, too many, of my favourite leftists are now investment
bankers and IT specialists. I've found that walking into the posh
restaurants where they dine with their new friends, and dropping a
large bundle of revolutionary literature into their crab bisque for
distribution within the firm doesn't go down terribly well. Until
we find a permanent solution to this disturbingly commonplace problem,
I suggest that you nod understandingly when they tell you the news,
buy them a great deal of beer, and when they nip off to piss, glue
the toilet door shut, opening it only when they've come to their senses.
Your Uncle
Rosa
Dear Uncle Rosa,
My grandmother is a 6' 2'' transgender S & M activist from New York
City. I have tried to hide this from my friends, but now she is threatening
to come and visit. Should I try to integrate her into my circle of
publishing assistants and PR executives, or should I pretend to go
out of town myself, and hope that she doesn't bring any of them home
from the bars?
Dear S&M Grandchild
The only way
anyone makes it in PR and publishing is through some sort of unique
selling point. In other professions, intelligence, talent, creativity
and wit are prerequisites, but in PR and publishing these are overqualifications.
Lucky for you, since you're clearly not an imaginative or creative
person. Your grandma is going to have to be your ticket to middle
management. Take her out, introduce her to your friends, and hope
that they're so dazzled that they forget that she's got more personality
in her little finger than you ever will.
Dear Uncle Rosa,
My sister/brother/friend/work colleague got married and invited me
to the wedding. I went to considerable trouble and expense to choose
a gift that the couple would enjoy for many years to come. A couple
of months after the wedding, I received a pre-printed card in the
post, with at most a wedding photo or two, thanking me for my presence
on their special day. Not even signed. Can I sue?
Dear Traditionalist
The Rules of
Etiquette say that you can. But only if you wear a full college suit
of armour, and appear in court astride a pure white sandwich and a
pint of beer.
Your
Uncle Rosa
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