Quote from: RE on Today at 10:32 AMYou're joking, right?  I had a college level reading ability in the 4th grade.  I already knew the history of socialism in the FSoA, I knew about the union busting, the Pinkertons, the works.  You probably don't remember those years because you were still playing Cowboys & Indians and reading comic books....

How amusing. No, I wasn't joking. Are you? A child reading at the college level isn't a big deal....maybe turning intelligence to political thought at that age is weirdly intellectual for a 4th grader. And of course I remember those years, while you were learning politics, I had a rifle in my hand hunting squirrels and rabbits. While you LEARNED...stuff...I...DID stuff. Food was very important in the holler. Knowing the forest, the animals, obtaining protein with a rifle and traps, etc etc.

I have always been amused back in old doomer times when folks went on endlessly about hunting and fishing as a solution to the collapse (pick any of your favorites you, or them, have proclaimed in this century that didn't happen) and people just seemed to not understand anything about old school self reliance. Maybe there are more around of you than you think, all interested in politics by the time they were 10 years old?

Quote from: REHere's a favorite with Joan singing one of Phil's masterpieces.
Here's Natalie Merchant singing Woody Guthrie.

I knew which side I was on before you could read.

Socialism isn't a side. It is a political concept. You might have known your politics before I could read, but I could feed a family of 3 and my grandmother before you fired your first rifle at summer camp.

"Each experience in your life was absolutely necessary in order to have gotten you to the next place, and the next place, up to this very moment."

I would venture that ultimately, our experiences and capabilities in life delivered unto us quite different results.