I having read Don mills Blog far too much recently, have been thinking about what the problem with young people is. By young people I currently mean fifteen to thirty five.

I see these people walking around, aside from some gems, they are either cowards or far to arrogant. It’s offensive to You, Me society, decency and the gods.

You might say, oh old people have always been carrying on about the youth of today. This is true, and it has been true since Socrates’ times. But I’m not an old person, I’m eighteen, I’m as young as you can be and still be considered a grown woman in the United States. Even I see this bloody atrocity, and I’m assumed to be associated with these honorless sons of bitches.

So why am I different? What happened in my childhood to give my a sense of Honor, Courage, Honesty and Decency? I will now venture a guess.

It may have had to do with understanding mortality at an early age. When I was in first grade my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went to the hospital once a week and dropped me off at school an hour early wile she got radiation treatment. Now may parents were fairly honest with me, they sat me down one day and said : Rose honey, your Momma might die soon. Cancer can kill people. If she dies she will be waiting for you in heaven with your Uncle and Grandpa Williamson.” Of course I was scared, but I understood, and I understood part of my job as member of the family was to help my mother through the day and not bother her too much because she was sick. She eventually got better, but the whole episode left me understanding that people can die, and not just old people.

I believe another ting that helped form me as a honorable person was my older brother, the Ghetto one. He, I think may have wanted a younger brother, as our other brother, was more like a big sister. So he would wrestle with me, teach me how to box, how to fight in general and what was okay and not okay to do in a fight. Now the bugger was six years old then me , and despite at that time being scrawny, beat me at it every time. That knocked a hell of a lot of arrogance out of me, thought me a bit about my relation to other people, and taught me a tolerance for pain, a love of honorable battle, and a desire to be a bad ass.

Intellectual development not to be ignored, since I was a child I always more or less had a library in my house. I grew up reading tales of Chivalry and Samurai, tales of honorable men and women fighting for the right and nobility, the horrors of war, and the beauty of love. I read of morality and philosophy. Poetry and good music was also not neglected, I grew up with books of poetry and classical music, courtesy of Nana Williamson, (may she rest in peace). Opera an theater probably also helped. I can still relate more to Hamlet than to Emeinem.

My parents did not shelter me. I was allowed to read any book I got my hands on. I saw the wars in the News, and watched documentaries on Vietnam and the World Wars. Even though they were before my time, I understood through them the breath of good and evil men were capable of, the brave protecting and the senseless slaughter. Seeing the world, I believe is crucial in forming a person.

I was taught a tolerance and respect for other cultures. The few words which were forbidden to me were racial slurs and bigoted terms. I read about the Holocaust and what Xenophobia and bigotry could lead to, and thus was taught to appreciate and respect those who were different from me. Something which, as a budding civil rights activist stayed with me to this day.
Finally and perhaps more importantly than the others, I was always an outcast. Wile other girls were prattling on about boys, I was challenging the boys I didn’t like to duels. Wile most people read teen magazines, I read the Clan of the cave bear, and the Lord Of the Rings. Wile most girls looked at boys, I was looking at the pretty girls and imagining kissing them. I had few friends but those I had were close.

So I suppose what you youth of today lacks is an appreciation for hardship, Intellectual development, humbling experience, and a desire to prove those that hate them wrong. All of which are powerful motivators.

This was not as many people mistook, part of the french revolution, it was decades after words. The Monarchy had been more or less restored and the king had denied the promise he had giving for people to have the vote.   People where spending years in jail for stealing a loaf of bread to feed their family, and General  Lamarque had just died.

Lamarque had been a general under Napoleon’s son and was made a baron of the Republic. Even after Napoleon’s second exile, he remained loyal to the idea of the republic.

Despite this, during the June monarchy he was made a General again, and became, to many people, a champion of the poor.

His death was one of the catalyists for the June uprising, as the state gave hima funeral ,claiming hima monarchiest hero.

The Abbiase or the Abc  society was made up of students in favor of a Republic, and votes for all classes. Not online did the name of their society  mean the first three letters of the alphabet  it also meant “Underdog.”

Most of these people were members of the University of Paris or poor people in Paris. So basicly homless people, poor people and college students collected weapons, and during Lamargue’s funeral started throwing rocks at armed soldgers that were the guards for his funeral.

The battle only lasted a few days an eventaully the students lost, and the brief glimer of hope that the French students could be anything but snooty died.

But remember before you call college students or the french pansy, remember the sheer bad asser of the June Uprising, and what they fought for.

And here is a song from the musical Les miserables  that talks about the June uprising.

ENJOLRAS
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

COMBEFERRE
Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Courfeyrac:
Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!

ALL
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

FEUILLY
Will you give all you can give
So that our banner may advance
Some will fall and some will live
Will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs
Will water the meadows of France!

ALL
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

The Code of Honor

1. Honor the Gods and worship them with reverence.
2. Be loyal to one’s lover and friends.
3. Defend those to whom you pledge loyalty.
4. Let your heart burn with courage.
5. Defend the innocent.
6. Free the oppressed.
7. Though Shalt make war upon the bigots with out ceasing.
8.Do not betray those who are counted among your friends, this is the highest betrayl
9:Do not kill with out just cause, for to kill with out just cause is the highest crime.
10:Live with courage and walk the night with out fear.
11: Banish the fear of death and pain, for it will cripple you.
12:Speak and live with honesty.
13:Do not betray a persons confidence.
14:You must not betray your lovers arms.
15: Though must never take advantage of one weaker, younger or more innocent than thou.
16: Never hit one who is so crippled physically or mentally as to be unable to defend them
selves.
17:Do not take another’s rightful property unless it is completely necessary.
18. Do nothing in the craft one would be unwilling to do in the physical world.
19.Let no man make you his slave, and make no man your slave.
20: Like you would let no man make you his slave, you shall let no man terrify you into
silence or compliance.
21:Never intoxicate one’s self the point that self control is lost.
22:Though Shalt Avenge wrongs done against those you pledge loyalty to one’s lover
,friends, and one’s self.
23: Thou shalt not slay thy self.
24: Be as knowledgeable and clever as you can.
25:You will be held to the standard which you hold others to.
26: Hypocrisy is a rank as excrement, do not engage in it.
27:Know thy self.
28:Work to overcome and neutralize all your weaknesses.
29: Harm no innocent.