New Year's revolutions.

Resolutions failed you in the past? Want to start the year with something more potent? More awesome? More INSANE? Well, friend, give up on those New Year's resolutions and instead make some New Year's REVOLUTIONS!

Like this one!

Sounds good, doesn't it? But it doesn't always work out well. In fact, revolutions often turn out to be pretty bad.

For example, any revolution where the word "communist" can be applied automatically means "calculator-error-inducing body count." The Chinese Communists couldn't even have a cultural one without killing 1.5 million people. So I'm not even going to mention those. I mean mostly down-to-earth, everyday revolutions, like:

New England Revolution: This Major League Soccer franchise has been around since 1994 and has yet to win a league championship. In fact, Wikipedia tells us that "The Revolution hold the record for most losses in MLS cup games." They did win a U.S. Open Cup in 2007 but that's not the league championship and I don't know why they even have a stupid separate cup. Oh, yeah: Soccer.

"Revolution 9": The infamous mishmash of sound clips on the Beatles' white album is a clear indicator of a band that is running out of ideas -- and decides to put out a double album. The damn thing is eight minutes and twenty-two seconds of nothing but audio garbage. It probably resulted in more needle breaks in 1968 than any other record, as listeners leaped to their hi-fis to move the needle over this "song." Even guys butt-up high on dope couldn't listen to this. This is what happens when bands resort to "art." When something on an album sounds just as good played backward as forward, you know there's a problem. Bad revolution! Bad!

Makeup Revolution: London-based makeup outfit. Looks like all the other makeup to me. Maybe I'm not a good judge.

Revolution (NBC TV series): Failed after two seasons. The plot had to be resolved in a comic book. Which, to be fair, was more than FlashForward ever got.

Dance Dance Revolution: The perennial favorite video game has more lives than a disco kitty, but still overpromises its revolutionary effects. You dance around on pads and score points by... dancing? As Ask a Ninja put it some years ago, "How is that gonna prepare you for the dance floor of life? How about 'Death Death Revolution'? That is a challenge."

The Matrix Revolutions: With a tomatometer rating of 36%, probably better to just leave this one alone.

The French Revolution: I guess we need to address this one. Jacques Mallet du Pan said, “like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children,” and as we know the hungry guillotines of the French Revolution eventually developed a taste for its perpetrators. The 17,000 death sentences carried out in the reign of terror gave the rest of us a taste for what later revolutions could achieve (once we stuck Communist in them). This seems to be the pattern for most revolutions; a genuine oppressive grievance leads to armed revolt, death to a ruling class, and ultimately murder murder murder for everyone.

Why didn't this happen in the American Revolution? Some historians note that one difference is that ours was not really a revolution at all, in that the colonists were not trying to overthrow the crown and turn out Parliament, but rather wanted to get those characters to leave them alone. In that regard, instead of E Pluribus Unum or In God We Trust, perhaps our national motto might have been better served as Leave Me Alone. Which makes me think that the one kind of rebellion that doesn't turn on itself is the kind made up of people who wish to be left alone and are willing to extend the favor to their fellows.

Maybe that should be our New Year's Revolution: Live and let live. Not the worst slogan for a fresh start, I guess.

Happy new year!