Damn if I know, and I'm starting to wonder if anybody does. Perhaps different expectations are one source of friction. I for one am starting to think my preconceptions were somehow off, maybe badly.

This is probaby dumb but I'm gonna try it anyway. I'm gonna make this poll, the options will be left blank, to be filled in as sees fit, using our mighty mod powers, first come first serve, don't edit other people's stuff. One slot will be left for "other". Once all options are filled, we vote, which has no effect other than to show preference.

Since this is my turkey I'll go first.
l

Guess 10 is enough considering the size of the active population, I'm guessing if not that more can be made later. If all aren't filled in a week I'll trim it, if it get's too embarassing for me I'll deep six this sucker. :roll:

I expected that we would broaden rather than narrow the range of people participating; gain consensus about class struggle and our role in it; build an active and committed leadership cadre with the intention of having a significant impact on the real world; discuss, plan and implement pragmatic political action.

Hey BP, nothing embarrassing about this. The funny thing, by my own criteria you can argue that its been successful so far which is not really the prevailing sentiment of most members IMO. Although the word civilly has kind of been a sticking point..

Purpose:

Write some shit...
Drag in more people...
Get them to write some shit...
Stop whining....

Damn if I know, and I'm starting to wonder if anybody does. Perhaps different expectations are one source of friction. I for one am starting to think my preconceptions were somehow off, maybe badly.

This is probaby dumb but I'm gonna try it anyway. I'm gonna make this poll, the options will be left blank, to be filled in as sees fit, using our mighty mod powers, first come first serve, don't edit other people's stuff. One slot will be left for "other". Once all options are filled, we vote, which has no effect other than to show preference.

Since this is my turkey I'll go first.
l

Guess 10 is enough considering the size of the active population, I'm guessing if not that more can be made later. If all aren't filled in a week I'll trim it, if it get's too embarassing for me I'll deep six this sucker. :roll:

Not fully in a position to play, let me tip my cyberfoilhat to your very succinct opening volley.

Great, GREAT jawb

.

Purpose:

Write some shit...
Drag in more people...
Get them to write some shit...
Stop whining....
That works, too.

"Writing some shit" is after all our role - applying our skills as one group of working class people, as opposed to those growing or building or fixing stuff. That combined with "drag in more people" - broadening and increasing participation - is the task.

Dreaming up and arguing about hypothetical new and glorious improved humans and theoretical new futuristic models for "society" or civilization is best left to sci-fi writers, New Age hustlers, religious reformers, and other assorted non-political folk.

Purpose:

Write some shit...
Drag in more people...
Get them to write some shit...
Stop whining....
That works, too.

"Writing some shit" is after all our role - applying our skills as one group of working class people, as opposed to those growing or building or fixing stuff. That combined with "drag in more people" - broadening and increasing participation - is the task.

Dreaming up and arguing about hypothetical new and glorious improved humans and theoretical new futuristic models for "society" or civilization is best left to sci-fi writers, New Age hustlers, religious reformers, and other assorted non-political folk.


In another post you say 99% of society is good but is subverted by the one percent. I am just not quite sure I can swallow that. With people in our country and in the first world no longer politically innocent peasant farmers, the transition of many a propagandized mind will have to take place, and that will be on the back of a society reformed to suit the people's interest.

Merely writing some shit without a structure for putting out ideas is a waste of time, as has been - but for personal learning any of us have been lucky enough to do - this first few months of existence for this website.

I'm here, I suppose, for reasons 1 and 2 combined. I thought at the worst I'd get to watch some of the sharpest knives in the drawer discuss issues. And at best I could maybe help sort out some practical stuff for creating real pro-social change.

I'm not sure what happened to that. :cry:

I'm here, I suppose, for reasons 1 and 2 combined. I thought at the worst I'd get to watch some of the sharpest knives in the drawer discuss issues. And at best I could maybe help sort out some practical stuff for creating real pro-social change.

I'm not sure what happened to that. :cry:

Well, not being too sharp, I am sure that ain't referring to me. Question nonetheless: if we want to sort out some practical stuff that might affect change in the real world, should we not first get our house in order and have it structured so that - as a manufacturing plant for ideas and actions - that it had a consistent output instead of just a bunch of chit-chat?

Purpose:

Write some shit...
Drag in more people...
Get them to write some shit...
Stop whining....
That works, too.

"Writing some shit" is after all our role - applying our skills as one group of working class people, as opposed to those growing or building or fixing stuff. That combined with "drag in more people" - broadening and increasing participation - is the task.

Dreaming up and arguing about hypothetical new and glorious improved humans and theoretical new futuristic models for "society" or civilization is best left to sci-fi writers, New Age hustlers, religious reformers, and other assorted non-political folk.

Translation: "I want to be the, or at least a, leader" and I am prepared to lump all things that counter that into one big evil blob by means of careful subversion and distortion of discussion.

You are not here to talk about socialism. If you were, you could not possibly have said what you just did.

Paging Mairead..we need another forum..The Bitch Board, where..Rusty lets out his pent up feelings for Mike

I know you sold out on this post-apocalyptic wasteland "the end is nigh, we're all gonna die!!!" line, but half the time I think you plan on enjoying it..some pretty fucking sour grapes

Its not gonna be a weekend of dry camping..

Mike's eye for make believe has your panties in a wad..you want fantasy land, suit up in Goofy costume and work a shift at the Magic Kingdom

Well, not being too sharp, I am sure that ain't referring to me.
Sorry, but it was. :P



Question nonetheless: if we want to sort out some practical stuff that might affect change in the real world, should we not first get our house in order and have it structured so that - as a manufacturing plant for ideas and actions - that it had a consistent output instead of just a bunch of chit-chat?
In theory, yes. In practice, I don't know. I'm one of those unfortunates who has to do things in order to learn how to do them. So I've always just done things the way the cat learned to swim: jump in. Or fall in. It made me a rather bad manager, I suppose, since while I knew that managers are far more often promoted for good process than good product, that always seemed crazy to me and I could never do it. I'm an artist/hacker at heart, I suppose. I think if we really want to do something, all else will fade into the background and only our goal will remain figural. That's how it works for me, anyway.

Well, not being too sharp, I am sure that ain't referring to me.
Sorry, but it was. :P

Hell, I don't even speak English. :wink:


And I *certainly* don't write it, as all who suffer my many typos and fractured syntax know too well.



Question nonetheless: if we want to sort out some practical stuff that might affect change in the real world, should we not first get our house in order and have it structured so that - as a manufacturing plant for ideas and actions - that it had a consistent output instead of just a bunch of chit-chat?
In theory, yes. In practice, I don't know. I'm one of those unfortunates who has to do things in order to learn how to do them. So I've always just done things the way the cat learned to swim: jump in. Or fall in. It made me a rather bad manager, I suppose, since while I knew that managers are far more often promoted for good process than good product, that always seemed crazy to me and I could never do it. I'm an artist/hacker at heart, I suppose. I think if we really want to do something, all else will fade into the background and only our goal will remain figural. That's how it works for me, anyway.[/quote]

I see your point. Still, I really think a goal of creating living documents is an important one. And one that is the outcome of the very discussions we do have here in this forum space.

Similarly, I think we can have an open environment for deliberating the finer points of not only the documents we create and disseminate, but also for deliberating the admin of this place.

That's all I have ever been pushing, really. It is a simple idea, perhaps not well sold rather than somehow not a good concept.

I am troubled that many brilliant things -go away- in this forum format, and with no deletion or anything like that as the cause. The architecture of the discussion alone is sufficient to do that.

I don't really just wanna chat, even as I so much celebrate it as a very powerful source of education for me. If we want to build something, don't we need a kind of 'blueprint'?

Perhaps I should do some reading on artists' collectives to see how they handle their issues of production and democracy to try and broaden my perspective...

In theory, yes. In practice, I don't know. I'm one of those unfortunates who has to do things in order to learn how to do them. So I've always just done things the way the cat learned to swim: jump in. Or fall in. It made me a rather bad manager, I suppose, since while I knew that managers are far more often promoted for good process than good product, that always seemed crazy to me and I could never do it. I'm an artist/hacker at heart, I suppose. I think if we really want to do something, all else will fade into the background and only our goal will remain figural. That's how it works for me, anyway.

I see your point. Still, I really think a goal of creating living documents is an important one. And one that is the outcome of the very discussions we do have here in this forum space.

Similarly, I think we can have an open environment for deliberating the finer points of not only the documents we create and disseminate, but also for deliberating the admin of this place.

That's all I have ever been pushing, really. It is a simple idea, perhaps not well sold rather than somehow not a good concept.

I am troubled that many brilliant things -go away- in this forum format, and with no deletion or anything like that as the cause. The architecture of the discussion alone is sufficient to do that.

I don't really just wanna chat, even as I so much celebrate it as a very powerful source of education for me. If we want to build something, don't we need a kind of 'blueprint'?

Perhaps I should do some reading on artists' collectives to see how they handle their issues of production and democracy to try and broaden my perspective...

I've got some stuff (most notably the Bees translation). How do I put it up on the Front Page/Blog/Whatever?

.

I really think a goal of creating living documents is an important one. And one that is the outcome of the very discussions we do have here in this forum space.
Maybe I've persistently failed to grasp what you mean. What would these living documents be for? What would they have in them? Can you sketch a word picture of one?


Similarly, I think we can have an open environment for deliberating the finer points of not only the documents we create and disseminate, but also for deliberating the admin of this place.
I think this is where we get into the 'if we really want to do something' part. If we truly want to do something, then nothing will hold us back. Everything else will fade into insignificance. But the other side of that coin is that, without that commitment, even a piece of ouse on the floor will suffice to keep us stalled out.

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute!
Whatever you can do, or dream you can---begin it!
For boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.



That's all I have ever been pushing, really. It is a simple idea, perhaps not well sold rather than somehow not a good concept.

I am troubled that many brilliant things -go away- in this forum format, and with no deletion or anything like that as the cause. The architecture of the discussion alone is sufficient to do that.

I don't really just wanna chat, even as I so much celebrate it as a very powerful source of education for me. If we want to build something, don't we need a kind of 'blueprint'?
I don't know what to do about the brilliant things going away, but I haven't had the sense that you're talking about doing blueprints, but rather that you feel the need for a meta-blueprint or something like that...not product, but process. But maybe I just don't understand.

I really think a goal of creating living documents is an important one. And one that is the outcome of the very discussions we do have here in this forum space.
Maybe I've persistently failed to grasp what you mean. What would these living documents be for? What would they have in them? Can you sketch a word picture of one?

Here is a living document you may have a passing familiarity with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Constitution

Say we decided as a group to talk about specific policy (the consumer choice issues in politics that Mike so rightly derides). What if we created a document for each of the big issues and a socialist perspective on dealing with them? Then, as we discuss the document in this forum format, we would come up with new theses, new examples, new arguments which we would then transfer to the document on the Drupal page, updating it. That pretty much what goes on in the ongoing process that is Wikipedia.




Similarly, I think we can have an open environment for deliberating the finer points of not only the documents we create and disseminate, but also for deliberating the admin of this place.
I think this is where we get into the 'if we really want to do something' part. If we truly want to do something, then nothing will hold us back. Everything else will fade into insignificance. But the other side of that coin is that, without that commitment, even a piece of ouse on the floor will suffice to keep us stalled out.

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute!
Whatever you can do, or dream you can---begin it!
For boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

I started some stuff two months ago. Admittedly, I have not stayed on it. That has to do with other interests and commitments competing for my attention but also with the fact that I had no desire to do that -alone-
Frankly, it looked there for a while like I had killed any conversation of any kind and that the whole proposition was thus moot.

The very point of a living document is that it is not set in place by one person or fixed in stone over time.




That's all I have ever been pushing, really. It is a simple idea, perhaps not well sold rather than somehow not a good concept.

I am troubled that many brilliant things -go away- in this forum format, and with no deletion or anything like that as the cause. The architecture of the discussion alone is sufficient to do that.

I don't really just wanna chat, even as I so much celebrate it as a very powerful source of education for me. If we want to build something, don't we need a kind of 'blueprint'?

I don't know what to do about the brilliant things going away, but I haven't had the sense that you're talking about doing blueprints, but rather that you feel the need for a meta-blueprint or something like that...not product, but process. But maybe I just don't understand.

I am talking about a process.

If we were to agree on the merits of producing living docs instead of merely discussion threads to know-where, we would then have to also strive to agree on a process. In the computer world, where some of you have some background, this is called Change Control.

Again, with the wiki:

Change Control is a formal process used to ensure a product, service or process is only modified in line with the identified necessary change. It is particularly related to software development as during the early development of this engineering process it was found that many changes were introduced to software that had no obvious requirement other than the whim of the software writer. Quite often these unnecessary changes introduced faults (bugs) Later it became a fundamental process in quality control. It is also formally used where the impact of a change could have severe risk and/or financial consequence. Typical examples from the computer and network environments are the upgrade of operating systems, network routing tables or the electrical power systems supporting such infrastructure.

We could then continue to fuss n discuss here as we have been, but we would also be Making some things that, yes, could be policy positions that can be lobbied by interested citizens, ideally those interested by the merits of the socialist policy perspectives we have handed out to them in the form of the docs we've produced along the way as we've chatted, fought it out, grieved, laughed, and - most of all - learned from one another.

[quote=PPLE]I really think a goal of creating living documents is an important one. And one that is the outcome of the very discussions we do have here in this forum space.
Maybe I've persistently failed to grasp what you mean. What would these living documents be for? What would they have in them? Can you sketch a word picture of one?

Here is a living document you may have a passing familiarity with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Constitution

Say we decided as a group to talk about specific policy (the consumer choice issues in politics that Mike so rightly derides). What if we created a document for each of the big issues and a socialist perspective on dealing with them? Then, as we discuss the document in this forum format, we would come up with new theses, new examples, new arguments which we would then transfer to the document on the Drupal page, updating it. That pretty much what goes on in the ongoing process that is Wikipedia.




Similarly, I think we can have an open environment for deliberating the finer points of not only the documents we create and disseminate, but also for deliberating the admin of this place.
I think this is where we get into the 'if we really want to do something' part. If we truly want to do something, then nothing will hold us back. Everything else will fade into insignificance. But the other side of that coin is that, without that commitment, even a piece of ouse on the floor will suffice to keep us stalled out.

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute!
Whatever you can do, or dream you can---begin it!
For boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

I started some stuff two months ago. Admittedly, I have not stayed on it. That has to do with other interests and commitments competing for my attention but also with the fact that I had no desire to do that -alone-
Frankly, it looked there for a while like I had killed any conversation of any kind and that the whole proposition was thus moot.

The very point of a living document is that it is not set in place by one person or fixed in stone over time.




That's all I have ever been pushing, really. It is a simple idea, perhaps not well sold rather than somehow not a good concept.

I am troubled that many brilliant things -go away- in this forum format, and with no deletion or anything like that as the cause. The architecture of the discussion alone is sufficient to do that.

I don't really just wanna chat, even as I so much celebrate it as a very powerful source of education for me. If we want to build something, don't we need a kind of 'blueprint'?

I don't know what to do about the brilliant things going away, but I haven't had the sense that you're talking about doing blueprints, but rather that you feel the need for a meta-blueprint or something like that...not product, but process. But maybe I just don't understand.

I am talking about a process.

If we were to agree on the merits of producing living docs instead of merely discussion threads to know-where, we would then have to also strive to agree on a process. In the computer world, where some of you have some background, this is called Change Control.

Again, with the wiki:

Change Control is a formal process used to ensure a product, service or process is only modified in line with the identified necessary change. It is particularly related to software development as during the early development of this engineering process it was found that many changes were introduced to software that had no obvious requirement other than the whim of the software writer. Quite often these unnecessary changes introduced faults (bugs) Later it became a fundamental process in quality control. It is also formally used where the impact of a change could have severe risk and/or financial consequence. Typical examples from the computer and network environments are the upgrade of operating systems, network routing tables or the electrical power systems supporting such infrastructure.

We could then continue to fuss n discuss here as we have been, but we would also be Making some things that, yes, could be policy positions that can be lobbied by interested citizens, ideally those interested by the merits of the socialist policy perspectives we have handed out to them in the form of the docs we've produced along the way as we've chatted, fought it out, grieved, laughed, and - most of all - learned from one another.[/quote:tvt4yhul]

I think you might be falling for a dictum that's ubiquitous in industry, Rusty. Beyond ubiquitous, really - it's like a drug addiction. People have wiped out giant, multi-billion-dollar corporations because of their unshakeable faith in it. The dictum states that the goodness of the process determines the goodness of the product. But the damned thing comes from the bean counters, who wouldn't recognise a good product if it walked up and introduced itself.

Process satisfies bean-counter needs for orderliness, predictability, and cost controls. But it satisfies no other needs at all. There are quite a few mordant jokes about the bean-counter mentality; you can look them up if you want a chuckle. For now, just do a little thought experiment: imagine suggesting to an author or artist that they implement change control. Imagine them trying to do it. Imagine their productivity if they were fool enough to persist until they succeeded. Need I say more?

I think you might be falling for a dictum that's ubiquitous in industry, Rusty. Beyond ubiquitous, really - it's like a drug addiction. People have wiped out giant, multi-billion-dollar corporations because of their unshakeable faith in it. The dictum states that the goodness of the process determines the goodness of the product. But the damned thing comes from the bean counters, who wouldn't recognise a good product if it walked up and introduced itself.

Process satisfies bean-counter needs for orderliness, predictability, and cost controls. But it satisfies no other needs at all. There are quite a few mordant jokes about the bean-counter mentality; you can look them up if you want a chuckle. For now, just do a little thought experiment: imagine suggesting to an author or artist that they implement change control. Imagine them trying to do it. Imagine their productivity if they were fool enough to persist until they succeeded. Need I say more?

I think you guys just prefer an non-productive clusterfuck. I am not doing this as some hobby. And I don't know all you people from a long history of frittering away days on message boards.

Further I don't think the living document theory of the constitution is the result of tired dictum. Indeed, quite the opposite.

Clearly, with not merely the absence of a meaningful critique and no mention of an alternative, the message is that you and Mike both prefer this to be the way it is. Because it is your hobby and nothing more.

We are not talking about art. If anything, a better analogy might be to discuss whether it is worthy to undertake the creation of a curricula, a set of policy papers, a set of actionable methods of affecting change, or just throwing a wrench in, the processes that now hold sway.

But of course, you will have some pithy shit to say in response that, minus all the pithiness, is an empty mere poo poo of the idea. No alternatives, nothing of substance to add to the discussion. Where this is concerned, you and Mike are soul mates and master time wasters.

Did you do that thought experiment, Rusty?

Did you do that thought experiment, Rusty?

Dunno whacher referring to, Mai.

I tell you what tho... since I cannot resist becoming a frustrated asshole over this matter and since things really otherwise seem to be going OK - not least because of your efforts, thanks for that - I will STFU on this. Instead, I will get to work on the Drupal pages (what one sees when visiting www.populistindependent.com (http://www.populistindependent.com)) as I envision some of them instead of wasting calories on this fruitless 'discussion' we are having.

Things can swim along here just fine with y'all asking what to do and having your little arguments and stuff without my input. Instead, I just go do something and otherwise respond to the threads that do matter to me - the ones that are informative to the living documents I will start in place of being a little bitch because y'all are frustrating to me. Deal?

Do tell about the thought experiment, if you wish.

r

Did you do that thought experiment, Rusty?

Oh, I getcha now... sorree - that's my learning style. The 'thought experiment' was too abstract in my conception of what you were communicating for me to call it up as a precise item the way you asked the question with no other context.

My answer?

Imagine building a bridge or a publishing a magazine without it. A group endeavor, most especially one that aspires to grow itself, is more akin to my example.

Like I said, all y'all are doing is talking. You are not building anything. And frankly, but for frameless bits of knowledge sprinkling the current discussion, there is nothing being accomplished at all. Nothing in terms of ideological development, political development. Nothing I see, anyway. And certainly nothing that leads to sustained group participation in such an amorphous 'effort.'

With that, I will beg off with you and this private-land discussion as I did with Mike earlier. I do not wish to populate this old forum beyond having said what I said above, before fully realizing what you were asking me.

Imagine building a bridge or a publishing a magazine without it. A group endeavor, most especially one that aspires to grow itself, is more akin to my example.
I'm sure you're only joking, Rusty, and that you realise perfectly well the vast difference in nature between well-defined tasks such as bridge-building and undefined tasks such as writing.

Anyone who's been through a few product-development programs soon realises that they all follow the same pattern: a few people, three to six, sit around a table just talking in a completely unstructured way. The ones involved at first are always the same: marketing, product management, engineering. Each discipline comes up with possible ideas that are immediately shot down by one or both of the others, nearly always for simple, understandable reasons. Gradually the ideas last longer and are less-easily dismissed. Eventually--and this is a process that can take day after 12-hour day for weeks or even months--everyone agrees on the basic shape of the next product. But even at that point it's nothing more than a few pages of prose and maybe a flip chart. That's the market-requirements document.

Now the meeting expands, with architects and top development staff joining in from engineering, and product-line and channels people from marketing. Maybe there's some specialist product managers brought in to consult. But the group is still only maybe a dozen people. Now they focus on nailing down the feature set. Now people are keeping pretty good track of what's been agreed, what's pending, and what's been tossed. No formal system, usually, but good notes. Eventually they come up with the product requirements document. It describes the thing in enough detail that marketing knows what they're going to have to peddle, product management knows where it fits in the existing product line, and engineering knows what they're expected to build.

Now the program meeting starts spawning other meetings, and only now do people start keeping very close track of what's going on, with Gantt charts, a database, and the whole schnitzl. Because now there are maybe 100 people involved-- a dozen of the top architects and dev engineers get together with manufacturing engineers to start creating the detailed-design document, with tech support and documentation sitting in to get an advanced look at what they're going to have to deal with. In another room, product and channels marketing get together with product management to pull together a detailed competitive analysis and marketing plan. Manufacturing starts up their own meetings, etc.

Now when the core program team gets together, the handouts that were once a couple pieces of paper are stacks of detailed plans six inches high, and the program timeline map takes up most of a wall. And the development phase hasn't even started yet!

Eventually the day comes when the program team does their dog-and-pony show for the top level of corporate management, telling them why the program should be given $70M to spend.

If the program gets blessed, it goes into high gear. Suddenly it's 3 or 4 times bigger than what it was, with maybe a hundred or two hundred engineers. THAT's when change control is put in place. THAT's when all the formal constraints and processes are applied. They're a complete pain in the arse, but they're intended to serve 2 purposes. The biggest one is to Prevent Surprises. Nobody wants to find out when it's too late that the product they were planning for isn't the one that's being built. Change control makes sure that, if there are changes, the changes and the reason for them are communicated to everyone who might be affected. The second reason is the one given in the snippet you quoted: reducing promiscuous changes tends to reduce the number of bugs, and anything that holds down bugs helps keep the program on schedule, which helps keep the bean counters from stroking out.



Like I said, all y'all are doing is talking. You are not building anything. And frankly, but for frameless bits of knowledge sprinkling the current discussion, there is nothing being accomplished at all. Nothing in terms of ideological development, political development. Nothing I see, anyway. And certainly nothing that leads to sustained group participation in such an amorphous 'effort.'
Tell me about it. :( I'm unpleasantly aware of how interchangeable this place is with all the other bloviation factories.

I've come to believe that the majority of people who spend time in political discussion groups are temperamentally unsuited for anything more useful.

That feeling first started creeping over me like a cold grue when I tried, two years ago, to organise Kucinich supporters after the election debacle. They were all doing their hand-wringing and Oh If Onlys. So, being a dope and having spent almost 30 years of my life doing engineering, I suggested that we form a program team and build a political machine to put him in office in 2008. I even primed the pump by creating the first cut at a program plan. What was the reaction, you ask? Dead. Effing. Silence.

I finally accepted that the alleged Kucinich supporters at DU, MM, and elsewhere are all charter members of Concerned Couch Potatoes of America, a group whose motto is Caring Is Enough, As Long As You Care Really Deeply. They're willing to offer mass quantities of spiritual energy, just don't ask them for any of the physical kind. They have Other Priorities(TM)

I'd thought that the PI folk, being refugees from DU, would be different. More fool me, I guess.

but I might as well throw in my thoughts on all this.

I'll start by explaining my presence here and what I hope to find, fwiw. I am tired of ineffective activism. I am tired of focusing on the electoral system, the scandals, the legislature, the bush admin. Yeah, it's all broken and we all know it. But if we are honest about it we know that that the problem is much bigger than American politics and that appealing to those in power for concessions will get us nowhere.

I recently attended the SEP (socialist equality party) conference against the war. I have a major personal problem with joining groups/clubs/parties (which may be a bad thing, I dunno). So I am not sucked in to their party as 'the' solution but I was incredibly impressed by their analysis and I came out of there with some new understandings. Primarily that for a movement to have any chance of success it needs to know what the hell it is trying to do and why. For the last 5 years I have been the little energizer bunny of activism doing the same shit over and over, getting nowhere, and doing it again. I can't do that anymore.

I am quite sure that in my lifetime the shit will hit the fan, the unsustainability of capitalism as an economic system and/or the environmental realities of energy use, food production and distribution, insane weather, etc, the shaky ground of US/Western imperialism..something is gonna give.

I want to understand socialism and anarchism better than I do, having studied some of this stuff when I was 19 years old when I had no idea what it was about, I need to relearn it now that I have some context to put it in. I want to talk theory and I want to work things through and I want to try to reach consensus with people. I want to find answers to some of the concerns I have about socialism as an alternative system to capitalism.

I want to talk about these things as if they are real, as if we truly are making a plan to deal with the downfall of capitalism. Because if we aren't trying to do it for real then why bother?

So I came here for a couple reasons - because there are people here with amazing knowledge and understanding of theory and history. There are people here who challenge my thinking and dammit I love a challenge. And there are people here who can and do talk about this as if it is real, as if it matters, not just as concepts and ideas and words on paper removed from reality. People who seek real solutions to huge problems. People who understand that dramatic social change *happens*.

So I got that out of the way. Please tell me if I am in the wrong place.

Now, as for the process itself, the ideas Rusty has about a living document, some other way to record what happens here and to present it, to organize it... I do like the concept of this, and I like the idea of saving great discussions/conclusions/consensus from sinking into archives the way discussion boards tend to work.

I am not convinced that this needs to be worked out before real discussion can happen, and I can see it being as simple as creating a read-only forum where the super-duper-genius-enlightenment-consensus threads can be moved, at least at the beginning.

As for having a wiki-style constantly changing thing, well, maybe this group of people isn't ready to do that just yet...Maybe there still needs to be some good preliminary consensus-building done first. Maybe some of the patterns of communication need to be recognized and worked through before that is possible. The key to it has got to be letting go of ego/self and really sticking to ideas and facts and analysis (says the woman who just posted about 30 consecutive sentences starting with 'I want...', yeah, I know).

But what the hell do I know, I just got here. I have read quite a bit here but I really don't know if I grasp what the whole thing is about.

Now, as for the process itself, the ideas Rusty has about a living document, some other way to record what happens here and to present it, to organize it... I do like the concept of this, and I like the idea of saving great discussions/conclusions/consensus from sinking into archives the way discussion boards tend to work.

I am not convinced that this needs to be worked out before real discussion can happen, and I can see it being as simple as creating a read-only forum where the super-duper-genius-enlightenment-consensus threads can be moved, at least at the beginning.

As for having a wiki-style constantly changing thing, well, maybe this group of people isn't ready to do that just yet...Maybe there still needs to be some good preliminary consensus-building done first. Maybe some of the patterns of communication need to be recognized and worked through before that is possible. The key to it has got to be letting go of ego/self and really sticking to ideas and facts and analysis (says the woman who just posted about 30 consecutive sentences starting with 'I want...', yeah, I know).

But what the hell do I know, I just got here. I have read quite a bit here but I really don't know if I grasp what the whole thing is about.

Please check out http://www.populistindependent.org/drupal/, tho I have not touched it in two months, it is the place for read-only or editable docs.

As for discussion, it can go on here just as always as well as perhaps going on about pages on that other application, Drupal. And if we need to argue about those other pages, we can do that here - yes, hopefully with a refined process, something akin to the processes we see in current governmental practices as in Cuba and Venezuela and akin to the nascent academic field of deliberative democracy.

That's what I am hoping to get going. I am not hoping to stop any of the other conversation, as seems to be some of the naysayers' impression. Indeed, I need it to go on so I have it to steal from to make the living documents that preserve the best from ever sinking to the bottom...

I want to talk about these things as if they are real, as if we truly are making a plan to deal with the downfall of capitalism. Because if we aren't trying to do it for real then why bother?

So I came here for a couple reasons - because there are people here with amazing knowledge and understanding of theory and history. There are people here who challenge my thinking and dammit I love a challenge. And there are people here who can and do talk about this as if it is real, as if it matters, not just as concepts and ideas and words on paper removed from reality. People who seek real solutions to huge problems. People who understand that dramatic social change *happens*.
My only objection to what you say here, Megan, is that the only change that "happens" is Brownian change. (Apologies if I'm being nit-picky)

If you want to have a go at "making a plan to deal with the downfall of Capitalism", take a look at my "suppose we really wanted...' thread. "Making a plan" is what that's all about, Mike's disparagement notwithstanding. :mrgreen:

If Capitalism collapsed tomorrow, what would happen? If nobody has a plan, then it seems to me that what would happen is warlords, famine, plague, and so forth, terminating in the rebirth of feudalism, if humans survived at all.

Whereas if we have a plan for re-connecting people in a socialist way, we're miles in front. But we have to agree how to do it, and it seems to me we should have that all worked out BEFORE the feces hit the ventilator.

I want to talk about these things as if they are real, as if we truly are making a plan to deal with the downfall of capitalism. Because if we aren't trying to do it for real then why bother?

So I came here for a couple reasons - because there are people here with amazing knowledge and understanding of theory and history. There are people here who challenge my thinking and dammit I love a challenge. And there are people here who can and do talk about this as if it is real, as if it matters, not just as concepts and ideas and words on paper removed from reality. People who seek real solutions to huge problems. People who understand that dramatic social change *happens*.
My only objection to what you say here, Megan, is that the only change that "happens" is Brownian change. (Apologies if I'm being nit-picky)

If you want to have a go at "making a plan to deal with the downfall of Capitalism", take a look at my "suppose we really wanted...' thread. "Making a plan" is what that's all about, Mike's disparagement notwithstanding. :mrgreen:

If Capitalism collapsed tomorrow, what would happen? If nobody has a plan, then it seems to me that what would happen is warlords, famine, plague, and so forth, terminating in the rebirth of feudalism, if humans survived at all.

Whereas if we have a plan for re-connecting people in a socialist way, we're miles in front. But we have to agree how to do it, and it seems to me we should have that all worked out BEFORE the feces hit the ventilator.

Capitalism will not 'collapse'

That is not how the evolution of history works.

Capitalism will not 'collapse'

That is not how the evolution of history works.
What did you get out of responding to the less-important part of what I was saying?

My point is that in order to build socialism, we have to plan for it. It won't simply appear, because there are people who work hard every day making sure that it can't.

I said I was going to stop posting in the private pages..

Now, as for the process itself, the ideas Rusty has about a living document, some other way to record what happens here and to present it, to organize it... I do like the concept of this, and I like the idea of saving great discussions/conclusions/consensus from sinking into archives the way discussion boards tend to work.

I am not convinced that this needs to be worked out before real discussion can happen, and I can see it being as simple as creating a read-only forum where the super-duper-genius-enlightenment-consensus threads can be moved, at least at the beginning.

As for having a wiki-style constantly changing thing, well, maybe this group of people isn't ready to do that just yet...Maybe there still needs to be some good preliminary consensus-building done first. Maybe some of the patterns of communication need to be recognized and worked through before that is possible. The key to it has got to be letting go of ego/self and really sticking to ideas and facts and analysis (says the woman who just posted about 30 consecutive sentences starting with 'I want...', yeah, I know).

But what the hell do I know, I just got here. I have read quite a bit here but I really don't know if I grasp what the whole thing is about.

Please check out http://www.populistindependent.org/drupal/, tho I have not touched it in two months, it is the place for read-only or editable docs.

As for discussion, it can go on here just as always as well as perhaps going on about pages on that other application, Drupal. And if we need to argue about those other pages, we can do that here - yes, hopefully with a refined process, something akin to the processes we see in current governmental practices as in Cuba and Venezuela and akin to the nascent academic field of deliberative democracy.

That's what I am hoping to get going. I am not hoping to stop any of the other conversation, as seems to be some of the naysayers' impression. Indeed, I need it to go on so I have it to steal from to make the living documents that preserve the best from ever sinking to the bottom...

So let's see if I am getting this - the PKB is a way to store the information gleaned from the discussions here or that the members here find worth saving, a library of sorts?

Is it also a place to create/store consensus among members regarding questions/issues/theories/analyses?



I guess it is all a really new idea to me and I poked around at that link but I am not sure I am getting it all. I should probably read the previous discussions/arguments rather than making you repeat yourself too much.

I am trying to get a grasp of what your goals are here. I will have to do more exploring tonight though b/c I have to get some work done.

So let's see if I am getting this - the PKB is a way to store the information gleaned from the discussions here or that the members here find worth saving, a library of sorts?

Is it also a place to create/store consensus among members regarding questions/issues/theories/analyses?


You get it.

I want to talk about these things as if they are real, as if we truly are making a plan to deal with the downfall of capitalism. Because if we aren't trying to do it for real then why bother?

So I came here for a couple reasons - because there are people here with amazing knowledge and understanding of theory and history. There are people here who challenge my thinking and dammit I love a challenge. And there are people here who can and do talk about this as if it is real, as if it matters, not just as concepts and ideas and words on paper removed from reality. People who seek real solutions to huge problems. People who understand that dramatic social change *happens*.
My only objection to what you say here, Megan, is that the only change that "happens" is Brownian change. (Apologies if I'm being nit-picky)

If you want to have a go at "making a plan to deal with the downfall of Capitalism", take a look at my "suppose we really wanted...' thread. "Making a plan" is what that's all about, Mike's disparagement notwithstanding. :mrgreen:

If Capitalism collapsed tomorrow, what would happen? If nobody has a plan, then it seems to me that what would happen is warlords, famine, plague, and so forth, terminating in the rebirth of feudalism, if humans survived at all.

Whereas if we have a plan for re-connecting people in a socialist way, we're miles in front. But we have to agree how to do it, and it seems to me we should have that all worked out BEFORE the feces hit the ventilator.

Yes, I think we are roughly on the same page here. And please be nit-picky, that's what I am here for. Feel free to tear anything I say to shreds.

I need to figure out how this quoting thingy works though so I can organize my replies better...

I will check out your 'Suppose we really wanted' thread. And I may be a little out of practice, but I think I can still face Mike's disparagement too

:wink:

... but I think I can still face Mike's disparagement too

I am turning over a new leaf. Here are some antonyms for "disparage" - approve, commend, compliment, flatter, laud, praise, sanction - and I am practicing those ideas from now on.

"Why megan, what lovely posts you have."

... but I think I can still face Mike's disparagement too

I am turning over a new leaf. Here are some antonyms for "disparage" - approve, commend, compliment, flatter, laud, praise, sanction - and I am practicing those ideas from now on.

"Why megan, what lovely posts you have."

In all fairness I don't remember you disparaging Megan on PI.

In all fairness I don't remember you disparaging Megan on PI.

Thus the winkie guy in my post :wink:

It's all good. Mike and I developed a very good rapport at PI and I have no worries about that here.

why not?

Purpose:

Write some shit...
Drag in more people...
Get them to write some shit...
Stop whining....



About says it.
Although Progressives are marginalized by the Mainstream, they inform the debate as the well-spring, the font of the alternative, the counterweight to the Right's think tanks. All progressive ideas and policies rise from the, as Skinner would frame it, the lunatic fringe of the Left. With the rise of centrism it has been easier for the Right to dominate the landscape and harder for progressives to even get the truth heard when Centrism triangulates the mythology of the Right.
The Right has an advantage--they see the value in their thinktanks--which are well-funded to get the word out there, while the Left sees discussion as "doing nothing".

Although Progressives are marginalized by the Mainstream, they inform the debate as the well-spring, the font of the alternative, the counterweight to the Right's think tanks. All progressive ideas and policies rise from the, as Skinner would frame it, the lunatic fringe of the Left. With the rise of centrism it has been easier for the Right to dominate the landscape and harder for progressives to even get the truth heard when Centrism triangulates the mythology of the Right.
The Right has an advantage--they see the value in their thinktanks--which are well-funded to get the word out there, while the Left sees discussion as "doing nothing".

What makes progressives "Left" though? As far as I can see, very little of what people are calling progressive is Leftist in any way. I also don't think progressives are telling the truth, particularly.

Anti-war isn't Left. Abortion and same sex marriage aren't issues of Right or Left. Environmentalism isn't Right or Left. Christian Fundamentalism on the one hand and the grab bag of New Age religious movements on the other have nothing to do with Right or Left. Gun control isn't Right or Left.

Most of the everyday people I talk to are much more to the Left than any progressive is.

The biggest damage the right wing propaganda has done to our politics is that they have re-defined what right-center-left means. They have not so much converted people to their Right wing position as they have caused people to re-define the Left - as the mirror image of extreme Right positions. It is only by first defining the Left that the extreme Right positions seem to have any legitimacy and are even considered seriously by people.

There is no Left. There is merely an anti-Right. The problem with that is that the Right is all a bunch of nonsense, the main purpose of which is to define the Left. The opposite of nonsense is even more nonsensical.

Maybe they are "progressive" in the sense that support of universal health care, for example, is widely accepted as desirable--but it wasn't that way 15 years ago. But maybe they don't identify with the trappings of liberal elitism and why the hell should they--they don't travel in the right circles to be included.
In my small sphere, I see that as the major stumbling block and not so much as myth. But I do see Yuppie types who are very corporate, but okay on culture issues. Blue collar can be backwards on the cultural issues, and I am going tell you straight out, Mike, I have little tolerance for it -the racism, the thug-like rallying around the fucking flag, the patriarchy. They buy into the mythology too readily on account of it and though may be receptive to the policies--they are bamboozled by conventional perceptions--perceptions that are deliberately manufactured.
You should know who we are in here well enought to not have to remind us that what is viewed as the Left in the mainstream isn't an accurate portrayal of what and where the center is.

So, what do you propose to do, anyway...Mike? My point is that there is no alternative, since the cultivation of one is framed as doing nothing. I am saying that brainstorming is the foundation of doing something. So don't go spinning your wheels of frustration at me. ;-)

Blue collar .... They buy into the mythology too readily on account of it and though may be receptive to the policies--they are bamboozled by conventional perceptions--perceptions that are deliberately manufactured.

The guy I was talking to in NM had a perfectly accurate conception of what is wrong in the world, yet it was oddly peppered with pro-Bush comments along the way...

Bamboozled, indeed. And, yes, by design.

Purpose:

Write some shit...
Drag in more people...
Get them to write some shit...
Stop whining....



About says it.
Although Progressives are marginalized by the Mainstream, they inform the debate as the well-spring, the font of the alternative, the counterweight to the Right's think tanks. All progressive ideas and policies rise from the, as Skinner would frame it, the lunatic fringe of the Left. With the rise of centrism it has been easier for the Right to dominate the landscape and harder for progressives to even get the truth heard when Centrism triangulates the mythology of the Right.
The Right has an advantage--they see the value in their thinktanks--which are well-funded to get the word out there, while the Left sees discussion as "doing nothing".

The "left" is also entirely too "civil"...

Which Debutante Ball are we expecting an invite to?

The biggest part of our job is to just keep stokin' the furnace.

http://k43.pbase.com/u26/kiwikev/large/43773685.Stoker300jp.jpg
.

I am going tell you straight out, Mike, I have little tolerance for it -the racism, the thug-like rallying around the fucking flag, the patriarchy.

I don't see it, sorry. There are a few that could be characterized that way, yes. The degree to which there is real thuggishness, racism, sense of exceptionalism, entitlement and privilege, and patriarchy seems to me to be about the same among the rednecks as it is among the beautiful progressives - no more, no less.

So I reject the idea that there is this monolithic group of blue collar people who are the thugs, xenophobes, racists and misogynists, as distinct from the beautiful, educated, and enlightened ones - the progressives - who are not those things. I don't see it, and I don't believe that it exists.

In many ways the thuggishness, the misogyny, the racism, the sense of privilege and exceptionalism and the authoritarianism among progressives is much worse, since it is so clever and is so well disguised.

but I might as well throw in my thoughts on all this.

I'll start by explaining my presence here and what I hope to find, fwiw. I am tired of ineffective activism. I am tired of focusing on the electoral system, the scandals, the legislature, the bush admin. Yeah, it's all broken and we all know it. But if we are honest about it we know that that the problem is much bigger than American politics and that appealing to those in power for concessions will get us nowhere.

I recently attended the SEP (socialist equality party) conference against the war. I have a major personal problem with joining groups/clubs/parties (which may be a bad thing, I dunno). So I am not sucked in to their party as 'the' solution but I was incredibly impressed by their analysis and I came out of there with some new understandings. Primarily that for a movement to have any chance of success it needs to know what the hell it is trying to do and why. For the last 5 years I have been the little energizer bunny of activism doing the same shit over and over, getting nowhere, and doing it again. I can't do that anymore.

I am quite sure that in my lifetime the shit will hit the fan, the unsustainability of capitalism as an economic system and/or the environmental realities of energy use, food production and distribution, insane weather, etc, the shaky ground of US/Western imperialism..something is gonna give.

I want to understand socialism and anarchism better than I do, having studied some of this stuff when I was 19 years old when I had no idea what it was about, I need to relearn it now that I have some context to put it in. I want to talk theory and I want to work things through and I want to try to reach consensus with people. I want to find answers to some of the concerns I have about socialism as an alternative system to capitalism.

I want to talk about these things as if they are real, as if we truly are making a plan to deal with the downfall of capitalism. Because if we aren't trying to do it for real then why bother?

So I came here for a couple reasons - because there are people here with amazing knowledge and understanding of theory and history. There are people here who challenge my thinking and dammit I love a challenge. And there are people here who can and do talk about this as if it is real, as if it matters, not just as concepts and ideas and words on paper removed from reality. People who seek real solutions to huge problems. People who understand that dramatic social change *happens*.

So I got that out of the way. Please tell me if I am in the wrong place.

Now, as for the process itself, the ideas Rusty has about a living document, some other way to record what happens here and to present it, to organize it... I do like the concept of this, and I like the idea of saving great discussions/conclusions/consensus from sinking into archives the way discussion boards tend to work.

I am not convinced that this needs to be worked out before real discussion can happen, and I can see it being as simple as creating a read-only forum where the super-duper-genius-enlightenment-consensus threads can be moved, at least at the beginning.

As for having a wiki-style constantly changing thing, well, maybe this group of people isn't ready to do that just yet...Maybe there still needs to be some good preliminary consensus-building done first. Maybe some of the patterns of communication need to be recognized and worked through before that is possible. The key to it has got to be letting go of ego/self and really sticking to ideas and facts and analysis (says the woman who just posted about 30 consecutive sentences starting with 'I want...', yeah, I know).

But what the hell do I know, I just got here. I have read quite a bit here but I really don't know if I grasp what the whole thing is about.

Copy that, I came here for nearly identical reason, I think, that Megan did. I want to know what I can do to change the dominant paradigm. I want a list of actions different than those I already know. I love reading all these interesting articles about history of class struggle, ways to infiltate, and assholes #532 but what can I do with this information beyond tidbits I can share to help awaken others??? (I'd like a list of heroes too, I keep finding former heroes of mine out to be assholes, although the only one of the list here I've seen is the Dalai Llama, not that I am/was a big devotee of his, but one of his, I guess oh so simplistic lines I try to follow in all my actions, and will do so whether he's an asshole or not is "If you can help, help, if you can't help at least don't do any harm"). I love to indulge my mind, I'm a teacher who has a lot to learn and absolutely could spend all my spare time just learning ( and much of my time that I can't spare), BUT I came here mainly for the purpose of learning practical ways to awaken and truly activate others. For example, I try to share news articles that never hit mainstsream in order to get those who maybe can be shaken into looking deeper into what is truly going on; is this helpful action? I've spoken before about literally getting on a soap box and starting to scream about reality, is that a potential practical action?? I am a teacher, I can talk in front of large groups of people (I tend to pace back and forth very quickly when I speak on a stage, but keeps people awake ;-) ). I want to quite literally help save the world and see everyone with basic human rights, food , shelter, work, and recreation. I believe the vast majority of people are good and if they knew what the few truly egregiously evil people were doing, and were shocked enough, they would stand up. BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT I SHOULD BE DOING!!! Help me help, if I can co-opt megan's signature, maybe paraphrased, they've taken my joy and I want it back!! and I want that joy for everyone. I am not initiatory, I can't start something, but I am a sustainer, I'm tenacious as hell, and I'll keep going. Sling your spears and arrows at me if I'm wrong here, and if I shouldn't be here, let me know. I don't want to waste time, we don't have it to spare.

Before I sign off, I'd like to share the steps taught in the public schools regarding creative problem solving, its basically left to the marginalized unimportant teachers (bitter? you bet). this is my version, I've taught it so long, I'm not sure the original wording, it works in art:

!. Identify the problem.
2. brainstorm possible solutions, and anything goes here.
3. Choose the best possible solution(s) after major discussion/experimentation.
4. Implement.
5. critique its success.
6. redesign if necessary.
7. Implement again.

In Peace, Justice, and Solidarity, Mary

Copy that, I came here for nearly identical reason, I think, that Megan did. I want to know what I can do to change the dominant paradigm. I want a list of actions different than those I already know. I love reading all these interesting articles about history of class struggle, ways to infiltate, and assholes #532 but what can I do with this information beyond tidbits I can share to help awaken others??? (I'd like a list of heroes too, I keep finding former heroes of mine out to be assholes, although the only one of the list here I've seen is the Dalai Llama, not that I am/was a big devotee of his, but one of his, I guess oh so simplistic lines I try to follow in all my actions, and will do so whether he's an asshole or not is "If you can help, help, if you can't help at least don't do any harm"). I love to indulge my mind, I'm a teacher who has a lot to learn and absolutely could spend all my spare time just learning ( and much of my time that I can't spare), BUT I came here mainly for the purpose of learning practical ways to awaken and truly activate others. For example, I try to share news articles that never hit mainstsream in order to get those who maybe can be shaken into looking deeper into what is truly going on; is this helpful action? I've spoken before about literally getting on a soap box and starting to scream about reality, is that a potential practical action?? I am a teacher, I can talk in front of large groups of people (I tend to pace back and forth very quickly when I speak on a stage, but keeps people awake Wink ). I want to quite literally help save the world and see everyone with basic human rights, food , shelter, work, and recreation. I believe the vast majority of people are good and if they knew what the few truly egregiously evil people were doing, and were shocked enough, they would stand up. BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT I SHOULD BE DOING!!! Help me help, if I can co-opt megan's signature, maybe paraphrased, they've taken my joy and I want it back!! and I want that joy for everyone. I am not initiatory, I can't start something, but I am a sustainer, I'm tenacious as hell, and I'll keep going. Sling your spears and arrows at me if I'm wrong here, and if I shouldn't be here, let me know. I don't want to waste time, we don't have it to spare.

Before I sign off, I'd like to share the steps taught in the public schools regarding creative problem solving, its basically left to the marginalized unimportant teachers (bitter? you bet). this is my version, I've taught it so long, I'm not sure the original wording, it works in art:

!. Identify the problem.
2. brainstorm possible solutions, and anything goes here.
3. Choose the best possible solution(s) after major discussion/experimentation.
4. Implement.
5. critique its success.
6. redesign if necessary.
7. Implement again.

Thanks for kicking this old thread.

I am always a little confused by this question when it comes up periodically. Maybe I don't understand it. Hope you don't mind if I just throw out some random thoughts.

- The iron is hot and it is time for striking. Things are getting worse and worse for blue collar people and their disaffection is as high as it has been in my lifetime. Things are about to get a whole lot worse for immigrants. The Dem loyalists and liberal activists are confused and deeply discouraged, so they are not such a potent force for moderation and mitigation and suppression as they have been.

- I think that people not knowing what to do, and asking what to do, is unanswerable in a way. If the problem were understood, the question as to what to do about it wouldn't come up this way, you know? To me what to do is obvious. The house is on fire, you put it out, no? If it is not that simple, then the likely cause of that is a lack of understanding about the problem.

- Doing something effective is extremely dangerous. I wonder sometimes if people are asking what we can do that won't be dangerous. Nothing safe would be effective.

- I am just not sure that waking people up is needed. I hear this from so many people - we need to wake people up. But I can't see an application of that in real life. For a certain small segment of the population it is shocking that we are getting screwed, and they go through a "waking up" process about what they thought the truth was, but that drama doesn't apply to most of the people in the country that I can see. It is mostly professional and relatively successful people who have internalized some myth about things working, and about things being predictable and being fair. The rest of the population does not share this success myth, so there is no need for them to wake up from it. They have been kicked around enough, and they didn't identify with the ruling class to begin with. It is those for whom life has gone relatively well and who do identify with the ruling class that waking up and being shocked is relevant.

- Heroes: Others have talked about people here, and I have talked about Lincoln, Fredrick Douglass, Malcolm X and others.

- We are working class. Different people in the working class have different skills and talents. Our skills and talents are with words. Words are what are more needed than anything else. So that means that the biggest to-do, the most important and valuable and effective things we could be doing are with words. Yet the activists juxtapose "mere talking" with the presumably much more important "doing something."

If we can agree that we are working class, and that our skill with words does not make us better than other working class people - code words for better: "professional, successful, smarter, more enlightened” - but merely represents one of many skill sets that the working class people have; if we can agree that the effective use of words is an essential, and largely absent component to social revolution; if we can agree that those of us with word skills are missing in action; if we can agree on that, then we can develop to-do lists of how to reach a larger audience, with what message, for what purpose, and with more effectiveness.

I see hundreds of opportunities for us to contribute to, augment ongoing activities, start things and otherwise have an impact. But first we need to see ourselves as communicators, see that as one working class skill that we are willing to humbly contribute to the cause, see communication as valuable and in fact essential, and know what it is we hope to achieve. There are numerous groups out there - not liberal activist groups, but minority activist groups, labor groups, people who are already committed and radicalized - who are in desperate need of better communications, and the Internet in particular is dramatically under-used. But so long as we insist that talk is worthless and is different than doing something, and that the Internet has no unexploited value, there is no sense in talking about plans to do things in those areas. Liberal groups do a terrible job of using the Internet - just pathetic. But it is very difficult to get people interested in a discussion about that.

The things that I think we need to do are these:

- The hard and important work is disabusing ourselves and others of the last thirty years of co-opted, frustrating and ineffective liberal activism and ideas. Chlamor had the idea of using PopIndy as a crucible for hammering out strong and effective rhetoric, and then taking that to other sites. This we have been doing and it is very powerful.

This could be easily expanded with RSS, the MT program we are waiting on, linking, cross-posting, blogs and also with an idea I have floated every 6 months or so over the last 5 years, but I have yet to generate any interest in the idea. With a decentralized network of home printers and runners, an extremely powerful anonymous rabble rousing newsletter - outrageous, compelling - could be published monthly, or more, and put in front of millions of people. It would be effective, and therefore it would also be somewhat risky and dangerous. Within 6 months it could be talked about everywhere and have a serious impact.

People are resistant to rabble rousing, though. I think that before you organize, before you implement programs, the level of frustration and anger among the public needs to be increased and it needs to be focused. Both of those we are ideally suited for doing.

- The poor people, the minority people, the working poor and blue collar people are the backbone of a social revolution. We need to make an effort to speak for them and to connect up with them. (Not scream at them and demand that they be like us.) The disconnection is so stunning and so obvious - a few thousand upscale enlightened liberal activists march "against the war," or Code Pink disrupts a Congressional meeting, nothing is accomplished and and everyone wrings their hands - "how can we wake the people up? How can we get more like minded people?" At the same time millions of immigrants take to the streets and continue to build a strong and growing movement in opposition to the regime, and there is no interest in that from the liberal activists. New radical union organizations are rising up all over the country.

I don't think you can have a gentrified upscale middle class professional social revolution - the two things are mutually contradictory. I do think that this impossible goal is what many are hoping for, and that is the cause of much frustration.

I can't see any way to change the dominant paradigm that does not require developing powerful and compelling rhetoric based on solid theory, willingness to take great risks and face danger, and that does not require solidarity – mutual support and defense.

If the question is what can we do that would be effective – that precludes talking, that avoids risks, that keeps us safe from any danger, and that allows us to remain isolated little islands onto ourselves – the answer is probably nothing.

If the question is what can we do that would be effective – that precludes talking, that avoids risks, that keeps us safe from any danger, and that allows us to remain isolated little islands onto ourselves – the answer is probably nothing.


That was not my question, and forgive me, but I do feel your implication is that I am in some way elitist, Mike, I hope I am wrong and will respond as if I am wrong. I am not great with the internet or computers, I have a hard time even getting my avatar to look decent, but I'm great with Photoshop, its just the internet thing. I have been writing, emailing, forwarding posts, spending a great deal of time trying to learn how to use the internet. I do not have much money so I can't upgrade, my husband works very part time, and I work for the district that pays the least in the entire region, fifty miles south of here I'd be making twice what I'm making now, but the expenses here are nearly comparable. (Enough personal shit. sorry). I sincerely need direction, its not fear, its a question of honestly feeling helpless, and not knowing what to do. I am going to peace rallies as its something to do. I talk to strangers all the time. I've been reading tons of posts here and always cheer yours, and have shared them. I am on the email list for the Jena six but couldn/t make the rally (where was everybody there?), I am very involved in my union, I write to my representative weekly, I am married, and have the responsiblity of being the primary breadwinner, until lately the only breadwinner, my husband had to get a part time job cause we just weren't cutting the expenses, lot of medical co-pays, thank god I've got insurance. I work very hard to help the poorer students achieve so that they can feel a little hope (hard to inspire when its lacking in oneself). So when I ask what I can do beyond that, I did need to hear that writing and informing is a good action, I wasn't sure about that, But I know the world is being destroyed by a bunch of seriously evil beings, and I want to help stop it. And when I said I want all to have their human rights of food, shelter, work etc., I meant all. We can't all have the character and mental clarity that you seem to have, but some of us do have the heart and really want to help. My post above was sincere, and I know its dangerous to be doing this, I connect with lots of sites, and last year files disappeared off my computer for who knows why. Scared me but I didn't stop. My phone does weird things but I dont stop. I can write, and I can speak fairly well. I'll STFU about me, I really want to contribute in a practical way.

I think the newsletter is a great idea, I even know a good printer where I could get things done fairly cheaply.

Anyway, Mike, if you doubt my sincerety, I don't know what to say. If I seem silly or flip sometimes its because I need to lift myself a little, but I'm livid and ready to act, if writing or distributing newsletters or whatever. Peace to you.


fixed your quote for you - M

...if you doubt my sincerety...

Oh, no. Not in the least.

...if you doubt my sincerety...

Oh, no. Not in the least.

Thanks, and if you doubt anything else please let me know, if you ever get your newsletter up, I'll contribute, print it out, make copies and distribute, I think I can swing that. and talk. I do think a print copy is good, alot of folks don't use the internet because they can't afford the computers or the fees.

PS: I voted for choice 3 in the poll here.

I left you a message at the Kuch site regarding this really bright film student at the site who is writing articles for OpEdnews, thought you'd like to take a look at his stuff. Brilliant.

[quote="Mary TF":22cgizs1]...if you doubt my sincerety...

Oh, no. Not in the least.

Thanks, and if you doubt anything else please let me know, if you ever get your newsletter up, I'll contribute, print it out, make copies and distribute, I think I can swing that. and talk. I do think a print copy is good, alot of folks don't use the internet because they can't afford the computers or the fees.

PS: I voted for choice 3 in the poll here.[/quote:22cgizs1]

I as just rambling about the challenges we all face in answering your question, not singling you out or trying to correct or contradict what you were saying.

I agree with Mike about "waking people up." In my working class/working poor/blue collar world people already ARE awake. In fact, the fastest way to anesthetize and drug an already aware person is to introduce him/her to the inner workings of the online "political" world. Ugh. Especially as pertains to the left. There are all kinds of shiny, unopened packages holding promises of that one perfect answer, that excellent candidate, that theory, that cloture vote, blah, blah, blah. But once opened and examined those packages are nothing but clothes on Christmas. Clothes even an Emperor wouldn't wear.

I was more awake before I knew shit all about anything "the left" tried to tell me. Once I shook off The Stupor, I woke up again.


- Doing something effective is extremely dangerous. I wonder sometimes if people are asking what we can do that won't be dangerous. Nothing safe would be effective.

True that.
And people in my world know exactly what needs to be done.

http://www.safecom.org.au/images/blog-revolution.jpg

In my working class/working poor/blue collar world people already ARE awake. In fact, the fastest way to anesthetize and drug an already aware person is to introduce him/her to the inner workings of the online "political" world. Ugh. Especially as pertains to the left. There are all kinds of shiny, unopened packages holding promises of that one perfect answer, that excellent candidate, that theory, that cloture vote, blah, blah, blah. But once opened and examined those packages are nothing but clothes on Christmas. Clothes even an Emperor wouldn't wear.

This is what I see as well. The disconnection between political people and everyday people is truly remarkable.


I was more awake before I knew shit all about anything "the left" tried to tell me. Once I shook off The Stupor, I woke up again.

Millions feel the same way. The political rhetoric from the so-called Left is what puts people to sleep, yet the political people keep saying that waking people up is what is needed. Oddest thing.



Doing something effective is extremely dangerous. I wonder sometimes if people are asking what we can do that won't be dangerous. Nothing safe would be effective.

True that.
And people in my world know exactly what needs to be done.

The blue collar people are not asleep, they are rejecting the Left, and they should because the Left is full of shit in very profound and important ways. Nothing Left is being promoted, what is being promoted is some sort of aristocracy of the enlightened people and those enlightened people are deaf and blind to the predicament of the people. They are insulated from unpleasant reality, and seek to strengthen that insulation. It is hard to get through to people about this, because they will talk about the things they have done for the cause, and the travails in their life to gain "street cred" and be able to continue to portray liberalism as a solution for working people. It is not so much a matter of whether they have money or not or have problems or not, the faith in the system is the problem, and that is in their minds. All of the problems that they have would be fixed by the various tweaks of the the system that liberalism promises. But those liberal programs do not begin to touch what is needed to alleviate the deep despair that most of the people are experiencing. People will argue for liberalism and reject what we are saying here, and say "I am not wealthy, I am struggling." Yes, but those struggles of people who have faith in the whole "middle class" and success paradigm are the only struggles that would be helped by liberalism, and the rest of the population would be left in the lurch.

Liberals say that we have to elect Democrats because "we" can't survive another Republican administration. Who is "we?" It must be a very small number of people, because most of the people are already in the fix that the activists fear themselves falling into, and have been for a long time, and will still be in ths same fix no matter how many Democrats are elected or how many liberal programs succeed.

Liberals, Democrats and activists are demanding that things be fixed for THEM and the Hell with the rest of the people. They want to see the old system of the 90's restored, so that the successful professional few can be in relative comfort and ease and the Hell with the losers and rednecks and left behind and cast away and insufficiently enlightened people.

I was hoping that my comments would start a discussion rather than end it. There is a thread at DU about this very thing today, and it is illustrative.

The OP:


I have never felt so utterly helpless in my life as I do now

Though admittedly my life thus far has been a relatively short one, 22 and a half years long.

My age makes it so that I never knew Nixon and his imperial president ambitions. My only firsthand experience of Vietnam was with all the homeless veterans roaming the streets of Milwaukee when I was growing up. The Civil Rights Movement seemed to be a thing of the past. America seemed like it was moving in the right direction; toward progress, toward equality, and toward bringing the world along with it.

We were still (in my hazy memories of naive and perhaps ignorant youth) a beacon of hope and freedom around the globe. People respected us and looked to us for direction and guidance.

Fast forward to the 2000 election. I was devastated and expected the worst. But my expectations turned out to be too high. These fools were given too much credit.

And now I'm helpless.

My age now makes it so that I know, and know well, Bush and his imperial presidency. Iraq is my Vietnam. Only this time it's my friends, my classmates, my peers coming home with damaged brains and missing limbs. That is me coming home in those body bags. It's not just names on a wall in Washington DC anymore.

I see Jim Crow rear his ugly head in a little town called Jena. I never thought I'd have to see so many people march once more for common sense and basic human decency.

America has come to a grinding halt and shifted to 'reverse.' Politicians always like to ask us if we're better off than we were four years ago. We're no better off than we were forty years ago.

Everywhere you look, hate and paranoia is seeping (most would say flooding) back into the mainstream American consciousness. I see a triumphant return to the Gilded Age. I see American citizens arguing passionately in favor of the suspension and expulsion of their own basic rights. I see a lot of things that I could continue on and on about, but I have neither the time nor the mental energy to do so.

My country is mired in an un-winnable war and seems intent to start another any day now. And it feels like there is nothing I can do to stop it. People are falling for the same bullshit concerning Iran as they did Iraq, even though in both cases the bullshit is so obviously transparent.

In my heart of hearts I would like to believe that America has been through and survived more trying moments. The Civil War. The Great Depression and World War II. But this time we have no Lincoln, we have no FDR. And even during Vietnam people stood up and spoke the truth. It seems to me the only thing the American people have to say to their government now is "thank you sir may I have another?"

How do you stay hopeful in such trying times? How do you raise your children to believe in the beauty of the ideal America when it's fast disappearing?

What on earth can we do?

Here are some selected replies.

We have the usual therapy approach responses, as though the person's view of the political reality were some sort of personal flaw or mental illness that needs to be fixed so they feel better:


Take a break. Put yourself into a cocoon for a few days. Pamper yourself. Take time to watch the sunrise, or sunset. Listen to the birds. Go to a park and watch children play. View movies that you enjoy just for their entertainment value. Fluff your pillows. Read a good book....something fun to read...not political! Eat healthy. Relax....think about more pleasant times, past experiences or times you're looking forward to. Call old friends and re-invest time with your family. Don't let the outside world/national troubles into your world....it takes some practice!


smoke a joint...

and take a walk, with your puppy, if you have one...you feel better

We have the "it's human nature so what can you do?" response:


I don't know ...

...human nature has so many sides.

We have the "keep doing what you are doing and it will pass" response:


Hang in there! 4 more years of fascism (according to economic-political cycles) and then

TWELVE really groovy years ahead! So just hold your nose until 2012 and everything will get rosier.


Get a 2'x3' piece of card board and write on it, impeach and stand on a corner.

We have the inevitable "look deep, deep, deep within yourself" spiritual approach response:


The only meaningful answer to your question lives inside of you- And you already understand it. It's in your "comment"-

each 1 teach 1 to civilize man

wise men said:

'Each of us must be the change we want to see in the world.'.... Gandhi

"A Senegalese poet said 'In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.' We must learn about other cultures in order to understand, in order to love, and in order to preserve our common world heritage."
–Yo Yo Ma,

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.
This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.
I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, other-centered men can build up." MLKjr.

Reach out, reach in, rest. Being fully alive and aware is not easy or comfortable, but anything else isn't really living ... is it?

And we have one person who is getting close to the truth:


I think the premise is mis-stated.

Respectfully, I think what you (and others) mean is "I feel helpless and I am unwilling to give up normalcy."

Because, truly, you and I CAN do something. Citizens of other nations DO something when they feel helpless against their government. The idea that the citizenry of another country would sit around talking about how helpless they feel in the face of coming repression is laughable.

And I'm sure you know the steps involved.

But the first step is admitting or realizing that normal life is going away. We will either control our destiny or they will control us. Some say we don't have a year left. Which means we can't pin our hopes on a savior being elected in 2008.

Here are some steps to facing the reality that our lives will never be the same from now on.

1. Name the evil. It is fascism. It is here.

2. Decide if you will support liberty or tyranny.

3. Decide what your role is. Some can be leaders. Some can be feeders of leaders. Some can be protestors. Others can only pray, or pass information. But you must have a role, and your life will never be the same as it was. (And you must choose which to support -- liberty or tyranny. Not choosing means you are choosing tyranny.)

4. Find like-minded people. Make community with them.

5. If you cannot be visible as a resistor, you must support those who are. Feed them. Supply them. Stand with them. Care for their children.

Honestly, once you get past the mourning of the passing of your normal life and start planning and working in another direction, you will not feel so helpless. Sit for a minute right now and think about it. There's so much to do.

I left you a message at the Kuch site regarding this really bright film student at the site who is writing articles for OpEdnews, thought you'd like to take a look at his stuff. Brilliant.

Patrioticintellect, yes. Thanks.

I agree with Mike about "waking people up." In my working class/working poor/blue collar world people already ARE awake. In fact, the fastest way to anesthetize and drug an already aware person is to introduce him/her to the inner workings of the online "political" world. Ugh. Especially as pertains to the left. There are all kinds of shiny, unopened packages holding promises of that one perfect answer, that excellent candidate, that theory, that cloture vote, blah, blah, blah. But once opened and examined those packages are nothing but clothes on Christmas. Clothes even an Emperor wouldn't wear.

I was more awake before I knew shit all about anything "the left" tried to tell me. Once I shook off The Stupor, I woke up again.


- Doing something effective is extremely dangerous. I wonder sometimes if people are asking what we can do that won't be dangerous. Nothing safe would be effective.

True that.
And people in my world know exactly what needs to be done.

http://www.safecom.org.au/images/blog-revolution.jpg

Revolt for show, genuflect for dough?

I think the premise is mis-stated.

Respectfully, I think what you (and others) mean is "I feel helpless and I am unwilling to give up normalcy."

Because, truly, you and I CAN do something. Citizens of other nations DO something when they feel helpless against their government. The idea that the citizenry of another country would sit around talking about how helpless they feel in the face of coming repression is laughable.

And I'm sure you know the steps involved.

But the first step is admitting or realizing that normal life is going away. We will either control our destiny or they will control us. Some say we don't have a year left. Which means we can't pin our hopes on a savior being elected in 2008.

Here are some steps to facing the reality that our lives will never be the same from now on.

1. Name the evil. It is fascism. It is here.

2. Decide if you will support liberty or tyranny.

3. Decide what your role is. Some can be leaders. Some can be feeders of leaders. Some can be protestors. Others can only pray, or pass information. But you must have a role, and your life will never be the same as it was. (And you must choose which to support -- liberty or tyranny. Not choosing means you are choosing tyranny.)

4. Find like-minded people. Make community with them.

5. If you cannot be visible as a resistor, you must support those who are. Feed them. Supply them. Stand with them. Care for their children.

Honestly, once you get past the mourning of the passing of your normal life and start planning and working in another direction, you will not feel so helpless. Sit for a minute right now and think about it. There's so much to do.

Mike, the responses to this post had to be pretty hostile, right? I'm going to go see if I can find this thread now.

Revolt for show, genuflect for dough?

I need to get that on a t-shirt for the next time there is an anti-war protest in town...

I have been trying to get my brain around the disconnection between the Left and reality and explain it for a while. There is a particular something - it includes a tone of voice, a set of phrases, a facial expression and body language - that is completely absent among blue collar people and minority people.

It is as though the political activism mindset is one step removed from the world; an interpretation of the world, rather than a practice in the world. That doesn't quite get it.

It has something to do with following the news and national political events. Seeing "Bush" as the problem. Seeing elections as the solution. Accepting the context that all of that implies. That doesn't quite get it, either.

The battle is everyday with every person in every transaction. There is no way to graft political activism onto normal life, because it is the normal life that is the problem, yet that is what people must be trying to do. That didn't work in the 60's - "normal life" sooner or later wins out, and it is in the hundreds of compromises that normal life now requires that tyranny gets all of its support - and it sure as hell won't work now.

I can't imagine how anyone can get through the day without encountering dozens of challenges all of which are very political and all of which are an opportunity for resistance, and for communicating to people powerfully and understandably. Telemarketing calls is just one example - if that isn't the haves fucking the have-nots with bribed government complicity, I don't know what is. "Normal" says that a telemarketing call is a "nuisance" of no importance. I go at it vigorously. The caller is a socialist in the making by the time I get done, as is everyone within earshot. It inspires people just to witness someone fighting back. Not in the gentrified liberal way, but right now, right here. Health issues - God everyone is struggling with that and every conversation is an opportunity to radicalize people. "Get pissed, fight back!" is a start. Political theory then has a fertile field to grow in. "You can't steer a parked car" and liberals are always trying to park people cars. The people are suffering, they are angry, they are fed up. Telling them to la ti da vote for this candidate, or support this cause is parking the car; patting them on the head and paternalistically keeping them in their place.

I think the reason that people are so frustrated, desperate, feel so helpless, and don't know what to do is because they are trying to do the impossible - graft political activism onto normal life.

Getting our joy back may be no more difficult than letting go of the hope that things are going to be OK if we can just figure out what to do.

829,000 people arrested for pot last year. 833,000 people detained because they are Hispanic. Shit, there are people with real problems. It is real. It isn't theoretical, it isn't about how we feel or how the liberals at DU cope with it all - which very rarely means that they are dying or imprisoned or sick or persecuted - they are complaining about having to think about those things.

We are under assault everyday from a hundred different directions. Most people here and in the world have no choice but to either knuckle under and suffer, or resist and suffer more. Each time one of those things happens for us, we have a choice. Accommodate or resist. Most liberals have the daily hassles tucked away over there, separate from anything political. They pride themselves on their ability to cope and overcome those, advise each other as to how to cope. All of that is accommodation. We accommodate a tyranny that is killing others, either because we are among the fortunate few who have that option, or we hope that we can be.

If the crisis were not in each and every little thing we do every day, and if it were not causing terrible hardship, deprivation, suffering and oppression for millions, there would not be anything to fight against to begin with.

What the people need is focus, direction, spokespeople, and leadership. They have none of that, because the working class people with the skills to contribute that to the struggles of the working people have been co-opted and sucked off into a personal success "normal life" and "middle class" illusion, and see politics as something that is done as a hobby at certain times in certain places in certain ways.

I have been trying to get my brain around the disconnection between the Left and reality and explain it for a while. There is a particular something - it includes a tone of voice, a set of phrases, a facial expression and body language - that is completely absent among blue collar people and minority people.

It is as though the political activism mindset is one step removed from the world; an interpretation of the world, rather than a practice in the world. That doesn't quite get it.

It has something to do with following the news and national political events. Seeing "Bush" as the problem. Seeing elections as the solution. Accepting the context that all of that implies. That doesn't quite get it, either.

The battle is everyday with every person in every transaction. There is no way to graft political activism onto normal life, because it is the normal life that is the problem, yet that is what people must be trying to do. That didn't work in the 60's - "normal life" sooner or later wins out, and it is in the hundreds of compromises that normal life now requires that tyranny gets all of its support - and it sure as hell won't work now.

I can't imagine how anyone can get through the day without encountering dozens of challenges all of which are very political and all of which are an opportunity for resistance, and for communicating to people powerfully and understandably. Telemarketing calls is just one example - if that isn't the haves fucking the have-nots with bribed government complicity, I don't know what is. "Normal" says that a telemarketing call is a "nuisance" of no importance. I go at it vigorously. The caller is a socialist in the making by the time I get done, as is everyone within earshot. It inspires people just to witness someone fighting back. Not in the gentrified liberal way, but right now, right here. Health issues - God everyone is struggling with that and every conversation is an opportunity to radicalize people. "Get pissed, fight back!" is a start. Political theory then has a fertile field to grow in. "You can't steer a parked car" and liberals are always trying to park people cars. The people are suffering, they are angry, they are fed up. Telling them to la ti da vote for this candidate, or support this cause is parking the car; patting them on the head and paternalistically keeping them in their place.

I think the reason that people are so frustrated, desperate, feel so helpless, and don't know what to do is because they are trying to do the impossible - graft political activism onto normal life.

Getting our joy back may be no more difficult than letting go of the hope that things are going to be OK if we can just figure out what to do.

829,000 people arrested for pot last year. 833,000 people detained because they are Hispanic. Shit, there are people with real problems. It is real. It isn't theoretical, it isn't about how we feel or how the liberals at DU cope with it all - which very rarely means that they are dying or imprisoned or sick or persecuted - they are complaining about having to think about those things.

We are under assault everyday from a hundred different directions. Most people here and in the world have no choice but to either knuckle under and suffer, or resist and suffer more. Each time one of those things happens for us, we have a choice. Accommodate or resist. Most liberals have the daily hassles tucked away over there, separate from anything political. They pride themselves on their ability to cope and overcome those, advise each other as to how to cope. All of that is accommodation. We accommodate a tyranny that is killing others, either because we are among the fortunate few who have that option, or we hope that we can be.

If the crisis were not in each and every little thing we do every day, and if it were not causing terrible hardship, deprivation, suffering and oppression for millions, there would not be anything to fight against to begin with.

What the people need is focus, direction, spokespeople, and leadership. They have none of that, because the working class people with the skills to contribute that to the struggles of the working people have been co-opted and sucked off into a personal success "normal life" and "middle class" illusion, and see politics as something that is done as a hobby at certain times in certain places in certain ways.

I think you're right, its the battle to try to hold on to what no longer is normalcy. In my house the only normalcy I have left is my pets, playing with my pets is the only thing left that might be called normal and fun (oh and occasional fiction on my part, for true escape). Both of us are working on educating ourselves on the truth of tyranny. I keep working on computer skills and knowledge, and reading,reading, reading, and sharing news from way outside, I hope, the mainstream. My husband creates political textual paintings a radical departure from his "norm", no venue, but we're working on that. Its just so freaky, I really don't even want the "normalcy" anymore. The more "intelligent" (what a crock of shit) tv shows, the "talking heads" news shows, I used to follow these as the truth as recently as two years ago, maybe less, now I watch them and they are totally different, I feel like I've had a stroke or something, I guess a stroke of reality?. I have difficulty discussing issues with people at work, because they don't want to hear my truth, and I can't listen to theirs without trying to inform them and I have to speak out, sorry but I still try to be gentle as I possibly can, I do still hold on to the normalcy of wanting my job intact :-). I've gained a few converts, not totally there yet, but I think you're right when you say the blue collar workers are more savvy than the "professionals". Teachers are a strange lot, split between the union hardcore and those who want to be considered more "professional". Between those who dress in casual and those who complain that all should wear business attire (to grant us "authority" I guess? make us more dictatorlike?). Forgive me for rambling and always coming at my posts from a personal standpoint, someone told me once teach what you know. I don't think I'm teaching any of you here with what I say, but maybe I am showing you that some of those you think won't come around may, anybody can change, I still cling to that belief (I discount those no longer human). I'm becoming living proof, not quite there yet, but I'll keep reading and trying to listen without spouting in because I still cling a little to trying to be normal (actually I never was normal, but for a long time I sure wanted to be). Thanks.

I have been trying to get my brain around the disconnection between the Left and reality and explain it for a while. There is a particular something - it includes a tone of voice, a set of phrases, a facial expression and body language - that is completely absent among blue collar people and minority people.

It is as though the political activism mindset is one step removed from the world; an interpretation of the world, rather than a practice in the world. That doesn't quite get it.

It has something to do with following the news and national political events. Seeing "Bush" as the problem. Seeing elections as the solution. Accepting the context that all of that implies. That doesn't quite get it, either.

The battle is everyday with every person in every transaction. There is no way to graft political activism onto normal life, because it is the normal life that is the problem, yet that is what people must be trying to do. That didn't work in the 60's - "normal life" sooner or later wins out, and it is in the hundreds of compromises that normal life now requires that tyranny gets all of its support - and it sure as hell won't work now.

I can't imagine how anyone can get through the day without encountering dozens of challenges all of which are very political and all of which are an opportunity for resistance, and for communicating to people powerfully and understandably. Telemarketing calls is just one example - if that isn't the haves fucking the have-nots with bribed government complicity, I don't know what is. "Normal" says that a telemarketing call is a "nuisance" of no importance. I go at it vigorously. The caller is a socialist in the making by the time I get done, as is everyone within earshot. It inspires people just to witness someone fighting back. Not in the gentrified liberal way, but right now, right here. Health issues - God everyone is struggling with that and every conversation is an opportunity to radicalize people. "Get pissed, fight back!" is a start. Political theory then has a fertile field to grow in. "You can't steer a parked car" and liberals are always trying to park people cars. The people are suffering, they are angry, they are fed up. Telling them to la ti da vote for this candidate, or support this cause is parking the car; patting them on the head and paternalistically keeping them in their place.

I think the reason that people are so frustrated, desperate, feel so helpless, and don't know what to do is because they are trying to do the impossible - graft political activism onto normal life.

Getting our joy back may be no more difficult than letting go of the hope that things are going to be OK if we can just figure out what to do.

829,000 people arrested for pot last year. 833,000 people detained because they are Hispanic. Shit, there are people with real problems. It is real. It isn't theoretical, it isn't about how we feel or how the liberals at DU cope with it all - which very rarely means that they are dying or imprisoned or sick or persecuted - they are complaining about having to think about those things.

We are under assault everyday from a hundred different directions. Most people here and in the world have no choice but to either knuckle under and suffer, or resist and suffer more. Each time one of those things happens for us, we have a choice. Accommodate or resist. Most liberals have the daily hassles tucked away over there, separate from anything political. They pride themselves on their ability to cope and overcome those, advise each other as to how to cope. All of that is accommodation. We accommodate a tyranny that is killing others, either because we are among the fortunate few who have that option, or we hope that we can be.

If the crisis were not in each and every little thing we do every day, and if it were not causing terrible hardship, deprivation, suffering and oppression for millions, there would not be anything to fight against to begin with.

What the people need is focus, direction, spokespeople, and leadership. They have none of that, because the working class people with the skills to contribute that to the struggles of the working people have been co-opted and sucked off into a personal success "normal life" and "middle class" illusion, and see politics as something that is done as a hobby at certain times in certain places in certain ways.

Mike, I think this one ought to be put in a forum accessible to the public.

Mike, I think this one ought to be put in a forum accessible to the public.

I think so too Blind Pig, wish I'd said that in my post.

Teachers are a strange lot, split between the union hardcore and those who want to be considered more "professional". Between those who dress in casual and those who complain that all should wear business attire (to grant us "authority" I guess? make us more dictatorlike?).

I cut teachers a lot of slack. Health care workers, as well.


Forgive me for rambling and always coming at my posts from a personal standpoint, someone told me once teach what you know.

We have something of a conundrum here. I think of it as wading through the complexity to get to the simple, and as engaging the person to form the collective. There is so much insanity around those two issues that it is going to have to get worse, in a way, before it gets better. We really need more people to come from a personal standpoint, and we shouldn't see that as inferior or without value.


I don't think I'm teaching any of you here with what I say, but maybe I am showing you that some of those you think won't come around may, anybody can change, I still cling to that belief (I discount those no longer human). I'm becoming living proof, not quite there yet, but I'll keep reading and trying to listen without spouting in because I still cling a little to trying to be normal (actually I never was normal, but for a long time I sure wanted to be). Thanks.

No worries. Your contributions are valuable. None of us will ever "get there," you know?

We need to touch base again on that "there are two classes..." simplification that was so useful for us in the past.