Discussion

[Zinn]

I don't believe we should accept the way things are. Quite the opposite in fact. I complain about them constantly. I try to educate people. I try my darndest not to behave that way. I don't think it matters why people have the behaviour, I think it matters that the bahaviour exists. We should attempt to eradicate it. Greed and sexism are hardly the same thing. Greed exists in animals. They fight over food, mates, whatever. They either win, evolve, or die. That's the way nature works. Sexism is purely cultural. If all humans were sexist, or even a majority were sexist, I could argue that. However, different cultures obviously have different ideas on sexism. Greed is almost culturally universal, excluding some really, really well hidden tribes that either have enough or not enough to not be greedy.

On the subject of greed- Unfortunately, people are generally too short sighted to see that free health care, schooling, etc. are more beneficial than a tax cut. That factors into #2.

On the subject of stupidity- How many people do you honestly think are listening? Really? Go into an average, run of the mill high school or office, and ask how many people have heard of Emma Goldman. Ask how many people have heard of Howard Zinn. Ask how many people have read a book that wasn't required by the school/workplace, or even including books required by the school/workplace, in the last six months. People that are barely literate are graduating high school, and even going to college. I know a guy that already has a scholarship to Virginia State for football, and he failed six out of eight of his classes last semester. The people in the slums either don't know, or don't care. The constant state of fear that the government has us in is remarkable crowd control. How can you complain about the lack of food when there's terrorists!?! As for unions... I got a call from a guy that got screwed over by his company when I was at work a few weeks ago. He couldn't afford healthcare. Somehow, he thought it was the union's fault. He called the union terrorists. I tried to explain that unions exist to keep cases like his from happening, but he wouldn't listen. Liberal is a dirty word in America today. You have to hate gays and want to kill kill kill to get elected. Kerry tried his hardest to be that during his campaign. Fear cancels out knowlege, and the quest for knowlege. People don't like to learn because they don't want to look stupid. What makes you think the lower class will mobilize with socialism, or anarchism, if they decide to mobilize? You don't know that, and I don't know that.

For guerilla media to work people have to listen, and most guerilla media nowadays is preaching to the choir. How many Republicans do you think went in to see Fahrenheit 9/11 without a preconcieved notion of what they think about it? How many people do you think went to a Socialist rally with open ears and eyes that didn't already have an opinion on the subject?

An anarchist pamphlet is about as effective as a Nazi skinhead pamphlet. Who reads a Nazi skinhead pamphlet? Nazi Skinheads. Who reads a socialist pamphlet? Socialists.

I think change has to be very gradual, but strong. Guerilla media is ineffective. We need to seize the mainstream media. What we need is to encourage people to think about their opinions using the same methods Fox News uses. Sure, it would be dumbing things down, sure, it would be someone degrading, but it has been proven to work. We have to be real sneaky like about it. We have to use silly catchphrases. We need computer generated flash and pomp. How does an extremist group gain acceptance? By watering itself down, hiding under a mask, and making itself accessable. We need to look sexy.

The new revolution is the media revolution. We have to play the game.

We don't need to burn down the White House, or put anyone's head on a pike. We need to stop being painted as elitists.

And when I say we, I mean everyone with a left of center viewpoint. My political views and yours are probably rather different. We have a few similar goals and ideas.

On the other hand, I can be quite conservative about some things. For example, I am opposed to affirmative action, because I really don't think it helps anything, and I am opposed to totally socialized medicine, because I used to live in Canada, and it really isn't as good as it looks. The hospitals are underfunded, understaffed, dirty, and old. My mother shattered her femur bone, and they told her to go home.

You can't really sue for malpractice, because the government doesn't have enough money.

I don't even want to talk about what happened to my late grandfather. He was in and out of the hospital for ten years, and there are a lot of horror stories.

I believe in fiscal responsibility, but not in the Republican sense. Cutting taxes for the rich isn't going to trickle down. Its just going to make the rich richer. We are suffering through a dumber version of Reaganomics right now. My idea of fiscal responsibility consists of cutting funds to our weapons programs, the space program, and selling some of our nukes as scrap metal. How many doomsday devices do you need? I care about scientific exploration, but lets face it, funding schools is more important than launching a probe to look at another planet. Yes, science is good, but we need to put frivolous things on hold for a while.

I read somewhere that we are currently putting out the same number of missiles we were putting out at the hight of the Cold War. Is that really neccissary?

[Mikhael Nadyezhda (Mischa)]

You bring up great points, but what it all boils down to is reaching people where they're at. In some areas you are supposed to water down your politics, but if you hide behind a mask, that is the perfect way for the media to call you out for hijacking a movement, like ANSWER/Workers World Party for example.

Anyways... In order to build a movement, and build education, you build credibility. You can't just hand someone Howard Zinn, or Emma Goldman and expect them to be enthralled by it, you can't call for rallies under the banner of "f**k bourgeois politicians, socialist/anarchist revolution", etc., you make your demands very narrow in order to reach out to anyone you possibly can. You can argue about whether or not the demonstrations against Iraq, the largest demonstrations in the history of the planet, were successful or not, sure the US invaded, sure Bush got re-elected, but a lot was gained and learned for us. And when I say "us", I don't mean the anarchists and socialists, I don't even mean the broad "left", I mean for every human being on this planet. Who got us out of Vietnam? Nixon. The most right wing, racist piece of nuts president, second only to Reagan. Why did he do it? Because there were people out in the streets.

And, in order to do that, you need to reach people where they're at. Work within unions, build rallies, let everyone know your positions, be as open and honest as you possibly can. Hell, I'll use our local branch of Socialist Action as an example. We started up about 3 years ago in the Duluth area with 2 people, now we have over a dozen, and over 200 people scattered around the upper midwest in our youth group. I think that's pretty incredible for 3 years time. We've called rallies that have had the highest turn out in the history of our area.

And I think you're being pretty narrow in your thinking about education, you don't have to have study groups about the communist manifesto if you're trying to build communism, there are so many other things you can tap from that people are interested in and want to hear about. Leonard Peltier, gay marraige, the Zapatistas, all the coups in South America, Mumia Abu Jamal, the Russian, Spanish, and Chinese revolutions, Iraq, Iran, the sky is the limit! Even if it's just for the topic, and no networking was gained, that's something. And that's how you win them to your ideals, is by example, and through dialog.

As for geurilla media, sure it sounds limited, but it's the perfect thing to hand out at a rally. "You're pissed off about the war in Iraq? How do you feel about gay marriage? We cover both in our newspaper, oh and we have a feminist 'zine by the way!" If you're clever enough, it doesn't have to preach to the choir.

And as for socialized medicine. That's not socialized medicine's fault, that's the Canadian government's fault for short changing their citizens. And as for affirmative action, well, this post is long enough...

[Mikhael Nadyezhda (Mischa)]

And I belive in fiscal responsibility as well, in that sense. And that's what I meant when I said Canada was short changing their citizens. The money is there, in the United States definetely, it's just being spent to perpetuate capitalism.

[Andrew Kasher]

According to every major poll I have seen, the majority of Americans are opposed to gay marriage. The majority of Americans think the way Bush has been handling Iraq is good. The majority of Americans think that things are fine the way they are. That's why Bush is in power.

Emma Goldman and Howard Zinn were just examples. The other things you mentioned rank the same in the eyes of the American public: Boring.

Bush doesn't give a d**n whether people are in the streets or not. He's said so. At least Nixon didn't think God was on his side.

Affirmative action doesn't fix anything. Oh, sorry for that whole slavery thing, here we'll add points to your SAT's! That's just silly. I don't go up to Nazis demanding compensation. That isn't going to bring anyone back to life, and it isn't going to make up for years of unpaid labor. For real equality, you can't give special benefits to any one group.

I know things are far from equal, and there are a lot of racist not a very nice persons in the world. I work with some of those racist not a very nice persons. The point is, that instead of demanding special benefits, you should work to surpass the aformentioned not a very nice persons.

[Cassinda "The Dove"]

I like Andrew's ideal but Ill say this too.

No form of government would every work functionally. What do I mean? Every government has flaws. Attentional? Maybe. But any form can be over thrown and replaced as another. Governments are fickle and so are the people under them.

[Mikhael Nadyezhda (Mischa)]

Oh and, another thing that I forgot to mention earlier...
Don't involve yourself in mainstream politics (elections). It's a really easy way to get burned out. That, and you'll get sucked down the river of lesser evilism that the green party has been doing for the past 4 years which inevitably ends up gutting your decent politics in favor of some "better than Bush" candidate. John Kerry really wouldn't have been any better than George Bush, just like Al Gore wouldn't have been any better. Bill Clinton, the renowned example of a wonderful president, cut more social programs than the combined total of his previous 3 republican presidential "rivals".

According to every major poll I have seen, the majority of Americans are opposed to gay marriage. The majority of Americans think the way Bush has been handling Iraq is good. The majority of Americans think that things are fine the way they are. That's why Bush is in power.

His approval rate has been on a constant slide since after September 11th, and saying a majority believe in said reactionary ideals is somewhat true, but they're far better than what they were before. Immediately after the huge patriotic upsurge about Iraq, his approval rating has been on a steady decline ever since, as people are seeing their sons and daughters come back home in body bags. It's nutsty to say, but that's really the only real way that people will listen.

And no, he's not in power because of gay marriage, or because of Iraq, or because people are fine with the way things are. Americans are scared nutsless of another terrorist attack, and with their short attention spans, it's really easy to look beyond all of his nutsty features, and just say "he's a strong leader that won't get us attacked again". I think people see the fact that we haven't been attacked since September 11th as a sign of "Bush has been protecting us."

Emma Goldman and Howard Zinn were just examples. The other things you mentioned rank the same in the eyes of the American public: Boring.

By the way, I have attended, and in some case, spoke at some of these forums. I remember, whenever we used to do things with Students Against War, there would inevitably be one person on active duty sitting in the crowd, stewing with hatred about all of our "Anti-American sentiment", and let us know immediately afterwards, making for very interesting conversation. And sometimes, yes, one or two people show up, but other times, you can fill up a room with 100 or more people about an issue, and get a really great discussion going. And seeing as how we really don't get 100 regulars, I don't think you can use your preaching to the choir argument on that one.

Back when the Socialist Worker's Party had good leadership (when our group was still involved with them), back in the 60's, 70's, and 80's had 2,500 members, and we were in every nook and cranny of American life you could think of. We published a book a month, had a weekly newspaper, put on forums, study groups, cadre building schools that tought marx, lenin, and trotsky, and all of these events had anywhere from 10 to 1,000 people show up. It is a shot in the dark, but a shot nonetheless. The capitalist beast is enormous, and even a shot in the dark is likely to hurt it some.

Bush doesn't give a d**n whether people are in the streets or not. He's said so. At least Nixon didn't think God was on his side.

He can say all he wants, but the fact of the matter is, he can't simply ignore us. And even doing the piddly little effort he did, going to the UN, before the invasion was because of us. Iraq would have been invaded far sooner if nobody was around to protest it. And this war has cost him deerly around the world. I'm sure you've heard of people quitting, in mass, in Great Britain, in protest of this "sexed up" war. I remember hearing on the BBC that "if England had a say in the American elections, George Bush wouldn't stond a chonce."

Anyways, the reason Bush has to say "f**k the protestors" is because the corporations that have bought and paid for his campaign are telling him to do so. Iraq isn't only about oil, it's about capitalist competition on a global scale. A lot of that oil was earmarked for countries like Russia and France (which is why they were so pissed about the invasion), and now that the competition is so utterly fierce, the European Union is now stronger than ever, and able to compete with American capitalism overseas. In a desperate attempt to outmaneuver their competitors, they blatantly invaded a sovereign nation.

Oh, and as for affirmative action, I think right now it's being implimented in a really terrible way. But I find talking about affirmative action really boring for some reason, so I'll just let you have that one.

I know things are far from equal, and there are a lot of racist not a very nice persons in the world. I work with some of those racist not a very nice persons. The point is, that instead of demanding special benefits, you should work to surpass the aformentioned not a very nice persons.

How about working to change the environment so there are no more racist not a very nice persons?

I get where you're coming from Zinn, and it really hurts to see that people on the far left end up abandoning the movement so easily. That's probably contributing to Rush Limbaugh being so influential in this country. Don't leave the masses to be manipulated by them!

[Valodya Bassarov]

My political beliefs offer me hope and maybe that is why I am so attached to them.

I look at the world and become very depressed very easily.

I look at people and often feel the same way.

But I want to believe that there someday can be a better world and this right now is not the best we can do.

Right or wrong, I am adamant about my beliefs because I want to place faith in humans and our ability to do better than this.

[Zinn]

What happened with the Green Party this election was downright sad. I completely agree with you on that. However, every state that had a referendum on gay marriage voted to ban it. Being scared nutsless is only part of why people voted for Bush. Bush's approval ratings were higher than last time, because this time he won the election fair and square. Either people who were against him didn't bother to vote, or the majority of Americans support him. Either way, it isn't a good situation.

Going to the UN was a technicality. We went in anyway. We could have skipped it. Next war we probably will. Yes, I said next war. I'm not an optimist.

We lack people that are adamantly opposed.

We have a lot of people that don't know enough to make an interesting opposition in a conversation.

Changing the environment is important too, but there's not much you can do once someone is already a racist not a very nice person. We basically have our opinions formed by the time we get out of high school. I guess we need a two pronged attack on racism.

[Void]

Part of Bush's popularity stems from two rather integral things.

1. Bush waves his religion around like a banner, and generally his camp portrays him as a fine, upstanding individual who is doing God's work. This appeals to a lot of fundamentalists, especially since the other camp is conveniently labeled as evil, immoral *gasp* LIBERALS. Of course people ignore who is painting them like that.

2. Bush has this wonderful tactic, where he states, in essence, "you're either with us or your with the terrorists". Fear mongering always seems to work wonders with society.

[Gunnar]

Personaly, I agree that Bush is using terrorism far to much, like holding up a bloody shield, or a firy beacon, or at least that's what he thinks, and though i usualy support the Republicans I am not quite in support of many of his actions, the war is something i'm not quite sure about, Yes Sadame needed to go down, but if we leave that country'll go to hell. There won't be an inocent left alive in the span of 2 years. They'll all have picked up arms or been killed.

However, as for the other unpopular moral and otherwise decisions of Bush, I belive this can be solved by not only slashing the Presidential powers, but also slashing the powers of Congress and restoring State Powers. The people can more easily control a goverement and create a working democracy in a smaller goverement then in a large one. I'm not altogether sure on the Socialism Capitalism issue, but I do know that America can not survive as a Republic, a Democracy needs to be established or we'll go the way of Rome and Athens if not soon then eventually

[Zinn]

America has been surviving as a republic for the last 200-something or other years. A democracy is largely inefficient. I do not support states' rights, because frankly, it hasn't worked out where I live. New York state is in a bad place because of mismanagement by our state governments. If you have a bunch of idiots running things, and you divide them up into groups of smaller idiots, they are still going to do idiotic things. Athens and Rome weren't brought down by being republics. Athens was brought down because it was more democratic, so they were unable to make decisions that were quick enough when they faced the Macedonian armies of Alexander the Great. Rome was brought down by apathy, having their forces spread too thin, the devaluing of their currency, poor rulers, and the inefficient method of succession. Rome ceased to be a republic long before the beginning of its decline.

The problem with leaving Iraq has nothing to do with the Iraqis. They can take care of themselves, and have done so for years. The problem is that if we leave now, we will probably witness the creation of a real Al Qeiada supportive state that hates America even more than Saddam's state did. Saddam was hated by the fundamentalist Shi'ite Muslims because he was 'too secular'. In fact, women had more rights in his country than any other country in the Middle East, excluding Israel. If we leave, Iraq won't continue to generate into chaos, as it already has; It will generate a fundamentalist state with a Taliban sort of government. That situation would be quite unfavorable for the United States.

I don't think that removing Saddam was particularly important. We are allies with people that are much, much worse. For example, we are allies with the Kuwaitis, who, according to Amnesty International, put electric drills through people's skulls and sodomize people with sharp objects on a pretty regular basis. The United States military has proven that it isn't much better. Abu Ghraib prison anyone? The events there weren't actually that abnormal, it was just the only place to have leaks. How about that footage of an American soldier shooting an unarmed, injured Iraqi, who was lying prostrate on the ground, in a mosque? Saddam Hussein was a monster, but we didn't need to take him out, nor was it the best course of action. There were no weapons of mass destruction, he wasn't a threat, and if he was cheating UN sactions, then fixing things would have been the UN's business.

[Gunnar]

Well, Athens went down long before Alexander the Great, it may have still been standing, but the Sparatans and their loss in the Pelopanisian war broke the will and pride and their people. However, I suppose that was a bad example, because except for the poor, women, and slaves, all had a say in the Athenian council.

As for Rome, corrupiton in the senate did lead to their downfall, and led to the power of the emporer. and spread forces were never as big a problem for them, it was more that they couldnt' adapt to new warfare from old enemies, such as the styles of the huns, and the visigoths (some who recived their trainign in roman legions, just somethign i always thought was funnny)

But the Republic can't, and never will represent the people as a whole. Here, where I live, in the southern united states, we are strongly Republican, we don't want gay marrages, and we want things run republican. In Michigan however, they are very liberal, and good for them, if the want to have gay marrage and that stuff, good for them, the point is there ARE intelligent people in every state, and there'll be less protesting, less unhappy citizens, and generaly less problems if we allow states to handle these issues their own way. Of course, the States do need to abide certain general laws to guarante the rights of minority opninions and groups, but the people will all be happier if they have control of Civil matters. Military, of course should remain in Congress, and in times of War, power needs to be centralized, but I for one, dont' want any one man, or even 100 making idiotic decisions. I'd rather have a few states run by idiots then a whole country.

As for Sadame, no, it wasn't crusial to take him out now, but we should have done it during desert storm, and he did have components for a nuclear weapon spread out throught the country, just we never the key components. However, we don know he wanted them, and had for years. I don't know if anyone watched that special today on the history channel about him, but the man is one person in this world that needed to go. And no, Iraq wouldn't be in perminate warfare, but if we left now, every group of islam there would be gunning each other down, as well as inocents. Still, I agree that the whole affair should have been the UN's problem.

As for the prisoner shot, i heard about that, and all i can say is it's a shame that it has to happen, but some iraq soldiers will pretend to be lying dead on the floor with a gun undear their chest. I'm not saying that i approve of either sides actions, the U.S. soldiers are generaly acting out of self preservation, and as for the muslims, as King Richard said, "If only they were fighting on our side." They aren't much in the way of skill, but they have more guts and drive then most armies today.

[Valodya Bassarov]

I'm not going to add much to this discussion right now

Just to say that I agree with Zinn that Iraq can take care of itself and that it was not our place to "take out" Saddam.

I am a little foggy about the history of the Roman empire or Athens. I thought that the decline of both was because of the failure of their slave based economies.

[Zinn]

The failure of slave based economics was also a pretty big factor.

As for the voting thing, I think that just saying that only white, male, native born landowners over 40 could vote is much more accurate, if more negative and exclusive sounding.

All United States law is based on the Constitution. According to Amdendment I, no law shall be made favoring a religion. According to the Amendment XIV, everyone has equal protection under the law. Gay marriage is a pretty clear cut issue. Marriage, in the context of religion, is whatever your religion views it as. Marriage in the context of the government has to be equal for every responsible adult, according to the US constitution. If your religion doesn't want to officiate gay marriages, great for you, it's your choice. However, marriage in a legal sense is a tax break, and includes many benefits, such as shared custody of children, benefits of inheritence, visiting loved ones in the hospital... the list goes on. It is technically illegal to bar gay people from having the same legal rights as straight people. Minorities are called minorities for a reason. If the rights of people were left to a popular vote, what would defend the rights of minorities? Since they are minorities, they would not be able to defend themselves. Technically, gay marriage should be legal everywhere in the United States. If you don't like it, fine, nobody is going to make you marry someone of the same gender. The Federal government is important because it protects people's rights. Congress is made up of representatives of states, so I don't see where the problem is here. Each state elects directly, and the majority rules. The president doesn't make laws, all he does is enforce them. I support reducing the president's power, but that's just because the president is in charge of the army, and appointing judges. The president can do things without discussing things, or hearing an opposing view. That is very, very dangerous.

The only components of nuclear bombs that we found in Iraq are aluminum tubes, which are also used for many mudane things, such as industrial production, and plumbing. Nothing else was found. There is no evidence of any nuclear program. Saddam was left in power during the first Desert Storm because Bush Sr. knew that taking out Saddam would have led to the creation of another Taliban. It says so in his autobiography, actually.

"Would be gunning each other down"? Actually, I suppose we have helped in one respect. We have given the people of Iraq a single focus of hate. Way to go. We should pat ourselves on the backs. The country is predominantly Shi'ite, with Sunni and Kurd minorities. The Shi'ites could cease total control easily. There would be heavy Sunni resistance, but the Shi'ites would crush them in the end, with sheer numbers. There is more fighting now than there ever was under Saddam. In fact, under Saddam there was NO civil war. The Shi'ites might decide to institute some sort of genocide, like Saddam did against the Kurds, but I doubt things would get that serious. It is more likely that they would try to impose their own rules on everyone else.

Faking it? Have you seen the tape? Oh, and I suppose Abu Ghraib was faked too. Killing someone when they are down is not self defence.

The Iraqis have quite a bit of skill. That's why we're losing. They have the numbers, the training, and the weapons. Iraq was a dictatorship with a strong military, for keeping everyone in line. Now, those well trained soldiers are fighting us. We may have better technology, but they have the upper hand when it comes to strategy and terrain.

[Gunnar]

Slavery was never a major issue with the Romans, yes there were gladitorial revolts, but those always got put down. Though the greeks i'm hazzy on and don't know about their slave issue.

As for gay marriage, i realy don't care if they get married or not, it's not my fight, but I don't think it's worth wasting time in Congress, if a state wants to allow it, fine, all the other states have to recognize their dicission under the constitution. The point i was trying to make by discussing it was that it is up to the people to decide these things, we can't bow to every wish of the minority. I have faith that the general population, if well informed, can make the right choise.

As for the 'skills' of the muslim fighers, they have none they dont' even aim half the time, they stick the gun over their head and shoot at random, and we are not losing the war, and the only reason it's taking so long is because we are trying to avoid civlian casualites, if this nation weren't we could just send in air strikes against every unfriendly city before sending in the military to pick through the wreckage.

And of course there was no Civil Wars under Sadame, he was crazy, he'd kill anyone just out of a rumor that they were ploting against him.

And I'll except for now that what you said is right on the subject of the nuclear weapons, the article i read wasn't very specific on exactly what it was they found.