||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ANNOUNCEMENTS and ARTICLES: http://pnews.org/art/art.shtml
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I absolutely agree. I did not mean to give you or anyone the impression
that I was opposed to civil disobedience. I think it is appropriate in the
first instance -- if nothing but to test the waters, so to speak. Huge
anti-war rallies didn't phase the British parliament or the U.S. congress
though -- even as they were pointed to by them as an example of popular
dissent.
We have a problem in the U.S. We do not have alternatives. We have no
alternative political party. I am forced to vote Democratic even though I
detest some of the policies supported by Democrats and I have no VIABLE
choices. I have choices, as we know from the experience of 2000, to vote
my conviction (maybe) and throw that vote away. Where is electoral reform?
We must get rid of the electoral college. We must make it easier to get on
the ballot in every state.
The system is not participatory, it is representative and we don't really
have the choices we should have in a real democracy. This is a democracy
for the rich -- or as I wrote in an essay, in my view, we have a
constitutional dictatorship where the rich determine everything. A
democracy for the rich, as Parenti wrote because money rules.
And these rich ruling elites use racism and economic oppression to get
poor whites and middle-level managers and upper level managers to play the
blame game and side with the wealthy -- even though the likelyhood of them
evern joing those ranks is nill unless they win a lottery and then they
are still not in the same category or class as the super-ruling elite.
There is a class struggle and these are the class traitors who can't see
the forest for the trees. I am appalled by the likes of these right
wingers who are the red necks and racists and they listen to Limbaugh and
Coulter and watch Fox TV and we have them to contend with when we
shouldn't.
The solution is to build that alternative. We need a new political
structure. We need an enlightened electorate, not a brainwashed,
struggling citizenry. The part played by vanguards was to lead and teach
but we keep losing those struggles and we shouldn't be losing.
Hank
On Wed, 12 May 2004, Edward Kent wrote:
>
> You are quite right that civil disobedience does not work in all
> situations and must be used with great sophistication. It requires and
> audience that can be appealed to either for moral reasons or
> self-interest. Two instances of the latter were operative in Germany --
> a group of German wives protested in their city center (I forget which)
> when their Jewish husbands were picked up. They were returned. And
> Jews in the Soviet Union made strategic protests that made it more
> comfortable for the regime to let them emigrate than keep them around.
>
> However, the time, place, and circumstances must be ripe. Best, Ed
>
---
/ o o \ PNEWS Topic Specific Portals (Vortals)
===OO=====OO=================================================
http://pnews.org/vortal/ New World disOrder and Myth Busters
http://g0lem.net/vortal/ Insane Planet and Wacko World
http://g0lem.net/portal/ Bad-Ass Truth and TheGolemsPortal
http://pnews.org/portal/ Naked Truth and PNEWS Portal
=============================================================
\_/ \_/
