this begs the question: why aren't you among most people? what makes you different than most people? what got you here to this point, this point of caring more than the average jack scotchenwater?
>2) You talk about tactics, Max; what would you suggest (this is curiosity,
>not sarcasm)? I personally doubt the effectiveness of protest of any vein,
>especially without good politics to back it up, as Yoshie mentioned. I
>truly doubt protest will have much of an effect without there being some
>iron-clad proof of "unfair" use of deadly violence a la the Kent State
>protest shootings (peaceful, "good [probably white, but maybe not] kids"
>who get shot down). Didn't that have some sort of "mass ripple" effect in
>American society at the time?
i'm here because, as a very little kid, i can remember my mother sobbing over events she saw unfolding on the television.
i'm here because i remember a libertarian protestors protesting taxes when i was a little kid.
i'm here because i recall hearing stories about various well known protestors in my community.
i'm here because my high school teachers spoke of radical activism during the sixties.
i am here because i witnessed teacher's protesting their lack of a contract.
and then i'm also here because i grew up in a particular socio-historical context, in a particular community.
i am of mixed opinions as to how to handle this issue. i was so interested in it because of my own involvement in various kinds of activism, and begin acutely aware of how schism over the issue had torn apart to social movements that i'd been involved in, that i made it the subject of my first research project in grad school.
i am also of mixed opinion because i see a connection here between this issue and the nature of oppression, which i see as the double-edged sword, damned if you do, damned if you don't.
i made rather clear, however, how i felt about violence specifically. i don't think it's an expedient tactic at the moment. i do, however, disagree with those who outright reject violence at all time. i am cynical as to whether we'll see any sort of massive social change in our lifetimes, let alone this century. but i do think that change will, eventually, involve and require the use of violence.
>3) Max and Kelley: see 1) but in the context of the sheer ignorance most
>people have of the sort of stuff we discuss routinely on this list.
i'm not sure what this sentence means?
>Again
>this is my personal experience, but it seems most average folk really just
>want to live out their lives without getting hassled or bothered too much,
>and the status quo more or less delivers that bill of goods. "If it aint
>broke, don't fix it." is a common motto, in one form or another, I've heard.
sure, but it only begs the question: why do you think you're different. or, don't you?
i neither glorify "ordinary" people, but neither do i tend to think they only want to get by. i have just witnessed far to many extraordinary acts of "ordinary' people getting involved, doing things, protesting, etc. when they can be moved to see why it all matters. their reasons for getting their in the first place may not be as radical as "we" would like them to be, but then i don't think the honest among the radical among us could say that they were especially radical when they first started becoming cognizant of the issues in the first place.
i simply know that i wouldn't be here if some important people in my life had treated me as if i just wanted to get by or if they'd treated me as ignorant or desiring to be ignorant. if they hadn't argued with me or if they hadn't made examples of their lives by engaging in various kinds of activism i simply wouldn't be here.