> Last time I checked, there were humans living in the Ukraine with
> similar DNA to us.
I'm not talking about DNA, of course; I'm referring to the present socio-political conditions of the two countries and their historical backgrounds. Biology has nothing to do with it, and you know that perfectly well.
> Rationalize sitting on your ass if you want to, but nobody is going
> to take ABB progressives seriously if they aren't organizing people to
> take to the streets.
I love this false dichotomy thing you always have going -- either get out in the streets and do the anarchist thing or you're sitting on your ass. My way or the highway. But clearly there is a multiplicity of methods of social change. Changing society is a very complex task, which has to be approached from many angles.
> If Bush really isn't that bad, then why waste time opposing him?
Oh, he's bad, all right; at least, his aims are awful. But I don't think he'll get very far in accomplishing them (or at least I hope so). He's got the lowest popularity rating of any president being inaugurated for a second term, and the AARP is out to cut him off at the knees. :-)
The reason I think he needed to be opposed electorally in the recent election is that it had to be demonstrated, at least, that the country wasn't being stampeded by Rove and the other mad geniuses running his campaign, the religious nuts feeding him campaign planks, and the bottomless reservoirs of money fueling the rotten barrel of lies that constituted his campaign. And the narrowness of the margin demonstrated that, in my opinion. (And pace Yoshie, Carrol, et al., there *was* a significant difference on the whole between donkeys and elephants. But we know all the arguments about that, so I won't get started on it again.)
> Perhaps we ought to get real and oppose the one party system that
> runs America and the rest of the world.
In a sense, it's true that the U.S. has a "one party system," in that the differences between the DP and the GOP are not sufficiently great. To say that the U.S. runs the rest of the world is, fortunately, a great exaggeration. Not even this country has that much power. (World capitalism, of course, does govern much of the world.)
> Will Michael Moore do a movie that significantly goes after the
> Democrats? I mean, if he has problems with big corporate fat cats, he
> shouldn't give the Democrats a free pass.
I have no idea what films MM is going to do in the future. Why don't you ask him?
> Well, sheeeet! If that's true, then why am I bothering being an
> activist? If the revolution is impossible, then perhaps I should just
> go find a high-paying job and start building my dream house.
There's your false dichotomy, Chuck. By "revolution," of course, you mean the establishment of anarchism. I would love it if that eventually happened; anarchism is a wonderful theory. Perhaps in a couple of centuries, the world may become anarchist. But what are we supposed to do in the meantime? In the meantime, we're stuck with the political system we have, and that system is capable of doing a great deal of harm if it is not continually resisted and pushed back within even moderately humane limits.
Going into the streets is one part of that resistance; civil disobedience, tax refusal, perhaps even burning oneself to death Norman Morrison style are ways of demonstrating commitment to a humane world. But so are working for left candidates, mounting campaigns against bad laws, lawyers defending clients in court, writers writing books and articles, artists creating works of art, etc., etc., etc.
> The answer is clear. Abandon electoral politics. Organize on the
> grassroots level and use direct action to destroy the current system
> and build a better alternative.
That's your way of creating a better world, and I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. But why can't you accept that other people have other ways?
> Kill the policeman in your head.
It's not the policeman/woman in my head that's the problem. I'm only one of more than 200,000,000 people; it's the police in all of our heads that's the problem.
> No kidding. Then why are people advocating the pursuit of methods that
> are proven failures?
Hey! What is more of a "proven failure" than anarchism? Why hasn't anarchist agitation turned the U.S. into an anarchist paradise yet? All methods are failures until they succeed, and how long will it take for them to succeed? At least try to make your arguments fair, Chuck. Apply them to criticize your own ideas as well as those of others.
> Revolution is my reality. It is possible. It has to happen.
>
> It certainly ain't going to happen at the ballot box in 2008.
And anarchism won't happen in 2008, either. "Building Jerusalem in [America's] green and pleasant land" will take more than 4 years, any way you try it.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________ "...So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men." -- Voltaire