Be a revolutionary, not an activist!

[thefool_wa]

(from my column 1024)

Activists, I can’t stand them. In fact nothing makes me nauseated quicker than trying to have a meaningful discussion with someone who thinks they are changing the world by using birth control and eating vegetables. While most activists are at least good for body count at protests, many are detached followers with no real ideas of their own operating under the false notion that “every little bit helps.” That is a fallacy. If everyone in the world coupled up and had only one child then we as a race would disappear in a few generations. If our ancestors had eaten only vegetables then we would still be stumbling through the woods wondering why we are being eaten by everything else. Those who will guide change and lead us in the coming years are not the grubby, stinky, anachronistically displaced hippies of today, but the revolutionaries. A revolutionary has the same desire to see the world become a better place without the delusion that it can be done one person at a time. Real change is brutal, often painful, and requires leaders with ideas and followers who are willing to take true responsibility for that change. You want to be an activist? Stop shopping at Wal-Mart. You want to be a revolutionary? Shut a Wal-Mart down.

[ret5hd]

1. well, your username is apt...

and some of your logic is fallacious. For example:
"If our ancestors had eaten only vegetables then we would still be stumbling through the woods..."
I guess that's why India is so underpopulated, huh?

And i guess overpopulation is not a problem. Maybe all those extra souls are actually fodder for your revolutionary cannons, huh?

And I guess those "grubby, stinky, anachronistically displaced hippies of today" would have no place in your version of Eden, huh?

But, as an omnivorous atheist (didn't see that comin', did ya?), I do agree that "real change" can be brutal, painful, and requires leadership. I'm just not sure you're the kind of leader many here here would follow.

[Selatius]

4. Nah, he wouldn't be one I'd follow

If everybody stopped shopping at Wal-Mart, it would implode as a business. The problem is getting the idea out there into the population, but society is atomized, and the way the corporate news media reports the news isn't helping. People are as likely to attack workers going on strike as a bunch of whiners as they are to attack greedy businessmen who are hurting everyone.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Preach on brother

Trust me I know once again what you speak off

[thefool_wa]

15. Wal-mart was a convienient target for a metaphore

But, what would be so bad about them imploding as a business? Their labor practices alone make them an evil corporate giant worthy of toppling, not to mention the damage they do to local business and the american workforce.

You'll pardon me if I have little sympathy for them.

[thefool_wa]

11. They eat meat in India

I didn't say beef, I said meat. And meat is essential to frontal lobe brain and muscular development on both an immediate and evolutionary scale. My coments may have been exagerrated, but I stand by them. Also, India's population problem lends itself more to my other point, but apparently you missed that I was talking about birth control as well.

I am thoroughly amazed at the quickness with with someone resorted to insults though, first post! You take the cake for immaturity in discussion, thank you.

Finally, I am not talking about Eden, I'm talking about people who sit around and do nothing but bitch about the world and do nothing real to try and change it.

(note: This was spawned by numerous conversations with my brother-in-law and the endless string of de-motivated activist hippie chicks he brings around my wife's family. There are plenty of people like this out there and, while I will admit it is not all, it is most!)

[ret5hd]

16. A very large percentage of the population in India is vegetarian...

I will not pretend to know the exact percentage. I do know that the majority of vegetarians of India are Hindu.

[ret5hd]

43. Per my google searches, about 30% vegetarian in india.

Quite a high number, don't you think? Especially considering how they are hardly DEpopulating there.

[thefool_wa]

46. My comments about vegetarianism

were not directed at overpopulation but at the necessity of meats in both the nutritional and evolutionary sense.

Also, in an evolutionary sense, hunting meats is essential to developing higher brain function just by the sheer necessity of hunting it (I'm talking about pre-agriculture here - without hunting meat we would still be prey, believe it)

Also, to be completely honest, they could use more birth control there, but none of my original comments were directed at India. I'm not sure how we got on to talking about India. I know I wasn't talking about India, I was talking about the USA, which is not overpopulated in the slightest.

[Exultant Democracy]

67. Well we can tell you don't

teach evolution or proto-history.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

77. Sorry, but meat is not necessary to development...

"And meat is essential to frontal lobe brain and muscular development on both an immediate and evolutionary scale."

If meat is necessary for "frontal lobe brain and muscular development," then how do you explain kids that are raised as vegans, never having consumed any animal product (aside from breast milk), who grow up with completely normal brain and muscular development? Vegan kids are just as healthy as any other kid raised on an omnivorous diet. There are vegan athletes out there. I believe they're doing just fine with their muscular development.

Sure many cultures did and do eat meat, but modern society actually started to really form when those hunters settled down and started farming plants.

[EstimatedProphet]

65. Uh, are goats and sheep vegetables?

Cuz they're a staple in Indian food...

[ret5hd]

69. my google searches indicate aprox 30% are vegetarian...

just sayin. Thats a pretty high incidence for a population that should be (according to the OP) so unhealthy as to be little more than tiger food.

[EstimatedProphet]

83. It is high, but that's not what he said

His quote was everyone being a vegetarian, and it was about an evolutionary trait.

[FloridaPat]

2. That makes * and his crew revolutionaries. Enjoy the revolution.

[thefool_wa]

12. Interesting point

I actually kind of agree with you. They are possesed of their own agenda, have staged several political coups to acheive power and are now trying to find a way to hold it by divesting themselves of old thought (i.e. our constitution). So yes, I guess you could call them revolutionaries to a point.

However, since they are the ones in power, they can no longer count as revolutionaries. We who oppose them must stand up and make OURSELVES the new revolutionaries against their ill-gotten authority.

[catzies]

30. Yeah you're right -- we should be talking about a "counter-revolution."

Vive la resistance.

[thefool_wa]

37. Viva La Resistance! nt

[davekriss]

73. Counterrevolutionaries, Floridapat

Reactionary forces bent on rolling back the progressive gains of the last 100 years.

[rainy]

3. "There is nothing so powerful as an idea who's time has come."

When more and more people start getting more and more diseases, asthma, poor health all because of the food they eat and the air they breathe then the tide will change. It's just a matter of time before we all have to face facts, our diet and lifestyle are killing us and making us very ill. Dead cooked food equals death, live living food equals life. It truly is as simple as that. When you have to listen to the weatherman to know if it is safe to go outside we are on the verge of revolutionary change, all due to the activism of a few that grew into a huge movement. Be patient my grasshopper.

[Selatius]

9. I may sound brutal when I say this, but I wouldn't say it if I didn't...

believe there was some modicum of truth.

In a previous thread, I had said:

Comfortable people sleep. Uncomfortable people don't.

It's the reason why all these people in Latin America are electing leftist and center-leftist governments. Brutal, bone-crushing, painful, miserable poverty made them wake up.

Horrendous poverty burns away the fat of laziness and apathy. It beats the body of the people into shape, the kind of shape it needs to be in to fight the masters. Nothing is harder or leaner than a poor, desperate population with little left to lose.

When people are in such a state, they become radicalized. Those who advocate confrontation with power, socialists, anarchists, activists, unionists, all of them--they all start looking a little more appealing than they did before when everybody was well-off. Their message is appealing, and it spreads like an infectious disease through the minds of the population. The seeds of revolution have been sown.

Soil, once sour, has been made fertile for the seeds of revolt by the very wealthy who allowed their greed to get the best of them. Were it not for that, the soil would still be too sour for revolt.

As you said, it's a matter of time, but we don't have to wait until things get that desperate before change happens, but it generally does get that bad before change happens, at least if history is any indication.

[thefool_wa]

18. Sounds like you're hearin me!

Ideas are what is needed (oh, and I have more than a few, beleive me), but ideas are nothing without like minded people to make them happen.

My problem has been finding those people. Every time I go looking I run into the type of people I am complaining about. Listless, useless, modern hippies who are too stoned or self-involved to actually get out there and do more than take a tear gas bomb just to say they've done it.

Ironically this is actually the only admirable thing about the guy who spawned my tirade. He took a tear gas canister at the WTO riots here in Seattle - I wish I had been there!

[thefool_wa]

13. I'm going to need some supporting information

To back the claim that meat is the cause of asthma. The quality of air you are raised in (at infancy to toddler-hood) has a much stronger affect.

I will agree that there are aspects of our diet as a nation that are not good for our health at all, but balance is the key. While it is true that excessive red meat consumption causes everything from heart disease to colon cancer, I've never known a vegan who was in good health after more than a month or so on the diet (at least not what I would consider good health).

Again, balance is the key, not extremism, when it comes to diet. Oh, that and the near complete absence of anything that has been submerged in hot oil or grease!

[rainy]

20. I meant to say that it is indeed the air we breathe that is causing

so much asthma. One reason vegetarians fail is that they eat too much processed foods. Hydrogenated oils, cheeses, pizza, pasta etc... Real living foods including nuts and seeds with lots of veggies and green leafy plants are the source of good health. I have discovered that hemp seeds meet most of my protein needs. Study after study comparing animals on a cooked food diet vs a raw diet show that the raw eaters are without diseases. Where the cooked food eaters get the common diseases known to inflict man such as diabetes, heart and other organ diseases. Raw food is natures manon for good health and mental strength.

If you give a calf cows milk raw it thrives and grows quickly. If you feed it the milk we drink it will die due to lack of value, raw fats and vitamins. Plus altering the milk fat makes it very harmful to the body.

[thefool_wa]

31. Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

I've heard all that before, and I'm not sure I believe it. Some of those conditions are so wide spread that there is no way they can tie them to specific aspects of a diet. Plus, like I said, I have yet to meet what I would consider a healthy vegan.

I hear what you are saying and am not discounting your beliefs on the matter, but I LOVE steak, chicken, ribs, what have you, and have no discernible medical problems at all, let alone ones that could be tied to diet (unless you count periodontal disease from sugar intake).

Plus, I have a really balanced diet and I exercise, that helps too.

[rainy]

38. There is a great book out there that has excellent advice

for those who want to eat their meat and be healthy too. It is called:Aggressive Health by Mike Nash. You can only get it from the UK. He suggests that if you eat meat you should eat lots of leafy greens to balance the acid forming effects of meat. If, like you say, you can balance to where you have a nice alkaline body you should enjoy good health. Meats rob the blood system of calcium as calcium is the great alkalinizer. If you eat lots of meats and end up with a body that is mostly acid, your body in its effort to correct to alkaline will take calcium from where ever it can find it to balance the body. If calcium is not there, leafy greens, the body will take the calcium out of, you guessed it, the bones. arteriosclerosis sound familiar?

[thefool_wa]

47. Very interesting

That quantifies what I am talking about very nicely. I will have to check it out.

[Kali]

52. Meat robs the body of calcium?

WTF?

[rainy]

57. Yes it does. Meat causes the body to be too acidic. The body

tries to maintain an alkaline leaning balance. When there is not enough calcium to counter the excess acid caused by the cooked meat the body will get the calcium from the bones.

"Bone health is substantially dependent on dietary acid/base balance. All foods upon digestion ultimately must report to the kidney as either acid or base. When the diet yields a net acid load (such as low-carb fad diets that restrict consumption of fruits and vegetables), the acid must be buffered by the alkaline stores of base in the body. Calcium salts in the bones represent the largest store of alkaline base in the body and are depleted and eliminated in the urine when the diet produces a net acid load. The highest acid-producing foods are hard cheeses, cereal grains, salted foods, meats, and legumes, whereas the only alkaline, base-producing foods are fruits and vegetables. Because the average American diet is overloaded with grains, cheeses, salted processed foods, and fatty meats at the expense of fruits and vegetables, it produces a net acid load and promotes bone demineralization. By replacing hard cheeses, cereal grains, and processed foods with plenty of green vegetables and fruits, the body comes back into acid/base balance which brings us also back into calcium balance. The goal is to avoid a net acid load on your kidneys."

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

78. What do you consider a healthy vegan?

I'd like to hear these criterias, because all the vegans I know (who eat a proper vegan diet) are definitely healthy. Just as healthy or more healthy than most non-vegans.

[Kali]

51. Bullshit.

got two processed dried milk fed calves in my yard as we speak. One I raised two years ago just had a healthy calf of her own. That shit is WAY more processed than the "fresh" milk you buy at wally world. Not saying raw and organic isn't better, but your claim is flat out wrong. They will do fine, just as a human will.

[rainy]

60. Here ya go! The study is well documented and excepted by science.

Milk and dairy

"Now we come to one of the most controversial and misunderstood items in the Western diet.

Orientals and Africans have traditionally avoided milk- except as a purgative. But in the Western world, people are told to drink milk everyday throughout their lives.

If we look at nature, we see that the young feed exclusively on milk until weaned away from it with other foods. The natural disappearance of the milk-digesting enzyme lactase from the human system upon reaching maturity proves that adult humans have no more nutritional need for milk than adult tigers or chimpanzees.

Though milk is a complete protein food when consumed raw, it also contains fat, which means that it combines poorly with any other food except itself. Yet adults today routinely 'wash down' other foods with cold milk. Milk curdles immediately upon entering the stomach, so if there is other food present the curds coagulate around other food particles and insulate them from exposure to gastric juices, delaying digestion long enough to permit the onset of putrefaction. Therefore, the first and foremost rule of milk consumption is, 'Drink it alone, or leave it alone.'

Today, milk is made even more indigestible by the universal practice of pasteurization, which destroys its natural enzymes and alters its delicate proteins.

Raw milk contains the active enzymes lactase and lipase, which permit raw milk to digest itself. Pasteurized milk, which is devitalized of lactase and other active enzymes, simply can not be properly digested by adult stomachs, and even infants have trouble with it, as evidenced by colic, rashes, respiratory ailments, gas and other common ailments of bottle-fed babies. The lack of enzymes and alteration of vital proteins also renders the calcium and other mineral elements in milk largely unassailable.

During the 1930's, Dr. Francis M. Pottenger conducted a 10-year study on the relative effects of pasteurized and raw milk diets on 900 cats. One group received nothing but raw whole milk, while the other was fed nothing but pasteurized whole milk from the same source.

The raw milk group thrived, remaining healthy, active and alert throughout their lives, but the group fed on pasteurized milk soon became listless, confused and highly vulnerable to a host of chronic degenerative ailments normally associated with humans, including heart disease, kidney failure, thyroid dysfunction, respiratory ailments, loss of teeth, brittle bones, liver inflammation, etc.

But what caught Dr. Pottenger's attention most was what happened to the second and third generations.

The first offspring of the pasteurized milk group were all born with poor teeth and small, weak bones- a clear cut sign of calcium deficiency, which indicated lack of calcium absorption from pasteurized milk.

The offspring of the raw milk group remained as healthy as their parents.

Many of the kittens in third generation of the pasteurized group were stillborn, while those that survived were all sterile and unable to reproduce.

The experiment had to end there because there was no fourth generation of cats fed on pasteurized milk, although the raw milk group continued to breed and thrive indefinitely.

If that is insufficient proof of the ill effects of pasteurized milk, take note of the fact even that newborn calves fed on pasteurized milk taken from their own mother cows usually die within six months, a fact which the commercial dairy industry is loathe to admit.

Despite such scientific evidence in favor of raw milk and against pasteurized milk, and despite the fact that until the early twentieth century the human species thrived on raw milk, it is actually illegal to sell raw milk to consumers in all but a few states in America today.

It is far more profitable to the dairy industry to pasteurize milk to extend its shelf-life, though such denatured milk does nothing whatsoever to extend human life.

Furthermore, pasteurization renders milk from sick cows in unsanitary dairies relatively 'harmless' by killing some, but not all, dangerous germs, and this too cuts costs for the dairy industry.

It required only three generations for Dr. Pottenger's pasteurized milk fed cats to become sterile and enfeebled. That's about how many generations of Americans and Europeans have fed on pasteurized milk. Today, infertility has become a major problem for your American couples, while calcium deficiency has become so rampant that over 90 percent of all American children suffer chronic tooth decay.

To make things worse, milk is now routinely 'homogenized' to prevent the cream from separating from the milk. This involves the fragmentation and pulverization of the fat molecules to the point that they will not separate from the rest of the milk. But it also permits there tiny fragments of milk fat to easily pass through the villa of the small intestine, greatly increasing the amount of denatured fat and cholesterol absorbed by the body. In fact, you absorb more milk-fat from homogenized milk than you do from pure cream!

Women worried about osteoporosis should take note of these facts about pasteurized milk products. That such denatured milk does not deliver sufficient calcium to prevent this condition is abundantly evident from the fact that American women, who consume great quantities of pasteurized milk products, suffer the world's highest incidence of osteoporosis.

Raw cabbage, for example, supplies far more available calcium than any quantity of pasteurized milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, or any other denatured dairy product.

Recent studies at the Human Research Centre in Grand Folks, North Dakota, indicates that the element boron is also an essential factor in absorbing calcium from food and utilizing it to build bones.

Even more noteworthy, the level of estrogen in the blood of women given sufficient quantities of boron more than doubled, eliminating the need for estrogen replacement therapy, which is a common stopgap measure against osteoporosis in the West. And where do we find boron? In fresh fruits and vegetables, especially apples, pears, grapes, nuts, cabbage, and other leafy vegetables, where we also find calcium. Nature has already provided abundant sources of all the vital nutrients we need in synergetic form, but man insists on cooking and processing them to death, and then wonders why his diet doesn't 'work'.

Adults should seriously reconsider milk as a constitute of their daily diets, unless they are able to obtain raw certified milk, which is an excellent food.

To stuff children with pasteurized milk in order to make them grow 'strong and healthy' is sheer folly, because they simply cannot assimilate the nutrients.

Indeed men, women, and children alike should eliminate all pasteurized dairy products from their diets, for these denatured dairy products only gum up the intestines with layer upon layer of slimy sludge that interferes with the absorption of organic nutrients."

Learn more about milk and dairy at the food profiles section.

[Kali]

68. I'm sorry, but this has so much utter bullshit, I have no idea where

to begin. How about you list the source for this ...um....information? Meanwhile I will check into the cat expreiment.

As for calves - sorry wrong. Bottle raised enough of them to know for myself, so the rest is highly suspicious.

As to the acid base issue I am pretty sure that is ass-backwards as well. Excess protien intake causes alkiline urine so I would asume the blood would have increased pH as well.

[rainy]

75. Its not BS and I'll bet your calves and cows get diseases that

they ordinarily wouldn't get. Wonder if they have to be on antibiotics? How can you not see that giving live living foods vs cooked dead food would not be better for the animals? When scientists can create a living cell with all they know about minerals and vitamins then I will say they are wiser than nature. When scientists can create a seed, plant it and it grows then I will say we have more wisdom than nature. However, for now the food that nature gave us to eat I will believe is superior to the cooked, dead, enzyme-less, fat altered shit we eat now.

I am a rawfoodist, eating about 75% of my diet raw. I have never felt better or happier in my whole life. I have ended all my past history of anxiety and depression and have many moments of euphoric feelings that all is well in my life, many times a week. My body chemicals are clicking and I am grounded. No more sugar ups and downs etc...

I feel a big connection to the earth and I get joy from knowing that my body is in harmony with nature. I'm not preaching but it makes such pure, simple, profound sense. There are many books about diet etc...
Nature's First Law is one of my favorite.

[Kali]

81. Um, this is borderline religious fantasy

You got no science, you even seem to be anti-science yet quote a 60 year old study to back this up - one that has never been duplicated and in fact when looked at seems to indicate that the issue was Taurine, not cooking per se.

I don't have a problem with dietary choice - just don't try to use bad science to justify it and then denigrate real science when you are confronted with reality. You are speaking in religious terms, which is fine, but leave claims of health and science out of it.

[rainy]

82. Its not a religion just common sense! Too bad you will keep your

eyes shut. The food and drug industries will have you eat their crap so they can profit and take their harmful drugs so they can profit. There is no denying facts and the facts are cooked food loses all enzymes. Enzymes are necessary for good cell function. When you can't get them from food your body's limited store of enzymes are depleted. Then you get sick and unhealthy. There is so much info out there but you will not benefit as you are drawing the curtain and choosing to believe the big food, big pharma, big lies to keep you sick and paying. Too bad.

This idea, real live food vs. dead cooked food's time will come. Maybe when we have lost lots of our friends to mad cow disease, heart disease, cancer etc.. we will come around to the truth. Facts are facts. Do some research. Read a few books. Then come back to me and tell me you still do not believe in the benefits of real living food.

Read: Diet for a New America and Food Revolution by John Robbins
Nature's First Law
Dying to get Well
Agressive Health by Mike Nash
and many more.

[Kali]

84. What you are espousing is NOT common sense, and my eyes are fully

open, thankyou. Of course the food and drug co.s would have you eat their crap so they can profit. Doesn't mean your assertions are correct. Not my issue anyway, not into processed crap as a rule, just know that your arguments are not scientific. They are faith based. ("open your eyes," "drawing curtains," "no denying facts" - and then making false or at least erroneous statements as facts, "come around to the truth," "believe in" - all of these terms you are using are about faith or fantasy)

Enzymes are not limited, and "live" food enzymes are destroyed in the stomach - they provide very little in the way of anything useful for you in terms of enzymatic action. We have lost plenty of people to heart disease (number one killer), cancer, diabetes. (BSE/vCJD is very rare) Why hasn't "real live" food's time already come? Could it be because that is NOT the answer? This idea of yours has been around quite a while, why aren't there more studies?

This stuff is old, unproven and not backed by science. I have done the research. You are welcome to try to continue this extreme diet, but my money says you won't be able to sustain it for long. And there really is no good reason for anyone to do so.

[flvegan]

76. What do you consider "good health" and does *this* count as

meeting?

I'm what some might call very healthy (thankfully). I've been vegan for 6 years, now.

[cigsandcoffee]

5. How do you plan to shut down the Wal-Mart there, Mr. Revolution?

I can't wait to hear this.

[thefool_wa]

19. It was mostly a metaphore

And the ideas I have are such that I would attract the attention of the data miners so I am reluctant to share them here. I would not want to advocate violence in such an open forum

But, since you asked, here goes. Litigation is one of the most usefull tools, find a way to sue them out of existence (and I'm not particularly concerned with the complaint being legitimate if it is effective). It has been done if 3 or 4 communities in my county alone!

Disruption of supply lines works too, but I wouldn't want to go any further than that. Use your imagination.


Now I pose the question back to you. Without advocating violence (again, this is not the forum for that), how would you shut down a Wal-Mart?

[rainy]

21. you are right about litigation, look what happened to the tobacco

industry due to litigation. It just may be our best tool. I've brought this up in other threads. We are seeing some progress in this area concerning the voting machines as our dear Robert Kennedy Jr. and Mike P. are suing for better voting rights and processes.

[thefool_wa]

29. Agreed

But litigation is slow and the longer it takes the more easily the powers that be can build a friendly judiciary.

However, when trying to build a following, it is one of the best places to start.

[cigsandcoffee]

41. Questions....

As a revolutionary, which one are you now suing?

And otherwise, where are you disrupting their supply lines?

Last question:

Is this revolution stuff just a bit of talk and bravado, or are you actually in action?

[thefool_wa]

50. A little bit of talk, a whole lot of bravado

But I believe it, truly I do. Yet, one man fighting a revolution very rapidly becomes Timothy McVeigh, a symbol of hatred with no message. I don't want indiscriminate death, nor do I wish any kind of fame or recognition. I just want the oppression of corporate america to come to an end. Simple dreams, huh? :)

Unfortunately, at this point I have neither the man power nor the financing (yet) to stage any kind of real operations. But every revolution starts somewhere, right?

This doesn't mean I don't have ideas and plans, but I would truly be a fool to discuss anything like that on the open net.

[Kali]

53. Are your initials LK?

Do I know you? Do you ever play a banjo?

[omega minimo]

6. This is a parody or an example of the disconnect that allowed the

lying, cheating, Greed Is Good Rovepublicans to "prevail."


"many are detached followers with no real ideas of their own operating under the false notion that “every little bit helps.”"
"A revolutionary has the same desire to see the world become a better place without the delusion that it can be done one person at a time."

[thefool_wa]

23. Neither

It is my honest observation of the state of mind of most of the "activists" I have talked to in the past couple of years.

Those two lines you sited are truths as far as I am concerned. If they sting, maybe you should look into yourself and ask why.

True change does not happen over time slowly or "one person at a time". It is cataclysmic in nature and needs to be fostered by the many, not by the one. The only change that takes place slowly over time is reversion to the status quo which, ultimately, breeds the next need for cataclysmic change.

aside: why is it that everyone who disagrees with something I have to say feels the need to call me a bushie, fundie, repug, or what-have-you? Just because I have an idea that you may not agree with doesn't mean I am "working for the enemy". Finger pointing and name calling are not the way to foster legitimate discussion. I have called no one person a name (while I have called an entire group of people in-effective - there is a difference) nor questioned their loyalties (I believe they believe they are doing the right thing), so I expect the same courtesy.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

79. Who has called you a "bushie, fundie, repug, or what-have-you" on this

thread? Because I can't see any of these posts.

[acmejack]

7. Grubby and stinky?

I'll venture to say you're not nearly as wise as you think you are.

[thefool_wa]

24. Believe what you will

Again, I am making observation based on experience.

You don't have to agree, that's what's great about living here in America.

[niyad]

8. I take it you do not believe in non-violence, correct? and as for your

comment about hippies, I find it rude, obnoxious and completely false. I don't know what started your rant this morning, but get a clue about how social change can come about without guns and violence.

[ret5hd]

10. i think both jesus and gandhi could be considered hippies, right?

[thefool_wa]

32. Not all hippies are bad

Just the ones who thnk they are making a difference but really aren't.

[MrPrax]

25. You mean social change

through non-violence brought by the American Revolution, French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Chinese Revolution, Cuban Revolution, etc etc or do you mean the non-violent social change brought by imperialist adventures that have haunted the planet for the last five hundred years?

I wage a guess that if a group of foreigners go into a country with some extremist radical social change like privatizing 'water' in order to create an ownership model that will competitively deliver a product that was once free, then violence will have to be used. Or the social change that comes with trying to get another culture to buy into 'freedom and democracy' when they clearly have other ideas.

The pacifist types have forgotten their Ghandi actually. Ghandi did say that pacifism and non-violence has to be a pure act and not simply done out of political expedience --he considered that cowardice.

Of course the pacifists are cowards because they rarely offer a sound rebuttle to the 'state' monopoly of violence, but in actuality approve that form of organized 'violence', under the hubris of justice and law, for the sake of social stability and those 'necessary' steps a society must take in order to change. For instance, the pacifist still acknowledges the concept of a 'just war' and a 'sound' verdict, and usually ONLY attacks their fellow citizens for challenging the 'state monopoly of violence' and it's legitimacy.

To be a pacifist in a society that operates under the rule of law the violence monopoly of the state, they are not making a political statement, they are simply engaging in being good law-abiding citizenship. To make pacifism a political and moral stance, you must at some point have this moral challenged -- pretty hard to do in a relatively safe country where the 'monopoly' ensures 'non-violent' behaviour through the application of 'violence'.

Ghandi WAS a lawyer as well --

Maybe that is why so many liberals find his message refreshing...as a moderate non-violent figurehead you can approach power and tell them, 'well you can deal with a lawyer and my Bombay industrialist backers who will protect your trade investments or you can deal with the separatists, commies, fundamentalists, Muslims and all the other factions FIGHTING for Independence'...as it turned out the British granted India as well as everyone else after WW2 their independence, so the jury of history is still out whether Ghandi's non-violent approach was anymore effective than the violent one that had been going on since the 18th century...

[thefool_wa]

33. Thanks

Excellent points across the board.

You raise an interesting point about Ghandi. It makes one question if India would have been freed when they were even without Ghandi. Facinating.

Peacefull resistance has its place, I just think that we may be moving past that place.

[MrPrax]

39. State propagandists love Ghandi...

Besides King, what other symbol can they point to as a role model to moderation and submission, while at the same time appropriating language of resistance and dissent.

Notice liberals never use the 'non-violent' overthrow of Russian or German communism by people simply going on 'general strike' as an example that is real and contemporary -- instead their reference point is some highly educated lawyer manipulating Hindu nationalist symbols to create a Congress Party dictatorship that lasted decades. To them the tactic of the general strike or 'The Great Day' is some form of violence too because it ultimately threatens the status quo and that's what they are defending -- not the use or misuse of violence.

Don't get me wrong, violence should be avoided at all costs and can be an effective "strategy"; but to suggest it's a universal creed is simply statist apologia for institutional violence and speaks more of one's own self-referenced quasi-religious beliefs, than any useful tactic to be used by a mass movement usually confronted by in most cases of state violence.

Modern reformed liberalism (the small 'l' crowd) tends to fulfil the secularized function of the clergy...when power wants something or does something bad that naturally gets people in a fighting mood, then power usually sends in the 'moderates' to guilt them out about their souls and the consequences! Rarely ever do they articulate what can be gained by taking a 'hard' line...which is actually in any reading of history, the norm -- not the exception.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Moochy]

44. General Strikes are Violence

In the Adam Smith frame of mind, Taxes are violence, anything that interferes with optimal profitability conferred to shareholders is violence.

So in that vein, General strikes could be rightly considered directed economic "violence" against the factory owner. I agree with your earlier point re: the "boycott consumer product X" efforts having little or no effect, as it's effect as violence on the producer is not harmful enough to change whatever offensive practices are involved in the production of said goods. These boycotts are never total, so there is a diminishing effect on one's individual or local group efforts when they are directed at the end product, and not at the choke points where the goods or services are manufactured and distributed.

The harm done by individual workers to their own well-being was the first imbalanced system to correct itself, through the strikes and organizing done in the late 19th and early 20th century. These days it is far more difficult for labor to organize and prevent the harm that many industries do to the commons and to disenfranchised people. I think that the TV news organizations are an example of a toxic source of misinformation that the market can not act to correct due to the market's lack of rules against monopoly and cartels. ( Darn Clenis for that FCC reform bill! That act has done far more harm than any other compromise he got passed! )

Like a soldier who must be conditioned to kill, and to overcome ones base nature through the artifice of psychological conditioning and the distancing power of technology, the corporate worker must too be kept confused and unaware of their own collective and individual power, toiling away silently, toiling away without dissent. Desperately saving up for the new plastic patio set manufactured by the lucky falun-gong members in a dystopic prison labor camp that is several shades of grey darker than that of corporate America. The fates of these two workers are invisibly and inextricably linked, by an economic interdependence that is not often seen.

[thefool_wa]

48. Very well put!

And I have to sound off that confusion is the key element used by corporations in this country to keep the true power base, the American workforce, docile and in control. Its why you can't talk about salary, why they drug test before employment, and why there are things like "employment at will" states (like mine).

We as people need to find new ways to break the bonds of which you speak. While, yes, in the most literal terms violence encompasses boycotts, and even taxation, that source of power you speak is so diluted among the people that it seems the only true avenue of threat we have to the money-power in this country is actual physical violence.

I have to qualify here that I in no way am implying that the next revolution will be fought against the US government. Quite the contrary. Dismantling the corrupt power base of this nation will take privatized efforts against privately held strongholds of power (i.e. money, i.e. notional and multi-national corporations). The voice of the American people as a whole has been drowned out by those wealthy few who have captured the ears of our elected officials in the easiest and oldest way possible: fill their pockets.

I have said in this thread already (and I think you may agree based on these posts) that if one wants to feel like they are "doing their part" then go ahead and boycott and strike and protest. But those out there who feel this is the "right way" should know, in no uncertain terms, that the people who hold true power in this nation are ignoring you and your efforts, and always will.

Thanks for your input on this.

[Bluzmann57]

17. Not a hippie, just a middle aged man

I haven't set foot in Wal Mart this century and don't ever intend to. I do eat meat, I do have more than one child, and yet, I still believe in Democracy and Democratic ideals. And I also believe that change can be done one person at a time. You say "Shut a Wal Mart down." How do you propose to do this short of illegal means? If enough people stop shopping at that chain, they will shut down. Pretty simple. If a person goes out and damages a store, he or she will rightfully be thrown in jail. So I think I'll stick with boycotts and other non violent forms of doing things.

[thefool_wa]

34. I said nothing about legality

Revolutions are, by their nature, illegal. Why should one contemplating revolutionary action consider the legality of that action? It empties the revolution of any power it might have had and throws the actions of that revolution back to the realm of "activism" - which I despise.

My point about wal-mart is that everyone is not going to stop shopping there. I commend you for not setting foot in one, but unless eveyone does that (and everyone won't) it has absolutely zero effect on the goal. Herein lies my point.

[rman]

80. "Revolutions are, by their nature, illegal" - Not so

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution

A revolution is a drastic change that usually occurs relatively quickly. The word revolution means "a turn around." This may be a change in the social or political institutions over a relatively short period of time, or a major change in its culture or economy. Some revolutions are led by the majority of the populace of a nation, others by a small band of revolutionaries, a so-called palace revolution only touches the ruling elite. Compare rebellion.

<snip>

Political revolutions are often characterized by violence, and vast changes in power structures that can often result in further institutionalized violence, as in the Russian and French revolutions...

[Solo_in_MD]

22. BTDT and was treated shamefully

then again I was a school teacher preaching revolution and other heresys in the public school system. The educrats were not amused.

[thefool_wa]

35. I can imagine

They don't want you actually shaping the minds of the young, they want you to apply the cookie cutter like a good little edu-slave.

It's funny, I trace the birth of my radical thinking to the gross impedance of my high school administration on any actual learning within the facility. In one breath they let the most radical, uneducated religious group in the school pass out their "Dinosaurs are a lie" newsletter right in the halls (a violation of separation of church and state in my mind) then damn near suspended one of the football team because he had a bandanna keeping the sweat out of his eyes after practice one day.

Keep on shaping minds the right way. Kudos to you.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

26. No.

You've sold yourself a line of propaganda, and then bought it wholesale.

To take one example: if you stop shopping at Wal-Mart, you will be helping put pressure - not much, but some - on Wal-Mart to pay its employees better wages. If you shut that Wal-Mart down, it won't pay its employees any wages at all.

That the world can be made a better place little by little is not a delusion, that it can be done any other way is.

The hallmarks of revolution are firstly blood and horror, secondly corruption, and finally a new system no better than the old one.

All this, of course, is assuming that a revolution in any meaningful sense is possible, which in America it clearly isn't, thankfully. An activist trying to achieve a little at a time will achieve a little; a revolutionary trying to achieve all or nothing will achieve nothing.

Ghandi, Mandela, and Martin Luther King were activists; Stalin, Hitler and Mao were revolutionaries.

Be an activist, don't try and be a revolutionary.

[thefool_wa]

36. Whatever

The only slow change is slow change back to the status-quo.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Thomas Payne - all revolutionaries!

Revolution accomplishes plenty, and one person not shopping at Wal-Mart puts ZERO pressure on them to do anything since there is always one more person out there walking into one for the first time.

Revolution is plenty possible in this country. It will take subversion, risk, and creativity. The enemy isn't our government, our laws, or our way of life. It is the people who hold all of those things in the palm of their hand and piss on them every day in favor of money.

Either those people need to be stopped (and voting in this country is rapidly becoming a joke, so that's no good) or you need to cut off their supply of money. Doing that takes much more than just not shopping at Wal-Mart.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

40. Washington et al were revolutionaries in a very different sense.

Political and social revolution are very different things. Post-revolutionary American society was basically identical to pre-revolutionary American society, which in turn was fairly similar to British society. The difference was in who was doing the governing much more than in the actual results.

Payne wrote tracts advocating social change - a classic example of activism as opposed to revolution, by your standards.

You keep talking in generalities about "revolution"; what do you actually mean? Can you give me some examples of the kind of actions requiring "subversion, risk and creativity" that you're advocating? How do you mean to stop "those people" (and, out of curiosity, how many people are you referring to as "them")?

[Name removed]

49. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

54. If it came to a revolution, we'd be on opposite sides of the barricade.

"cut off supply lines, destroy retail outlets, assassination" ... "digital viral infestation, money hacking, information corruption"... they're ideas I've heard before; they're just petty destruction. The people who try them kill a few innocent people, make lots of people's lives a bit worse, and then get hunted down and either shot or arrested. No thanks.

They're not even a short-term price to be paid for long-term gain; the people who resort to them invariably fail to figure out than a few dozen taking on a few hundred million can't win; the only thing they achieve for their goals is to tarnish.

There's one very simple but very unpopular way to improve matters: politics. Vote in politicians you approve of, and vote out ones you don't, and - crucially - try and persuade other people to do so by force of argument.

The reason it's unpopular is because it's not very efficient: you can only wield an ammount of power proportional to the number of people who agree with you. That's why killing people and smashing things are attractive to people who want more than a fair share of power for their ideas. But in the end it's only ever trying to convince people that you're right that makes things better, and if you can do that you don't *need* a revolution.

I'm sure you've heard all this before, and it's not comforting: politics and activism aren't terribly effective, and it would be wonderful to believe there was a better way. But there isn't. There really isn't.

[thefool_wa]

58. So we agree to disagree

But, if neither method is very effective, then I will take the one that makes noise over the one that ultimately amounts to rolling over and playing dead. Especially when force gets results (blowing stuff up costs the people who built it money - there is no arguing that fact) and there is no future in attempting revolutionary change via politics the way our system is currently controlled. Today politics is money and if you don't have it you have no voice.

I do think you are missing part of my point however: I do not desire power for myself or any one person/organization in particular. The goal should be the disruption of the existing corrupt power source (private industry), not the transition of political power to a specific person/party/regime. Its not about obtaining power for myself or others but more about destroying unearned, corrupt power that is wielded illegally.

The current political structure has been completely emasculated and cannot affect the types of changes I suggest (again, specifics on the politics I have in mind are a little long winded, lmk if you want more and I'll email you some of my ideas). If the system is corrupted and it is controlled by the corrupt who keep it both inefficient and ineffective, what other choice are we left with?

Lastly, I do realize that the rub to all of this is exactly one of your points. No revolution can carry any weight without followers. To get followers you have to have innovative political ideas. Do I have those? I think so. Does it have to come to revolution to get them across? Really, I hope not.

My biggest gripe in all of this (and the point I set out trying to make) is people who change small things in their own life and call it changing the world are delusional. I have ideas to actually change the world and hopefully I can influence some people and get those ideas out (and not all of them involve violent action).

In hindsight coming across like a militant fanatic probably isn't the best PR, but nobody starts talking unless someone gets sensational, right?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

59. You won't change the world.

Any more than McVeigh, or Kaczynski, or DeFreeze, or any of the other people who've acted on the same ideas you're putting forward did.

[Taxloss]

27. .

:eyes:

[walldude]

42. Nothing makes me nauseated quicker than some

holier than thou smartass telling me what I should and shouldn't be doing...

[thefool_wa]

45. Fair enough

[undeterred]

55. I'll send you a barf bag.

:puffpiece:

[datasuspect]

56. i hear ya

i find it difficult to get inspired by "we are the world" lines of thinking, and i sometimes wonder if people are afraid of losing their comfy lifestyles. a revolution would require lots and lots of sacrifice and danger. by maintaining the status quo instead of taking it to the streets, you can keep the world a lot safer for yourself

i wonder how effectively you can change the system from within the system, but i can freely admit i have selfish reasons for not wanting to get arrested (the bottom line in any activism) or killed (the bottom line in revolution).

we're a lot lazier than our forebears. they went up against one of the strongest nations on earth (england at the time) and were willing to put their lives on the line for what they believed in, their cause.

people nowadays get pissed if they have to wait too long in line at starbucks.

[Anita Garcia]

61. I recommend your post

Because I want other people to read it.
I don't necessarily agree with everything you say, but then, I don't have to.
I've been labeled an activist and, I've been grubby and stinky, too. I'm okay with that. And, one day, if I'm lucky and work hard, I'll be revolutionary, too. Thanks for the post.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

62. Soooooo Close.

So close to being a somewhat great post except for two serious flaws. First, calling the hippies what you did is just offensive regardless of your experience with them. A true wise man must take into account objective understanding of what others' opinions might be to a subject while incorporating his own as well. That way, even though your experience of those you desribe may have been as you put forth above, you'd know better than to use that limited experience in a wholesale generic way that would offend others. I've known and seen grubby stinky hippies, but I've also known many hippies that you never in a million years would think fit the mold.

Second flaw was the eating vegetables stumbling through the woods eaten by everything else part. I actually thought it was really funny and it made me chuckle, but when looked at as a serious statement it obviously isn't accurate (though I understand your point and fuckin love my 24 oz juicy ass steaks!)

With the exception of those 2 flaws, I think you made some really good points.

[liberaldemocrat7]

63. activism and revolutionary.

By your analogy I would say activists would boycott Walmart

and hundreds of thousands of revolutionaries would call Walmart and other GOP contributors

like Exxon/Mobil, GE, Wendy's, Outback Steakhouse, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Dominos Pizza, Eckerd CVS, and Walgreens Pharmacies

and demand under threat of boycott

a TEN DOLLAR an hour minimum wage, vote by mail with paper ballots counted by civil servants throughout the United States, and more and keep calling them shutting down their ability to do business.


That in my view appears revolutionary. Merely going there and shutting down a Walmart will not do much and subject you to arrest.

You can do more with hundreds of thousands of calls threatening a boycott and carrying it out untlil Walmart et al goes to the GOP and gets what we want.

[otherlander]

64. Interesting...

Yes, it's important to have your own ideas. The first thing to do would be to figure out your own views, what you stand for, what you want to do. And most activists do know what they stand for. Changing the way you live as an individual is important. You can't expect to change the world until you've changed yourself. I know that's not enough, but that doesn't mean that violent change is necessary. Martin Luther King was certainly seen as a threat to the status quo, and that's a good thing, but he realized that a better world could only be created through a struggle of nonviolence, and that brute force could not bring an end to brute force.

As for real revolution, I have very little faith in the power of revolution to change anything. I could list many revolutions that replaced tyrant with tyrant, but I won't. Change usually starts with the people, and it seems most effective when it stays with the people. Once there is a revolution, the opposition becomes the power, rather than an opposition to the power, and nothing prevents it from becoming like the old government. Revolution changes the boss. True activism changes everything.

[eridani]

72. The revolution in Russia was over

--when Lenin made workers' soviets illegal. One day it was "All power to the soviets," and then Lenin figured out that you could overthrow the state with soviets, and now that he WAS the state, that didn't seem like such a hot idea anymore.

[Jcrowley]

66. Profound Sentiments

Despite whatever quibbles one may have with your wording or illustrative analogies your sentiments are worthy of illumination.



"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations.* These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. *We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.*

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

[RoyGBiv]

70. Is that you Billy Ayers?

Wannabe revolutionaries, I can't stand them. In fact nothing makes me nauseated quicker than trying to have a meaningful discussion with someone who thinks they are changing the world by throwing out buzz-phrases on an Internet message board that hint at violence as the only solution to political problems while all the time feigning ignorance in a transparent and naive attempt to claim plausible deniability. While most wannabe revolutionaries are good for upping body counts or at least stirring up the disaffected, few have been successful in the course of history in affecting a positive change. Not that this will stop them. Each generation of wannabe revolutionaries thinks they are unique, think they are truly advocating revolution when in fact nothing about their tactics nor ideas are in the least bit revolutionary. They are old-hat, frustrated people who have run out of ideas, the equivalent of the school yard bully who can't make people like him or follow him on the force of his personality or intellect and instead resorts to making people fear him. Those who will guide change and lead us in the coming years are not the grubby, stinky, anachronistically displaced Weathermen of today, but the people with truly radical ideas that seek positive solutions to complex problems. A wannabe revolutionary does not have the same desire to see the world become a better place that less violently minded individuals have, yet he has deluded himself into believing that black is white and death is life. Real change is brutal, always painful, and requires leaders who have not become so debased in their ethical standards that they believe their violent, reactionary rhetoric is anything but precisely the rhetoric their oppressors want them to use. You want to be a wannabe revolutionary (a wannabe, wannabe revolutionary)? Read Chuck Palahniuk and insist it's all real, man. You want to change the world in a positive way? Don't mirror your enemies.

The Weather Underground, which you're almost mimicking whether you realize it or not, failed, miserably, almost comically in some cases. It failed so badly that some on the left have accused its leaders, not without some degree of justification, of executing a PsyOp that was actually miraculously successful.

[petgoat]

71. Theoretically we can have a revolution any election.

Of course that was before Diebold....

[The Straight Story]

74. The Difference I see between the two here (disagree and agree with you)

An activist works within the framework of the system to bring about change within said system.

A revolutionary is an activist who finds out such change is impossible within the system by using that system so they step outside of it to invoke a change.

Jesus was an activist in this sense, as he used the system to send out his disciples to preach the new ideals. He was a revolutionary in that he worked outside the system and did things against the rules (healing on the sabbath as an example).

As elections are stolen, judges put into power through the rethug party, and so on the activists are seeing some areas where they need to be more revolutionary.

BUT since there is still a semblance of balance and the ability to work within the system that is the preferred method of the day - because that protects the cause and keeps it legitimate within the eyes of the voting public. And right now that is needed to effect change. When that is no longer needed and no viable options exist, then it will be time to try other methods more radical.

Jesus got things done with his followers without resorting to violence, they just preached a message. It was still considered at times a reveloutionary action. We can do the same, and have done so, with peaceful protests. Our problem today is that the right is reaching the masses in a far more efficient way via media control (much like Rome had a lot more power back in the day) so we are left with doing things more on a one-to-one basis.

Before a revelotuion I say we take a page from the playbook of christians (of which I am one) and start reaching out one-on-one to people with tracts, 'churches', home constitution studies, etc and so on.