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nuncstans decided to air our disagreement of earlier today in public on her livejournal, i will retort here. A couple of months ago I signed up to volunteer for the Dean campaign. Tonight was the big rally in his support in Bryant Park, for which I did flyering yesterday. Apparently nuncstans is convinced that I, like all "progressive" Dean supporters have been "had" by Dean, because I am not aware of his hawkish foreign policy stance, which comes out of her belief that it is impossible to develop political consciousness as an individual (somehow in her argument individuals who get together on grassroots level to support Dean are less of a political group than the groups she is affiliated with). For the record, I am aware of Dean's stance on Israel and his gravitation towards AIPAC, which I do not support or endorse. I am not campaigning for Dean because I think he is the paragon of integrity, virtue and consistency. I am campaigning for him because I think he is ELECTABLE and I believe that at the moment the tactical goal of "anyone but Bush in 2004" is more important than a larger strategic goal of "another world is possible" variety. I believe that Dean is the ONLY candidate that, if he wins the nomination, can defeat Bush, for a number of reasons, having to do with his platform, campaigning skills and appeal; I also think that the Bush administration considers him the largest threat of the opposition (hence all of their remarks of how he is the candidate that would be easy to defeat, and he is "the one [they] want" which is part, in my opinion, of some behind-the-scenes machinations to get Lieberman the Democratic nomination, because if Lieberman was the candidate, Bushco wouldn't even need to rig the election). nuncstans argues that it is retarded to support Dean before the primaries. My response to that is, that my support from him comes from the same place as my firm belief that everyone who considers themselves on the left can't split votes in this election, so we can't have a repeat of people voting for Nader in borderline states in 2000. If Dean was the front-runner by a consistent landslide, I would not be worried about the Democratic ticket going to Kerry or Edwards, who share Dean's hawkish foreign policy stances, but do not have his legitimacy of critiquing the war in Iraq because they voted for the damn thing before they jumped on the bandwagon of criticizing it, or his grassroots appeal, which, whether real or contrived in origin, is very real at the current moment. If I believed that Dean was a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination, I may have been supporting Kucinich, who, on the whole, I think has more integrity and more right ideas about things, or maybe I would be engaging in more counterhegemonic attempts to try and shift the center to the left. Also, for the record, I do think that it's important to highlight Dean's (and others') problematic stances NOT to detract voters from him, but to force him to amend his stances in order to attract more progressive voters. I do think that works, so his position on dismantling Israeli settlements in the occupied territories has been shifting as of late; last month he called for "ultimately dismantling the settlements" which is progress from what he advocated on record in the past. However, this wasn't even part of nuncstans's argument, she was just trying to "educate" me in what I perceived to be a patronizing and didactic fashion where every counterpoint to what I was saying was postulated as a meta-negation of my position as inherently "individualistic" which was somehow a metonym for "wrong." (incidentally, nuncstans, your claim that i don't know anything about the kind of work you engage is wrong; i have always been interested in hearing about, and the horrifying misconceptions that you attributed to me stemmed directly from a miscommunication that transpired at the February 15th demo, that we had discussed and cleared up, where if you remember I had a problem with a certain slogan a couple of people were chanting, when I told you about it you angrily told me that you had been chanting the same thing, which later turned out not to be true, so I would not ascribe any huge misunderstandings of the group that you are involved in, that on the whole I respect and support, to a conversation which temporarily confused me as to certain stances of your organization, because either you thought I had said something else, or you accidentally said something incorrect.) anyway, I am not going to argue on here about whether nuncstans is patronizing, or whether I am hypersensitive, here is the transcript of our IM conversation and people can draw their own conclusions. I am assuming that since nuncstans chose to bring this up in this forum, she won't mind that I am including this.
nuncstans: what you up to?
anthrochica: i was debating whether to do work at home or go to school; then at 8.30 there is a rally for howard dean at bryant park; i passed out flyers for it all morning yesterday, and am planning to go tonight.
nuncstans: I'm going to be there protesting his neoconservative foreign policies.
anthrochica: well, maybe i'll see you there then.
anthrochica: unless you are not allowed to fraternize with the enemy
anthrochica: :)
nuncstans: Yeah, I guess. You should check out what a retard he is, though, seriously. He is a hardline supporter of Ariel Sharon and he is totally "moderate", by U.S. standards, on domestic issues, meaning more like a Reagan republican. He is fronting like he is grass roots and progressive when there is nothing progressive about him.
nuncstans: You are being totally had.
anthrochica: well, i have checked him out. and please don't patronize me, i really don't like that.
anthrochica: i think i am capable of making up my own mind
anthrochica: my political agenda is getting anyone but bush into the white house in 2004. i happen to think that dean is the most likely candidate to make that happen, therefore i will support him and his campaign.
nuncstans: I'm not patronizing you, I'm just telling it like it is.
And of course you're capable of making up your own mind. You're also capable of listening to what I think, and what I think is that Howard Dean is a terrible candidate for president, and it's important to me to express that to everyone.
anthrochica: the statement "you are being had" is pretty patronizing.
nuncstans: Well, since your strategy is anyone but Bush in 2004, I guess you're not being had by Dean. But I think that strategy is one that can be considered once the race is narrowed down to Bush and someone else, and that adopting it before the primaries in support of a xenophobic, racist neoliberal candidate is unstrategic, if what you want is for the world to be better
anthrochica: i don't agree with everything dean stands for, but my priority is non-Bush president in 2004, even if some of his foreign policies are fucked up. i understand that this is very different from how you approach things, but i am not acting like my agenda is the end-all-be-all and that you are misdirecting your energy, am i? because that would be the equivalent of what you just said to me.
anthrochica: i think the world would be better with anyone but bush in the white house. and i think that the current momentum is the only way dean will win in the primaries
anthrochica: if he was a shoe-in, i might lobby for someone else before the primaries.
anthrochica: sadly, that's not the case
nuncstans: The point is that if you have any interest in changing the way politics works in the U.S. you can't be strategizing as an individual. Obviously, as an individual, there is no way you can effect any change, and so your options are always the neatly sorted false ones of presidential elections: vote for Gore vs. vote for Nader, etc. But the work I do is about changing the shape of the debate, about forcing issues that are of paramount importance into the campaign. I don't think it is up to individuals to "lobb
nuncstans: lobby for candidates, because they can't, unless they are personally wealthy, affect anything that way. Individuals working with political groups can bring awareness about what is actually important here and in the rest of the world rather than choosing "square" or "circle" in some retarded aptitude test of good citizenship.
anthrochica: i don't agree with that, obviously. the difference is that my stance on things does not delegitimize yours and what you are trying to do. i think it is up to individuals, i think it is up to me, and you already know that i have serious issues with people who voted for nader in borderline states, for example. but if you think that your way of doing things is the only right one and you can't respect what i think is the right thing to do, then we should not talk about it at all.
nuncstans: You always push confrontations on political issues into either/or stalemates. I think you are totally wrong to support Howard Dean right now. That doesn't have anything to do with thinking that "my way of doing things is the only right one". And the issue of respecting what you think is the right thing to do is a false issue. I respect your right to choose whatever position you want to take, but that's not the same as respecting the position you've taken.
nuncstans: I also question how anyone with a commitment to international human rights can support Dean, and thus my comment that you had been had. His propaganda machine, which is not in any way shape or form grass roots, is convincing progressives all over the country that Dean will be an improvement on Bush. I don't see any evidence for that in any of his stances on foreign policy, and on domestic policy I see Democratic party rhetoric in a post-PNAC world in which U.S. military dominance worldwide is axiomatic
anthrochica: i am the one who pushed is into either/or?
no, that would be if i said "i think you are totally wrong NOT to support howard dean right now" but i don't and somehow that weakens my position because i don't think everyone should adhere to what i think is the right way to proceed in the current political climate. you don't have to respect the position i have taken, but please don't try to educate me like i am some stupid ignorant little unit of "the masses" by explaining to me, didactically, how change comes
anthrochica: about in a society. i am as educated about issues as you are, and while i do not agree with Dean on everything, my goal is not some strategic world revolution like _______ is, or even as strategic as what you and your group are trying to do
anthrochica: to me, the issue of bush not being reelected trumpts everything else at the moment.
nuncstans: unlike Dean and the majority of his supporters, I am committed to anti-hierarchical, grassroots organizing and don't think in terms of "the masses", nor do I think that I'm better able than any other individual to judge things, except in function of the amount of time and effort I put into fighting for what I believe to be right, researching, educating and organizing. That, I believe, makes my position more solid than that of an apolitical individual.
anthrochica: as i think it should for all registered democrats, which i know you are not, so i won't try to convince you on the issue, even though i think the right thing to do for the Green party, for example, is to endorse whoever wins the Democratic primary.
anthrochica: does that mean i support the two-party system? no. that's not the point.
anthrochica: i see. so because i don't belong to a group like yours i am an apolitical individual. interesting.
nuncstans: And you clearly have no idea of what"my group" is trying to do, since you've never let me talk to you about it for more than a minute without getting to an impasse. The remarks you've made about what you thought I believed in the past were so wrong as to absolutely terrify me. So please do not position yourself in relation to me or my group, because you don't know what my group is, does, or believes..
anthrochica: well, i know what you have explained to me.
nuncstans: And, wrong again, I AM a registered Democrat. Could you stop asserting things about me without, like, asking first?
anthrochica: and i have been very interested and listened with interest for "more than a minute"
anthrochica: i am sorry, i seemed to remember you saying that you were registered as independent, but i must have remembered wrong. my mistake.
nuncstans: I wasn't saying that you were apolitical, I was comparing myself to hypothetical apolitical people. You don't have to take everything as an insult. But yes, I am more politicized than you are, and that simply means that I devote a lot of time to participating in organized politics, in an ethical community to which I feel clear obligations.
anthrochica: for the record, from what little my incompetent brain has grasped about what your group does, it does a lot of great things. i just choose to direct my energy into a different strategic discourse. you don't know how i spend my time or what i volunteer, and sure, in terms of quantifiable per-week hours i am sure you got me beat. guess that makes you more political and therefore more right somehow. i also think we should probably stop this conversation at some point before we get into a big argument, beca
anthrochica: use whether you intend it or not you are coming off as pretty patronizing from where i am standing.
nuncstans: What I am missing frm you is the respect you demand from me. It's sad that we can't have a political argument. I DON"T CARE how many hours anyone spends per week doing their work. I'm not, like, SHOWING OFF. That, as I said before, is an individual decision. However, when I say that Howard Dean is a terrible candidate, the respect I wish you would give me would make you listen to what I have to say, instead of defaulting defensively into "well, that's what I think". Who made you an expert in politics such t
nuncstans: you feel equipped to judge his aptitude as a candidate all by yourself? The reason I feel prepared to comment on the candidates is not because I'm oh-so-smart, it's because I work together with lots and lots of people and have the benefit of constant education from others.
nuncstans: You accuse me of elitism, when it's the opposite. I have seen that only when people organize can they strategize effectively. Anything else is just wanking. Interesting, clever, original - but not POLITICS. Politics demands the existence of community.
anthrochica: well, maybe if you had started your argument off with something other than "you are being had!" and actually, like, asked why is it that i support dean, maybe i would not default into "that's what i think". and i don't think that i need to belong to a group whose stated political purpose and beliefs are identical to mine to be educated; i, like you, belong to a number of intersecting larger communities of academics, intellectuals, friends, etc. who are all trying to do something about what's happenning
anthrochica: so i am not making some argument in a kantian vacuum.
anthrochica: do you think my sources of information are somehow inferior to yours?
anthrochica: or my capacity to evaluate them according to my system of values?
nuncstans: You're not in any kind of vacuum, kantian or otherwise. But you're also not a political organizer. That is not a criticism; political organizers are boring. It's just a fact. And if you take that basic distinction as an insult (as your next comment just did, look at that!) then it's hard to argue with you. Again, you miss the point. NO INDIVIDUAL can evaluate sources of information according to her system of values and come to a valid political position. That is my belief, that is what I've come to. It's no
nuncstans: It's not about you vs. me or anyone, it's about the nature of thought as an individual vs. as a political community
anthrochica: i did not say the word "elitist" but yeah, it's not out of place. i am guessing people who work together in a group volunteering for dean, or whoever, do not merit organizational cred with you for some reason? i am not a political organizer, i am someone who signed up to volunteer for dean about two and a half months ago and have since then doing what little i can to help out. i don't think you are in any better position than me to judge what kind of a candidate dean is. obviously we have different
anthrochica: criteria and goals.
anthrochica: and i don't agree with your communal thought model, at least not when you make it sound that reified.
anthrochica: and you are not objectively right about that.
anthrochica: you may think that you are, because your own model supports your proclivity towards thinking that you know what's objectively right, but that does not make it so.
anthrochica: if i believe that an individial, positioned in a larger community CAN come to a political position, you not agreeing with that or believing that does not make it any less valid of a stance for me or people who would agree with me.
nuncstans: Either I'm being tremendously unclear, or you're completely missing the point, or, perhaps, both. I believe that in order to engage politics in a meaningful sense, other than in the choosing from a paltry array of candidates, like Big Mac or Whopper, you have to be involved in a community dedicated to political work. I don't mean to disparage what you are doing (although I do mean to disparage the Dean campaign). I think that the choice you made to support Dean was an informed choice from your vantage point
nuncstans: as an individual not involved in a political organizing community. I also believe that individuals making such choices have their choices limited. If you truly know who Howard Dean is, and your choice was truly informed, then your support of him is also support for continuing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Do you support genocide? Can you in good conscience CAMPAIGN for someone, IN THE PRIMARIES, who believes that Arab lives are less valuable than Israeli lives?
I find it hard to understand.
anthrochica: oh, here comes the didactic portion of the argument. do you want to wave a slogan in my face? i TOLD you already. i am interested in seeing a democrat in the White House in 2004, and Dean, imperfect as he may be, is the only one who i think has a chance of beating Bush. THAT is my primary issue. NO, i don't support ethnic cleansing of palenstinians. unfortunately, this way lies an amistad.
anthrochica: i also already told you that if i thought he was a shoe-in for THE PRIMARIES i would support someone else. but he is not. and i am not going to split votes and risk someone like Lieberman or a dead-in-the-water Edwards ending up on the tickets, in which case the Republicans won't even need to rig the election.
anthrochica: so, as far as my agenda goes, as far as what I believe to be the ultimate priority, I have to support Dean, because if I don't, Bush will be reelected
anthrochica: and then not only will the Palestinian genocide continue, but he will kill thousands of Syrian, Iranian and god knows whose else citizens and probably nuke North Korea for good measure as well.
nuncstans: The amistad comes from individuals making decisions in a system that does not represent them. It sure as hell doesn't come from my insistence on saying what is true and asserting the importance of speaking the truth. Like I said, I disagree with you. I do not respect your support for Dean. He is a terrible candidate. Supporting Dean is not the only way to campaign against Bush. It is a very effective way, however, of ensuring the continued dominance of the current administration's project for the new americ
anthrochica: and incidentally, why is it you making efforts to get your agenda across "political work" while me trying to do the same for dean is not? the reason why i don't tell you about the political things i am involved in is because somehow my choices are misguided or uninformed or i am still plugged into the matrix or whatever. i do respect your opinion on things, i believe that they are right for what you are trying to do. if you can't extend me the same courtesy, i am really not interested in discussing this
anthrochica: any further. YOU DON'T SPEAK "THE TRUTH".
anthrochica: that way lies the logic of lenin, pol pot, and whoever else.
anthrochica: you are trying to do what's best from your stance, and so am i.
anthrochica: the fact that your voice is representative of a specific political contingent DOES NOT MAKE WHAT" YOU SAY THE TRUTH.
anthrochica: there is no truth in the issues where it's a matter of opiunion. i don't think that there are any better TACTICAL ways to fight bush except to support dean. positing that against a strategic long-term "another world is possible" argument is an amistad/
nuncstans: For expediency's sake, you should worry a little less about how similar I am to Lenin. You are clearly trying to pick holes in my IM-syntax argument because something about this makes you nervous. Every time we've tried to talk about this, you get furious and/or start crying. Do you think your voice, campaigning for Dean, is not representative of a political "contingent"?
The only reason you think that electing Dean is the only way to oppose Bush is because you have not engaged in political work. That is t
nuncstans: That is the most solid proof of my argument. Just because you can't see any other options doesn't mean they aren't there. It just means you're an individual with the tremendous amount of American individualist arrogance necessary to believe that she is self-sufficient and can make informed political decisions without dialogue
anthrochica: i engage in dialogue if it's on equal terms. if we are resorting to nationalist ad hominems i would say that you have the "i know the truth" hubris that characterized the Soviet, among others, movers and shakers or the early 20th c. and that attitude has, on many historical occasions, ended with bloodshed and misery for the people who are supposed to be benefitted with The Truth. i believe that my decitions are well-informed, and if you want pure numbers, obviously more people agree with me than with you
anthrochica: a lot of them may be uninformed and some version of the lowest common denominator, but if you think for a second that you are somehow better informed, in terms of information that is out there than me, then you are wrong.
anthrochica: just because what i choose to do with the information differs from you does not make me somehow less politically informed, unless by "politically informed" you mean somehow plugged into a network of consensus and majority valdation, in which case, i could say dean's the frontrunner at the moment, but of course that does not count because it does not have some stamp of approval that would be required for my stance to be taken seriously.
nuncstans: Number one, you see Stalin everywhere you look. That is about you and not me.
Number two, you are again missing the point and making it "me versus you" in terms of the legitimacy of "sources". Our argument has nothing to do with sources, since you support Dean knowing his attitudes on Israel and, you would have it, the rest of the world. You believe that yours is the only strategic position to take, despite your claims to the contrary, because you've run through your tautological reasoning about 5 times in
nuncstans: this IM and "prove " that there is no viable alternative.
Third, your numbers argument is truly appalling.
anthrochica: not mine
anthrochica: i don't care about numbers
anthrochica: you are the one that positioned an individual against the group.
nuncstans: no, that was your binary-minded misreading of what I said.
anthrochica: and to sum up, you obviously think am a wanker capable only on uninformed tautological thought. and i misread everything you say. so obviously we have nothing further do discuss. if i see you at the rally tonight don't worry, you don't have to embarass youself in front of your comrades by acknowledging that you know me.
nuncstans: you are acting totally retarded
anthrochica: and you are acting like a big elitist snob while trying to front like you are doing the opposite.
Veronuncstans: I find your totally fictional view of any political alternative to campagigning for Dean offensive
nuncstans: You always accuse me of elitism, and you are always wrong.
anthrochica: i did not say ANY. i said tactical, and at the moment, in terms of primaries coming up. you want to be offended, be my guest. your last sentence is pretty ironic. apparently i am always wrong about a lot of things, and you are always right. that's a leitmotif that comes up as a joke, in serious arguments, when you are annoyed with me, and in many many contexts. you always htink you know better than me. that's elitism. look it up.
anthrochica: why is it that anyone who disagrees with you is automatically either stupider than you or .less informed? what kind of bs is that?
nuncstans: ok. whatever. now you're just being insulting
anthrochica: do you think that 75% of what you just wrote to me is not insulting???
nuncstans: no, I don't.
anthrochica: well, that's not surprising consireding that you think what you say is the truth, and the truth is "neutral" by definition b/c it is what it is. for example, i think it's the truth that you are being elitist, and i am not trying to insult you.
anthrochica: i already told you, i don't want to argue with you. i don't like how you argue. you don't grant me equal footing.
anthrochica: that's offensive.
nuncstans: you are just making shit up. my conception of truth has nothing to do with what you're saying. And your issues about how i argue have a lot more to do with you and your anxieties.
anthrochica: well, that's a convenient retort.
anthrochica: ascribe everything to my anxieties, and you don't have to consider what i am saying about your style of argument.
nuncstans: look, I think we can end this now. I feel like you're shooting in the air.
anthrochica: whatever.
nuncstans: ok. bye.
anthrochica: bye
nuncstans decided to air our disagreement of earlier today in public on her livejournal, i will retort here. A couple of months ago I signed up to volunteer for the Dean campaign. Tonight was the big rally in his support in Bryant Park, for which I did flyering yesterday. Apparently nuncstans is convinced that I, like all "progressive" Dean supporters have been "had" by Dean, because I am not aware of his hawkish foreign policy stance, which comes out of her belief that it is impossible to develop political consciousness as an individual (somehow in her argument individuals who get together on grassroots level to support Dean are less of a political group than the groups she is affiliated with). For the record, I am aware of Dean's stance on Israel and his gravitation towards AIPAC, which I do not support or endorse. I am not campaigning for Dean because I think he is the paragon of integrity, virtue and consistency. I am campaigning for him because I think he is ELECTABLE and I believe that at the moment the tactical goal of "anyone but Bush in 2004" is more important than a larger strategic goal of "another world is possible" variety. I believe that Dean is the ONLY candidate that, if he wins the nomination, can defeat Bush, for a number of reasons, having to do with his platform, campaigning skills and appeal; I also think that the Bush administration considers him the largest threat of the opposition (hence all of their remarks of how he is the candidate that would be easy to defeat, and he is "the one [they] want" which is part, in my opinion, of some behind-the-scenes machinations to get Lieberman the Democratic nomination, because if Lieberman was the candidate, Bushco wouldn't even need to rig the election). nuncstans argues that it is retarded to support Dean before the primaries. My response to that is, that my support from him comes from the same place as my firm belief that everyone who considers themselves on the left can't split votes in this election, so we can't have a repeat of people voting for Nader in borderline states in 2000. If Dean was the front-runner by a consistent landslide, I would not be worried about the Democratic ticket going to Kerry or Edwards, who share Dean's hawkish foreign policy stances, but do not have his legitimacy of critiquing the war in Iraq because they voted for the damn thing before they jumped on the bandwagon of criticizing it, or his grassroots appeal, which, whether real or contrived in origin, is very real at the current moment. If I believed that Dean was a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination, I may have been supporting Kucinich, who, on the whole, I think has more integrity and more right ideas about things, or maybe I would be engaging in more counterhegemonic attempts to try and shift the center to the left. Also, for the record, I do think that it's important to highlight Dean's (and others') problematic stances NOT to detract voters from him, but to force him to amend his stances in order to attract more progressive voters. I do think that works, so his position on dismantling Israeli settlements in the occupied territories has been shifting as of late; last month he called for "ultimately dismantling the settlements" which is progress from what he advocated on record in the past. However, this wasn't even part of nuncstans's argument, she was just trying to "educate" me in what I perceived to be a patronizing and didactic fashion where every counterpoint to what I was saying was postulated as a meta-negation of my position as inherently "individualistic" which was somehow a metonym for "wrong." (incidentally, nuncstans, your claim that i don't know anything about the kind of work you engage is wrong; i have always been interested in hearing about, and the horrifying misconceptions that you attributed to me stemmed directly from a miscommunication that transpired at the February 15th demo, that we had discussed and cleared up, where if you remember I had a problem with a certain slogan a couple of people were chanting, when I told you about it you angrily told me that you had been chanting the same thing, which later turned out not to be true, so I would not ascribe any huge misunderstandings of the group that you are involved in, that on the whole I respect and support, to a conversation which temporarily confused me as to certain stances of your organization, because either you thought I had said something else, or you accidentally said something incorrect.) anyway, I am not going to argue on here about whether nuncstans is patronizing, or whether I am hypersensitive, here is the transcript of our IM conversation and people can draw their own conclusions. I am assuming that since nuncstans chose to bring this up in this forum, she won't mind that I am including this.nuncstans: what you up to?
anthrochica: i was debating whether to do work at home or go to school; then at 8.30 there is a rally for howard dean at bryant park; i passed out flyers for it all morning yesterday, and am planning to go tonight.
nuncstans: I'm going to be there protesting his neoconservative foreign policies.
anthrochica: well, maybe i'll see you there then.
anthrochica: unless you are not allowed to fraternize with the enemy
anthrochica: :)
nuncstans: Yeah, I guess. You should check out what a retard he is, though, seriously. He is a hardline supporter of Ariel Sharon and he is totally "moderate", by U.S. standards, on domestic issues, meaning more like a Reagan republican. He is fronting like he is grass roots and progressive when there is nothing progressive about him.
nuncstans: You are being totally had.
anthrochica: well, i have checked him out. and please don't patronize me, i really don't like that.
anthrochica: i think i am capable of making up my own mind
anthrochica: my political agenda is getting anyone but bush into the white house in 2004. i happen to think that dean is the most likely candidate to make that happen, therefore i will support him and his campaign.
nuncstans: I'm not patronizing you, I'm just telling it like it is.
And of course you're capable of making up your own mind. You're also capable of listening to what I think, and what I think is that Howard Dean is a terrible candidate for president, and it's important to me to express that to everyone.
anthrochica: the statement "you are being had" is pretty patronizing.
nuncstans: Well, since your strategy is anyone but Bush in 2004, I guess you're not being had by Dean. But I think that strategy is one that can be considered once the race is narrowed down to Bush and someone else, and that adopting it before the primaries in support of a xenophobic, racist neoliberal candidate is unstrategic, if what you want is for the world to be better
anthrochica: i don't agree with everything dean stands for, but my priority is non-Bush president in 2004, even if some of his foreign policies are fucked up. i understand that this is very different from how you approach things, but i am not acting like my agenda is the end-all-be-all and that you are misdirecting your energy, am i? because that would be the equivalent of what you just said to me.
anthrochica: i think the world would be better with anyone but bush in the white house. and i think that the current momentum is the only way dean will win in the primaries
anthrochica: if he was a shoe-in, i might lobby for someone else before the primaries.
anthrochica: sadly, that's not the case
nuncstans: The point is that if you have any interest in changing the way politics works in the U.S. you can't be strategizing as an individual. Obviously, as an individual, there is no way you can effect any change, and so your options are always the neatly sorted false ones of presidential elections: vote for Gore vs. vote for Nader, etc. But the work I do is about changing the shape of the debate, about forcing issues that are of paramount importance into the campaign. I don't think it is up to individuals to "lobb
nuncstans: lobby for candidates, because they can't, unless they are personally wealthy, affect anything that way. Individuals working with political groups can bring awareness about what is actually important here and in the rest of the world rather than choosing "square" or "circle" in some retarded aptitude test of good citizenship.
anthrochica: i don't agree with that, obviously. the difference is that my stance on things does not delegitimize yours and what you are trying to do. i think it is up to individuals, i think it is up to me, and you already know that i have serious issues with people who voted for nader in borderline states, for example. but if you think that your way of doing things is the only right one and you can't respect what i think is the right thing to do, then we should not talk about it at all.
nuncstans: You always push confrontations on political issues into either/or stalemates. I think you are totally wrong to support Howard Dean right now. That doesn't have anything to do with thinking that "my way of doing things is the only right one". And the issue of respecting what you think is the right thing to do is a false issue. I respect your right to choose whatever position you want to take, but that's not the same as respecting the position you've taken.
nuncstans: I also question how anyone with a commitment to international human rights can support Dean, and thus my comment that you had been had. His propaganda machine, which is not in any way shape or form grass roots, is convincing progressives all over the country that Dean will be an improvement on Bush. I don't see any evidence for that in any of his stances on foreign policy, and on domestic policy I see Democratic party rhetoric in a post-PNAC world in which U.S. military dominance worldwide is axiomatic
anthrochica: i am the one who pushed is into either/or?
no, that would be if i said "i think you are totally wrong NOT to support howard dean right now" but i don't and somehow that weakens my position because i don't think everyone should adhere to what i think is the right way to proceed in the current political climate. you don't have to respect the position i have taken, but please don't try to educate me like i am some stupid ignorant little unit of "the masses" by explaining to me, didactically, how change comes
anthrochica: about in a society. i am as educated about issues as you are, and while i do not agree with Dean on everything, my goal is not some strategic world revolution like _______ is, or even as strategic as what you and your group are trying to do
anthrochica: to me, the issue of bush not being reelected trumpts everything else at the moment.
nuncstans: unlike Dean and the majority of his supporters, I am committed to anti-hierarchical, grassroots organizing and don't think in terms of "the masses", nor do I think that I'm better able than any other individual to judge things, except in function of the amount of time and effort I put into fighting for what I believe to be right, researching, educating and organizing. That, I believe, makes my position more solid than that of an apolitical individual.
anthrochica: as i think it should for all registered democrats, which i know you are not, so i won't try to convince you on the issue, even though i think the right thing to do for the Green party, for example, is to endorse whoever wins the Democratic primary.
anthrochica: does that mean i support the two-party system? no. that's not the point.
anthrochica: i see. so because i don't belong to a group like yours i am an apolitical individual. interesting.
nuncstans: And you clearly have no idea of what"my group" is trying to do, since you've never let me talk to you about it for more than a minute without getting to an impasse. The remarks you've made about what you thought I believed in the past were so wrong as to absolutely terrify me. So please do not position yourself in relation to me or my group, because you don't know what my group is, does, or believes..
anthrochica: well, i know what you have explained to me.
nuncstans: And, wrong again, I AM a registered Democrat. Could you stop asserting things about me without, like, asking first?
anthrochica: and i have been very interested and listened with interest for "more than a minute"
anthrochica: i am sorry, i seemed to remember you saying that you were registered as independent, but i must have remembered wrong. my mistake.
nuncstans: I wasn't saying that you were apolitical, I was comparing myself to hypothetical apolitical people. You don't have to take everything as an insult. But yes, I am more politicized than you are, and that simply means that I devote a lot of time to participating in organized politics, in an ethical community to which I feel clear obligations.
anthrochica: for the record, from what little my incompetent brain has grasped about what your group does, it does a lot of great things. i just choose to direct my energy into a different strategic discourse. you don't know how i spend my time or what i volunteer, and sure, in terms of quantifiable per-week hours i am sure you got me beat. guess that makes you more political and therefore more right somehow. i also think we should probably stop this conversation at some point before we get into a big argument, beca
anthrochica: use whether you intend it or not you are coming off as pretty patronizing from where i am standing.
nuncstans: What I am missing frm you is the respect you demand from me. It's sad that we can't have a political argument. I DON"T CARE how many hours anyone spends per week doing their work. I'm not, like, SHOWING OFF. That, as I said before, is an individual decision. However, when I say that Howard Dean is a terrible candidate, the respect I wish you would give me would make you listen to what I have to say, instead of defaulting defensively into "well, that's what I think". Who made you an expert in politics such t
nuncstans: you feel equipped to judge his aptitude as a candidate all by yourself? The reason I feel prepared to comment on the candidates is not because I'm oh-so-smart, it's because I work together with lots and lots of people and have the benefit of constant education from others.
nuncstans: You accuse me of elitism, when it's the opposite. I have seen that only when people organize can they strategize effectively. Anything else is just wanking. Interesting, clever, original - but not POLITICS. Politics demands the existence of community.
anthrochica: well, maybe if you had started your argument off with something other than "you are being had!" and actually, like, asked why is it that i support dean, maybe i would not default into "that's what i think". and i don't think that i need to belong to a group whose stated political purpose and beliefs are identical to mine to be educated; i, like you, belong to a number of intersecting larger communities of academics, intellectuals, friends, etc. who are all trying to do something about what's happenning
anthrochica: so i am not making some argument in a kantian vacuum.
anthrochica: do you think my sources of information are somehow inferior to yours?
anthrochica: or my capacity to evaluate them according to my system of values?
nuncstans: You're not in any kind of vacuum, kantian or otherwise. But you're also not a political organizer. That is not a criticism; political organizers are boring. It's just a fact. And if you take that basic distinction as an insult (as your next comment just did, look at that!) then it's hard to argue with you. Again, you miss the point. NO INDIVIDUAL can evaluate sources of information according to her system of values and come to a valid political position. That is my belief, that is what I've come to. It's no
nuncstans: It's not about you vs. me or anyone, it's about the nature of thought as an individual vs. as a political community
anthrochica: i did not say the word "elitist" but yeah, it's not out of place. i am guessing people who work together in a group volunteering for dean, or whoever, do not merit organizational cred with you for some reason? i am not a political organizer, i am someone who signed up to volunteer for dean about two and a half months ago and have since then doing what little i can to help out. i don't think you are in any better position than me to judge what kind of a candidate dean is. obviously we have different
anthrochica: criteria and goals.
anthrochica: and i don't agree with your communal thought model, at least not when you make it sound that reified.
anthrochica: and you are not objectively right about that.
anthrochica: you may think that you are, because your own model supports your proclivity towards thinking that you know what's objectively right, but that does not make it so.
anthrochica: if i believe that an individial, positioned in a larger community CAN come to a political position, you not agreeing with that or believing that does not make it any less valid of a stance for me or people who would agree with me.
nuncstans: Either I'm being tremendously unclear, or you're completely missing the point, or, perhaps, both. I believe that in order to engage politics in a meaningful sense, other than in the choosing from a paltry array of candidates, like Big Mac or Whopper, you have to be involved in a community dedicated to political work. I don't mean to disparage what you are doing (although I do mean to disparage the Dean campaign). I think that the choice you made to support Dean was an informed choice from your vantage point
nuncstans: as an individual not involved in a political organizing community. I also believe that individuals making such choices have their choices limited. If you truly know who Howard Dean is, and your choice was truly informed, then your support of him is also support for continuing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Do you support genocide? Can you in good conscience CAMPAIGN for someone, IN THE PRIMARIES, who believes that Arab lives are less valuable than Israeli lives?
I find it hard to understand.
anthrochica: oh, here comes the didactic portion of the argument. do you want to wave a slogan in my face? i TOLD you already. i am interested in seeing a democrat in the White House in 2004, and Dean, imperfect as he may be, is the only one who i think has a chance of beating Bush. THAT is my primary issue. NO, i don't support ethnic cleansing of palenstinians. unfortunately, this way lies an amistad.
anthrochica: i also already told you that if i thought he was a shoe-in for THE PRIMARIES i would support someone else. but he is not. and i am not going to split votes and risk someone like Lieberman or a dead-in-the-water Edwards ending up on the tickets, in which case the Republicans won't even need to rig the election.
anthrochica: so, as far as my agenda goes, as far as what I believe to be the ultimate priority, I have to support Dean, because if I don't, Bush will be reelected
anthrochica: and then not only will the Palestinian genocide continue, but he will kill thousands of Syrian, Iranian and god knows whose else citizens and probably nuke North Korea for good measure as well.
nuncstans: The amistad comes from individuals making decisions in a system that does not represent them. It sure as hell doesn't come from my insistence on saying what is true and asserting the importance of speaking the truth. Like I said, I disagree with you. I do not respect your support for Dean. He is a terrible candidate. Supporting Dean is not the only way to campaign against Bush. It is a very effective way, however, of ensuring the continued dominance of the current administration's project for the new americ
anthrochica: and incidentally, why is it you making efforts to get your agenda across "political work" while me trying to do the same for dean is not? the reason why i don't tell you about the political things i am involved in is because somehow my choices are misguided or uninformed or i am still plugged into the matrix or whatever. i do respect your opinion on things, i believe that they are right for what you are trying to do. if you can't extend me the same courtesy, i am really not interested in discussing this
anthrochica: any further. YOU DON'T SPEAK "THE TRUTH".
anthrochica: that way lies the logic of lenin, pol pot, and whoever else.
anthrochica: you are trying to do what's best from your stance, and so am i.
anthrochica: the fact that your voice is representative of a specific political contingent DOES NOT MAKE WHAT" YOU SAY THE TRUTH.
anthrochica: there is no truth in the issues where it's a matter of opiunion. i don't think that there are any better TACTICAL ways to fight bush except to support dean. positing that against a strategic long-term "another world is possible" argument is an amistad/
nuncstans: For expediency's sake, you should worry a little less about how similar I am to Lenin. You are clearly trying to pick holes in my IM-syntax argument because something about this makes you nervous. Every time we've tried to talk about this, you get furious and/or start crying. Do you think your voice, campaigning for Dean, is not representative of a political "contingent"?
The only reason you think that electing Dean is the only way to oppose Bush is because you have not engaged in political work. That is t
nuncstans: That is the most solid proof of my argument. Just because you can't see any other options doesn't mean they aren't there. It just means you're an individual with the tremendous amount of American individualist arrogance necessary to believe that she is self-sufficient and can make informed political decisions without dialogue
anthrochica: i engage in dialogue if it's on equal terms. if we are resorting to nationalist ad hominems i would say that you have the "i know the truth" hubris that characterized the Soviet, among others, movers and shakers or the early 20th c. and that attitude has, on many historical occasions, ended with bloodshed and misery for the people who are supposed to be benefitted with The Truth. i believe that my decitions are well-informed, and if you want pure numbers, obviously more people agree with me than with you
anthrochica: a lot of them may be uninformed and some version of the lowest common denominator, but if you think for a second that you are somehow better informed, in terms of information that is out there than me, then you are wrong.
anthrochica: just because what i choose to do with the information differs from you does not make me somehow less politically informed, unless by "politically informed" you mean somehow plugged into a network of consensus and majority valdation, in which case, i could say dean's the frontrunner at the moment, but of course that does not count because it does not have some stamp of approval that would be required for my stance to be taken seriously.
nuncstans: Number one, you see Stalin everywhere you look. That is about you and not me.
Number two, you are again missing the point and making it "me versus you" in terms of the legitimacy of "sources". Our argument has nothing to do with sources, since you support Dean knowing his attitudes on Israel and, you would have it, the rest of the world. You believe that yours is the only strategic position to take, despite your claims to the contrary, because you've run through your tautological reasoning about 5 times in
nuncstans: this IM and "prove " that there is no viable alternative.
Third, your numbers argument is truly appalling.
anthrochica: not mine
anthrochica: i don't care about numbers
anthrochica: you are the one that positioned an individual against the group.
nuncstans: no, that was your binary-minded misreading of what I said.
anthrochica: and to sum up, you obviously think am a wanker capable only on uninformed tautological thought. and i misread everything you say. so obviously we have nothing further do discuss. if i see you at the rally tonight don't worry, you don't have to embarass youself in front of your comrades by acknowledging that you know me.
nuncstans: you are acting totally retarded
anthrochica: and you are acting like a big elitist snob while trying to front like you are doing the opposite.
Veronuncstans: I find your totally fictional view of any political alternative to campagigning for Dean offensive
nuncstans: You always accuse me of elitism, and you are always wrong.
anthrochica: i did not say ANY. i said tactical, and at the moment, in terms of primaries coming up. you want to be offended, be my guest. your last sentence is pretty ironic. apparently i am always wrong about a lot of things, and you are always right. that's a leitmotif that comes up as a joke, in serious arguments, when you are annoyed with me, and in many many contexts. you always htink you know better than me. that's elitism. look it up.
anthrochica: why is it that anyone who disagrees with you is automatically either stupider than you or .less informed? what kind of bs is that?
nuncstans: ok. whatever. now you're just being insulting
anthrochica: do you think that 75% of what you just wrote to me is not insulting???
nuncstans: no, I don't.
anthrochica: well, that's not surprising consireding that you think what you say is the truth, and the truth is "neutral" by definition b/c it is what it is. for example, i think it's the truth that you are being elitist, and i am not trying to insult you.
anthrochica: i already told you, i don't want to argue with you. i don't like how you argue. you don't grant me equal footing.
anthrochica: that's offensive.
nuncstans: you are just making shit up. my conception of truth has nothing to do with what you're saying. And your issues about how i argue have a lot more to do with you and your anxieties.
anthrochica: well, that's a convenient retort.
anthrochica: ascribe everything to my anxieties, and you don't have to consider what i am saying about your style of argument.
nuncstans: look, I think we can end this now. I feel like you're shooting in the air.
anthrochica: whatever.
nuncstans: ok. bye.
anthrochica: bye
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
change one imperialist for another!
Date: 2003-08-27 09:49 am (UTC)Re: change one imperialist for another!
Date: 2003-08-27 10:46 am (UTC)your knee-jerk, un-engaging retort reminds me of a highly amusing review of Ani Difranco's "Dilate" published long ago in MIM notes which pretty much summed up the entire MIM notes thang--they were, like, Ani sucks the patriarchy's dick, if she really wanted to be a radical she would a) become a lesbian to escape the patriarchal discourse and b) join the MIM comrades in bringing about the world revolution. well, MIM notes are beyond merely simplistic or didactic, they are kind of transcendental.
Re: change one imperialist for another!
Date: 2003-08-27 11:58 am (UTC)i didn't comment on whether your goals were pratical or realizable, but i questioned whether it was good to focus on "anti-Bush" since that doesn't mean you wont' get someone similar
Re: change one imperialist for another!
Date: 2003-08-27 12:38 pm (UTC)Have we traveled so little ground since November, 2000, that we can honestly still say "there is no difference between the parties?". Because while it's quite true (and as Anthrochica stated in the debate above) that Dean is not the radical leftist the media- or his grassroots campaigning- would have us all believe, he is, for better for worse, a Clinton democrat. It is only now, after all politics have taken such a wide swing to the right, that Clinton looks like a leftist by comparison, and so follows Dean. He is pro death-penalty, he is anti gun control, his position on Israel is (while better than Bush's) problematic, to say the least. He is not, however, anything similar to Bush.
He is also electable; there is a point when in order to affect real change, you need to put your radical Marxist, other-ness recognizing, white priviledge-rejcting ass into the real world and snap up on the pragmatic decisions. Yes, it's lovely that you pass out Union Yes! stickers and pass out Mim Notes, but jesus christ, do you really care about what's going on?
What should be up for debate right now are not Dean's politics (sorry, Nuncstans); we are aware (if we are aware people) of what they are, and we accept that they are not all we'd like them to be, just as we accept that he is a different and better presidential option than our current administration.
What IS the only thing up for debate, as far as Howard Dean is concerned, is whether he is the best possible option for getting Bush out. Is he the most electable candidate? Does he have a shot? We can add to the debate the question of "well, if Dean DOES have a shot again Bush, is there any other candidate who ALSO has a shot?". That's it. End of fucking discussion.
I don't want to hear any more about the binary two-party system providing us such similar options, because I'm sorry, the current administration is tearing that particular assumption to shreds. Political activists are going to need to keep their work going no matter who is in power; perhaps with Bush out it won't seem like such a waste of time.
A word about that little link you supplied: your assumption that Marxist anti-WTO= good is a little problematic in and of itself. The problem with a lot of the Seattle demonstrations (and subsequent protests) is that a lot of the demonstrators didn't seem to have a clear idea of what it is the WTO DOES; many of their complaints more rightfully belonged lodged with the World Bank of the NAFTA agreement. The WTO does do some fucked up thigns, but there is a purpose to its existence outside of free-trade questions; Kucinich (must as I like him) is disastrously misguided in wanting to pull the U.S. out of it entirely, rather than radically reforming it.
Whatever. I just looked at your profile. No use arguing, you're a completely fatuous idiot. I hate your kind.
Re: change one imperialist for another!
Date: 2003-08-27 06:39 pm (UTC)how so?
"I just looked at your profile. No use arguing, you're a completely fatuous idiot. I hate your kind."
you know that from my profile? wow. talk about ad hominen.
by the way, i'm a pragmatist.
Re: change one imperialist for another!
Date: 2003-08-27 06:41 pm (UTC)i just gotta say...
Date: 2003-08-31 12:02 am (UTC)but there is one thing that i need to comment on which is the link
Re: i just gotta say...
Date: 2003-08-31 08:07 am (UTC)I also agree completely about COR, and so was wondering if you had a chance if you could point me toward similar groups and sites?
thanks!
woo-hoo! links!
Date: 2003-08-31 05:59 pm (UTC)anarchist people of color
http://www.illegalvoices.org/apoc/heat/index.html
colorlines magazine
http://www.colorlines.com/
deadletters
http://www.deadletter.org.uk/
onward newspaper
http://www.onwardnewspaper.org/
infoshop
http://www.infoshop.org/
so there are a couple you might like like to look at if you aren't already familiar with them. sorry I can't remember the html for a non-LJ link off the top of my head, but i trust you're competant enough to cut n paste.
a few notes...deadletters is a site of writings by this girl and i haven't actually read much of what's on there, i was just made aware of the site a few days ago, but it looks very exciting so i'm recomending it. infoshop is (to me) a really annoying wesite, but as basically a huge clearinghouse for anarchist news and theory, there is a ton of worthwhile stuff on it (if you can find it...the things organized fairly confusingly)
hope you enjoy
Re: woo-hoo! links!
Date: 2003-08-31 06:01 pm (UTC)what the hell, here are a few more...
Date: 2003-08-31 06:35 pm (UTC)http://passionbomb.com/
http://www.anarco-nyc.net/anarchistpanther/anarchistpanther.html
http://www.whiteprivilege.com/
http://passionbomb.com/race/
http://www.worsethanqueer.com/
Re: what the hell, here are a few more...
Date: 2003-08-31 09:27 pm (UTC)but i'm going to check out the other links...after some sleep that is :)
Re: what the hell, here are a few more...
Date: 2003-09-01 01:04 am (UTC)i met ashanti for 5 seconds at a party I chronicled on my journal like a month ago, but i was too traumatized by other guests to seek him out and talk to him later. i was really mad about that because i love his zine and he was really nice when we were introduced. definately a sweet guy, i concur.
ok, i'm gonna watch some buffy and go to bed now myself.
unnnnnnnngh
Date: 2003-08-27 06:28 pm (UTC)"Whatever. I just looked at your profile. No use arguing, you're a completely fatuous idiot. I hate your kind."
I just read the profile and I can't stop giggling.
Re: unnnnnnnngh
Date: 2003-08-27 11:11 pm (UTC)Re: unnnnnnnngh
Date: 2003-08-28 09:45 am (UTC)in other words, maybe you're supporting dean because you really do like his politics, you really are convinced he's a good deal better than Bush.
Do you think Clinton was better than Bush too? The man who dismantled welfare, built more prisons and didn't do anything significant to advance international human rights even with a Democratic Senate (not even signing any of the UN treaties on the rights of women and children), much less dismantling any of the mechanisms by which the US steals money from the rest of the world, such as "debt" repayments impoverishing hte "Third World" and undermining their socities? maybe you agree with all this because you want your priviliged life and that's why you think my profile is silly because it simply doesn't make sense to derive any real judgement of who i am from my bio.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 07:57 am (UTC)I also think the way the three of you just piled up on top of
It is not neutral, it is not natural. What any sectarian politics recognizes that progressivism does not are the underlying problems with a democracy that, I insist, has been largely democracy in form alone, at least since WWII. They may come to the wrong conclusions (I agree with you there) but it is not wrong to point that out. It is not wrong, or naive, or misguided, to point out problems even if you don't have the solutions. And maybe you find
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 10:15 am (UTC)as per piling on to
and speaking for myself, i am not world-weary. i am hopeful and i am going to do what i can to aid what i believe is possible. and i really don't want to have to play the "I grew up in the USSR" card with you when you seemingly imply that Maoism is a viable counterdiscourse or that an individual cannot be a political being outside of a group--that's typical liberal American reaction to the capitalist American discourse that is being rejected. My views are more programtic because Dean is more likely to be elected in 2004 than an anti-capitalist utopia flourishing in the next century. However, people whose practical tactical actions come out of ideologies like I perceive
And incidentally any beginning of a critique of anything I wrote that you start by saying that it makes you hate me isn't very likely to resonate with me.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 12:52 pm (UTC)yeah, i did just throw rhetoric at you. i do that when i'm surly. i'm just fed up with the ridiculous politics of supporting Dean (hey, if you can call Maoists ridiculous--right or wrong--without support, I'll call Dean that too).
however, i did engage what you said by attacking your fundamental premise: rearranging the chairs on the Titantic as the saying goes.
"However, people whose practical tactical actions come out of ideologies like I perceive monsclucis's to be can have negative PRACTICAL reprocotions on things like elections, in 2000 or in 2004."
i think the same of your politics. thinking that electoral politics is grassroots activism and thinking that Dean means anything at all to the "wretched of the earth" is shit.
so all we've been doing is slinging the same mud at each other, because I think the Democrats are more ridiculous than the Maoists, and the key difference is this: the Dems have power, and so your support for them is much worse pratically for the world than if i supported the maoists (which i don't--i don't think it's even mentioned on my journal, i guess you're just slandering me. oh, i just noticed it's listed as an interest--yeah, i studied it, i try to study everything i can).
"lowest-common-denominator catchword reductionist "revolutionary" discourse Oberlin Socialist style"
if anyone posted the two sentences i've posted on your journal, it would appear to be lowest common-denominator, simplistic discourse. go read my journal and then come back and show me where i engage in simplistic Socialist rhetoric rather than critiquing it.
and my profile is sincere if nothing else. i'm very ambivalent about it and would enjoy feedback, not mocking of my sincerity. i really don't understand how my desire to be reflective and embodied and a positive force in the world is so laughable, or my desire to unlearn my sexism and racism and other shit and be a better person. i don't think you're laughable. i'm sick of white support for dean so i lashed out, but i don't dislike you or anything.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 08:40 pm (UTC)maoists killed millions of people. deanists have not.
dean has a realistic shot at the 2004 presidency. maoists do not have a realistic shot at a world revolution, even though they think they do.
from the vantage point of reality, as it is, status quo, maoists are ridiculous and dean supporters are not.
in your later reply you say that you think that opening dialogue or whatever is more important than electing someone other than bush in 2004. if you really think that, you are naive and self-destructive. there has always been dialogue and there will always be dialogue, so far it has not really changed the world. whatever the "revolutionary discourse" has to offer in the next year and a half is not likely to effect more radical change than it has in the last centuries; however, dean/bush election holds a possibility for two radically different futures, at least in terms of preemptive strikes, wars initiated, the number of nuclear warheads North Korea will arm itself with, the number of jobs lost in the US, the number of holes drilled in Alaska. yes, both Dean and Bush are on the capitalist/hegemonic/whatever part of the spectum, but when leftist are so far left that they can't see the forest for the trees, or the practical difference for the families of dead Iraqi civilians had Gore been in office now, well, then I don't see any point in engaging in dialogue and i find your position idiotic.
as per your profile, if it is sincere, it is unfortunate that the only way you can express sincerity is through statements so didactic that they make you sound 100% cliche and like an easily identifiable "type." i understand that that may be what you genuinely believe in, but maybe it's time to deconstruct the catchphrases a bit.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-29 10:00 am (UTC)"maoists killed millions of people. deanists have not."
well, dean hasn't been in power yet. as President, he will preside over a system that will kill millions of people under his term. some of them solely due to starvation because various institutions under his control hoard food from the people that grow it. most of the people maoists are accused of killing died of starvation supposedly due to maoist policies. starvations under US-rule are seen as "natural disasters", not as a result of policies that have consistently increased starvation with increased US/corporate control.
deanist, in other words, support the presidency of a man who will in his term kill more people than all maoists ever have (you can go research this, or if you don't feel like it, i hope it's evident that at least he'll kill millions).
"dean/bush election holds a possibility for two radically different futures"
frankly, i think this is naive and destructive. maybe, maybe, two slightly different futures, but radically different? i have no strong evidence that gore wouldn't have launched a war on Irag, and certainly think he would've launched one on Afghanistan. he certainly didn't support a peacekeeping operation in Rwanda that could've saved hundreds of thousands--"no oil there" (to be cliche). Clinton/Gore killed more Iraqis than this war has so far with their genocidal sanctions.
but as i've said, if i voted, i'd vote for dean over bush perhaps, but i just think it's a waste of energy to care even.
partly, this is a worldview difference. i think true power comes from people, not presidents. so i focus on humanity and the world, not what rich white male is holding some of the reigns of the system at the moment, because i believe liberation will come only from people, not from above.
"as per your profile, if it is sincere, it is unfortunate that the only way you can express sincerity is through statements so didactic that they make you sound 100% cliche and like an easily identifiable "type." i understand that that may be what you genuinely believe in, but maybe it's time to deconstruct the catchphrases a bit."
it's a fucking profile, i didn't want to invent a new language and write a book just so i sounded original. your profile is a poem--i don't consider it plagairistic, unoriginal trendy tripe for that to be your profile. and i certainly don't think it identifies you as a "type" or "kind" of person. it's way too short for that.
it's sort of hard to type a couple of paragraphs conveying anything without some "catchphrases" and cliches isn't it? but does that mean i'm just using those phrases cause i read them on some website and don't know what they mean, or could it mean that i've read them and thought about them and deconstruct them and struggle with them and know them deeply and am skeptical of them to a large extent but there's not a lot of space, i'm a bad writer and so it sounds cliche?
and are you maybe just mad at me and being biased? because i'd love it if you found a profile 100% like my bio (since it's 100% cliche), because i'd really like to add them and read their journal since i have found people with the catchphrases but not with the things inbetween the catchphrases in my bio that either you skimmed over or are cliche in your political community but absent in mine. and where are these droves of people all interested in biblical hermeneutics, the black panthers, quakers and maria mies, cuz i'd like to meet them too?
and could you tell me how to have a reasonable length profile that deconstructs all the catchphrases yet is intelligible to a far number of people and of a reasonable length?
eh, i should delete this because it was written from a place of pain. for some reason, i don't like being mocked.
The O'Nica Factor
Date: 2003-08-30 05:20 am (UTC)No one who has criticized you on
Re: The O'Nica Factor
Date: 2003-09-02 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-02 02:23 pm (UTC)as per your profile--it's your profile, write whatever you want in it. if i find it cliche or funny, it's not my job to also do a full-fledged constructive critique of it. if you think that what you wrote adequately represents you, then why get offended about what anyone says? i wouldn't care about what anyone said about what i put on mine.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-04 04:07 pm (UTC)As for his profile -- you're earlier statements seemed to indicate that you read his profile, spent a great deal of time critiquing it, and had a whole slew of deconstruction to back your openly stated judgement calls on the guy. So retorting with "Well, yeah, write whatever you want -- *I* don't care, I'm sure" is kind of lame. How about simply not taking pot-shots in the first place? Now, I realize that my profile is probably something you would consider frivolous in the extreme -- and I haven't been posting long enough to have made any declarations of deep political or philosophical impact. But please -- reign in the righteous indignation, address and dispute points in a logical and intelligent fashion (I haven't always agreed with MonsLucius, but I've always paid him -- and anyone else that I've debated with -- the courtesy of, well, actually debating, even if he annoys me), and try not be so frustratingly personal in your retorts (yes, you started it). Because right now, the arguments being made aren't as much ships passing in the night as they are hungry lions appraising ostriches with their heads in the sand.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-04 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 11:07 pm (UTC)-mjm
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 09:03 am (UTC)Which is exactly why we can't have people sacrificing what is possible for the sake of their principles, because let's face it: if people had been a little more lax with their "principles" when deciding between Gore and Nader, "we" probably wouldn't be in Iraq right now. Sure, Howard Dean may be a worm and a fucktard who is only marginally superior to Bush in the things that matter, but Bush n' frenz have some pretty nasty long-term goals that I don't think anyone would want to see realized if he serves a second term. If putting a putz like Dean in the White House is the best way to throw a wrench into some of those projects, so-the-fuck be it. I think it's too early to tell right now, but it would behoove people who identify themselves as leftists or progressives to come to terms with the possibility that accepting someone like Dean may end up not being a good thing to do, just the only thing to do.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 05:38 pm (UTC)the other thing is to put our energy toward empowering people on a face-to-face, grassroots level, not encouraging them people to vote or to vote for a certain president (not saying we should religiously avoid mentioning that or encouraging conversation about that, but either as a goal have little history of being effective that i'm aware of).
If one does believe electing a president is the only way to change the world (as if the president, not the people, are important ultimately), one could at least encourage voting for Dean b/c he's electable and slightly better, while publicizing this is only because of a racist Democratic party structure that, in the words of the Congressional Black Caucus (a group almost solely responsible for the amount of power the Dems have in some ways), regulates black politicians to the "fields" in a form of "plantation politics."
i guess the CBC might say one might as well chose the master with a paddle instead of cat-o-nine-tails, but i don't know why we don't just burn down the master's house, if only metaphorically. or at least devote some energy and thought to it.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 07:06 pm (UTC)On the other hand, the sad fact of the situation is that we're faced with an administration composed of a group of militaristic religious fanatics who essentially want to dominate the world and establish a one-party pseudo-theocracy at home. We have a responsibility to do everything in our power to either stall or reverse that process, and doing so could easily involve supporting bozos like Dean. That doesn't mean not organizing against him once he's in office. It doesn't mean accepting his policies. It doesn't mean neglecting participation in local progressive organizations. It simply means making that little vote of ours do all the good it possibly can, even if that good isn't very good at all in the grand scheme of things.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 08:24 pm (UTC)i still don't believe in an.'s blanket statement: "I believe that at the moment the tactical goal of 'anyone but Bush in 2004' is more important than a larger strategic goal of "another world is possible" variety". it's probably more important and pratical to engage people in conversation, esp. white pro-Deaners, about imperialism or whatever you want to call this fucked up state of things than to try to cajole someone into voting for Dean.
that's how i see things from a pragmatic tactical and strategic level at least
no subject
Date: 2003-08-29 06:27 am (UTC)here's an idea...
Date: 2003-08-29 06:22 am (UTC)while the election is too far off for me (or most of us) to have any idea how many or what horrors will transpire between now and then and thus really cannot speak to how realistically electable dean will be at that point, there are a couple things I do know and will speak to. such as the fact that whether or not he gets the most votes, it is completely possible that bush will be declared the winner anyway. it is also completely plausible that a crisis resulting in the suspension of elections, or that they'll pull a wag the dog type thing that result in a pre-election popularity surge. and while it may seem like getting bush impeached would be way harder than getting dean elected if and election actually occurs and they don't use electronic voting machines and actually count the votes, i honestly don't even think so. for one, I think dean's "appeal" is vastly overstated . for another, while anti-bushites are mobilizing behind him as their great white hope, bush is enjoying a bit of a respite from criticism while his credibility could be plummeting. I think it is much easier to expose bush's criminal actions and get people excited about feeding him his just desserts than it is to get the number of people necessary excited about howard dean. it pains me that the left's energies are being diverted into an attempt to set this motherfucker dean up for a race that, from my standpoint, he looks likely to lose. If one supports dean as an attack on bush, why not just skip dean and attack bush.
there's a lot more i have to say, about this but more importantly about this thread as a whole. but i'm really fucking tired so that can wait.