[Peace-discuss] When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?

Mon Aug 24 21:53:41 CDT 2009

It is interesting a) how you picked one of the reasons I gave to focus on,
b) which reason you selected, and c) what you selected top give as a
response. Leading free-thinking people is for sure hard but not impossible;
but  being free-thinking is not the same as undisciplined self-centered.
The leading the latter and getting them to engage in a cooperative
enterprise involving hard mundane work over a long duration is next to
impossible given that everyone is  focused on  "doing their own thing" and
not accepting leadership of anyone.  I have no idea what anyone else's
experiences have been; but those are mine.  I do not have the time, energy,
or resources to spend changing peoples minds who are dead set on achieving
their own personal goals and attending to collective goals only in so far as
they are in line with their individual personal goals or who are not into
doing any detailed advance or systematic  long range planning.

You may be able to draw cats to what cats want; but first one has to know
and be sure of what the cats want.  I make no such claims, although you seem
to.

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of E. Wayne
Johnson
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 5:27 PM
To: LAURIE SOLOMON
Cc: 'Morton K. Brussel'; 'Peace-discuss'
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?

This is disappointing, Laurie.  I was hoping you would take the challenge
and run with it.

Leading any sort of free-thinking people is sure enough like herding cats,
hence the tendency toward more authoritarianism, more dumbing down,
more bread and circuses, and more admonitions to "not think too much", since
a dumbed down, unthinking, amusement-oriented, submissive population is much
easier to control.

Ya cant drive cats.  But you can draw them to what cats want.

On 8/24/2009 5:18 PM, LAURIE SOLOMON wrote: 

There are several reasons why that is not going to happen:
First, I do not have any formal or informal connections with the University
and its officialdom nor with the YMCA.  Second, I do not think it is the
sort of thing that a single person will be able to accomplish; and I have
found that when it comes to mobilizing and organizing progressives and
activists my positions and efforts are in the minority and what I seek to do
is either opposed or redirected to something that I am not inclined to
participate in.  Actually, I have found that when it comes to mobilizing,
organizing, and planning any sort of sustainable long range project or
program with members of this progressive, activist, leftist community; it is
like herding cats.
Thirdly, I am having some health problems and will need to undergo a
procedure or two; and the future condition is uncertain with respect to my
future time ability to commit any time, energy, or resources. I do not like
what I view as "activist gadflyism" in which activists flit from one issue
or project to another never spending enough time at any single one to get
anything done or be effective; and given my current situation, to make any
commitments that I may not be able to keep or give my full attention to
would be to become such a gadfly.

-----Original Message-----
From: C. G. Estabrook [mailto:galliher at illinois.edu] 
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 4:55 PM
To: LAURIE SOLOMON
Cc: 'Morton K. Brussel'; 'Peace-discuss'; 'E. Wayne Johnson'
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?

Good.  Set it up.

LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:

I do not think that using a one-directional non-interactional TV program

is 

any way to foster a discussion as contrasted to a lecture where the people

in

the TV studio preach at and talk to the audience with the audience having

no

way to carry on a timely conversation involving give and take.  It

certainly

could furnish a supplement to such a seminar where ongoing discussion

between

presenters, moderators, and audience takes place; but I doubt if it is a

good

substitute.

I also think that a one shot conference or TV program will be of any

lasting 

impact or have any significant benefits; whereas a semester long seminar 
meeting  1-3 times a week just might.  I also think that the locations 
selected where such seminars are to be held as well as the times of those 
seminars will define the potential nature and scope of the audience that 
participates.

-----Original Message----- From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net 
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G. 
Estabrook Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 12:17 PM To: Morton K. Brussel Cc:
Peace-discuss; E. Wayne Johnson Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] When You

Comin'

Back, Red Ryder?

Let's begin by using the local media outlet we have, UPTV.

Contributors to this thread should make an effort to show up Tuesday at

1pm 

in the Urbna City Council chambers to discuss it on "AWARE on the Air."
--CGE

Morton K. Brussel wrote:

The "Why?" of wars and and the militaristic mentality should be a ripe 
subject for inquiry at our great universities, but I've not noticed

efforts

to illuminate this vital topic for the populations or students here or
elsewhere. It would be like a Department of Peace that Kucinich has been
advocating. It seems to be too delicate a subject to broach in our
institutions. If AWARE were resourceful enough it could conceive of

putting

together a conference on the subject.

--mkb

On Aug 24, 2009, at 11:29 AM, Ricky Baldwin wrote:

Easy to repeat, perhaps ad nauseam.  Harder to demonstrate.

I'd argue there was progress through the 1960s and 70s, but as Karen 
points out, these victories are rarely permanent.  Eternal vigilance and
all that.

Ricky

"Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn

--- On *Sun, 8/23/09, E. Wayne Johnson /<ewj at pigs.ag 
 <mailto:ewj at pigs.ag> <mailto:ewj at pigs.ag>>/* wrote:

From: E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag  <mailto:ewj at pigs.ag>
<mailto:ewj at pigs.ag>> Subject: Re:
[Peace-discuss] When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? To: "Jenifer

Cartwright"

<jencart13 at yahoo.com  <mailto:jencart13 at yahoo.com>
<mailto:jencart13 at yahoo.com>> Cc: "Peace-discuss"
<peace-discuss at anti-war.net  <mailto:peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
<mailto:peace-discuss at anti-war.net>> Date:
Sunday, August 23, 2009, 12:18 PM

Jenifer,

For there to be any real progress there has to first be the admission
that there has not been any real progress in how wars can be prevented, 
how they are supposed to be fought, what's permissable re treatment of
prisoners, how governments are supposed to function... with consequences
for breaches.

Mr. Bush continued Clinton's war, and Mr. Obama continues Mr. Bush's

war,

and torturing and immoral detention, and dysfunction oligarchic
government continues in its arrogant manner to trod down the people

under

the iron boot of authoritarian control.

Whereas through GWBush the oligarchy scourged us with whips in their
deceits, through Obama and their other minions the oligarchy seeks to
scourge us with scorpions in the name of "hope".

I dont see the progress you speak of Jenifer.  It's time to stop 
pretending. It aint there, and the movement has been lullabied to sleep
on a pillow of lies.

It's time to quit distributing the sedatives.  The anti-war movement is
co-opted and it's being co-opted from within.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but hope begins again when people
wake up.

Wayne

On 8/23/2009 11:34 AM, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:

John, What you say is true if it's true that the best predictor of the 
future is the past... But saying that a thing will be true because it
has always been true also invites complacency... and it overlooks that
there HAS been progress in how wars can be prevented, how they are
supposed to be fought, what's permissable re treatment of prisoners,
how governments are supposed to function... with consequences for
breaches. No, not a perfect system, of course, and yes, there are
violations... but it's a start. The real danger -- hope? -- is that the
way wars CAN be fought will be so horrific that major wars will be
bro't to a halt, OR -- the main fear -- that humankind will blow itself
off the planet (yes, even before it destroys the planet, or what's left
of it at that point). Have a good day... and let's all do what we can
to keep things moving forward. --Jenifer

--- On *Sat, 8/22/09, John W. / <mailto:jbw292002 at gmail.com>
<jbw292002 at gmail.com>/* wrote:

From: John W.  <mailto:jbw292002 at gmail.com> <jbw292002 at gmail.com> Subject:
Re: [Peace-discuss] When
You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? To: "C. G. Estabrook"
 <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu> <galliher at illinois.edu> Cc: "Peace-discuss"
 <mailto:peace-discuss at anti-war.net> <peace-discuss at anti-war.net> Date:
Saturday, August 22, 2009, 2:16 AM

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 5:15 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu

 <http://us.mc449.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=galliher@illinois.edu>
<http://us.mc449.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=galliher@illinois.edu>>

wrote:

"... the Counter-Culture hung up the Out of Business sign sometime in
the Nineties, finished off by identity politics and general 
self-satisfaction..."

-- <http://www.counterpunch.org/> <http://www.counterpunch.org/>

Commenting weekly in those days on "the news of the week and its
coverage by the media" on News from Neptune as I was, I'd say that Alex
Cockburn has this about right.

I haven't read Cockburn's article; his essays are invariably too long
for my limited attention span.  But I submit that in the so-called
"counter-culture" essentially BECAME the culture.  In some ways our
generation, that of the 60s, was absorbed into the existing culture; in
certain ways it profoundly changed the culture; and in yet other ways
the culture recoiled in horror and moved in the opposite direction.
But isn't that simply the way of the world? Thesis ---> antithesis --->
synthesis , for good or ill?

What we need now, I guess, is a NEW counter-culture.  The closest thing
I've seen to that in this country is the development of the independent
media movement starting in the late 1990s.  Last I looked, the U-C
Independent Media Center was still very much alive and well.  But of
course the new counter-culture needs to affect more than just the
media, important as that is.

I further submit, though, that as long as human beings populate the
planet and compete for finite resources, there will ALWAYS be war.  I
dare to imagine that American culture could change to allow for
universal health care if the political and public will was there.   We
could inject a bit of "socialism" into our "free-market capitalism"
without demonstrable ill effects.  But human nature does not change, 
and war will be with us always.

J.W.

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