[Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] Finkelstein on Ghandi

Thu Sep 6 17:10:42 UTC 2012

Skipping all the flowery and obscure bullshit that you always force your readers to wade through and if I read you correctly, I think that you are making a distinction between two tactics to achieve the same strategy.  I can really care less about the two tactics and the differences between them; but I do agree with you as to there being only one strategy – and that is for the people to rise up and strike back (as you put it), independent of how they do it.  That has been in the past and is now in the present the only way to create significant substantive systemic change – everything else is  merely peripheral reforms of the existing system and practices – not radical change of the existing system and practices.  You say, “As I see it right now there are only two possible ways forward....”; I say that you may just come to this insight right now but that has always been the case.  I would only add that there may be more tactical ways then you suggest but they all involve the same thing – a population that rises up and slays the establishment.  

This, of course, might have been easier and more feasible in days of yore than it is in contemporary times; and we both know that is is never going to happen in Amerika unless the system totally collapses under its own weight or because of forces and disasters imposed from outside over which it has no control.  Unfortunately, as current trends illustrate, even then the radical change will be toward a Hobbesian state of a “war of all against all” in which “life is nasty, brutish, and short.”  Even then, politics will be no more than a circulation of elites in which the established elites will work to insure that they stay in power and on top, although they will have to be constantly on their guard against revolutions that bring a new set of competing elites into power with a new set of policies to support and serve their vested interests and survival.
From: E. Wayne Johnson 
Sent: September 05, 2012 8:09 PM
To: LAURIE 
Cc: Stan Waggoner ; peace-discuss 
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] Finkelstein on Ghandi

Perhaps many tire of hearing this from me, but I still accept the idea that there
will be absolutely no remission of sin without bloodshed.  The Sins of the American people
and their government (of course it's your government, you put them in office and have sustained them)
will be at some future day called to account.  A day of reckoning, if you will, if you prefer or disdain
such a turn of phrase.  Call it Karma or Mount Carmel.  Quanbu jiushi yiyang.  
It's all the same thing, sez Gomer Pyle.

The blood that Obama and his minions are shedding abroad for your hearts is not an 
acceptable sacrifice.  You can't scapegoat the Arabs and Afghans, or persecute the Persians and the Pashtuns for your sins.
It just won't work, and you can raise Cain about it how unfair it is for your veggies but that blood will cry out from the
ground that something just ain't right.

As I see it right now there are only two possible ways forward.  

One is for the good people to rise up and slay the prophets of Obamney
and feed the lovely and delightful Killary to the dogs.

It is unlikely that the pepper-scented cowards of Amerika
will rise up and bite their masters.   Many think that whole notion of a violent overthrow is
nauseating if not just plain undesirable, and would even defend the rights of their masters to keep
them under bondage.

The other way is to "invite in" an invading "military force" to do the "killing".  Actually this is far more
likely and seems to be the mode for correcting an empire in decline.  Since the people are unable/unwilling
to sharpen and put in effect their own razor, a hired one will come in to do the shaving on a contractual
basis so to speak.  Joel's army seems to be equipped with some cool pyrotechnical "entertainment".

As some miscreant whose name i dont recall wrote about the manifest destiny without apologies to Pat, 
the huns will slip up behind the sleeping amerikans and hit them over the back of the head with a sock full of shit.

*
I return you to your vital discussions of the importance of honouring the desire of those delicate ones on
the "peace" list  to keep their eyes well shuttered (lettuce dye a pace in pace).

*****
....Ok.... the guy's name is John Strausbaugh, the book is "Sissy Nation" and here is an excerpt:

"....unless we stop acting like such sissies, 
soon enough some lean, angry barbarians from somewhere out Beyond Fundadome 
are going to overrun us, ramming their bayonets in our lard guts 
like fingers poking the Pillsbury Doughboy, only we won't be giggling.”

***
Well, Raggedy-man.  Ain't we a pair.

On 9/6/2012 7:38 AM, LAURIE wrote: 
  Ok, I only got two copies of this message instead of the 8 copies I got the last time (but I will give it time to see if the other 6 copies show up).  I realize that this problem may not be an issue that stems from your end (but in some cases it could be if one cc’s other forums and groups as well as the various individuals that the post is replying to).

  Second, I agree with you that the Democratic Party is first and foremost an establishment party just like the Republican Party ( they are both bought and sold by the establishment which is made up of both public and private bureaucracies in public and private organizations and business enterprises who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo or the illusion of the status quo, fantasies and myths about the “good old days,”the virtues of hard work and self-made people, and notions of equity (if not equality) in which everyone gets what they earn and deserve through honest free competition and markets, etc.  The so-called left-wing progressives in the Democratic Party resemble moderate Eisenhower Republicans and those Democrats that call themselves centralists look and ac t more like Goodwater Conservatives.  This makes the Democratic Party resemble the Reagan Republican Party as you suggest.

  However, while your statement may have been intended as tongue-in-cheek; there are many who do hold the optimistic (if not utopian) view that a perfect or near-perfect third party can be established and that it will not be coopted by the practical realities of our political process and out society so as to become a substitute for or replacement of the current establishment political parties or just a new addition political party of the same type as the existing ones. This almost as pervasive as the optimistic myth that “the American People” or a large majority of the “99%” actually want and support what the “liberals” and “progressive” activists say that they do and who they claim to represent.  If this were the case, even with extensive mass media propaganda and big budget expenditures of the corporate establishment and the 1%, of the “American People” and/or the majority of the  “99%” would not be electing time after time and election after election the people that they do for public office.  They would not be continually fooled into believing the media, the politicians, corporate establishment or any of their generalized and content-free promises. Similarly, I think that notions of working from the inside of any organization is not only a fool’s errand but overly optimistic.  Minor peripheral reforms might be possible; but major systemic changes are not.  They typically come from outside the organization.  In the case of such animals as the political parties, their members constitute a captured audience in that they have no options but to belong to, support, and participate in the party organizations that they identify with and belong to.  They operate under the premise that their party of choice is the lesser of two evils and better to have your evil people in power than the other party’s people.  Thus, if they become dissatisfied, they do not leave their party and join the other one – except in the rarest of cases.  Instead,, they are more likely to either drop out of the party and become cynical and apathetic or drop out of involvement with the political process totally in favor of going along silently with what ever happens in order to get along with the least practical immediate trouble to themselves and their family and friends.  

  From: Stan Waggoner 
  Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2012 5:41 PM
  To: Laurie Solomon 
  Cc: peace-discuss 
  Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] Finkelstein on Ghandi

  First, I apologize for any duplicate emails you may have received. I promise I only hit send once. Gremlins I guess.
  Second, my post was intended to be a little tongue in cheek. Building a third party at this juncture of corporate spending on elections is, I think, a fools mission. Therefore, the only choice that makes any sense to me is to move the Democratic Party further left, as the Republican party has been moved to the right by the corporations. 
  The Democratic Party of today looks more like the Republican Party of Reagan than I would like.
  Stan

  From: Laurie Solomon mailto:ls1000 at live.com
  To: Stan Waggoner mailto:swag901 at ymail.com 
  Cc: peace-discuss mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net 
  Sent: Wednesday, September 5, 2012 1:57 PM
  Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] Finkelstein on Ghandi

  I really do not want to get involved in this discussion; but something (besides the fact that I received 8 duplicate posts of the same message from Stan) has triggered my response mechanism.  I have two questions to ask:  
  First, I think the statement (“We can defeat them tomorrow by spending our time trying to build a perfect third party today”) is overly optimistic in many sense of the term. 1) What evidence do you have that a third party will result in defeating anyone in the future – much less bring about real policy changes? 2) When has there ever been a “perfect” third party; and what make you think that perfection is achievable – never mind any goal of absolute perfection and settling for partial perfection at a level significantly greater than has ever existed?

  Secondly, since many of the Democratic faithful would never vote Republican under any circumstances and see “bad” Democratic politicians and officials as being the lesser of two evils, how do you propose the threat to vote Republican or even third party to be taken seriously as a real threat by the likes of Feinstein, Emmanuel, or any other Democratic politician or official?  I remember how Democrats complained about how votes for third party candidate, Ralph Nader, cost the Democrats a Presidential election and gave it to the Republicans.  Given this sort of response to acting upon one’s threat to not vote for someone from the Democratic Party, such threats become meaningless.

  From: Stan Waggoner 
  Sent: September 04, 2012 9:37 PM
  To: David Green 
  Cc: peace-discuss at anti-war.net ; occupycu at lists.chambana.net 
  Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] Finkelstein on Ghandi

  There is more of us than them.  

  Building one from scratch means getting some from them, and some from us, dividing both parties, and creating a third.  

  In 1856 when the Whig party was already dieing that was doable.  

  The easiest way now is to move the Democratic Party further to the left.  We do it a step at a time, not moving mountains a Boulder at a time.

  One final thought.  Both Dianne Feinstein and Rahm Emmanuel want to get re-elected.  Without us they can not.  They need to know that.  We may be able to defeat them today by voting Republican.  We can defeat them tomorrow by spending our time trying to build a perfect third party today.

  Stan

  From: David Green mailto:davegreen84 at yahoo.com
  To: Stan Waggoner mailto:swag901 at ymail.com 
  Cc: mailto:peace-discuss at anti-war.net mailto:peace-discuss at anti-war.net; mailto:occupycu at lists.chambana.net mailto:occupycu at lists.chambana.net 
  Sent: Tuesday, September 4, 2012 8:22 PM
  Subject: Re: [OccupyCU] Finkelstein on Ghandi

  If you bother to "take over" the party, then why not just build one from scratch, or take over one that is not being used. You're talking the party of Dianne Feinstein and Rahm Emmanuel.

    From: Stan Waggoner mailto:swag901 at ymail.com
    To: David Green mailto:davegreen84 at yahoo.com; mailto:peace-discuss at anti-war.net mailto:peace-discuss at anti-war.net; mailto:occupycu at lists.chambana.net mailto:occupycu at lists.chambana.net 
    Sent: Tuesday, September 4, 2012 8:16 PM
    Subject: Re: [OccupyCU] Finkelstein on Ghandi

    Ok, so those of us on the left should throw away the organizations that have gotten the Democratic party where it is, and start building a "perfect" Democratic Party.  HooHaa.  

    In the time it takes to do that, there will be nothing left for the "perfect" Democratic Party to govern.  

    We need to go to the Democratic Party meetings each month, we need to call in to the Penny For Your Thoughts show on WDWS, we need to talk to each person we see, and tell them the truth.  Anything less, anything other (third party), only lets the extreme right (Republican Party) destroy our country.

    We need to re-take the Democratic Party for the benefit of the PEOPLE not the party.

    Stan
    AKA Reasonable Man Stan
    WDWS

    From: David Green mailto:davegreen84 at yahoo.com
    To: mailto:peace-discuss at anti-war.net mailto:peace-discuss at anti-war.net; mailto:occupycu at lists.chambana.net mailto:occupycu at lists.chambana.net 
    Sent: Tuesday, September 4, 2012 9:03 AM
    Subject: [OccupyCU] Finkelstein on Ghandi

    http://www.zcommunications.org/gandhi-and-occupy-by-norman-finkelstein

    There is a lot to be learned from Finkelstein's study of Gandhi that is relevant to tactics being discussed on various local lists. Notice that elections and voting in our two party system are (tellingly) not even mentioned. Neither party is mentioned. In my opinion, Republicans promote the neoliberal agenda by proposing extreme measures. Democrats promote the neoliberal agenda by proposing compromises with Republicans. This has been a collective effort for goals that rulers of both parties support. It's worked pretty well for 36 years, since the campaign of 1976 when Carter was elected.

    There are worthy goals of equality and recognition regarding race, gender, sexual orientation, immigrants, etc. still to be achieved, obviously. Unfortunately, these goals are by and large co-opted as a part of Democratic Party tactics to win votes for their ultimately neoliberal agenda, which ultimately converts genuine grievances into identity politics. That is why, even given an understanding of the historical struggle for voting rights for African-Americans, I'm left cold by all the attention being devoted to voting rights by the progressive media. Of course there are legitimate ongoing grievances and Republican outrages; but ultimately an emphasis on "working within the system" is only to the advantage of the domianant in a system based on domination.

    And don't forget that both parties will try to run to the "right" of each other regarding foreign policy, especially Israel; ain't nobody gonna get my Jewish vote.

    David Green

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