Alex Jones ‘reported’ on the encroaching police state several years ago (Prison Planet) How about now ? Are folk on the left similarly inconsistent?
Ineffectual liberal outrage at bigotry results from not attending to the class issues that feed it ? I thought of this regarding the Columbus United Facebook posts, regarding the election of Donald Trump.
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” My problem with ‘activism’ is because it is largely NOT “action” except for fist shaking and telling some other group of people that they are wrong,” >>>>>{{{{Yeah, that’s my challenge too right now, Jay White. It should be connected with actually doing something . But you and I clearly don’t agree on many points related to ‘activism’. That’s fine. But I’ll say that there are two categories of collective action for exercising grassroots power : (1) resistance and (2) creating alternative systems. —-Much of what you say seems to lean toward (2). But, again, it’s both/and not either/or. —-Unlike you, Jay, I don’t have a problem with marches, fist shaking, strikes, sit-ins, occupations, and so on. —-But they got to be well organized.—-Right now, there is not much organization. —-I’m not claiming to be the one to lead people to that level of organization. —–But my honest opinion is that many of us are not clear on what we want, how to get it, or even who ‘we’ is comprised of.——For me, so far, I’ve found the most meaning in (2)helping to create alternative systems.>>>>>}}}}}} ——“It’s not about ONLY worrying about oneself like without empathy or whatever…it’s more so of a REALIZATION that you cannot control another’s thinking or morality..ONLY YOUR OWN.” {{{{{{>>>>>> Important point, but I don’t see how I’ve acted against that, at least not anymore than the next person. Whichever, that point reminds me of a peer, Michael Tawd who worked with CPT as a human rights observer in Columbia a couple of years ago. He said he and fellow observers were there because the indigenous people asked for them to come there and help as they fight to keep from being kicked off their land. —-At least as Tawd tells it, he and the other human rights observers didn’t assume they knew what was best. —–The point about not being able to control what others think and do, when applied, makes ‘activism’ effective. It doesn’t invalidate it, man. ——-Genuine solidarity whereby people reach out to one another in defiance of racial, class, nationality and other social barriers must involve the sort of mutuality where we aren’t trying to control what someone else thinks or does.>>>>>}}}}} “Always wondering I am if it is the case of whether or not we – humans in particular – fell off somewhere from our “glorified bodies” (glorified, for lack of better term) and now we have to kill stuff to eat, or blanket ourselves with the skin of another animal, or take bees from honey that THEY worked to produce and is their food, or take the things that aid in the reproduction of plantlife to eat so we can continue to live…that doesn’t make sense to me.” >>>:) {{{{{{Yeah, we got kicked out of the Garden of Eden, remember ? Ha, there it is, that ‘fall-from-grace’ idea that pops up again and again in many forms of mythology. —We seem unable to get it out of our psyches. Even deep-ecology has a version of it : anarcho-primitivism, a belief which holds that humans strayed by way of civilization and that our salvation depends on our return to our pure state of being ‘primitive.’ But there’s just one problem getting in the way of our anarcho-primitivist salvation : the prefrontal cortex That’s not intended as disparagement of ‘primitive’ peoples, because under the requisite environmental conditions they too would form more complex societies (because, of course, they have prefrontal cortexes) ——Well, anyway, one formulation for ethics is that it’s ok to cause harm when there is no viable alternative way to meet our needs (as distinguished from our wants (a pair of shoes to keep our feet from frost bite vs 50 pairs of shoes). —–That’s my rationale as a vegan. In some cases I might have to harm an animal to survive. —–But, so far within this US North American cornucopia of food options, there is rarely justification for supporting those industries.}}}}>>>> “I mean any eating or even needing any shelter at all, or anything that causes disruption in the life process/cycle of something else” >>>>>>{{{{{{{Again, we either accept the harm we do when there is genuinely no viable alternative, or we deliberately off ourselves, individually or somehow as an entire species. —-That would be misanthropy to the nth degree. A small minority of eco-minded folk think that way due to what our species is doing to the web of life on Earth. —-But I don’t share that view, though I think humans could be doing a lot more to live in harmony with other life forms, as well as with fellow humans. Hence, movements such as veganism, organic farming and permaculture, have a role to play.>>>>}}}}}} “Are your atheistic views supported by evidence or some observable, reproducable scientific fact?” >>>>.Atheism is not a belief system ,thru which one makes a positive claim, requiring proof. —-As far as I’m concerned, it’s a matter of applying skepticism, and then believing in proportion to whatever evidence there is. —–Atheism does not necessarily go together with the theory of evolution thru natural selection, though some scientists in that field are atheist, and though many people necessarily assume evolutionary biology to be antithetical to religion.—–But as a positive claim, the theory of evolution thru natural selection is subject to being considered according to the evidence. —-From what I’ve read, it’s the best explanation so far for the origin of life on Earth, and some scientists claim that some aspects of the field of genetics wouldn’t work to the extent that they do, were it not for the soundness of the theory of evolution thru natural selection. ——But when it comes to atheism, requiring evidence for the existence of a deity is not on the same philosophical footing as requiring evidence for the nonexistence of a deity. —–What is the evidence for the nonexistence of the spaghetti monster ? Hey, anything is possible But If you follow the anything-is-possible line of reasoning, you see where it leads. Its leads to human beings having no way for having any reasonable sense of what we know and don’t know. —–Sure, it’s possible that we can know nothing about the universe. But it seems a fairly strong case that humans have at least a working knowledge of the physical laws of nature. If we didn’t, technology wouldn’t work as predictably as it does, nor would other aspects of modern society that involve social science.—-I find fault with at least one atheist, Sam Harris, who seems to arrogant in some of his views. He writes in his book Letter to a Christian Nation that “the vast majority of Muslims are utterly deranged by their religious faith.”—–But one of the good points he argues is that many people use religion as an arbitrary barrier when it comes to applying skepticism and the search for evidence regarding the origins of life.
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