This will be a short diary, because hopefully most of the action will take place in the comments. I'm asking that you take yourself back to when you were four years old and relive that period in your life when the most frequent question was, "Why?" But in a slightly more complex way than, "Why are you leaving? Why do you gotta go to the store?
I'm asking that we all - pragmatists, idealists, Obamabots, purity trolls, rich, poor, white, black, Hispanic, Jewish, Christian, Athiest, WHATEVER - talk about not how we think of politics but why we think of politics that way. I'm asking for an honest discussion, one where we're not trying to convince anyone, we're just trying to talk to each other and understand each other. Every other diary can be the place for vindictive speech and flame wars if you want it that way, but here let's try to understand why we disagree.
Some disagreements may be obvious, of course. I may favor more dramatic societal and governmental change than some people and less than others. I may not like a certain policy while some people do.
Those obvious distinctions are not why I'm writing this. I want to dig a bit deeper than that. Why do you favor one policy over another? Why do you favor one strategy over another? How did you arrive at those conclusions? Is it because of your personal life? Is it because of things you have read or done? WHY?
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I guess it would be good if I started with a bit about myself. Although I'm not a socialist or revolutionary in any way, I think I would be considered very radical.
In my life I have frequently seen the best in people and I'm lucky enough to live comfortably. Because of the former, I believe that most people have the potential to be good. Because of the latter, I believe that everyone should have their basic needs provided for and be able to have as many opportunities for success as I do.
For some reason, I tend to identify more with radicals throughout history and in politics than with moderate leaders. Perhaps it's because I believe, like that great radical Emma Goldman,
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another, This conception is a potent menace to social regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical.
Why do I agree with that rather than with a more Machiavellian view of things? Why do I identify with radicals as much as I do? And how much does that affect what I believe? These are questions which I am answering myself, and that I wish I could answer for you. Perhaps this is where some progressives and I depart in our thinking, although we won't know unless you comment!
And speaking of radicals, Howard Zinn has been influencing my thinking a lot lately. I am in the middle of reading his most famous work, A People's History of the United States. A great deal of the message of that book, which I really agree with, is that direct political action is essential to democracy and affecting change. In terms of strategy, I have been focusing my thoughts and energy less on elections lately and more on movements. My thinking is that no matter who is in government, if they are forced to do something by a movement, they will do it.
In 1976, Zinn wrote:
- the multiple choice test is here again. Sure, there are better candidates and worse. But we will go a long way from spectator democracy to real democracy when we understand that the future of this country doesn't depend, mainly, on who is our next President. It depends on whether the American citizen, fed up with high taxes, high prices, unemployment, waste, war and corruption, will organize all over the country a clamor for change even greater than the labor uprisings of the '30s or the black rebellion of the '60s and shake this country out of old paths into new ones.
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So now it's your turn. What do you think, and more importantly, why?