tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839388967366587817.comments2008-11-07T01:50:23.338-08:00Despite LogicDespite Logichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11766639948182590005noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839388967366587817.post-15762643045590773352008-11-07T01:50:00.000-08:002008-11-07T01:50:00.000-08:00Individuals now have more power of information tha...Individuals now have more power of information than ever. So they do not need the same forms of political representation they did when they lived two days trainride from delivering a petition to anyone who could make a difference.<BR/><BR/>They don't need the same form of delegated politician, they need more access to the decision-making process itself.<BR/>We now have the technology to restore an element of the community camp-fire to politics. And if that technology can put the first black man in the White House, it can surely help restore the balance in favour of those deserving community interests hitherto out-priced and out-lobbied from power by vast commercial interests.<BR/><BR/>America is going to face a deep ideological choice quite soon between the politics of the last 200 years, and a politics which can see us through the next 200 years. Whatever that might be, if we're lucky, there will be a degree of conflict. The trick will be to be seen to be explaining the impracticability of continuing the past, rather than accusing its disciples of sabotaging the human race.<BR/>There is still room for the expression of enough self-interest to satisfy most of the political spectrum.<BR/>The rest will go and live in the woods where they should have been all along.<BR/>As the socialist George Orwell said:<BR/>"I suggest that the real objective of Socialism is not happiness. Happiness hitherto has been a by-product, and for all we know it may always remain so. The real objective of Socialism is human brotherhood. This is widely felt to be the case, though it is not usually said, or not said loudly enough. Men use up their lives in heart-breaking political struggles, or get themselves killed in civil wars, or tortured in the secret prisons of the Gestapo, not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another. And they want that world as a first step. Where they go from there is not so certain, and the attempt to foresee it in detail merely confuses the issue."<BR/>http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/socialists/english/e_fun<BR/><BR/>LRJ<BR/>http://littlerichardjohn.blogspot.com/biginaboxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11707997679359900326noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839388967366587817.post-48195957774752866982008-11-06T17:56:00.000-08:002008-11-06T17:56:00.000-08:00Saw your comment at Inside Iraq and came for a vi...Saw your comment at Inside Iraq and came for a visit. I like your blog very much. Also appreciated your thoughtful comment at II. Best to you,<BR/><BR/>L.Santa Rosa New School Aikidohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08712905471783068659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839388967366587817.post-61880630243535057912008-11-06T16:10:00.000-08:002008-11-06T16:10:00.000-08:00Thanks for leaving a comment at MPS so that I coul...Thanks for leaving a comment at <A HREF="http://www.mockpaperscissors.com/" REL="nofollow">MPS</A> so that I could follow and find your blog.<BR/><BR/>Nice place you got here!<BR/><BR/>Regards,<BR/><BR/>TengrainTengrainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00171857054812345617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839388967366587817.post-92009017754271835582008-11-06T08:44:00.000-08:002008-11-06T08:44:00.000-08:00I like your use of "un-leverage". No, no one did m...I like your use of "un-leverage". No, no one did mention Bush's attributes. I find that those who tend to heap racial bias on others are rarely aware of their own shortcomings and even if in a moment of clarity were to acknowledge their own, they are quick to dismiss any culpability by saying "That's different!"<BR/><BR/>I think that is incumbent upon those of us who can see past differences or at least "try" and place ourselves in another’s shoes maintain the wave of unity that we have been graced to ride.Despite Logichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11766639948182590005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4839388967366587817.post-22248882483420746862008-11-06T01:57:00.000-08:002008-11-06T01:57:00.000-08:00"I was witness to more than one conversation today..."I was witness to more than one conversation today and in recent months of the ethics of African Americans voting for President Elect Obama solely based on the color of his skin"<BR/><BR/>The malicious, nitpicking cleverness of this quibble doesn't do justice to the American ideal. Race has been politicised in America for a long time, and has been used to lever vast amounts of privilege into American society. If it is now used to 'unleverage' some of that debt, that is merely a small historical payback from the political bank.<BR/><BR/>By the way, did anyone complain that people had voted for George Bush because of his idiocy, or for Kennedy because of his looks?<BR/><BR/>http://littlerichardjohn.blogspot.com/biginaboxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11707997679359900326noreply@blogger.com