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Disclaimer... I'm not a studied Marxist, or even anything much more than a dilettante bourgeois call center operator living in a small Central Américan country... But I spend my weekends in my shack, connected to Facebook, skimming around on various discussions putting in my two cents for anti-imperialism, trying to share my apparently ample grasp of history (my folks were labor organizers in the 40s and 50s, and my Pop was of Irish descent, with strong Fenian pedigree...). I was raised a Quaker... etc. Anyway, what I'm wondering is this. Today I was part of a discussion that started up around a new "movement" called "the Republic for the united States of America" [ http://www.republicoftheunitedstates.org/] (Here's the discussion if anyone wants to look: [ http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=187982114546930&id=656631505¬if_t=feed_comment_reply#!/photo.php?fbid=10150116826770659&set=a.201159510658.170969.652900658 ] As is my custom, I was not being too critical, although I could clearly see the Militia/Bircher/Freeman/International Protocols/Federal Reserve colors flying from a mile away. What interested me was the sincerity of the participants, and their understanding that they are getting lied too, screwed, exploited and hung out to dry by an oligarchy that they have no trust in nor desire to support with their paycheck or to die for. At some point, someone asked me to "look at the platform" so I did: "The 12 Visions Party" [http://tvpnc.org/] I just about gagged, but I had to give them credit: they have a platform, if you don't know the difference between a platform and a trap-door. I then started looking around for a website that I could read, composed and as clear as this piece of libertarian capitalist drivel, but which outlined something at least Socialist, maybe even Anarchist.. anything, as long as it was a clear and easy to read PROGRAM for governance from a "left" perspective. I went from page to page and learned a lot about Platformism and the DSA, the Waffle Plan and many other variants and historic tangents... but still... I can't seem to find one single page that says something like: We are the _________ Party. Elect us and we will: 1.) 2.) 3.) (etc.) I found PLENTY of why the capitalist system sucks, who the bad guys are, about why my crowd is so much more authenticly left than any other crowd, the brave and heroic struggles of brilliant theorists in faraway times and places... But nothing even remotely digestable by a United Statesian gal or guy living in 2011, who drives a car s/he can't finish paying for and lives in a house s/he can't finish paying for and has either lost her/his job or knows s/he's next, can't figure out why the US is still in Afghanistan and Iraq and Yemen and God knows where else... except to just hold her/his nose and accept that the "terrorists" are under every bed and... etc. I know that I am talking about the detested and easy to disregard "middle class." As I said, I think I am one of them, at least, I am white and always had lunch money. Remember... these people are ALLERGIC to hammers and sickles, to 10,000 page exhaustive comparitive analyses of Hegel and Kant and Kirkegaard and Bakunin and Lenin and Mao... I think it's fair to say also that most of these people need to see something that just cuts to the chase. They don't want to know about the origin of private property, they need to know, how are you going to get things in shape so that I can stop worrying about getting evicted, blown up and/or rounded up by whoever, be it Talibans or Black Helicopters? To the point... can anyone here point me to what I am looking for? I don't want it to be perfect. I don't even care if I agree with it all... but I think it is a real pain that the Birch Society has this nailed and we don't. Correct me if I'm wrong!!! thanks, t -- "TO STEP OUTSIDE OF PATRIARCHAL THOUGHT MEANS: Being skeptical toward every known system of thought; being critical of all assumptions, ordering values and definitions. Testing one's statement by trusting our own, the female experience. Since such experience has usually been trivialized or ignored, it means overcoming the deep-seated resistance within ourselves toward accepting ourselves and our knowledge as valid. It means getting rid of the great men in our heads and substituting for them ourselves, our sisters, our anonymous foremothers." -- Gerda Lerner, 'The Creation of Patriarchy', 1986 [ http://faculty.mdc.edu/jmcnair/Joe10pages/the_creation_of_the%20Patriarchy.htm ] "ANDAR A FUERA DEL PENSAMIENTO PATRIARCHAL SIGNIFICA: Siendo escéptico al respeto de cada sistema de pensamiento conocido; siendo crítico al todos de los supuestos; ordenar los valores y los definiciones. Probando los declaraciones por medio de la confianza en nuestro propio experiencia, lo de la mujer. Por razón de que típicamente dicho experiencia ha sido trivializado y ignorada, esta significa superar la resistencia tan profundo por nuestro dentro y al contrario, aceptar la sabiduría nuestra como válido. Significa que quitándonos de los hombres grandes en nuestras cabezas y en sus lugar, sustituir nuestro mismo, nuestros hermanas y nuestros abuelas anónimas." -- Gerda Lerner, 'La Creación del Patriarquismo', 1986 [ http://faculty.mdc.edu/jmcnair/Joe10pages/the_creation_of_the%20Patriarchy.htm ] ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
