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Reform or Revolution?

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daryl:
http://www.newenglandpost.com/2011/10/26/occupy-protesters-clash-police-2-major-cities-50-arrested-atlanta-100-arrested-oakland/

joebialek:
excellent points?

RickTNRebel:
I just think that we are headed for a new progressive era, but one unlike anything seen before. I no longer worry about some fascist like Hitler being able to convince EVERYONE on facebook and twitter to join his cause! I think the whole world as moving towards direct democracy and I can see a day when "washington" will be in cyberspace. No longer will there be a "central" anything. Consolidation is the problem...distribution is the solution.

Citizen Zed:
Fight to stay in the question. Sometimes that's harder and more fruitful than answering it either too quickly or with the wrong attitude.

“As the son of Resource and Poverty, this is Love’s plight: First, he’s always a pauper, and far from being gentle and fair, as the crowd imagines, he’s stiff and rough, shoeless and homeless, forever living in squalor and sleeping without a bed - outdoors on the ground - in streets or on doorsteps.Like his father, however, Love is a schemer after the beautiful and the good, an intrepid hunter full of courage, boldness, and endurance. He’s forever hatching plots, and since he’s resourceful and hungry for phronesis, he’s a confirmed philosopher and, a sorcerer and a brewer of potions, and a skilled sophist. By nature he’s neither mortal nor immortal, but when things go well for him, he’ll come to life and flourish in a day, then die, then revive again… But what his resourcefulness contrives always slips away from him, and he’s never rich nor poor for long because he’s in the middle, between wisdom and ignorance.”
-    Diotima, via Socrates in Plato’s Symposium, 203c-e

wduzak:
Just two quick points:
First, the situation in the US cannot be understood unless seen in the world context.What we can do here is limited by factors like China, India, Russia and Brazil. The US has never faced competition like this and we are the world's largest debtor nation. Just because we can imagine a solution doesn't mean we can apply it.
As Marx said, humans make their history but not as they please and not under the circumstance they choose
Second : Violent revolution. The concern expressed here about violence turns the world on its head. Robbery might turn "violent" if you resist. Self-defense against rape can incorrectly be viewed as a "violent response."
Most revolutions are peaceful. Take the American revolution which for all intents and purposes was peaceful until the English tried to reestablish their control.
Ruling classes use violence to keep their power but it is wrong-headed to suggest that peaceful efforts to change things become violent. It is a bit like the media constantly portraying Occupy efforts "turning violent" ("Occupy Oakland demonstrations turned violent today.....")when the police attack them.
It is important to place the blame for violence where it belong and not on its victims. It is also wrong to believe that if you are not prepared to roll up in a ball and let someone kick the crap out of you that you are violent.
I don't want any movement to prove the old adage true: that they could not be crushed because they lie to flat under foot. Do you really think you can morally condemn Polish Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto for fighting the German Fascists.?
Agree or disagree, Occupy Nashville desperately needs to have extensive, democratic  discussions about issues like this

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