stuff
Activism class is pretty awesome. There was a documentary about what is going on in Haiti today. One of the speakers pulled the racism card, said it was the reason why the western powers were more or less forcing Haitians to live in abject poverty and work in sweatshops, etc, topling their government even when the vast, overwhelming majority all want certain changes, like the increase of minimum wage from 33cents to a dollar, education and other infracstructure, the abolishment of a military which has never had to defend the country from outside threats, is trained in places like fort bragg, Texas, helped foreign forces in the coup d'etats etc and were basically put in place to 'gun down the populace' for the rich elites who also live there, in walled communities.
Someone argued that it's not about race; people mentioned gender discrimination, as well as black africans oppressing other black africans in some cases.
It was kind of heated for a bit there; one speaker who was Haitian was quite passionate about the cause. Eventually I got to make my point, although I'm not sure if anyone really got my meaning...
It was that... greed is the source of the problem... and discrimination and racism is a tool...
I guess fear and mis/lack of understanding may be another reason...
The use of discrimination is fairly straightforward in its effect and usage, in some respects, I think; it dehumanizes or creates 'borders' and boundaries with which to separate and isolate various groups... simplified rules for picking sides, as it were ... and acts as a justification, a rationalization, of why... some people should 'deserve' more than others... I never said this there actually, just as far as greed=source, discrimination=tool/ means to end but um
Anyways, this goes into some of why, perhaps, capitalism is inherently flawed, idealogically at least, and communism is in fact 'better': the premise behind capitalism infers, that some people are 'better' than some others, and therefore deserve to have more, whereas others are 'worse', and deserve to have 'less' - in communism, the idea was that the community as a whole was a commodity to be shared, that everyone should be valued, able to work and contribute, and have their basic needs met, -that people are, in fact... equally deserving of what the world has to offer.
There is some logic to giving more to those who make better use of things, however when this does not take well into account how one acquires such wealth, ie the costs or shortcuts taken, it creates a centralizing, aggregating effect on corruption and the associated power feeding it... in effect it rewards people for being cutthroat and ruthless, and promotes this 'anti-social' behaviour; well, antisocial in asmuch as the greater good and public are harmed; there is a clannishness, gang-like sort of grouping effect where like seems to associate with like, even where they may at times be in conflict. Or so things appear from my perspective.
An advantage of anarchism-styled groups is a decentralization of power, whereby without a rigid hierarchy, neither a great deal of power, nor corruption (and their inter-related cycles of feeding each other) becomes firmly estacblished, I think; it may be more difficult to mobilize the will to do something en-masse, but such mobilizations that do occur are far more likely the need and desire of the group at large, and not a few elements hijacking the agenda for the whole...
It also occurs to me, that, in order to be able to... how did Donella Meadows put it - 'the element with the most independence is the element which controls the outcome of the system'
-if you have your primary needs met regardless of whether you 'obey the system' or not, you can more easily disobey the system, and create new possibilities and avenues, make choices for yourself, that will affect the overall outcome... air, water, food ... maslow's hierarchy of needs ... anyways, to truly oppose systems of control, you need to wean yourself off of dependence on them... which is where it started to become more ... enticing to improve survival skills and the basic knowledge of how to live on like nothing, macguyver materials at hand to do what you need, so you can 'opt out' of being party to somebody else's crusade/inquisition... with enough people refusing to budge, without anyone really lifting a finger, such efforts should grind to a halt, lose their momentum, and thereby leave room for alternatives to take precedence...
But if people knew they would lose a great deal of their wealth and 'convenience' in exchange for saving these peoples' lives, and allowing them escape from their misery, would even most regular folk do it? Really? And either way, why? What has our culture, family, schools, education, media, been teaching us (ie how do they affect what decision we would make), and why? Joseph Conrad's book Lord Jim is about a very 'noble' man who... well, he thinks he's noble, until put to the test, then realizes his cowardice... are we like that? Believing we would give up things for the greater good, to save suffering for people, even tho, in the end, we would fight for it tooth and nail like crashing crack addicts?
In truth, I don't know.
Here's a little story.
Sid makes a cake for his friends and himself; he shares it with them, but one friend doesn't think his portion is enough, and wants the portion Sid set aside for himself, too... Sid says to his other friends that he won't make more cake and share it if he can't have any, so Joe doesn't get any at all. Then Sid does this all the time to Joe, using the leverage of cake with friends to try and make people not let Joe eat... now all Sid's friends think he's an asshole, Joe probably learned his lesson, just want to eat, but is getting desperate because he's starving ... I'm not thinking clearly right now... ach anyways, the point is, sometimes people are envious and take from those who worked for it; and sometimes people are greedy with what they have, and don't share; but neither way is absolutely right... and both of them need to learn to give a little, and maybe get past their resentment and history...
The extra complication is, tho, when the friends get so used to the squabble, so 'entrenched in the system', that now Sid and Joe can't make up... all sid's friends get more cake, because of the feud... so instead of working to solve things, they work against it, or don't even realize how they've become locked into certain behaviours... and so, instead of a turning point and happy ending for Sid and Joe, conflict arises, and... who knows...
m_G
tired. maybe more when i can think better.
Someone argued that it's not about race; people mentioned gender discrimination, as well as black africans oppressing other black africans in some cases.
It was kind of heated for a bit there; one speaker who was Haitian was quite passionate about the cause. Eventually I got to make my point, although I'm not sure if anyone really got my meaning...
It was that... greed is the source of the problem... and discrimination and racism is a tool...
I guess fear and mis/lack of understanding may be another reason...
The use of discrimination is fairly straightforward in its effect and usage, in some respects, I think; it dehumanizes or creates 'borders' and boundaries with which to separate and isolate various groups... simplified rules for picking sides, as it were ... and acts as a justification, a rationalization, of why... some people should 'deserve' more than others... I never said this there actually, just as far as greed=source, discrimination=tool/ means to end but um
Anyways, this goes into some of why, perhaps, capitalism is inherently flawed, idealogically at least, and communism is in fact 'better': the premise behind capitalism infers, that some people are 'better' than some others, and therefore deserve to have more, whereas others are 'worse', and deserve to have 'less' - in communism, the idea was that the community as a whole was a commodity to be shared, that everyone should be valued, able to work and contribute, and have their basic needs met, -that people are, in fact... equally deserving of what the world has to offer.
There is some logic to giving more to those who make better use of things, however when this does not take well into account how one acquires such wealth, ie the costs or shortcuts taken, it creates a centralizing, aggregating effect on corruption and the associated power feeding it... in effect it rewards people for being cutthroat and ruthless, and promotes this 'anti-social' behaviour; well, antisocial in asmuch as the greater good and public are harmed; there is a clannishness, gang-like sort of grouping effect where like seems to associate with like, even where they may at times be in conflict. Or so things appear from my perspective.
An advantage of anarchism-styled groups is a decentralization of power, whereby without a rigid hierarchy, neither a great deal of power, nor corruption (and their inter-related cycles of feeding each other) becomes firmly estacblished, I think; it may be more difficult to mobilize the will to do something en-masse, but such mobilizations that do occur are far more likely the need and desire of the group at large, and not a few elements hijacking the agenda for the whole...
It also occurs to me, that, in order to be able to... how did Donella Meadows put it - 'the element with the most independence is the element which controls the outcome of the system'
-if you have your primary needs met regardless of whether you 'obey the system' or not, you can more easily disobey the system, and create new possibilities and avenues, make choices for yourself, that will affect the overall outcome... air, water, food ... maslow's hierarchy of needs ... anyways, to truly oppose systems of control, you need to wean yourself off of dependence on them... which is where it started to become more ... enticing to improve survival skills and the basic knowledge of how to live on like nothing, macguyver materials at hand to do what you need, so you can 'opt out' of being party to somebody else's crusade/inquisition... with enough people refusing to budge, without anyone really lifting a finger, such efforts should grind to a halt, lose their momentum, and thereby leave room for alternatives to take precedence...
But if people knew they would lose a great deal of their wealth and 'convenience' in exchange for saving these peoples' lives, and allowing them escape from their misery, would even most regular folk do it? Really? And either way, why? What has our culture, family, schools, education, media, been teaching us (ie how do they affect what decision we would make), and why? Joseph Conrad's book Lord Jim is about a very 'noble' man who... well, he thinks he's noble, until put to the test, then realizes his cowardice... are we like that? Believing we would give up things for the greater good, to save suffering for people, even tho, in the end, we would fight for it tooth and nail like crashing crack addicts?
In truth, I don't know.
Here's a little story.
Sid makes a cake for his friends and himself; he shares it with them, but one friend doesn't think his portion is enough, and wants the portion Sid set aside for himself, too... Sid says to his other friends that he won't make more cake and share it if he can't have any, so Joe doesn't get any at all. Then Sid does this all the time to Joe, using the leverage of cake with friends to try and make people not let Joe eat... now all Sid's friends think he's an asshole, Joe probably learned his lesson, just want to eat, but is getting desperate because he's starving ... I'm not thinking clearly right now... ach anyways, the point is, sometimes people are envious and take from those who worked for it; and sometimes people are greedy with what they have, and don't share; but neither way is absolutely right... and both of them need to learn to give a little, and maybe get past their resentment and history...
The extra complication is, tho, when the friends get so used to the squabble, so 'entrenched in the system', that now Sid and Joe can't make up... all sid's friends get more cake, because of the feud... so instead of working to solve things, they work against it, or don't even realize how they've become locked into certain behaviours... and so, instead of a turning point and happy ending for Sid and Joe, conflict arises, and... who knows...
m_G
tired. maybe more when i can think better.