: : To which I respond, there won't be any damned revolution, and from the rhetoric that flies around here concerning it, that's a good thing. Firing squads lining up the cancerous old guard -- the hell with that!: Revolution does not necessitate violence, revolution just means a drastic change in the composition/structure of society, cf. The Velvet Revolution, etc. A Socialist revolution of an immense majority would have little chance of meating violent resistence.
Hey, I agree. When I said "revolution," I meant a sudden convulsion which rapidly changes everything -- usually it's accompanied by violence, unless it's a weird military coup as in, recently, the Ivory Coast. I favor a gradual socialistic or green revolution achieved through democratic means.
: : I'm voting in November: first, because there are millions around the world who are dying for the opportunity to vote; second, because not voting is a cop-out -- other people will certainly vote, and you have no right to complain if you don't like the results; third, it does make a difference who wins.
: Spoiling is different from not voting, it is a vote, a vote against all the choices on offer - spoilt ballots are counted.
I'm not sure what you mean by "spoiling." I think that voting for Nader, for example, will spoil the chances of the Democrat winning (and so I'm still up in the air on how I'll vote); not voting MAY be a vote against the whole foul system, but how will you know? It could also be interpreted as laziness -- certainly the corporate media will describe it as such. Vote for somebody, at least.
: : 3. All or nothing, now!
: : That's the bullshit strategy of frigid ideologues. Small steps forward can mean big things for those at the bottom (including the environment), and such steps are better than nothing at all. Take big steps when you can, and continue to strive for them, but don't reject progress on account of it being to small to satisfy you -- that's vanity.
: If socialism is, as we say, teh cure for societies ills, then why don't we do it, why do we continue with wee palliatives?
If You had a disease, and were in hospital, surrounded by doctors who could treat you, and could cure you, but yet declined to do so, and instead simply mopped your brow, and made your slow decline into misery a littler easier, would you be happy with that? "Small steps" they would say, we've got to do it a little bit at a time...
Speaking as one who endured weeks of agonizing pain from a nasty medical problem, I offer this hypothetical scenario:
You are very ill and in pain. Morphine will ease your pain, though it won't cure your illness. The doctors are still working on the cure; in the meantime, don't you want the morphine?
I'm telling you now: you'll beg for that morphine if you have to, and you'll thank god you got it.
: How can we take small steps, when we cannot fight the basic p[roblems that capitalism throws up that way - a pittance doubled is still a fucking pittance, making poor people a little less poor is no step forward, making the hungry a little less hungry isn't good enough - why ask for crumbs, when we can take the whole fucking bakery?
Take the bakery if you can; when you're starving, crumbs are a banquet. In fact, they give you the strength you take the bakery one day.
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None.
