An honest query on my part. I worked for Obama because I really think he would be better for us all than McCain, and I could under the present circumstances see no alternative viable enough to that to warrant my time. I also think many good things will come from Obama being president, though of course I may be wrong, and we shall just have to see. Is your point that by working for that alternative I help perpetuate the system, so that it would be better if we just, say, voted for McCain and tried to undermine Obama to make it all get so bad that a critical mass of dissastisfaction would be reached? If so, it is not clear to me that the suffering caused to others (particularly those with less--what to call it--social capital . . . so that what damaged me would damage them ten times worse). And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I went reading through your previous posts and when I made it to about 101 I just ran out of time/patience: if you have some concrete plan of action different from what DCLaw just laid out--patiently working away within the system--I am a person who would appreciate the chance to think it through. Just link to the post or webpage or whatever, and I will give it some thought. I have read Plato through Aristotle through Augustine through Aquinas to Hobbes and Locke and Rousseau and Marx and all the usual suspects, searching for worthwhile thoughts: and I am never one to say someone cannot show me some new ways to think on the old thoughts and see them new ways. I think I said this once before, but I wanted to say it one more time, because I admire your persistence. But seriously, sir, what is your plan of action? And again to show you I am a serious person, so to speak, I will hide behind anonymous nametags: here is my work e-mail: goetscr@eckerd.edu. I am Professor James Goetsch, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL 33711. I will be reading many papers next week (finals week!) but will be happy to peruse your thoughts as well. You have piqued my curiosity and I make this offer honestly. Let me know what you are thinking.

I will NOT hide beyond the name tags. No, I will not :)

It is the big sleeves on my clown shirt: they slide down over my wrists and mess up my typing skills. Not to mention the sounds of the other clowns, honking their horns and practicing their pratfalls: so distracting.

there really is a cadillac hour!

http://www.xmradio.com/dylan-cadillac/index.xmc

hosted by Zimmerman himself!

Google is your friend.

We ARE all bozos on this bus.

to listen to that first great song in Dylan's show:

"a pretty girl, a cadillac, and some money/will make a rainy day seem so sunny"

The passage that caught my eye in the entry you linked to was this:

“marching on and sitting in the local offices of our respective congresspersons would be very effective IMO.”

So I see you are thinking of forms of direct action in a Gandhian sense/MLK sense, perhaps. I immediately think of the civil rights movement when I think of real social change. But it is hard to see how that could be ignited in a specific way in our current circumstances. That makes me think of what DCLaw said in this thread, that I was referring to:

“The anger - personalized, direct, concrete, and intolerable - is nowhere near approaching the level required for a sufficiently potent and widespread campaign of civil disobedience.The last major example I can think of - opposition to the Vietnam War, which had mixed, delayed results - was undeniably in large part a product of the terrible draft that was sending so many young men off to actually die for the government's policies.A bit before that, the civil rights movement had an overwhelmingly compelling moral message, and opposed clearly, blatant injustices and the vilest political adversaries. Even then, its success was far from certain and - Clinton had a point - did require federal political and judicial action as well. Also, the initial political avenues were not working, adding pressure, popular outrage, urgency, and increased moral intensity to the movement until it reached a tipping point.Today, although we cannot predict the outcome, we have had significant electoral changes come about in 2006 and of course 2008 - the latter historically unprecedented - and this has rendered notions of effective civil disobedience on a massive enough scale implausible, barring added injustices and conditions so grotesque as to defy current description.In such a state, the inch-by-inch efforts of petition, scrutiny, and targeted political action are the tools of the trade.”

To that you say if any purported plan "entails working within the system then it is not a plan with any legitimate hope of success.”

So my question is: how do you define success? Again, a real question. I find myself sometimes thinking if I can't change things fundamentally, then what is the point? And then I despair. But then I think of the civil rights movement, and I feel some hope. I remember now some old exchanges you had with others over incrementalism, and I certainly do not mean to rehash that: I am merely wondering what you mean by sucess in your statement there.

the kind of clown I hope I might aspire to be is a figure of the fool. I am an old fan of Erasmus and his "Praise of Folly." I love Ermasmus so much I even learned to pronounce classical Greek just like he did. That's how I earned my first clown nose.

http://www.kenbrownpixpop.com/sleepingclown.html

special Friday Bonus video FTW.

(see link at his sig)

"there was some weird karmic, cosmic and even darkly comic justice in the flying shoes."

The Flying Shoes of Karmic Cosmic Justice!