KarlLeft
16th June 2013, 00:13
After monitoring this message board for a while now, I finally got up enough nerve to register as a real live user! Woo Hoo! The conversations here are fascinating and I want to continue to learn and hopefully contribute in some small way.
I'm afraid to say I've been kind of liberal for a lot of years. That goes back to when my mom and dad worked on the McGovern campaign in '72. I was too young to understand a lot of the issues back then but I was old enough to understand that Nixon wasn't doing anybody any good by prolonging the war in Vietnam.
As the years went by though, it just seemed like the world wasn't getting to be any nicer of a place and the U.S., instead of being the shining beacon of hope we're taught it's supposed to be, is actuallly causing more misery than it aleviates. The bottom line reason for that is, I realized, the capitalist system of production that consumes everything in it's path and creates mainly waste and, of course, wealth for the enrichment of a few at the expense of everyone else.
I've read the Communist Manifesto, of course, and a few things by Lenin ("Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" is my favorite!) and I'm close to the end of the first volume of "Das Kapital". Now that's a good book! I'd like to read more of Engles and Trotsky and, of course, some of the more recent leftist writers.
A big concern I have is with the condition of the leftist movement in the world today. I'm sure a worldwide socialist revolution of the means of production is inevitable and it's probably going to happen along with some kind of social upheaval as opposed to as a result of some gradual process of "reforming" but the power of capital is well-entrenched and, even though some good things are happening in South America, I see things getting worse before they get better...
Still, it's good to know there are a lot of leftists out there. They're not always easy to find here in the midwest. I read an interesting interview with Noam Chomsky about how the media and both political parties are actually far to the right of the majority of the American people. He was talking about a public opinion poll during congressional budget negotiations a few years ago where the people expressed where they'd like to see spending increased, like in social services, healthcare, education and where they'd like to see it decreased, like in military spending and aid to other countries. It turns out the congress ended up doing exactly the opposite of what the polls showed the American people wanted and the poll was not mentioned at all by the news media. Not much of a representative democracy, is it?
So, I guess the people are basically okay, they just need to be educated. It's the power structure that's corrupt!
This has turned out to be a lot longer than I intended so I'll cut it short right here. Bye for now! :)
I'm afraid to say I've been kind of liberal for a lot of years. That goes back to when my mom and dad worked on the McGovern campaign in '72. I was too young to understand a lot of the issues back then but I was old enough to understand that Nixon wasn't doing anybody any good by prolonging the war in Vietnam.
As the years went by though, it just seemed like the world wasn't getting to be any nicer of a place and the U.S., instead of being the shining beacon of hope we're taught it's supposed to be, is actuallly causing more misery than it aleviates. The bottom line reason for that is, I realized, the capitalist system of production that consumes everything in it's path and creates mainly waste and, of course, wealth for the enrichment of a few at the expense of everyone else.
I've read the Communist Manifesto, of course, and a few things by Lenin ("Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" is my favorite!) and I'm close to the end of the first volume of "Das Kapital". Now that's a good book! I'd like to read more of Engles and Trotsky and, of course, some of the more recent leftist writers.
A big concern I have is with the condition of the leftist movement in the world today. I'm sure a worldwide socialist revolution of the means of production is inevitable and it's probably going to happen along with some kind of social upheaval as opposed to as a result of some gradual process of "reforming" but the power of capital is well-entrenched and, even though some good things are happening in South America, I see things getting worse before they get better...
Still, it's good to know there are a lot of leftists out there. They're not always easy to find here in the midwest. I read an interesting interview with Noam Chomsky about how the media and both political parties are actually far to the right of the majority of the American people. He was talking about a public opinion poll during congressional budget negotiations a few years ago where the people expressed where they'd like to see spending increased, like in social services, healthcare, education and where they'd like to see it decreased, like in military spending and aid to other countries. It turns out the congress ended up doing exactly the opposite of what the polls showed the American people wanted and the poll was not mentioned at all by the news media. Not much of a representative democracy, is it?
So, I guess the people are basically okay, they just need to be educated. It's the power structure that's corrupt!
This has turned out to be a lot longer than I intended so I'll cut it short right here. Bye for now! :)