Posted by pancho (148.244.221.75) on November 05, 2001 at 17:42:27:
In Reply to: Re: The real Israelis posted by Jeff on November 04, 2001 at 20:12:32:
Iīm divided on this issue...on the one hand I believe in taking direct action, on the other hand I donīt like to be ignored when I take an action. It took a lot of demonstrating and broken heads and arrests to get Americans to take another look at the lies they were being fed during Vietnam. But then again had someone not started it off it never would have built up...or rather someone else would have started it...as it DID get started.
Something subtle has changed in America since those days. Once you used to be able to work a few months then travel by thumb to other cities and meet with students and activists. It isnīt just that things always get more expensve...they have become so much MORE expensive that young people are literally working constantly and STILL canīt move out of the house. I donīt understand economics very well...itīs called the Dismal Science for a good reason...but this upsurge in the basic cost of living has made more people more frantic at an earlier and earlier stage in thier lives...instead of experimenting, travelling around, seeing the sights...meeting out of the way people in strange and new places...from the time everyone graduates high school they are off and running..not to get ahead, but just not to fall hopelessly behind.
There comes a point where the wealthy donīt need to get any wealthier...but the harder the rest of us are squeezed, the more fearful and conservative we become, the easier to control because we control and censor ourselves...we literally can not AFFORD to live. not really live.
I liked Cheīs response when he was asked to join a political rally. He was visiting a friend in jail in Mexico City..he said, give me a machine gun and Iīll go.
I donīt want a machine gun, I donīt want to kill anyone...I could do it, but I donīt want to...it doesnīt solve anything, not anything of meaning for the long haul. When you are talking to deaf and blind people, you have to do it with something other than words, or even gestures. There is a language suitable to todayīs ills, I just havenīt found it yet. I canīt see myself at demonstrations and I know I wouldnīt be a pacifist if I had to turn a cheek. I just know that. Iīd far rather slap than be slapped...guess I was right when I said I was Assyrian and NEVER Christian.