Its always a hell of a lot easier - for liberals and conservatives and anyone for that matter - to blame some other group, someone who's not them, someone they dont have to think about, than it is to go up to them and say, hi. who are you? why do you think what you do?
He mentions malcom x, and his understanding that he had to enducate african american before he could organize and unite them, draws a similar parallel.
I agree, though, you have to be *aware* you CAN do something before you can organize to do something. But using one as a copout for the other is cheap - its more a matter of getting up and doing anything.
You might be interested in reading Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas?. Frank's a socialist so you have to keep that in mind - he occasionally lets that get the better of him - but it's got a lot of good analysis of why the people in the American Heartland tend to vote entirely against their economic interest.
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Its always a hell of a lot easier - for liberals and conservatives and anyone for that matter - to blame some other group, someone who's not them, someone they dont have to think about, than it is to go up to them and say, hi. who are you? why do you think what you do?
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As he himself said in his article, you can't organize unless you have people who want to do so. And that requires education.
Yes, the education should be undertaken from inside rather than outside. That's why I'm still /here/.
But education is the Way.
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I agree, though, you have to be *aware* you CAN do something before you can organize to do something.
But using one as a copout for the other is cheap - its more a matter of getting up and doing anything.
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JD
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Yeah, I can ignore some rhetoric (authors are people too) for an interesting, well-supported argument.
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