When I was a Kid. . . . Oh wait I am not going to start a paragraph like that. Next thing you know I will be walking to school in the snow up hill both ways! Blah

I can say that I have not always had plenty and I have known alot of desperation in my life. You may have heard your grandparents say something like this to make you appreciate what you have but I will tell you that I have learned about the "system" from these things. As a Progressive I know the system needs to be changed. As an activist I know I need to change it by doing my part.  As a socialist I understand I am part of a larger whole of society. As an anarchist I understand that any power over others is fundamentally wrong. Then as a Christian I understand that there is a basic morality to be taught by sacrifices of the past.

I made the choice to be all of these things through the realization that humankind has the potential to overcome the systems it has in place now. Any way my point is that the systems we have in place now have put you where you are right now - Unaccepted, without insurance of any kind, and nobody to call a friend. Perhaps not a really desperate situation but it has that potential! It seems that in Modern capitalism this feeling is how order is maintained!

Don\'t show up for work, kiss your boss\'s ass, do as your told then lose your job then you won\'t make that house payment then you\'ll lose your house then you\'ll more than likely wind up in divorce then you\'ll be destitute. This is the system we have allowed to be created around us and it is more vicous than serfdom, or slavery. At least in slavery you have a master that is responsible for your well being and in serfdom you have a king who will ensure your defense.

Justin you have a very bright future ahead of you just remember the feeling you have today and don\'t allow yourself to get in a position where someone can put you in it with the stroke of a pen. This is the system all those writers help inspire me to change and I hope that they help you also. Some agitators work from within the system like David Ramsey. Ramsey will tell you to get out of debt and keep your mortgage. Save your money and work the system so you yourself can become powerful. However the system seems to lose its luster when you look at it from the outside. 

There is a Movie/Sound Byte by the World Socialist Web Sight called "Capitalism and Other Kids Stuff " it is at http://www.worldsocialism.org just look under their media section and listen to it. It really is inspiring to hear the fellow give his take on all that. Paddy Joe Shannon is the guys name, terrible ugly fellow but he did a heck of a job making the movie.

Justin, I don\'t think your doing bad at all. Your single, Bright and obviously talented with a chance to study in a new place where you have never lived before. Boy what I would do to be in your shoes. 

As said below - not clumsy, these are important questions.

The pressures of just getting by make it vital to let off steam now and then. It\'s unavoidable, even for people who aren\'t "doing it tough". Just about everyone works/studies/fullfills roles in alienating conditions for long enough hours to have a need to "just relax" - even revolutionary activists.

As you said, movements have to fullfill these needs for relaxation/leisure. Is it vital that movement leisure time maintains explicitly activist links - say, comics about liberation, songs about revolution, TV about important things...? I\'m not sure.

I think cold beers, sport, TV dramas, etc should be part of our movements. Most people enjoy one or more of these activities. I do. There\'s nothing wrong, per se, with watching sport and drinking beer, after a day\'s work. It\'s wrong that the society predetermines that certain types of isolated leisure activities will predominate the spectrum of possible leisure activities, but the leisure activities themselves are not inherently "bad", much less reactionary.

Our movements might be such that they create an environment where people find that sociable, activist leisure activities are more attractive. If so, then great. As the needs of people in society shift, so should the structures of the movement to accomodate those needs. At the moment, structurally-imposed or otherwise, people enjoy beers, watching sports, pop culture, etc, so movements should create spaces for that.

Much can be learned from the evangelicals, as Albert has pointed out. They fullfill social needs of members first, because the fullfillment thereof is a pre-requisite for sustaining a political movement.

For the tired, depressed, struggling worker - give she/he a supportive, non-heirarchical social network, give she/he some means to overcome their immediate difficulties, and they will come to Albert, et al, in their own good time.

Not really all that clumsy, really, those thoughts of yours.  Insightful stuff:

Movements I think, need to be creative and expressive while still communicating critical or important ideas. I dont think that entertainment needs to be mindless, or that to escape people need to avoid insights. Hope, laughter, satire, fiction can all maintain radical perspectives while allowing people to relax and engage at the same time. Escapism might be a misdirected desire for liberation. Progressive ideas seek liberation, obtainable escape from the current nightmare. Surely radical movements can present our ideas for liberation and justice in ways that direct escapism to constructive ways of building a better world. Allowing people to think beyond the immediate, leaving it behind for a time, while not forgetting it.

Engaging the general public about moral causes does require flair.  People have a need to be stimulated and entertained, not just presented with laundry-lists of wrongs and injustices.  Ideas can be presented artistically, creatively, and can even be entertaining.  Most people, I think, don\'t really want to live the lives of trained monkeys, but that is what is available in our cultures of consumption. 

Terence McKenna said once that people should stop consuming culture and start creating culture.  The more people think critically and outside of current boxed paradigms, and the more we connect with each other, the more creative we can be.  Any true movement towards human liberation cannot be addressed by laundry-lists of grievances only, and will not be schematized as a newer, better, more just and equitable hierarchy.  Truly revolutionary liberation is founded in self-determination and grows from the bottom up.