Entering the realm of Z
By Leif Petersen at Mar 01, 2009 |
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I'm not much of a political activist, and it is mostly a coincidence I'm here.
It started less than a year ago, when I made an anonymous blog on a popular Danish site, which exposed me to other average people's opinions, and I started following the news, after hardly doing so for years.
That was disturbing. I found that many people are disoriented, have no firm human values (except for towards their closest kin), and willingly suck up political propaganda and biased/negative news against "terrorist regimes" and immigrants. In fact the ruling majority in Denmark have such people as voters.
I ended here because another Danish blogger linked me to the film "The War on Democracy" by John Pilger on freedocumentaries.org. Then somehow I got on to reading some articles by Noam Chomsky, and that led me to zcommunications. I was impressed by the quality of the articles, and chose to become a sustainer for that reason. It was not my intention to start a blog or a zspace, but since the staff encourages it, I'll give it a go and see where it leads.
I am not completely comfortable with socialism seemingly being the ideologi here, I've always been a mixed economy guy. Capitalism has led to a wasteful imperialist rat race, which does bother me a lot. Some of it seems due to the perverse world leadership of the U.S., and amazingly dumbed down voters all over the western world seem to consistently elect leaders who are American lap dogs.
I hope we can change that, and make humanism the new world order. Nobody should be indifferent to other people suffering or being mistreated.



nice one!
By Goodman, Dan at Mar 02, 2009 13:56 PM
Hey Leif, glad you found your way to Z, it's an amazing thing. The whole social, Z communications thing is a little slow at the moment, but it might take off.
Don't worry about ideology, from what I've seen of people on Z it won't be a problem. Everyone seems pretty inclusive.
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Re: Entering the realm of Z
By Gabrenya, Matt at Mar 01, 2009 16:38 PM
I certainly wouldn't say that "socialism" is the dominant economic ideology on z. Perhaps, if you have not done so before, you might be interested in reading about Participatory Economics, which Z works to promote and advocate for. Markets certaintly do lead to "a wasteful imperialist rat race," but the answer is not a mixed economy. A mixed economy just a combination of the better aspects of two fairly wretched economies: both central planning and markets. However, neither central planning nor markets fulfill the values of a just, equitable and decent economy. Rather, Participatory Economics is an alternative to markets, central planning, and a mixed economy.
http://www.zcommunications.org/zparecon/zpareconfaq.htm
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Re:
By Petersen, Leif at Mar 02, 2009 08:41 AM
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Beware
By Andrews, John at Mar 01, 2009 12:35 PM
Leif
Welcome to Z.
Beware. You are on a slippery slope. I started with John Pilger and noted he referenced Noam Chomsky extensively so I read Noam Chomsky. Then I read Howard Zinn and then I read Ward Churchill. I'm currently reading Emma Goldman - Anarchism and other essays along with Living My Life. These days, I enter a political discussion and people look at me like I've just landed from Mars.
Be warned, you are on a slippery slope of no return.
Best wishes
John Andrews
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Re: Beware
By Petersen, Leif at Mar 01, 2009 15:57 PM
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Re: Re: Beware
By Andrews, John at Mar 02, 2009 01:30 AM
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Re: Re: Re: Beware
By Petersen, Leif at Mar 02, 2009 09:07 AM
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Re: Beware
By zzzzzz, xxx at Mar 01, 2009 12:44 PM
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Re: Re: Beware
By Petersen, Leif at Mar 01, 2009 15:56 PM
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