David, I suffered nuns only til grade 3. At grade 8. I remember a huge crush for a math teacher whom was no nun ..mainly, I was barely able to walk in class and this became more embarassing because I was reported as being a pervert to my mother. In school, I always felt something was missing, a bit like as if area of interests were limited. I don't know may be sister Adeline could have changed that :)

Cyrano:

Yeah. -- But you should have seen my Fifth Grade Math and Reading teacher, Sister  Adeline.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

 

David , This is great historical archives. This kind of stuff should had been made available for me in school at grade one instead of religion. What I recall of my young education is that some propagandist was sometimes coming in school and explain that socialism was the great evil, orators would pull up a big Vietnam map and and show pictures of ferocious Viet-Congs , orators would show where the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam are located, show more pictures of death people and the whole ordeal would leave us kids, scared of socialism. this said, the first thing that strike me when reading articles from marxists.org (marx-engels and others) is to see the very altruistic nature of the writers. Secondly, They also write history from a different political angle ans social aspiration which is not unreasonable analysis.

Cyrano:

Fair question.  But I honestly don't have any personal likes or dislikes here.  For example, as far as I know, none of the eight candidates likes to hang out in pool halls or watch The Three Stooges. 

On the personal, human level, for all I know, Sen. Joe Biden may be the finest out of the bunch, and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich a real bum.

Though this response is partly disingenuous, of course. The main problem confronting everyone -- you and I too -- is that the humans not only walk this earth as individuals but also and more decisively create systems wherever they go.  But, generally speaking, they're so bad at the latter that by the time they climb out of bed in the morning, they've ensnared themselves in a system they've created but don't begin to comprehend.  Either we withdraw from any hope of consciously guiding large-scale events in a positive direction (which may be out of our reach already) or we accept the sheer facticity of the mutilating systems within which we find ourselves (such as they are), with all of their constraints, and start from here.  Withdrawal (e.g., into one of those reactionary "communities" in the woods -- or the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani) has some appeal.  No doubt about it. 

To return to your question more directly: Without question, Kucinich's platform is more appealing than that of the warmongers.  Personally, I'd like to see a candidate seriously propose some combination of (a) the dismantlement of imperial systems; (b) conversion of the permanent-war economy to socially beneficial civilian ends; (c) opening the doors of the U.S. prison complex (with full reparations for the 90% who never should have been incarcerated); and (d) the general reorientation of all state institutions towards common-good (i.e., authentic Left) concerns, i.e., meeting the kinds of needs which all persons have by virtue of being human, rather than because they occupy one or another social role.

By the way: Did you ever read Marx's lovely little exegesis on the alienations of "money"?  Great stuff.  Surely anyone who, in two consecutive sentences, can call money the "visible divinity -- the transformation of all human and natural properties into their contraries, the universal confounding and distorting of things," and the "common whore, the common procurer of people and nations," must be worth a read.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Postscript. The core problem with the humans is that it's far easier for them to give up their humanity than their systems.

 

 

chomsky torrents have been re-directed or renamed : http://onebigtorrent.org/index.php

warning , not that there is c hitchens material, this man is an ideological conflict by himself, also he is soooo obnoxious and subversive in his opinions. (where are the rotten eggs of my failing patience when I need them ?)

David, who do you dislike the least in these candidate ? will it be Gravel and Kucinich ?