Re: cleaning house

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)]

It was good seeing you again.  You always make me think.

Re: Michael Parenti's politics.  Re: Bendib and Parenti on Sunday Salon.
I don't recall Parenti being hypocritical in
http://mp3.sundaysalon.org/MP3/ss060212hr2.mp3 , but it's certainly
possible.  I don't have time to listen to it again.  I seem to remember
that Parenti's support of free speech was total and complete.  (Which, if
he is indeed a Stalinist, would be a little odd; perhaps free speech was
the only point at which he disagreed with Stalin. :-)  Bendib's
(http://www.bendib.com/) support of threats made against Danes and
employees of that Danish newspaper seemed consistent, 'though.  Re:
Stalinism.  According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Parenti ,
Parenti does seem to have an irrational support of Stalin.  I could not
see justifying 799,455 deaths.  Maybe, like Marx, one needs to pick and
choose from what Parenti says.

I think one's politics are always a matter of compromise.  Just as one
cannot learns morals from a book, one's politics cannot be derived from a
single theory.  I like what Marx had to say, but I'm not a Marxist.
Similarly, I like what Paul Goodman
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Goodman_%28writer%29) and Kropotkin
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kropotkin) wrote, but I'm probably neither
a Goodmanian nor a Kropotkinist.

Noelle and I discussed the Mohommad caricatures a while ago and I was
realizing that there was nothing that anybody could say that would move me
to start rioting out in the street or threatening lives.  Is this an
indication of my class?  Or lack of beliefs?  Or perhaps not wanting
confrontation?  Very few things would move me that way: a killing
(e.g., an execution) or a number of killings (e.g., war) or a
law/decision/repression (probably abortion or birth control access).

I think there are really two questions re: a person's beliefs.
1) Can you change the person's assumptions?
2) For those assumptions that cannot be changed, what compromises can you
   and the person make?

I'm a member of the Green Party.  I don't agree with all of its tenents
and yet I compromise by permitting myself to be a member.  (It's free (you
get what you pay for??) and it's closest to my beliefs and believe it's a
stepping-stone to something better.)  If I didn't want any compromise, I
suppose I could register as an independent.  But, then, I wouldn't ever
vote because no candidate and no proposition would ever exactly fit my
beliefs.

The obvious assumption in the last paragraph is that, to some extent, I
trust some authorities.  Also, that I believe in democracy (a
true-American trait :-).  But, these assumptions can constantly be
challenged and yet I change them very little.  (Did you hear last Friday's
Democracy Now
(http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/17/1522228)?  I was
thinking about this this morning and was realizing that American democracy
is exactly like torture!  You are denied access to information to attempt
to disorient you and you are told that it's your fault ("you are only
doing this to yourself") for making the wrong choices when something goes
awry.)

Sorry for the rant.  Didn't sleep well last night.