On Progress and Change

[H2O Man]

I have three short things to say today. They are being posted in random order, and thus I would appreciate it if DUers could make random, disordered responses.

Now, down to business:

{A} My oldest daughter is in a political science class in high school. In the last week or so, she had to do a fairly lengthy paper on a figure from US history who she believes is/was a good role model. She selected Hinmaton-yalatkit ("Thunder Coming from the Water over the Land"), a chief of Wal-lam-wat-kain people, from Wallowa Valley in what is today known as Oregon. He is popularly known as Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.

She used about a dozen of my books for resources, and wrote a really good report. Of course, I am not totally objective when it comes to my daughter, but I am kind of demanding when it comes reports on people like Chief Joseph. Her assignment required her to make a poster to go along with the report, and she asked me if she could "borrow" some materials from me to use on it.

On the night before she had to hand in her report and poster, I got out a book that she had not read, and showed her that years ago, a dentist from the west coast had paid to have Chief Joseph’s grave dug. He used Chief Joseph’s skull for an ashtray.

I photocopied some pages from the book. My daughter’s teacher was shocked, and checked the internet to see who the author of the book was. It was Vine Deloria, Jr., a highly respected Native American attorney, who served as the Executive Director of the National Indian Congress.

Her teacher asked if I could send in further information on this topic. Having worked for decades on burial protection and repatriation issues, I was able to do that.

{B} When I was a teen-ager, my favorite book was "The Autobiography of Malcolm X." Just as Malcolm called himself the "angriest black man in the United States," I was probably the angriest teen-ager in the nation. And that was on a good day.

I had a mentor (who was sometimes a tormentor) who had been friends with Malcolm X. He advised me to pursue my education, if I was serious about "changing the system." At first, this made me angry. Luckily, he had a good sense of humor, and kept telling me that I needed to get that education, and attempt to map change from within the system.

Through hard work and tremendous self-discipline, I became an educated fool, as opposed to a mere common fool. I worked in human services. I also was a community organizer/ grass roots activist ….and I found that more people listened to me, and that I could accomplish more, as a human service worker than as an angry hot-head.

Over the decades, I have acquired a sizable collection of books, records, and films of Malcolm. So, when my oldest brother mocked me for becoming "part of the system," I would read where people accused Malcolm of "selling out" when he changed his approach to the system in 1964.

{C} I grew up with specific definitions for words. I think of this when reading DU recently. Four of those words apply to democrats: progressive, liberal, moderate, and conservative.

"Progressive" democrats believe that the "system" needs drastic changes; Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed this when he said that we needed to "undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered." (April 4, 1967)

"Liberals" include good people like Hubert Humphrey and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who wanted to make significant adjustments to the system. "Moderates" seek change, in moderation. And conservative democrats tend to resemble republicans.

Conclusion: Making progress in our complex society requires dedicated people, who are willing to invest their energies – and indeed, their lives – to obtaining both short-term and long-term goals. No single person, nor any one group, is going to make meaningful changes on the national level in a short period of time. But we can, and will, succeed in making meaningful change if we are serious about it.

Part of this requires that we change. We must become better educated, both formally and informally, so that we both better understand the "system," and can become better situated in positions where we can influence events around us. And that includes being willing and able to work with others who are different from ourselves, while still firmly advocating for our values.

Thank you,
H2O Man

[Me.]

1. Things Are Never What You Think & Some People Find It Difficult to Change The Way They Think

A friend of mine who was quite old and had been brought up well by her Aunt. I asked her if she didn't think it was wonderful that Nelson Mandela was being given a parade by NYC. She, who had come up having to enter white hotels, thought it was a disgrace. After all, he had been in prison.

We have a long way to go yet. But hope is on the horizon.

[hfojvt]

2. the internets are saying that it was Chief Joseph's father

http://www.nndb.com/people/257/000173735/

[mmonk]

3. Random disordered responses. Hhhhhhmmmmmmmm

Ok, anger is usually unproductive unless it provides motivation for change. When coupled with education of the issues and the best path to take, change can come just as the energy that produced the Obama victory.

On progressives, liberals, conservatives, etc., the following:


Some look at change as not necessary or useful. They view conformity as thus:





Others view change as the best progression of ideas and view conformity thusly:




I'm still thinking on the Chief Joseph issue.

[Me.]

4. Change Cannot Be Stopped

Not those fearing it and wanting to go back to what was, nor can they make it into something it isn't. It's hard to stop the flow of energy because it's a r/evolutionary matter.

[mmonk]

5. I guess the inevitability of it requires we work together to shape it.

[starroute]

6. It would be nice to know what direction we're pointing in

It doesn't seem useful to me to define progressives, liberals, etc. simply by where they fall along a spectrum of desire for change. We need to get a better sense of what sort of change is really desirable and how we get there.

There are two questions I've been contemplating a lot lately:

1) Current science indicates that life and the universe in general work in terms of self-organizing systems. This suggests that the people who insist that the free market is superior to government mandates may be on to something -- and yet the free market as we know it has been a flat failure when it comes to running human affairs. Is it possible to sort this out and create a truly self-organizing economic system that doesn't reward greed and devastate the planet?

2) Current science equally indicates that all living things exist not only as individuals but as part of larger social groupings and multi-species environmental systems -- and that unless the individuals contribute to the maintenance of those larger systems, they themselves will not thrive. This suggests that socialism and other collectivist ideologies which teach that the individual has a responsibility to contribute to the larger society and that the society has a responsibility to maintain all its individual members may be onto something. And yet collectivism has tended to veer off into both totalitarianism and neglect of those things that are common to everyone and owned by no one. Is it possible to sort this out and create a system that promotes both mutual support and individual freedom, in which no one can own the air or the water or the sunlight but everyone has a responsibility to tend them?

The fact that nature manages to juggle all these varying imperatives and keep them in balance suggests that humans ought to be able to do so as well. And yet, I don't see anybody at this point suggesting how we might actually get there from here. If I did, I'd be off in a shot -- so fast, I'd leave todays progressives in the dust. But as long as all we can do is put bandaids on today's problems, I'm very wary of any "change" that might only make our current imbalances worse.

So what sort of "system" do we really want? And how do we go about getting it?

[mmonk]

8. On your first point, I don't think markets were ever designed to

run human affairs. I think that is where the ideology that it must not taxed, regulated, or asked anything of it and we'll all be fine ultimately fails because society cannot be useful centered around a free for all Darwinian concept.

What system do we get? I guess that is where the discomfort and anxiety lies and where people need to come together and make it the best we can.

[Gregorian]

7. Freedom and respect.

The idea that we are lone individuals and yet also many making one society. I was, and still am to a lesser degree, a very angry individual. Closing bars every night. Flunking out of college only to return a dozen years later and graduate. And still angry that much of what went on was weeding out for corporate preparation. And now clean and learning about politics. Always a Democrat.

It seems to me that much of this (whatever "this" means) revolves around respect. And yet this respect on an individual level can be violently abandoned when society as a whole decides to change. It's this very thing which I have spent so many years watching. Wear a seatbelt, or else. Don't abort a fetus, or else. It's ok to smoke a highly addictive poison, but don't grow cannabis.

Somehow respect can get lost. And sometimes it it tossed. In the name of change. I believe there is a core center which must always be obeyed. And yet we cannot even agree on what IT is. The ashtray is an example of flagrant violation. But which may not have even lodged it's importance in the head of he who violated. And so respect is part of awareness.

That statement by Martin L. King is simply prophetic. I remember hearing it many years ago. He even mentions petroleum companies, if I recall. And so we throw yet another wrench in front of awareness and respect. Our logical hierarchy of that which is supposed to make us civil is blinded. By ignorance and greed.

How do we all get on to the same plane? After all we are all the same. Humans. Sentient beings. It seems to me that until that time, we are engaged in tug of war. Which goes nowhere.

It may be that this is why the bible has had such an effect. A set of supposedly universal principals. Like a universal field theory which may begin to explain everything. It may help to put us on the same page. But even that has not done so. And in fact has even divided.

Unique beings, yet only a component of a greater one society. We want to organize and unify, and yet we want to succeed at our own rate, and even compete.

My only answer is that there should be a level below which a human being should never be allowed to fall. Financially, physically, mentally.

I'm afraid this doesn't happen through thoughtful preparation. And maybe this is one significant aspect of our condition. To act before it is necessary. One example is that in which we presently find ourselves. As individuals we are all living a lifestyle which will, if continued, kill us all. Or at least future generations.

The truth should be a highly sought after possession. After all, the things we stand for should be self-evident. Yet we live in darkness. One thing at a time, we must peel back the layers of lies and reveal that which is valuable in life. It is very simple. We have complicated it all. All in the name of power. Not love.

[DemReadingDU]

9. Lots to think about

Thanks for stirring my brain