Wednesday, March 24, 2010

OOPS, LET'S TRY THAT REVOLUTION AGAIN



You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out?

John Lennon

"Life is a corrupting process
from the time a child learns to play
his mother off against his father
in the politics of when to go to bed;
he who fears corruption fears life."

David Saul Alinksy

The function of socialism is to raise
suffering to a higher level.

Norman Mailer


IT'S A WONDERFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, but don't ask me about the details. That would take too much time away from the problems still at hand. Here's what we have in mind—a nice slice if argumentative heaven, as one rugged individualist to another. As some might say, "There, but for the grace of God, go I..."

Q: But aren't Anarchists just socialists?

A: In a greater sense, yes. Anarchists like Benjamin Tucker and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon were both Anarchists and socialists. Today, however, when one hears another refer to himself as a “socialist,” what the other person usually means is, “state-socialist.”

Though the difference seems to be lost in translation between Anarchists, socialists, and outsiders, it remains an important one to distinguish. As Ernest Lesigne, a French Anarchist of the 19th century, put it, There are two Socialisms and we here at the Two-Fisted Quorum have got both their numbers.

One is communistic, the other solidaritarian.
One is dictatorial, the other libertarian.
One is metaphysical, the other positive.
One is dogmatic, the other scientific.
One is emotional, the other reflective.
One is destructive, the other constructive.
Both are in pursuit of the greatest possible welfare for all.
One aims to establish happiness for all, the other to enable each to be happy in his own way.
The first regards the State as a society sui generis, of an especial essence, the product of a sort of divine right outside of and above all society, with special rights and able to exact special obediences; the second considers the State as an association like any other, generally managed worse than others.
The first proclaims the sovereignty of the State, the second recognizes no sort of sovereign.
One wishes all monopolies to be held by the State; the other wishes the abolition of all monopolies.
One wishes the governed class to become the governing class; the other wishes the disappearance of classes.
Both declare that the existing state of things cannot last.
The first considers revolutions as the indispensable agent of evolutions; the second teaches that repression alone turns evolutions into revolution.
The first has faith in a cataclysm.
The second knows that social progress will result from the free play of individual efforts.
Both understand that we are entering upon a new historic phase.
One wishes that there should be none but proletaires.
The other wishes that there should be no more proletaires.
The first wishes to take everything away from everybody.
The second wishes to leave each in possession of its own.
The one wishes to expropriate everybody.
The other wishes everybody to be a proprietor.
The first says: ‘Do as the government wishes.’
The second says: ‘Do as you wish yourself.’
The former threatens with despotism.
The latter promises liberty.
The former makes the citizen the subject of the State.
The latter makes the State the employee of the citizen.
One proclaims that labor pains will be necessary to the birth of a new world.
The other declares that real progress will not cause suffering to any one.
The first has confidence in social war.
The other believes only in the works of peace.
One aspires to command, to regulate, to legislate.
The other wishes to attain the minimum of command, of regulation, of legislation.
One would be followed by the most atrocious of reactions.
The other opens unlimited horizons to progress.
The first will fail; the other will succeed.
Both desire equality.
One by lowering heads that are too high.
The other by raising heads that are too low.
One sees equality under a common yoke.
The other will secure equality in complete liberty.
One is intolerant, the other tolerant.
One frightens, the other reassures.
The first wishes to instruct everybody.
The second wishes to enable everybody to instruct himself.
The first wishes to support everybody.
The second wishes to enable everybody to support himself.
One says:
The land to the State.
The mine to the State.
The tool to the State.
The product to the State.
The other says:
The land to the cultivator.
The mine to the miner.
The tool to the laborer.
The product to the producer.
There are only these two Socialisms.
One is the infancy of Socialism; the other is its manhood.
One is already the past; the other is the future.
One will give place to the other.
Today each of us must choose for the one or the other of these two Socialisms, or else confess that he is not a Socialist.

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Sunday, March 21, 2010

TWO AMERICAN MUSLIMS

FINALLY, a well-written open letter from an American Muslim to an active and influential American-born jihadist, now fled to viper pit of Yemen, the latter most recently connected to the Christmas bomber and the Fort Hood assassin.

No, Anwar, this country it is not evil. It is you who is evil and this nation and its people who are blessed. This nation gave my family the freedom and liberty to practice Islam in a way that no majority Muslim nation has ever allowed. I was raised learning to pray, fast, give charity, build mosques, and help those in need in the character of my faith as a result of the free environment of this United States. I learned this despite the repulsive nature of imams like yourself who drive so many reasonable Muslims away from the faith and so many weak and vulnerable ones towards your fascism.

My parents fled the radicalism of theo-political fascist thugs like you in the Middle East in order to give our family a fresh start in the land of freedom—America. I have throughout my life in my soul accepted spiritual Islam as my relationship with God; however, I have also always wholly rejected political Islam because of its supremacist mindset which you embody.

Growing up in Wisconsin, learning to become a physician and then serving in our armed forces as a naval officer and a physician, I learned about the beauty of the diversity of America and the equal access of all of its citizens to our society and our government. I learned about the beauty of a government which separates church and state and yet was formed by very pious Christian and all people of faith but yet remaining “under God” as a nation of common morals and values. The United States is a nation which you intentionally misunderstand and twist for your own despotic ambitions.

You may believe that moderate Muslims like us at the American Islamic Forum for Democracy are apostates since we reject the Islamic state, political Islam, and governmental shar’iah. But I know Islam well enough to know that there are no intermediaries between a Muslim and God. Takfir (excommunication) is forbidden and you may also be a Muslim but your Islam is not my Islam. You are nothing but a fascist theocrat who uses Wahhabi interpretations of our Qur’an in order to wage illegitimate wars.

The wars of Iraq and Afghanistan are legitimate and are in fact waged with the intention of leaving a far better nation for Muslims and non-Muslims in the free practice of Islam and all faiths than the tyrant Saddam or the despotic Taliban ever did for their citizens which they considered their slaves. You intentionally ignore the representative forms of government being empowered in those nations so that you can deceive those who listen to your propaganda.

American troops are simply doing what Muslims should have done in Iraq and Afghanistan long ago. As a freedom-loving Muslim, I pray that the same revolutions for liberty happen from within the nations of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Jordan, the Emirates, and Pakistan to name a few led this time by civil wars from Muslim liberty movements against the thugs, monarchs, autocrats, and theocrats like yourself who are running these nations.


Read it all here

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