An Anarchist reminds me of

[Snoggera]

someone who would commit suicide because they think it would be a great thing to see others crying at the funeral.

A Neo-con reminds me of someone who looks at the vast "masses" of people and says, lets kill'em because we'll be better off.

A true conservative is horrified at what has happened in the past 4 years.

A liberal is someone who has true compassion and wants to repair the damage created by all these others who don't understand what it takes to make a world.

Long live the liberals!

May the Gods Love Them All!

Edited: for "a", not "uh", just "a"

[el_gato]

1. What is your concept of Anarchy?

Who are some of the main Anarchist writers that you have read?

[Snoggera]

2. No

If I am wrong, then it is your responsibility to show anarchist writers that prove me wrong.

Thanks anyway.

[IndianaGreen]

3. How about this 1911 essay by Emma Goldman?

The people are urged to be patriotic and for that luxury they pay, not only by supporting their "defenders," but even by sacrificing their own children. Patriotism requires allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill father, mother, brother, sister.

The usual contention is that we need a standing army to protect the country from foreign invasion. Every intelligent man and woman knows, however, that this is a myth maintained to frighten and coerce the foolish. The governments of the world, knowing each other's interests, do not invade each other. They have learned that they can gain much more by international arbitration of disputes than by war and conquest. Indeed, as Carlyle said, "War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village, stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other."

It does not require much wisdom to trace every war back to a similar cause. Let us take our own Spanish-American war, supposedly a great and patriotic event in the history of the United States. How our hearts burned with indignation against the atrocious Spaniards! True, our indignation did not flare up spontaneously. It was nurtured by months of newspaper agitation, and long after Butcher Weyler had killed off many noble Cubans and outraged many Cuban women. Still, in justice to the American Nation be it said, it did grow indignant and was willing to fight, and that it fought bravely. But when the smoke was over, the dead buried, and the cost of the war came back to the people in an increase in the price of commodities and rent -- that is, when we sobered up from our patriotic spree it suddenly dawned on us that the cause of the Spanish-American war was the consideration of the price of sugar; or, to be more explicit, that the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of American capitalists, which were threatened by the Spanish government. That this is not an exaggeration, but is based on absolute facts and figures, is best proven by the attitude of the American government to Cuban labor. When Cuba was firmly in the clutches of the United States, the very soldiers sent to liberate Cuba were ordered to shoot Cuban workingmen during the great cigarmakers' strike, which took place shortly after the war.

PATRIOTISM, A MENACE TO LIBERTY
by Emma Goldman, 1911

http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/goldman/sp000064.html

[Snoggera]

5. You have a great point there.

excellent read.

[IndianaGreen]

6. The popular concept of anarchists and anarchism

is the guy in the black hat and trench coat carrying one of those spherical bombs in their hand. This cartoonish concept was created by the corporate media, even to the dictionary definition of anarchist.

We Socialists have also been the victims of 150-years of anti-socialist propaganda, nevermind that many of the "liberal" ideas began as Socialist issues, e.g., integration, women's vote, abortion rights, family planning, women's emancipation, workplace safety, etc.

[Snoggera]

7. You are absolutely right about where the ideas came from

and I respect your words and opinions, but question where any of those ideas would have gone without the assistance and support of (you know who).

I agree with Kerry.

This is the most important election in our lifetimes.

Period.

We may be able afterwards to agree and disagree, but if * steals it, we won't.

It's that important, and that is but one reason I am voting for Kerry.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Anarchists were among those that fought and died for the 8-hour workday

The Haymarket Martyrs

The story of the Haymarket Martyrs, and their monument in Forest Home Cemetery, begins at a convention of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1884. The Federation (the predecessor to the American Federation of Labor) called for a great movement to win the 8-hour workday, which would climax on May 1, 1886.

The plan was to spend two years urging all American employers to adopt a standard 8-hour day, instead of the 10 to 12, even up to 16-hour days that were prevalent. After May 1 of 1886, all workers not yet on an 8-hour schedule, were to cease work in a nation-wide strike until their employer would meet the demand.

80,000 Marched

Although some employers did meet the deadline, many did not. Accordingly, great demonstrations took place on May 1 all across the country. Chicago's was the biggest with an estimated 80,000 marching on Michigan Avenue, much to the alarm of Chicago's business leaders and newspapers who saw it as foreshadowing "revolution," and demanded a police crackdown.

In fact, the Anarchists and other political radicals in Chicago were reluctant to have anything to do with the 8-hour day strike, which they saw as "reformist;" but they were prevailed upon by the unionists to participate because Albert Parsons and others were such powerful orators and had a substantial following.

http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/haymkmon.htm