Tag: radical

Mar 16 2010

Where have you gone, Albert Einstein?



In a recent diary by Cassiodorus, one point of his in particular struck me:

Thus the comparison between the Great Depression and the current Great Recession falls flat, because the popular upheavals of the 1930s are only in evidence today among the least helpful segments of the population.  This of course is a major reason why we can expect no FDR-like President to save us from the…economic collapse…

…During the 1930s…intellectual figures such as John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, Kenneth Burke, and Richard Wright were actual socialists and not just mere liberals offering occasional plugs for John Kerry.

Another prominent socialist, albeit a bit later than the Depression, was Albert Einstein.  He was an all around brilliant man, someone whom I admire greatly.  And he wisely said this, although today it would probably be considered way too radical for anyone respectable to utter:

Feb 03 2010

What would you say if they were calling you a “radical?”

First, if someone were calling you a “radical,” ask them to define their terms.   The term has such a wide variance of meanings as to be applicable to essentially opposite things, and some things in between, allowing for an absolute lack of accountability in its typically inflammatory usage.

The etymological “root” of radical is the Latin word radix, meaning root, connoting some essential, fundamental, or basic origin.  

Aug 18 2009

General Strike. There. I said it. It’s on the table.

It been so long since a general strike has happened in the US, I better post some background from the wikipedia entry …

A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants. It is also characterized by participation of workers in a multitude of workplaces, and tends to involve entire communities. The general strike has waxed and waned in popularity since the mid-19th century, and has characterized many historically important strikes.