Well, I had to begin my walk home in less than five minutes when I tossed it up. For the most part, Paul speaks for himself. I’ll tell you what–in line with the sort of thing that Ron Paul represents, I promise that tomorrow morning, I’ll post an article on an alternative to the “pragmatic compromise” method of political progress that actually has worked, unlike pragmatism.
That oughta get the old blood boiling with the 3MRs in the audience.
Tom
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 5 June 2007 at 5:47 pm:
Tom, you never responded to my email which demonstrated the pragmatism of people like Gandhi and MLK…I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll get my anxiously-awaited reply.
Nope, Billy Joe. I could never lay my hands on the books that you quoted, and I will not use sources unless I have actually read them. I have never felt that someone else’s opinion of a book’s content is sufficient.
After all, anyone else who reads a book could quite possibly not be as intelligent or knowledgable as I.
So, that being said, what specifically that you found in your readings of the books you mentioned did you want me to address? I could try, once again to find them if you would be more specific.
The title of tomorrow’s piece is Incrementalism and Smoking.
Tom
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 5 June 2007 at 10:50 pm:
umm, more specific? Tom, the email that I sent you was like 1000 words long with about 12 cited sources, it took me like an hour to compile. Every article and every book cited had a link to it, including a link to the full text of the book which was entirely devoted to Gandhi’s pragmatism…I don’t think that it could have been more specific.
Please don’t make me post our communications on the blog, the emails plus your promise of a response and then lack of response will cause you severe embarrassment and public shame. Seriously Tom, I don’t want to make you cry or make you look like a kindergartner.
Billy Joe, I did nothing in the emails to be embarrassed about.
I’ve taken 40+ years of study and experience and brought it to the boards. You took 12 hours (and I expect quite a bit of caffeine)desperately trying to find books that would support your points–Augur described your search to me in detail.
Those are two different approaches. The difference that I was trying to kindly point out is that, rather than take someone else’s word on what a book or reference said, I actually have read the sources that taught me what I know.
To tell the honest truth, life intervened and I lost interest in countering your arguments. I think if folks will just go back to the early days of Urbanagora and re-read your political posts and my political posts (with the obvious exception of my embarassingly stupid prediction on the markets) they’ll see which one of us is the more reliable analyst.
mlk and gandhi make great postage stamps but are not the only model for social change… just friendly, nonthreatening ones that later can be held up as the only acceptable avenue for struggle.
liberation movements have always incorporated a variety of different actors, organizations and tactics and to point to emphatically non-violent leaders like mlkj and gandhi alone ignores the contributions of nation of islam, malcolm x, the panthers, the millions of indians who violently resisted british rule before gandhi stepped in as the empire was crumbling…
love them or hate them, criticise them all you want (i have plenty of criticism for the US military’s idea of a liberation movement, not to mention some nation of islam, hamas, hezblah and so forth) but don’t pretend that the only way to achieve positive change is to continually feed yourself to dogs in the name of “compromise” or “pragmatism.”
Welcome to the New Urbanagora!
In case you are wondering what motivated my suggestion, my visits to most sites (including this one) are erratic. Sometimes ...
thetodd | 5:47 pm | More
Welcome to the New Urbanagora!
Would it be easy to make it so that we can see more than just the last 5 posts/comments/what we're ...
thetodd | 5:44 pm | More
Yesterday's Follies
Well I could have suggested another $300 billion in bail out, or whine about how great Fannie and Freddie are ...
James Prescott | 5:18 pm | More
Comment by Augie on 5 June 2007 at 3:17 pm:
A little light on the commentary Tom. Your posts would be improved if you gave more of your thoughts w/ them instead of just throwing up a link.
Comment by tet on 5 June 2007 at 5:22 pm:
Well, I had to begin my walk home in less than five minutes when I tossed it up. For the most part, Paul speaks for himself. I’ll tell you what–in line with the sort of thing that Ron Paul represents, I promise that tomorrow morning, I’ll post an article on an alternative to the “pragmatic compromise” method of political progress that actually has worked, unlike pragmatism.
That oughta get the old blood boiling with the 3MRs in the audience.
Tom
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 5 June 2007 at 5:47 pm:
Tom, you never responded to my email which demonstrated the pragmatism of people like Gandhi and MLK…I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll get my anxiously-awaited reply.
Comment by tet on 5 June 2007 at 5:55 pm:
Nope, Billy Joe. I could never lay my hands on the books that you quoted, and I will not use sources unless I have actually read them. I have never felt that someone else’s opinion of a book’s content is sufficient.
After all, anyone else who reads a book could quite possibly not be as intelligent or knowledgable as I.
So, that being said, what specifically that you found in your readings of the books you mentioned did you want me to address? I could try, once again to find them if you would be more specific.
The title of tomorrow’s piece is Incrementalism and Smoking.
Tom
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 5 June 2007 at 10:50 pm:
umm, more specific? Tom, the email that I sent you was like 1000 words long with about 12 cited sources, it took me like an hour to compile. Every article and every book cited had a link to it, including a link to the full text of the book which was entirely devoted to Gandhi’s pragmatism…I don’t think that it could have been more specific.
Please don’t make me post our communications on the blog, the emails plus your promise of a response and then lack of response will cause you severe embarrassment and public shame. Seriously Tom, I don’t want to make you cry or make you look like a kindergartner.
Comment by tet on 6 June 2007 at 6:37 am:
Billy Joe, I did nothing in the emails to be embarrassed about.
I’ve taken 40+ years of study and experience and brought it to the boards. You took 12 hours (and I expect quite a bit of caffeine)desperately trying to find books that would support your points–Augur described your search to me in detail.
Those are two different approaches. The difference that I was trying to kindly point out is that, rather than take someone else’s word on what a book or reference said, I actually have read the sources that taught me what I know.
To tell the honest truth, life intervened and I lost interest in countering your arguments. I think if folks will just go back to the early days of Urbanagora and re-read your political posts and my political posts (with the obvious exception of my embarassingly stupid prediction on the markets) they’ll see which one of us is the more reliable analyst.
I’ll link to some of yours in my article.
Tom
Comment by erik on 6 June 2007 at 12:13 pm:
mlk and gandhi make great postage stamps but are not the only model for social change… just friendly, nonthreatening ones that later can be held up as the only acceptable avenue for struggle.
liberation movements have always incorporated a variety of different actors, organizations and tactics and to point to emphatically non-violent leaders like mlkj and gandhi alone ignores the contributions of nation of islam, malcolm x, the panthers, the millions of indians who violently resisted british rule before gandhi stepped in as the empire was crumbling…
love them or hate them, criticise them all you want (i have plenty of criticism for the US military’s idea of a liberation movement, not to mention some nation of islam, hamas, hezblah and so forth) but don’t pretend that the only way to achieve positive change is to continually feed yourself to dogs in the name of “compromise” or “pragmatism.”