hey john,
your history is eerily familiar. i toyed with the idea of joining a party
also but i think i was trying to kid myself. i have known for a while that
party politics - no matter how idealistic the individual - is a no hoper.
i learned this once and for all when i led an independent team for my
student union elections in 1998. we were unaffiliated and unsponsored. we
raised dough through a fundraising party at my own house. we were up against
two other teams composed of and funded by the labor and liberal parties. the
whole affair was terribly machiavellian. for underhand tactics and sheer
bastardry labor took the cake (and the election by the way).
when i sent an email to all the student unions in australia outlining 11
violations of the electoral procedure by the labor team (one of which
included sending voting kits to postgrads - 1/3 of all students at qut -
*after* the due date for response) the labor union got its lawyers in and
informed me that they were taking me to court for libel. after two days of
consultation they dropped it - the points in my email were all (fortunately)
verifiable. but this didn't annul the election....th euniversity senate said
it wasn't their jursidiction; likewise the state electoral office said they
were powerless. indeed the single official in charge was appointed by the
labor union and was still a member of the labor party!
many of the poeple in that labor team are now involved in state/federal
politics.
as for my point about society equalling me....
there are many ways you can look at it:
firstly, empirically, when my society (country/company/uni..whatever) does
something i am against there is a feeling of wrong/injustice and a
consequent compulsion to make it clear - in word or action - that i am
opposed to the wrong. this is henry david thoreau stuff - civil
disobedience. because our 'self' is composed of a social element we still
*feel* a wrong that is done not by us but by our society. silence = consent
in this context.
on a purely political level if we are into democracy and consider ourselves
as a nation to be a democracy then this compulsion is reinforced
intellectually.
on a mystic level all that we perceive is us - tat tvam asi. the mystic
level reinforces the connection between self and world and it aslo kind of
severs it - if you know what i mean. the whole bodhisattva thing is about
this maybe.
cheers john
gav
>
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