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You are correct that no one knows what to do after storming the Winter Palace. So don't take that route. We know how that ends. The future is uncharted territory largely because it has been in the interests of the Serious People to never allow that territory to be charted. That territory is one in which a government is in fact accountable to the majority of the people instead of a clique of the wealthy.

It's not like the current occupants of the WInter Palace have a clue, either.

Economics is politics by other means

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Jul 1st, 2011 at 03:04:49 AM EST
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No one knows what to do after storming the Winter Palace.

This is the very same situation the Parliamentarians faced in the 1640s in England. The existing thought system made it impossible to deal with a monarch who was bent on imposing Divine Right absolutism. Christopher Hill described the situation after the King had been captured pretty well. He said the Parliamentarians suffered from a "mind-stop" which made it impossible to contemplate the next step. But that "mind-stop" was overcome, to the detriment of Charles I. We have been through many iterations since that time.

It took another 45 years or so to arrive at another quasi-stable political solution, but the outcome of 1688 has served as the original part of the foundation for the current system in England, while allowing that foundation to be greatly expanded over time. Yet a similarly radical expansion is needed in the U.K. today. Likewise in the USA.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Jul 1st, 2011 at 09:24:00 AM EST
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Aren't you missing out the Putney debates there?

The Debates

The Levellers wanted a constitution based upon manhood suffrage ("one man, one vote") and a fairer reorganisation of parliamentary constituencies. Further, they also wanted authority to be vested in the House of Commons rather than the King and Lords (with elections every two years) and "native rights" to be declared sacrosanct for all Englishmen:

 

 freedom of conscience, freedom from impressment into the armed forces, everyone equal under the law and no penalties should be made for not going to church, or attending other acts of worship. 

 

 

The Leveller's ideas had come to dominate the thinking of soldiers and officers in Cromwell's New Model Army. In October 1647, five of the most radical cavalry regiments in elected Agitators (Latin to drive) who were known as New Agents to represent their freethinking political and religious views. 

 

The New Agents issued a political manifesto: The Case of the Armie Truly Stated, and endorsed the constitutional proposals drafted by civilian Levellers in the Agreement of the People.  



Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Fri Jul 1st, 2011 at 11:21:51 AM EST
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Aren't you missing out the Putney debates there?

Yes, it was a simple gloss with no attempt to convey the marvelous diversity of ideas that emerged, however briefly, during the Civil War. Another question would be how the Restoration might have been avoided.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Jul 1st, 2011 at 12:44:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-nelson/the-dark-side-of-acing-the-tests_b_887160.html

Train them from a young age to have a unidirectional mind.

Bruner's primary concern was that children are being pressed to do too much too soon. The negative effects of early academic work are several fold, he stated. Young children are too often asked to do things for which they are developmentally unready. This leads to frustration, stress and a potential aversion to learning. More debilitating, the early introduction of so-called academic work has a conditioning effect, perhaps unintended, but very powerful. Gradually, children in what we now call "high stakes" learning situations, whether at school or home, are conditioned to see learning as, and only as, the process of delivering the "correct" response to the powerful adult in whose presence they find themselves.

Children like to please parents and teachers. If extrinsic and intrinsic rewards are conditioned on giving "right" answers, children will indeed work hard to figure out what the adult will accept as the "right" answer. The process is self-perpetuating as the rewards are compounded over time. When strongly conditioned to see learning this way, qualities like imagination, skepticism, eccentricity, originality, invention and creativity will be extinguished. These are unreliable mechanisms for discerning "right" answers.

by Upstate NY on Fri Jul 1st, 2011 at 12:24:16 PM EST
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