Report: Likud and Yisrael Beytenu to unite for elections

Maybe they will become like us.

... but I really like your signature quote.

Reminds me of the book, "Mutual Aid - A Factor of Evolution" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution, written by the anarchist, Peter Kropotkin. He basically studied animal species, including human, and came to the conclusion that societies that tended to foster cooperation tended to become more cooperative and more successful, over those societies that tended to favor competition.

Very interesting read, if you have the time.

Free online here:

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/mutaidcontents.html

(For some reason the html tags weren't working for me.)

And yes, Hobbes was a simple-minded twit. I'm a big fan of individualism, personal liberty, but only in the context of a functioning civil society and the mutual rights and obligations that entails.

I put that on my list, thanks. Haven't read Kropotkin, it's fascinating he was writing about that in 1902.

HTML is tweaked a bit on DU, I think there are posts in Help that explain some of it, but in particular you use square brackets instead of angle brackets, like lbacket i rbracket for italic, lbracket slash i rbracket for end italic, etc. plus some custom things for links and the smilies.

... but the individual is nothing without society, and society is nothing without the individual. Sort of Yin/Yang thing, I suppose. It's been awhile since I read Prince Kropotkin's works (he was born of royalty in Russia, but became an anarchist and a fervent supporter of workers' and communal rights). Perhaps, he was, a little more to the communist wing of the anarchist movement, where I pretty much vacillate between the mutualist and collectivist influences, his writings were and are pretty powerful (sort of brings more of the scientific flare for social organization).

"The most perfect socialism is possible only on the condition of the most perfect individualism." - Benjamin Tucker

As to the HTML, I tried using the link button, but it must be malfunctioning. I'll check out the help page. Thanks and happy reading.

P.S. I'm re-reading chapter 7 - Mutual Aid Amongst Ourselves. Still extremely interesting. He was a young contemporary of Marx, Proudhon and Bakunin, lived during the Paris Commune, attended the First International and lived during World War I. He had quite a life for a "Prince."

Read that around 17, formative for me.

Yin and Yang, Karma, Hubris and Nemesis, the great wheel of time, "What goes around comes around". The picture and the frame, the media and the message, the dancer and the dance: everything matters, everything has its limits, and you ignore them at your peril.

Like his style. I read The Stranger a long time ago. Don't really get into fiction all that much (although, I should). I prefer to read about physics or political philosophy, but I remember thinking that was a very interesting peek into man's psyche.

Started out with the Myth of Sysiphus. Moved on to The Rebel, then the essays. Of it all I still prefer the essays, though I consider the Myth important. He is not always that sophisticated, but he has great intellectual courage.

I read the fiction much more recently. I suppose I'm too analytical for it, like with Kafka. I want things nailed down. My normal tastes run similar to yours I think. But if you dig deep enough in math or physics or analytic philosophy these days, you eventually find yourself staring at the void.

The Myth and Rebel I liked much when I was young, now I tend to see them as his claim to entry into the French academic tradition, which runs heavy to regurgitation. A bit adolescent.

But they still taught me a lot, introduced me to some of the people you mention (Bukharin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Marx, Kropotkin, etc.) and a lot of others across the political/philosophical spectrum.

I've always like outsiders, rebels, people born in the wrong time, like Melville, or the wrong place, like Camus, or just plain wrong for where they are. Some of us are just born "outside the box" in one way or another. Risky place to be, but you see strange things too, so l look for them.

One more:



There is some Yin and Yang for you

In the end I suppose he is a minor writer, but he has meant a lot to me.

I ask merely for information.

but Jews, well it depends on perspective I guess for now they seem to be but the question is why

Of course if you track down anything different, let me know. But given their hatred of Arab and Jews, they're fit bedfellows for Likud and the other Israeli RW party, imo...

America's two-party system isn't the result of there being two powerful parties muffling others. It's the result of our electoral system, where whoever gets the most votes wins everything. In Israel, as with other parliamentary systems, whoever gets the most votes simply gets the largest representation among the halls of government; everyone else who got past a certain threshold of votes also gets seated in the government.

Unless Israel decides to abandon a parliamentary system in favor of our own less-democratic, more primitive system, there's still going to be plenty of parties and coalition-building.

America's two-party system is exactly from this result. Smaller parties joining up with larger ones to form super-parties. Look at election results from the early days of the republic. If what is going on now in Israel results in two huge merged parties, it will be just like what we have.

Sorry Oberliner, you're just flat wrong. Yes, there have been party mergers in US history, but that's because there is absolutely no benefit for coming in third in US elections. This is the origin of our two-party system, the only position that matters is first place, and there's only a second place because there needs to be competition. We've effectively had a two-party system since Jefferson's era (Federalists and Democratic Republicans)

Now we look at Israel. Shas comes in third in an election, and the result is they get the third-largest share of government power. In the American system they'd have absolutely nothing (which, in the specific example, would probably be for the best, but whatever).

If what happens in Israel results in two huge parties, then it just means there's two huge parties; their power in government still relies on what percent of the vote they get, which can easily be upset by smaller parties that offer the voters a better platform.

As though Tories and the BNP merged (umph, don't give them the idea!) That's really more or less what's happened in the USA, with the Republicans virtually merging with the teabaggers.

Yisrael Beiteinu does support a Palestinian state, but in my opinion, primarily for racist reasons.

*finger-cross for the center-left*