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Date Posted:09:47:39 08/26/04 Thu In reply to:
Rob Dog Bastard
's message, "I know I know." on 03:12:12 08/26/04 Thu
I read the whole transcript and I agree that there were some radical ideas in there, but they weren't the focus of the speech. Some points of the speech were valid (discussed below) and your statement that the whole thing is crap because of the radical portions is completely false.
Part of open discussion/argument is listening. Only by listening can you fully determine which aspects of someone's opinions you agree or disagree with. I rarely completely disagree with all aspects of someone else's opinion. The hopeful outcome of any argument is a greater understanding of your own position through the understanding of someone else's position.
This transcript is a case and point. This is a long speech and the author covers a lot of ground. I was able to take away some useful insights into the ideas of the "politics of fear", the lack of separation between the idea of "public" and "government" in the US, how NGOs can hurt more than they help (welfare on a global scale) and how the government of India has taken laws similar to the Patriot Act and turned them into de facto weapons against protest.
Even if you don't agree with everything the author argues, you can still gleen useful information from this speech. I don't agree with most of her Empire points, but a significant portion of her speech deals with interesting ideas that helped me to refine opinions that I already had.
