I agree wholeheartedly. Reality is difficult and confusing. Everyone interested in truly democratic or anarchic futures should bear in mind that respecting the good in other people, who just happen to be caught up in the status quo, and putting ourselves in their places, cannot diminish the legitimacy or strength of our own vision. I am sure that in fact, by alienating fewer people, it makes our dreams more possible, which is surely the most important quality we would want them to have.

Maybe it would be a brilliant idea if sites like this published a huge list of companies who are involved in all kinds of human/animal/planet abuses , then , when/if the public surf to pages like this they will be able to 'choose' whether to be informed or not , as it is , the site is nothing to do with publicly exposing these people and what they are up to.so,why not try it indymedia , make it a perm fixture!!

Whilst I agree with you for the most part, I'm as resonable as the nexy guy, friends and family are a little different from strangers who are willing to kick your teeth in if you don't share their close minded views.
If people here are a little sanguine its because of other people's warped opinions of us. When you get given a bad name for long enough and are pushed into a corner you tend to come out fighting.
Also, I'd say that there are people out there who most certainly are wankers. You could give them the true facts till yer blue in the face and you'd be lucky if you didn't get a slap in return. And that's all classes, regardless.
But that's the good thing about this network and forum isn't it? Views from different perspectives. The way it should be in the press.

I agree with the idea of treating INDIVIDUALS with something like respect, and not automatically their behavior and mindsets. I see that if we talk about the issue of how it's "impossible" to change the mindsets of *everyone* to the very people we want to have look deeper (and into our/others' perspectives), we can actually get many people to think deeper.

I've had success in this area personally! Demystify how we're ALL brought up into DIVERSE communities, and openly bring up how we ALL take for granted the reality in which we're presented.

Still, we don't allow behavior that we believe (at this juncture) to be problematic. We seek to accept individuals but not their belief systems--automatically. Via face-to-face communications we each come to better understandings.

By the way, this method is closely related to passive nonviolent methodology; my own view is that passive nonviolent methods have a habit of not working when soldiers called police are mandated to smash such situations. So I promote militant, or confrontive nonviolence.

What's that? Read a little Saul Alynsky sometime (he was a u.s. neighborhood activist who wrote a book called _Rules For Radicals_; the tactics described in there are basically about "going outside the experience of the opponent, but inside the experience of the people one is with.")

Unlike passive nonviolence, confrontive nonviolence is much more dynamic, and still allows challengers to vent their frustrations (i.e. the black bloch), yet in a way that ultimately has a better chance of bridging with the opponent mindset.