Do Fasts Have Political Impact Anymore?

[Mike03]

Two of my heroes, Gandhi and Jonathan Kozol, utilized the fast as a means of protesting political developments they strongly opposed. Many people have fasted to stop the Iraq war.

Gandhi's fasts seemed to make a difference, but that was decades ago.

Very few people even seem to know that the great author and former teacher Jonathan Kozol has been on a liquid fast for months trying to get No Child Left Behind out of our schools. He is an old man, and he has lost thirty pounds that he can't afford to lose. And we can't afford to lose Jonathan Kozol.

I have even heard people laugh at and ridicule political fasters.

I have fasted, but for spiritual reasons rather than to make a point. In fact, I never tell people that I'm fasting.

1. Do you think these gestures are effective in a modern world where people seem not to care about other humans anymore?

2. To broaden this question slightly, do you think that Gandhi's methods of passive resistence are still relevant? If so, why is not more common?

3. Why do you think people laugh at methods of protest like non-violence and fasting? Have they always laughed at them, or is this a new development? Do you think these methods have a place now?

[Selatius]

1. It is ineffective when the news outlets are owned by a small number of corporations.

The effect is little different than the news outlets being owned and operated by a dictatorial government. The effect is the same: Depriving the people of relevant information needed to make informed decisions.

Instead, the news outlets are treated as money-making enterprises that report on sensationalistic and inane news stories that do nothing to address serious, fundamental issues of society. For the people who run corporations, this may be for the best, for if the people were truly informed, they might become a threat to the entrenched power structure.

[lvx35]

2. Very few people really UNDERSTAND Gandhi's methods.

The point of non-violent resistance was never to just get your picture in the paper in order to change people's minds, it's about transcending to higher levels of existence in the afterlife. For instance, Gandhi advocated celibacy for all of humankind, stating that the result would be the transcendence of humanity to a higher plane of being. Its really, really religious/spiritual stuff. You have to be willing to smile while you get butchered, knowing you are going to a higher plane when its done...

So regarding fasts, if you expect to get your name in lights you will be let down...But if you understand that the force behind MLK and Gandhi's movements was called SOULFORCE and not MEDIAFORCE, I think you might be surprised.

[fenriswolf]

3. starvation only works if a vast majority of

people care about other peoples lifes, is that the case anymore?

[Captain Hilts]

4. Well, Bobby Sands' fast did. But he actually killed himself. nt

[H2O Man]

5. It depends

on two factors: (1) Who is doing it? and (2) Why they are doing it.

"A satyagrahi should fast only as a last resort when all other avenues of redress have been explored and have failed." -- Gandhi
(This and other information on fasting can be found in "Gandhi on Non-Violence," by Thomas Merton.

[Mike03]

9. That is a wise response.

Hmm, I should have thought of that. :think:

It just pissed me off so much to have to do an in-depth search to discover that Kozol was still on his fast and, really, no one has paid any attention. He should be, IMO, a revered figure in the United States for his advocacy for children.

[Frogger]

6. I don't think that they are,

at least since Thatcher let the Irish prisoners die rather than give in to their demands.

I always wondered why they did, to begin with. Why would anyone care more about your life than you do? That is the question. It seems sort of like extortion to me, except that instead of threatening to kill you, the faster threatens to kill himself.

So why would someone who obviously didn't care that he was already doing wrong care about that?

And yet, it did work for a while. Curious.

[slowry]

7. I dunno, but at Guantanamo they just stick a tube in ya, and call it a day. n/t

[UTUSN]

8. Nope. I travelled to the SOUTHERN border to protest the Minutemen.

I looked for my Democratic Party to march with, to demonstrate with. Nope. They said they had a press confrence.

O.K., fine. So I went to the Cesar CHAVEZ group, the Farmworkers' Union. They march for EVERYTHING, with flags & the Virgin of Guadalupe and everything.

Well, long story short, they didn't want to march against the Minutemen. They were told by the big wheels in California to FAST.

I could HEAR the Minutemen LAUGHING.



I wrote a Letter to the Editor. Nobody was with me. That is all.



FUCK "fasting". Why should the deprived Farmworkers PUNISH THEMSELVES while the FAT PIG Minutemen are swilling their LIQUOR and LAUGHING at them?! Eh???!1