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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (223345)	10/10/2007 5:23:21 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793552

GW seems to out think democrats all the time.

To: koan who wrote (223345)	10/10/2007 5:30:16 PM
From: goldworldnet	Respond to of 793552

There's nothing wrong with book learning and in fact it is good, but it is still based largely in theory whereas street smarts are geared toward application. * * *

To: koan who wrote (223345)	10/10/2007 6:18:42 PM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793552

No such thing really as street smart Baloney. Dealing with real people is an education all by itself. What about this guy? >>Eric Hoffer was a self-educated longshoreman who came to fame in the 1950's with the publication of his first book, The True Believer. A caustic analysis of the nature of mass movements and those who are driven to join them, The True Believer did what few other books of the mid-twentieth century could: it helped expose the hidden causes of the tumultuous events that nearly destroyed our world at that time. Hoffer said of the 1930's, "It colors my thinking and shapes my attitude toward events. I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac." The True Believer, though, is not solely concerned with the rise of Nazi Germany, but with the origination of all mass movements, destructive or creative. And more importantly, it is concerned with the main ingredient of such movements, the frustrated individual. The book probes into the psychology of the frustrated and dissatisfied, those who would eagerly sacrifice themselves for any cause that might give their meaningless lives some sense of significance. The alienated seek to lose themselves in these movements by adopting those fanatical attitudes that are, according to Hoffer, fundamentally "a flight from the self." Hoffer's first book dove into the subject that ultimately occupied him for his entire writing career and interested him throughout his life. That subject was not merely the discontented individual, but the creative and fulfilled individual as well. The nature of man and the individual human being have always been primary themes in the history of philosophical thought, and Hoffer's struggles with these concepts and questions have produced some particularly illuminating insights. He writes, "It is the individual alone who is timeless. The individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged throughout the millennia." It is fitting that a true individual, as Hoffer most certainly was, would demonstrate a deep understanding of human nature not only in his writings, but in his life as well. Born in 1902, Hoffer grew up in the Bronx under the care of a household servant after his mother died when he was seven. When his father died in 1920, Eric moved by himself to the west coast, determined to avoid factory work and "stay poor." A born reader, he began to educate himself in the libraries of California while he supported himself with odd jobs and migrant farm labor. He lived his life on the road until 1941. When the war broke out, Hoffer attempted to join the military, but was rejected for health reasons. He joined the Longshoreman's Union instead and became a stevedore, doing the most difficult work possible in order to help the war effort in whatever way he could. For the next twenty-five years, he both worked the waterfront and actively pursued the knowledge and education that he had pursued all his life, reading, writing, struggling, and playing with the ideas that would be his life's work. He published ten books between 1951 and 1982, and an eleventh was published after his death in 1983. As short as it may be, this is all the introduction that should be given here. Hoffer lived an interesting life, and the events of it are better told in the several available biographies, plus the autobiography Truth Imagined. Also, because of the terseness and clarity of his writing, a summary of Hoffer's main ideas cannot be particularly exciting or fruitful. It is best to read his words and grapple with his ideas as he expressed them himself. This, then, brings us to the purpose of The Eric Hoffer Resource. The page is intended as a resource on Hoffer for those who may have searched for information about him on the internet in the past without luck. It is also hoped that the page may attract those not yet familiar with Hoffer and spark in them an interest in his ideas and writings. erichoffer.net

To: koan who wrote (223345)	10/11/2007 2:35:43 AM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793552

i could give you 35 years of experience. I started as mail boy, moved through a very large organization , relocated 11 times. worked in sales, operations, management sciences, ran trucking terminals , managed region accounting , purchasing , my background was from the ground up and most was working with people, knowing the environment from the streets, and the education i got going to school nights for accounting finance. I was the fixer in the corporation. When something blew up that nobody else would touch, those who were the ordained couldn't be sacrificed to try to fix it or it would hurt their up the org plans, or they were sent for exposure, to get some street smarts and it became such a disaster i got called to go fix the problem. I worked with many various executives, most of whom didn't know the basic business, or would take any chance on change unless they had ten people in front of them signing off on a project. Many of these executives were puts. they got there by who they knew in the corporation, their family connections, or the school they got their mba from which gave them rapid promotions from other same school graduates. It was a club, i did it so you do it.