Political influences

[Rainbow Moonlight]

Some of my early political/philosophical influences were Erich Fromm's To Have or to Be and to a lesser extent Fear of Freedom , a Zen book, (not the art of motorcycle maintenance one), several existentialist writers including Heidegger, Buber, Sartre, and another philosopher, Immanuel Kant, the dismissal of the Whitlam government, and, I guess, my dad and Enid Blyton kids books. What were yours?

[Hebe]

I did my Honours thesis on Sartre and the existentialists and majored in Philosophy, so I guess that was my main first influence. But apart from that, it was events that shaped me - Viet Nam, civil rights, the dismissal, and hugely, the environmental movement in Tasmania.

The United Tasmania Group was the only political party I ever joined.

The United Tasmania Group (UTG) is generally acknowledged as the world's first Green Party. The party was formed on 23 March 1972, during a meeting of the Lake Pedder Action Group (LPAG) at the Hobart town hall in order to field political candidates in the April 1972 state election. They received 3.9% of the statewide vote and came within 200 votes of winning a seat.[1] They also contested the 1976 election, this time receiving 2.2% of the votes.

The party's first President was Dr Richard Jones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Tasmania_Group

Dick Jones was a good friend of mine, died tragically young, and influenced me a lot.

[JW.Frogen]

Adolph Hitler and Gandhi.

I figure there is a golden mean in between there some where.

Unfortunately however I adopted Hilter's darwinian view of geo-politics and Gandhi's fashion sense.

[Rainbow Moonlight]

Interesting that you studied philosophy too hebe- i loved it.

[freediver]

Jared Diamond, Thomas Kuhn, David Brock, Stephen Jay Gould, Nelson Mandela, Eric Schlosser, Marc Reisner, my economics lecturer from UCSD.

[JW.Frogen]

Spiderman influnced my political theories on use of violence as a moral good. Though I also have a bit of Batman influence, you know some times he kicks ass simply because he enjoys it.