Hi everyone. I'm Charles. friends in US call me Chaz. I'm 25. currently doing a PhD in computational linguistics in Germany. I was born Chinese, and now a US citizen. I've lived and studied in Taiwan, NZ, USA, and UK. Speak Mandarin Chinese and German besides English. Majored in Computer Science, and Philosophy. Single (again...).

My favorite philosophers had been Plato, Kant, Frege, Bertrand Russell, the Logical Positivists, and now Noam Chomsky (Marx, Luxemburg and Bakunin arn't on the top of my list actually). You can say I am a radical when it comes to politics. I am an agnostic in the Thomas Huxley/ William James sense, and without too much contradiction I do hold spiritual believes; in political spectrums would prefer to label myself as an anarchist/libertarian socialist if I have to. That entails, I think the history of mankind makes more sense if you see it as a never ending class struggle, and nearly everything that is meaningful to me in politics can be understood in the light of this.

I take part in non-partisan political groups, consisting of self-help activists, promoting peace, economic equality, civil and human rights, conservation and environmentalism etc. I think in order to maintain a sustainable degree of freedom, and to move towards true democracy, it is necessary to band together with fellow men and women, combine voices and solidarity, and not to be isolated. Invariably I feel there's a degree of self-contradiction and foolhardiness in all this, that on the one hand it's essential for our survival to commit to such an optimism, but on the other hand, doing so is buying into a political system which assumes democracy. So I have some doubts on the effectiveness of such activism, since the assumption doesn't hold fundalmentally. The other way is true revolution, which repeats in the course of history and I don't think it will stop in our century.

I am quite pessimistic about the current world affairs and human nature in general. I think there will be violent civil wars in USA in about 40-50 years ahead. There would be obvious turmoils when oil and gas are depleted (or simply the pass of Hubbert peak), and furthermore, catastrophies from global warming. It is questionable whether our civil societies would be democratized and rational enough to face our own consequences. I think the human history will end in my lifetime. I do not know what I can do about it really, but I'm doing what I can.

Regarding US Politics specifically. I think it is not a democracy, and it had never been (but neither is Europe or anywhere in the world, I do agree that they are tolerable however). The place is not free, although I know everyone would disagree- You can own guns, bad mouth the president..... so what? You call that freedom? But most woman faces difficulties when seeking abortion, homosexuals get eyed in public, organizing labor unions will get you fired, you cannot put anti-war commercials on national TV or even wear such T-shirts in malls, and the communist party was outlawed etc... That is not a free country I tell you- it is only "free" because you preceived it through a very limited perspective. The United States, in my view, is really a corporate ployarchy. I also have problems with their foreign policy. USA have been the source of great grievances around the world. Talk about that later.

BTW... You guys wanna know what my sig says?

"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality."

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Déjeme decirle, a riesgo de parecer ridículo, que el revolucionario verdadero está guiado por grandes sentimientos de amor. Es imposible pensar en un revolucionario auténtico sin esta cualidad.

-- Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna