Misunderstandings - or Mitchel Cohen´s guest lecture

In order to heaten up the whole "Mitchel-Cohen-guest-lecture-discussion" I finally decided to write down my impression about the guest lecture by Mitchel Cohen.
First of all I have to say that I liked the whole lecture really much - especially because it wasn´t like a lot of students had expected it to be. I think the overall expectation had been that Mr. Cohen would come and talk about Obama and his politics - but as some of you already might have read or experienced yourselves he just didn´t.

We sat down in a circle and discussed a lot of features of politics in general. The majority of those features we discussed might only seem subtle to a lot of us but in fact they are the most influential aspects or the most powerful outcomes of politics. Mitchel Cohen gave the swine flu or cancer as examples. At first glance they have nothing to do with politics but further examined they are the means by which politics are often made nowadays. The thought that we as ordinary citizens do not recognize such manipulations most of the time really makes me angry. But at the same time frightens me in a way.

And I think that was the message Cohen wanted to convey. That we should start to question the decisions made by leading politicians or people holding a higher office more often. That we shouldn´t always follow blindly. I think that this is also what he meant by saying everything we do is political. In my opinion he is totally right. Look, if you decide not to vote as you consider yourself apolitical ísn´t that a political decision as well?! If you decide not to care if a high percentage of wheat grown in the US is genetically manipulated and keep buying the products made of it isn´t that political (remember you support the pro-genetic engineering lobbyists by doing so...)?

Maybe the discussion contained a lot of controversial issues but I think that was what made it so special - it got us all thinking about these topics. And maybe the discussion wasn´t all that fact-based as a lot had hoped it to be - but I enjoyed listening to the other´s opinions and of course to those of Mitchel Cohen - I have to admit that I really fell for his 60´s attitude.

At the end I shortly wanted to discuss the point that some critized that he didn´t offer solutions. During the lecture I myself asked him what economic system he favours - which one according to his opinion would satisfy the needs of all people all over the world. He didn´t answer - only that he considers himself an anarcho-communist.
Later I thought that he maybe again wanted us to think of possible solutions?!