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note: i wrote this with everyone in mind- everyone. i'm not singling out any group except the ruling cabal for approbation. flame me all you want but recongnize that i'm interested in all opinions, and currently advocate no platform. i think of myself as a progressive, for what that's worth. i just want to talk about this with other people.
ok, so here’s the rant: it’s time to think of new ways to affect the change we’re all advocating. why? well, i suppose there are a thousand, but let’s just say that from practically any perspective or issue you are most inclined towards, things are pretty bad and getting worse- bush or no bush in 04.
is the sky falliing? well, let’s for a moment assume that there a good chance, via that pentagon report linking the environmental decline to national security, that things are on the verge of major upheaval. if you prefer less military sources, let’s take the more popular assumption from the peak oil thread, and say that their predictions have a high probability.
anyway, let’s agree we’re strongly motivated to think, act, and plan for an uncertain future at best. let’s agree that the current political leadership is beyond failing to address our concerns, and in fact is basically colluding to make things worse. an uphill battle, to be sure. let’s finally agree that the past three years have essentially been a failure to achieve any of our goals, in the sense that we’ve been effectively ignored despite massive, global, repeated action. and in voting, in the sense that a small number of people in questionable circumstances have determined our “choice’ in oppositional leadership. we’re promised some change that is basically a slow-down in the rate at which things go wrong, or a continuation of the really unacceptable current direction. we’ll make the right “choice” but it won’t change that much.
but change is coming. there are so many signs that we need to stop investing in the system itself, as it has come to represent to us nothing more than systematized extraction. really, what do we get relative to what we put into it? some of us get to send our kids to school for free, or do business with the government, or even receive the benefit of one of the living in one of the society's “ideal communities,” with all its privileges, but that’s not a lot of us.
the rest- well, look at all the things we have to worry about. health care, education, job security, personal security, cultural denigration, religious intolerance...just for being what we are. which is what most of us are: not rich, not of one socio-economic group, not from a very specific religious tradition and/or social oligarchy. i’m not picking on any one “group” so much as identifying the economic and thus social and political barriers that have been erected and maintained by the (dare i say it) ruling class. we’re not like them, and so we don’t get to live as they do.
whatever, i could care less about people who want to segregate themselves from the rich world of most of humanity. further more, i’m tired of being told i have to care. i’m tired of being told that i must hate and fear some group far away for reasons that have nothing to do with my day to day life. i wish i could talk and laugh openly and freely with people of all different opinions knowing that we have nothing to fear. i want to know that what i do and say is part of a community of people with essentially the same opportunities and rights. that’s not really so much.
i’m not advocating anything crazy, i’m talking about the concept of returning to the local, neighborhood perspective. somehow, this feels like the place where we have the most ability, and would see the most significant benefits. the place where we can decouple ourselves from the moloch that appears to be devouring our very future, and without extreme struggle.
one thing that i’ve come to understand is that there are actually a lot of bright, nice, interested people out there. i know this because i read a lot and don’t watch tv, and i sample a pretty cool portion of the popular discourse with regularity. we’re small on the internet but wildly free (at this point). it’s amazing to see the range of ideas and perspectives, and flow of information and the unfettered exchanges of personal and professional convictions. romantically and unfashionably high-90s, so sue me.
but the point is that one person need not come up with all the steps and all the ideas and all the money all by themselves anymore. in addition, we can perceive and plan for systems which work and evolve to meet changing realities in real time, and model our success rates in the parallel universe of 000s of critical human brains, the original computing power. short version: progressives and liberals have never had more raw information at their disposal so easily.
thus, i’m pretty sure that it’s not that hard for people to begin coming together to think critically and speak plainly about what’s going on. we’ve already been doing it, in person and in the political VR. a kind of open source politicking that has been severely beaten and yet refuses to die. that’s just one ‘new” social condition.
the other is the simple, wholly non-revolutionary idea that we just need to stop, to get off the roller coaster of (pick your favorite apocalypse) and do what we can to deal with the coming changes, together. i think others have been implementing a part of what i’m taking about in something called the Simplicity Movement. What I’m advocating is a bit differently shaped, and more politically motivated.
the simplest way i can think of the equation is as follows: you-your dollar-medium sized economic group- government- large economic group- small number of individuals. in the end, everything we do is funneled UP, in the direction of a very small group of people for the benefit of those people alone at the expense (direct or long-term) of everybody else. again, there are a thousand different ways of saying this, but the point is: what of your time and efforts are actually yours? and in what ways do they benefit your community? if you were to merely place the majority of your dollars each pay period into an envelope and mail it to someone thousands of miles away, and be told to live off the rest, would you do it? the answer is yes, it seems we will.
more than anything else i want people to see that there’s nothing sinister, collective, or whatever evil word you want to use about keeping your (labor, signifier of capital, dollar) local. to know that there are a thousand ways communities can reorganize themselves to be more efficient, productive and fair. to see that sooooo much of what they think they are “building” right now is built on an illusion that the controlling powers themselves do not believe. what you’ve been promised can and will be taken away from you, no matter who you are or whom you know. the number of ‘insiders’ is actually a lot smaller than most right and center leaning folks appreciate. duh, black, brown, gay, and highly educated people already know this- ahem, mr. ashcroft. yet those who are trying to gain ultimate control over us, and any of the “we” reading this right now, will understand the simple fact that we are more than they, and they can’t police everything we do all of the time.
and besides, i’m not even talking about doing anything that requires policing. nonviolence is a winner. i’m talking about taking a few basic steps, and a few more, and thinking small yet as part of the already established whole. steps that we’ll most likely have to take in the near future, if any of the above premises are true.
let me see if i, one person, can generate a concrete list of what i mean. how many people pay for tv? or magazines or even (flame away) npr? how many people go to the store and make a choice: do i need two organic chickens and some rice or a scented candle from a chinese factory and one prepackaged frozen dinner? how many people have been willing to live in the space nearer to public transportation, when the option is available? who goes to the new department store for seasonal clothes when the salvation army and recycling store in the other part of town have basically the same thing? switching the direction of our dollars in the actions i’ve just described would go a long way towards making “them” feel our collective will. nice thing is, we don’t even have to agree what’s “most important.”
noncooperation is the term that is often used to describe what i’m talking about, but i want to be non-theoretical and keep things to the simplest terms: i’m told “most” americans don’t like complicated schemes. but i wonder if we just stepped off the treadmill, in little ways and small steps, that we’d be in a better position of affect the kind of change we care about, and remove the power from those who lord it over us with no concern for our well being.
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