Make it plain!

The end is not near


it is here. There will be no salvation as the crass imagine themselves with their chosen visages lifted up into the streaming sunlight poking through rumpled grey clouds.
You too must live through the economic bomb devastating, devastating your natural shelters.
There will be no mercy except in as far as the community suffering this collapse provides refuge from the irrational laws of dying market driven false consciousness, and from the outsiders hungry, desperate and lost to any resemblance of the current morality it is presumed that we all indulge in.
There will be no second chance for the bankers turned beggars, who still presume themselves lord over us: those defiled by their schemes, by their systems of rigged "justice" and savage, inequal distribution of the byproducts of labor.
The lion will lay with the lamb as we are all brought to the same level and no one has abstract wealth to control the order of property. Some with too much now and must not be given the chance to continue in tyranny as that was their role in this last dying world. They must go to history with the titans as new self realized gods rise up and grasp their fate from the clutches of those who no longer know what to do with it. the new class must reinforce this by spreading its ethos vigorously with all those willing to embrace and defend the concept of self empowerment for the good of the group as an extension of the individual, not the glorification of the individual for its own sake.
We can, and I'm sure will, wait. There's no we about us as of right now. Whether I and others have called the idiocy of two+ wars and the worst presidency ever, the impossible structure of the economy from well and far before it doesn't make any sense to the rest of you, they amongst the masses propping up centrist opinion will continue to suckle at the teat of mass media ignorance, and draw more nonsensical opinions from the center of a far right skewed dystopia. Those who make the rest of us wait with their cowering in fear and loathing until the problem is so bad that the ignorant, the racists, the violent, the repressed will try to take this and force it into the mold that their logic requires, and the DD&B centrists will likely believe them first. After all they are closer to the oppressive values that got us here in the first place. People like you and I who if not free, are at least trying to become free (free from the slavery of modern doings) can scarcely wait for the rest to catch up. We will be the first, the ones blamed for gravity going down and taking the economy with it. We who can see the emperor without clothes and believe that which our eyes tell us are undoubtedly dangerous, not because we are likely to incite a crime, but because we could potentially rectify a far larger one. Yet between now and when this crisis finally plows deep into hell like a meteroite, these last moments, it's true for all of us: memento mori : carpe diem. The sky is falling. It's just, not everybody can tell right yet because it's all around us, drawn down by the same constant of gravitational pull.

I thought earlier, according to the graphs on the link, it's like for the last 18 or so years, we've run off the edge of the cliff and our momentum carried us forward over the abyss. we could look up and argue about whether the old paradigm of economic cycles even applied to the new prosperity, much like the perpetual dynasty of republican leadership, this myth now falls before us. a long descent from a stratospheric concentration of power and control which must yield this message if there could be but one and no other: NEVER AGAIN! Never again will we sacrifice each other in the name of something as putrid and pathetic as wage slavery. Never again will we let those in power experiment with us, prone like victims of some new universal holocaust(albiet one of varying degrees according to race, gender and national origin), a plaything for the experiments of souless technocrats curious as to what happens when shocks are applied to tender spots, or starving bodies. Never again can we allow ourselves to be diverted nor instructed by a media sycophant orchestrated by the exploitation class. Never again can we ever trust people to think for us, and not use that opportunity for their gain at our expense. I say these words to anyone who might listen, not because I expect crowds roaring in the streets, but out of a compulsive nature, as the gravity of small objects ultimately obeys the gravity of far larger ones. There is no denying where we are headed. Invest in parachutes, jump out of the market now and convert money, stocks, nest eggs whatever into any form of hard wealth that people will need when we have an infinitely fractionalized economy: land, and in it space to set your infastructure, permaculture, medicinal plants and know-how, metal working (casting & smithing), tool making, electricity generation(or waterwheels for kinetic energy based tools), self defense, spare parts. Those who have those things and carefully maintained social ties will have less regret and less nostalgia for the dystopia in the defunctopia.

nothing will be saved

I sense it coming on
hot vibration, like an electric current
the light compressed
series of image experiences
just enough to torture me with deja vu
just enough to remember the forboding

here is the ever present broken dichotomy
I can't hear you over its silent noise
I see it as a geyser spewing energy
of unknown origin
towards an unknown destination
washing away meaning,
leaving behind the bla[n](c)k canvas
of post mortemism
moving me into the realm of incongruity
st(r)uck with words hanging out of my mouth
like tendrils of emesis
symptomatic
from this disease of conscious thought
bound to action
through the process of alienation
will I make it through?
I know some part of me has to die
but will it be the part that keeps me alive?
still just feeling so heavy,
suspecting nanotech:
microscopic chemical warheads detonate
and spill their nerve agents all over my synapses
it's in the peanut butter and the puppy chow
i've seen so many others dealing with it too
these words are all i have left of spent privilege
it brings me no meaning, leaves me no meaning
doubt i'll live to see the day
or would even be able to recognize it
should things return to a state of equilibrium.....
without needing to find that one reason left to
indulge in my cortisol addiction
sick of the same problems
leading to the same situations
leading to the same tensions
leading to the same conclusions
leading to the same delusions......

prometheus still conspires

Despite my clear realization of what I'm against this is an open dialogue likely to myself, but open, stating my vision of foresight in the ideal dimension now co-occurring and awaiting us to join them.
This is for thinking big picture, you asked for the moon, now you have it what do you do with it?
unfortunately, we know what the neo-con moon world looks like, what if the pendulum really swings?
I suppose it starts with some blank slate scenario.
Some economic disaster levels the playing field,
depresses property values,
sweeps away the power of wealth or at very least the illusion that wealth is something other than a running tab on a computer somewhere that thinks itself special, and in some places where there is less to live and die for than others.
enter stage left: "The People" (that is those willing to act on their own behalf) get together and say: what are we going to do about this? in Greek chorus, or cacophony more likely.

side note: I'm against any form of capitalism that enshrines things over the lives of the people in this society. Any system which could develop as potent a tool for self reflection as modern civilization has, only to discard and marginalize the uncomfortable parts and use the internally designated "useful stuff" to develop increased measures to force participation in their hideous system by any and all means available.


I would monologue & diatribe with the following :
Take the mixed Socialism model, e.g. Scandinavia with some radical Venezuela mixed in, or vice versa.
Logically amplify it to a sustainable level,
Reverse the class war gains, excessive wealth "givebacks", no escape e.g. off shoring, emigrating, selling off properties, if you leave, you leave your "excess" wealth.
If the excessively wealthy prefer to leave than live in socialism, then they must leave behind whatever assets i.e. means of production etc. that are under their control, so wealth cannot take flight or use other tools in its illusion to cripple alternatives from working out of the gate.
Institute a Maximum Wage,
a single home/ condo/apartment unit maximum(no more rent or property taxes), with other places and units such as 2nd homes, etc, that are lotteried off for a months stay in a season of your choosing.
an acreage max(enough to sustain yourself and a family of 4) for those who prefer that lifestyle, an asset cap as mentioned,
everybody is taken care as far as health care, and food/clothing shelter, in exchange for a fair # hours per week, doing grunt work in remediating the environment, building new communities, whatever your most apt to be able to do developing a new sustainable agricultural model.
popular workshops help to bridge the gap and help average people adapt to this model and get the most out of it, help them organize, advocate and join the social discussion to draw society towards their vision.
Eventually, this society is immersed in the participatory process.
Everybody has had the opportunity to learn how cooperative models of social organization function.
You have compulsory exams in hard sciences? you need compulsory education in cooperative social models, in applied critical theory, nothing could make for a sharper more far thinking democracy than one that had the capability to grasp long term issues, and not fall for the short term traps currently found everywhere we turn. people are taught to loathe the concept of concentrated and tyrannical power by learning the true stories of it's unnecessary excesses, and living it's alternative.
There would be intolerance for intolerance although this is the rim of the the slippery slope towards stalinist hell.
Taking all of the know-how of production and distribution, first you extract the corporation from it's imaginary role, then utilize it's productivity and efficiency to reduce the collective work load.

Utilize it's breaking tasks into easily trainable components and educate all who are interested in becoming doctors or other healing practicioners.
There could be 10-15 hours of social orientated work per week for everybody which would guarantee all basics, food, clothing, medical care, education and to a lesser extent shelter.
governement would set policy over those areas and try to oversee local production of all elements as much as possible, while keeping sustainability in the fore.
endeavors to add diversity, creativity and innovation sustainably could fill the spare time of those who were interested in it, with artisanship. Those without need for that could do without it. If a barter economy or local currency worked for an area it would be easily achievable. If a group of people agreed to try an make a go of a self sustaining anarchist non-state region, they could utilize the socialist government to set it up.
As far as regulatory entities, only people with the deepest respect for anti-authoritarianism, who could grasp the importance of everybody working to sustain such a tenuous proto-utopia could reckon judgement fairly on others, likely only for transgressing another person's health and welfare when the community did not or could not deal with it, or in cases of pollution/ deforestation, etc. which by extension is violence against the larger surrounding communitities. More important those vested with such responsibilities would not have jail as a bandaid catch all, but would have to approach such problems as conflict resolution or reeducation activities. Repeat or seriously offensive conduct could lead to treatment for mental illness if that were possible or an enforced exile, that border being the only militarized one left in the world. There would still be some need, people given every freedom and the most positive environment possible still would act on long programmed instincts, or react against their environment with irrationality.

Mass public transportation would be the norm with a modest scale of personal vehicles available to share or own. Green development standards would become the only building and planning standards for to do it any other way is at the collective expense of the group whose fate is shared by the happenings on the face of the earth.
People would devote non-collective work time to small market manufacture or development, these things could be sold, or traded and people could accumulate some wealth if that was how their local community was configured, but after hitting a maximum wage or maximum asset ceiling, surplus value would be directed towards meeting other needs in society, or perhaps trading for otherwise unavailable raw materials with countries still organized around a monetary system, although that would want to be minimized as much as possible over time. If this were unfeasible, it is feasible that the governing entity would retain control over means of productions in key areas to give it the ability to negotiate with other states as needed for raw goods it could not source itself feasibly.
The real shift would be from a society based on circulation of spending surplus wealth (consumer driven) to one that can meet all essential needs and still allow for a fraction of that type of activity while encouraging and freeing people to develop themselves intellectually, spiritually, and creatively, instead of having an agglomeration of shared consumerist experiences and the omnipresent experience of their being no point to any of it.
This model allows for a situationist type experiemnt to exist, or to have space to work itself out amongst those who agree upon that ideology, it allows for a marxist version to attempt to see if that philosophy works in praxis, it allows for libertarians, while protecting the liberty of all from the tyranny of over accumultated wealth, and environmental ruin to run a (albeit hobbled) free market based experiment, it allows for people who like having a state organize things for them do that, with the added option of their having a say in the process, a say in the decisions, not a vote, but actual discourse. It gives people the freedom to reorganize themselves as they wish to take freedom without risking it all, so the valid ideas amongst the chaff will stand out and humans can continue to evolve. The discourse and the interaction between these experiements would be intense and would likely bear new experiements we haven't even dreamed of from necessity.

Permanently eliminating excess wealth is an integral part to fighting poverty because the two are inextricably linked. Same with the environment and its degradation. What is needed is a horizontal expansion, a recognition that people should not sort themselves into these extreme contortions that ultimately benefit the few but create by proxy the millions of unethical scenarios where people try to get ahead at the expense of others, or their surroundings which become part of the mosaic of the planets ecosystems. The extinction of endangered species by poaching requires fetishized body parts on the black market somewhere the creature usually is already extinct. Someone has such an aggregate amount of wealth on hand, willing to pay for it beyond what the risk of getting caught killing, trafficking, or selling those body parts. The vendor must have such a need for basic necessities, the decision to kill the endangered creature would probably almost make itself. People might hold back for ethical reasons, but if your family is starving and you've no alternative means to sustain yourself, that's a failure of the economic model, not the individual. Remove their poverty, and you would remove a major impetus for not only poaching but slash and burn rainforest agriculture, illegal logging, illegal fishing, passing poisonous toxic waste as medicine, economic distortions from illegal immigration, illegal pollution and dumping, sex slavery, and the exploitation of children, drug wars, paramilitary death squads, all of these things are fueled by poverty providing a recruitment incentive for work that can easily get you killed, or to protect another persons advantage. Because the extremely wealthy are so wealthy others are so impoverished, this is the only logical conclusion. The two need not be directly related, they are kept in relation by the system of valuation as it currently (dys)functions.
Extend this to all the real ills in the world and far too often it's about people in precarious places trying to get a lock on the veins on wealth in that society to extend that benefit to their clan or tribe. Most people would do anything to protect their loved ones.

The creed is simple: "do no harm". Protect both the freedom to and freedom from. Freedom to wear what we like, to associate with who we like, to live where we like(to a point), but also the freedom from other peoples so called "freedom" inflicting unnecessary burdens on everyone else. Attack all of the ways our economy is currently burning through the futures share of clean water, air, soil, healthy ecosystems, and humans living making the world less work dependent, and more functional, where there is increasingly less stratification by class, inter social stressors (i.e. traffic, lines, unnecessary labor, more emphasis on human development, people making informed choices, remediating the ills of the past, education, etc. )
People need to respect the integrity of ecosystems. That will need to be empowered with a set of tools to try empower that individual in society by its ideals.

What would make this world actually work would be :

1)a sizable number of people (~1%+) who really engage reality with some places having a much higher concentration of like minded individuals.
This does not need to be total devotion of revolution 24 hours a day. You will find very few converts to an austerity regime, so all should use parallel process and be tolerant of each others choices as long as the work gets done. The dual power project must be a microcosm, an unsterile labratory, and versatile enought to recognize the winds in the society around it and ride them to their best ability.
2)this means space.
Part of ideas becoming reality is happening, writing is a pre-preliminary step. Action is what you do. Now right now I write, I think, I talk and I plan. So do others, some of whom I dialogue with (sometimes I get excited and talk more than I listen, I know, I do apologize).
Anyone can act on an impulse. How do we get beneth the control mechanism and sort towards those impulses towards this freedom? How can we discover where the freedom instinct in ourselves is suppressed? How to you begin to awaken this coiled force inside of you, true power, like a Kundalini rush or the holy spirit making you roll on the floor and talk in tongues.... It's not the god someplace else, it's that force inside of you, trying to get out, trying to be recognized and learning to recognize it in in others, Namaste.
But space as in the space needed is not found in an instant we still face this paper monster of illusory wealth and its enforcing minions. An aggregate of instants will someday soon stand bravely, fully expecting it's own repression and anticipating those actions to it's advantage as the only solution possible must. It must be formed from instants and experiences into a base community, a place where the next place can be modeled and discussed, where it's talents can be honed and it's issues tried out to develop the working model, the dynamic force that will have the universal adaptation qualities to meet the needs of millions of individuals each suffering from the symptoms of this hell on earth in their own individual way.
3)Education
Education must be reconsidered completely. From an exercise in reenacting rote skills as some homage to the past, education must become what is truly meant by the term: critical analysis and praxis, advocating for the self, the whole self, and not the economic animal in the context of those artificial sciences, but the living creature in relationship to it's place in the world, and as it's fate must be tied to the land, air and water the fate of the land, air and water. Teaching the self to realize its importance in the scheme of all the different communities it interacts with, also teaching the individual information on their body and their health, the impact of their choices, and the nature of choice itself. In short school should be a time when people are gripped by the thrill of becoming an a higher state of being, not as some magical process of insider favors and exclusivity but someone who realizes the importance of spiritual development, of creation and artisanship, of developing and nurturing the human bonds in the world around them, instead of being torn up and assorted by the needs of a hierarchy only to be left shredded and expected to go home reconstitute themselves and take more disfigurement. The fact that so many people do this rote self injurious behavior makes the type of mental illness associated with it ubiquitous, something we can't ever get away from even if we vanquish the paradigm in our own lives.
Education is the missing ingredient, this kind of education can start at anytime where people can begin minimizing the presence of the rote disease from society at large. It is so insidious it travels on the EMF waves in the air, waiting to be decoded and recoded by viewers like you. Education is why the greatest outrage today is the lack of outrage. Where was it? Education in this sense demonstrates that it can succeed both at dumbing down and turning a population into inert matter, just as liberation theology and pedagogy have driven many places especially in Latin America closer towards the vision I share of what a free world looks like.

These three elements are what are needed for a growing self reinforcing culture dedicated to bringing peoples better qualities to the front, and developing the skill sets and precedents so that that society has extensive norms by which it can self regulate. I firmly believe that not all people can change, not all will want to change, but among the many who do and who can, it may require generations to finally break old habits formed by millenia of repression. The question is where does all of this best work now? There must be many places, but can people afford to live there, or has class war erected another fence to the privledge of basic human rights? What are the crucial ingredients missing, and can outside help or increases in numbers make a real difference? Is there somewhere out there with excess capacity, an open inclusive community that is mature and critical, sees the big picture and is able to transmit an inspiring vision through the communty which resists dilution even as the community grows and as an incresingly diverse community of people access and share that common dream?
What are the essential questions? Vultures, by all means, tear this a new liver. 1st question: housing? What do we do with sprawl developments and mcmansions?
develop new communities that reuse housing stock or building material from housing stock, dwellings of excessive scope require additonal persons inhabit according to square footage determined by someones other than me.

Question...

whats the point?

MON DIEU!

Today, I was contemplating Venus coming out of inferior conjunction at the height of the "Uayob" as will happen on April 1st 2009. "Uayob" is the Mayan name of the last five days of their 365 day calendar(called the Haab), the five unlucky or nameless days. They had a similar connotation as Halloween in that malevolent spirits were allowed to roam free and cause havoc during this time period. The people of ancient Anahuac and Mayapan weren't as festive about the occurrence. No parties, no bobbing for....prickly pears, no sacrifices, nothing, people hid out at home and prayed this malevolent force at large would not notice them.
Venus visibly emerging from inferior conjunction had another Halloween like terror inspiring quality associated with it. That was the Xux Ek translated to mean the wasp star. Spears of light that emerged from the unusual dawn killed groups of people according to the 13 day week it occured during. This was also the reenactment of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli's attempted coup against the sun, Tonatiuh, and his subsequent banishment and transformation into Itzlacoluhquiuh, god of cold, frost, ice, and punishment which was refered to as "sticks and stones", as that was what you were battered with.
People went as far as covering their chimney to prevent the light of the Xux Ek from entering their home. The first day of the trecena preceding the event determined who the victims would be. It could be women in childbirth, children, old people, leaders, men and women, it was always different. During years favorable to such endeavors, wars were launched to coincide with this occurence and modern archeoastronomers dubbed this the original "Star Wars". So this coming April Fools day, we find ourselves in the middle of the five unlucky days and with Venus emerging from inferior conjunction with the sun. This is like the equivalent of Halloween on Friday the 13th under a blood red full moon, by the ancient Mexican ritual calendar.

All of this gloom and doom on the horizon caused me to recall the old Hopi "Prophecy Rock" at Oraibi I read about fifteen years ago in Rex Wyler's book : "Blood of the Land" . This petroglyph has been explained to foretell the demise of this civilization. These prophecies were also referenced in the movie Koyaanisquatsi. They point out contrails in the sky, electric grids and highways crossing the land, atomic weapons, and our demise from said weapons. All the while they, being the traditionalists, are just trying to keep it real, plant some corn and take the simple road. Sign me up...

FFWD>>: this article in the Guardian forwarded to me today by the SSN listserve:

Rural idyll or terrorist hub? The village that police say is a threat to the state.

This headline goes on to describe some individuals who came together to create another world, all the slogans keep telling us are possible. French Government's response? "No!" because apparently ThEy aRe TeRrOrIsTs!!!

WTF
IUWT?

This world can seem like such a nightmare.

Does it have to be like Halloween on Friday the 13th everyday somewhere? Can't we all just have a day off from hate and pointless death? From repression and people counting on making billions of dollars a day from other people toiling in jobs they hate for crap they only want until they get, to the point they both can't wait to die, and yet they feel like they never lived.

This article only drives the nail further into my discomfort, that the rich are not going to let go of this sick incestuous wet dream of class exploitation without throwing a tantrum and anybody not down with going down needs to take every precaution. Fuck their living our freedom !!!!! The old order is beyond corrupted, beyond degraded from all the forces of nature doing what they do with corpses, bloated, gassy, meat falling off the bone, stinking so bad, we should all by crying and vomiting. Yet there are those posing amidst the foul gas, pretending this is the way it should be pretending it doesn't stink or that they couldn't care less about it. Others, cruel minions for the property masters taught only enough to follow the next order. They who guard it's deception for no other reason than the right someone told them: look here's how it really is...can you handle the truth? the truth is these people are very dangerous to our way of life, go out and arrest them. Their thoughts are dangerous, go before the cameras and sow falsehoods to keep people scared from their kind, and to inspire fear in those who share their dreams.


Y'know, in this life, it's seems all too easy to read between the lines when this happens, because this shit happens so fucking often it's like a record skipping... Besides scale, how is this different that what happened in Latin America on a state level, Allende's Chile, Arbenz's Guatemala? They could have been models of the idyllic democratic societies dealing with the problems faced by a large majority of people in the world. Instead market forces reacted to instigate genocidal bloodbaths, The dictatorships in Francoist Spain, Uruguay, Greece(hence the base communities which rioted, rooted in the bloody struggles of that age), Brazil, Somoza's Nicaragua, Batista's Cuba, Echeverria's Mexico, El Salvador, Columbia. Watch "When Mountains Tremble" to get a background on what this repression looked like. Looks a lot like the tactics the Nazi's perfected in subduing territory they had over-run by my estimate. The problem is their precious workforce might take freedom a little bit too seriously and stop working for the exploitation model and might awaken into a humane society instead doing the St. Vitus dance to the tune of an insane society.

Do they really expect intelligent people of conscience to never be angry at this wicked machine. The bloodbath in Gaza, the pinnacle of international dystopia, and they, the corporate media, the western nations can't even call it what anyone with eyes to see and a mind to find what Israel is trying so hard to hide! Hey over there! You can't displace all those people and expect them to be OK with it. You can't crowd them into ghettos, separate them in apartheid, lay siege to everything killing them silently and expect them to just die off silently. The rockets look to me, admittedly an outsider looking in, like a desperate hay-maker of a counter punch while they are being strangled by seige. Just because you are big and strong and can kill by smothering doesn't make your seige any less deadly. I'm sure many more Gazans must have died from the siege before the fighting started than Isrelis have died from rocketfire or even invading Gaza at this point. The fear and anxiety in Israel perhaps isn't fear of Hamas or the "Palestinian question" (why does genocide always get framed as an ethnic question?), it's your conscience, our 6 million dead relatives and ancestors who, if their could be any sentience left on their part, must be brought into some form of total spiritual horror, to see their kin and descendants perpetrating similar kinds of violence in the same dehumanizing way, using experimental weapons(DIME),human shields, bombing schools and hospitals, horrific flechette munitions, chemical weapons killing a full 2/3s civillians, 1/3 children!? Collective punishment was just as fucked up when the Nazis used it as it is now. The solution is not and can never be found in the thinking of this kind of extreme militarism.

Back to France and their assault on thie modest dual power project....

What if someone comes up with a functional society that ignores all of the current and dysfunctional society's rules?

What if, "MON DIEU!" dozens or perhaps even hundreds of ordinary people could see what all of us already know, that this world is an inordinate amount of run-around and bullshit, to keep rich people lazy and poor people crazy. To keep power in the bloated corpse, in the history books, a slave of these little tyrants, who would rather cook you with the atmosphere, deny you shelter, clothes, anything even deny you any drop of pure water without tribute to their greatness, interest, fees, profit, FUCK THAT!

It's not rocket science that meets our everyday needs, but it is the perception of needing rocket science that continues the molecular glue which becomes the binding element of our invisible chains.

This is me as a moment now in history saying "STOP KILLING YOURSELF. STOP KILLING THE FUTURE. CHANGE IS ONLY AS POSSIBLE AS YOU ARE OPEN TO THIS TRUTH. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY"

Don't think about it, walk the process of becoming it. As the anonymous used to say, every journey begins with that first step. You won't always go the right way, but if you keep trying something will happen. Never what you originally expected, but something that was worth doing, something with real meaning.
The scary thought of the day isn't monsters roaming your neighborhood on April fools day, but that otherness you have deformed and disfigured in your own pursuits, possibly holding the key to what we need to learn in this life to not repeat this lesson again. That monster is the mutant form of your open mind, and maybe it's time we meet with the monster inside of us that suppresses us from being and figure out how to best deal with it, how to restore the balance. Here is where meditation can help, in the down time

Here's a better square of Mercury than the first one I posted. The numbers still add up to 260 horizontal and vertical in each line. Things adding up are a basic prerequisite to any meaningful change...

my solution: does not compute

note: i was reading Nicholas Von Hoffman's piece originally in the Nation on Alternet and reading some of the comments and these are my two cents...

As the discussion of what the criteria which will indicate the system is "fixed" or that the stimulus plan "worked" e.g the Dow Jones @ 10,000, half of the unemployed reemployed, GDP growth back into the positive, ....Ummm I'm quite honestly hoping none of it will work.
I have no faith that we can ever factor a conscience into this system and without it, it can't help but to act like anything other than a sociopathic monstrosity. The problem is that is how competition works by design. Competing firms try to gain an advantage. Where they exhaust innovation and productivity, inevitably they turn to other measures that incur whatever human or ecological cost it can get away with, whenever is not made responsible for the logical conclusion of it's backdoor exploitation (backdoor being outside the shelf price, costs externalized to taxpayers or affected communities). If we did somehow legislate or otherwise orientate the economy to have sociological factors other than wealth distribution and redistribution, those books would be the first to be cooked, since nobody could possibly be able to undo centuries of self reinforcing authoritarian culture and dysfunctional behavior. A sensitivity training will not change anything.
If we look to the old way, this stop gap measure of failed humanity despite our supposed intelligence, for our solutions....we'll get nothing more than the same old problems repackaged , while offsetting the same predictable day of reckoning, to reappear again in the future. This is magical thinking at it's worst. Wanting to believe a cruel indifferent mechanistic view of the world will grow a heart from the good intentions of the innocents begs the question: Why put so much effort into making ourselves adapt to it when it is so dependent on us to exist? Property is the one illusion barricading us from real considerations of reorganization, but that too is an illusion albeit one that will be contested by your local armed gang of property rights enforcers. Plan on it. While no one can own the earth, and time tells us that it is the earth who owns us, regardless whether embalming fluid slows the process down or not. The legacy of this system now is that of spoiled children having a tantrum, souring the abundance the future might have from the poisionous illusions of privledge and arrogance. This is no time for us to trust others with our best interests. Restored balance approaches but it will require sacrafice, a flowery death of sorts, with the heavens we inherit being that next phase of human existence. Make no mistake that when the time comes the current system will cut you down if it is convenient to it's own immediate ends, so take your pick: As Zapata was famous for saying:¡Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!
This situation is nothing if not a clarion call for a new way of organizing ourselves as a society, without top down solutions that reinforce and benefit those in power, or enabling another set of power hungry operators from exploiting the opportunity.This is a time for the braver among us to start choosing differently, to start making those everyday momentary choices more to the ends of building the next world, not sacraficing our children to the gods of the old world.
Unfortunately, this is where the years of rote education leave us. Outrage after outrage after outrage, and no substantial action, no substantial movement that challenges power and shakes the system to it's foundations, as a day of reckoning emerges from the burnt hull of these crisis. The population has been swindled and satiated for years with excess credit and debt as a psychological drug substitute for real choices and real praxis in our lives. Nobody can make sense of any of the constituent pieces we have been taught to take for granted in our socio-economic existence, thus we see mass entertainment embracing absurdity, as it is increasingly reflected in our day to day activities. Why is it we have to deal with an astounding amount of incompetence in this world? Is it because we weren't meant to do that which is easiest and most convenient for the ruling class?? Is it because our lives are exchanged for slave wages, debts and other schemes to ensure our dependence in their degrading system of labor? That fairy tale of easy wealth from asset price inflation isn't coming back just as credit will never be the same again even if nothing else changes. A real solution looks nothing like the predecessor which lead us to this wasteland.

lessons from Exarchia

Reading the center for strategic anarchy's and the CWC's analysis of the Greek riots hammered home a few key concepts that are basically immediate concerns for any non-hierarchical //// type movement looking for a any kind of meaningful separation from the imperialist state . Not three months ago, Exarchia, which i hadn't known of before, arose in informal discussion at a meeting, one of the participants being from Greece, the other having family from Greece. Our friend from Greece was astounded at the level of repression tolerated here and the basic lack of community organization comparatively. Perhaps it would be better said of the obvious lack of base community organization. By that I mean that we don't have many places where we can take the streets and keep them. Obviously anyone or group can choose to do so at anytime, but the missing ingredient being a local community at large that essentially backs a more radical approach to action, a community that understands exactly what we are doing and supports it. While there are groups, they remain very insulated as a direct result of repression, they exist but it's not obvious. If it were, and perhaps there are places that do lend to that aura, different cities, although there are several that come to mind, I'm hesitant to name them for lack of first hand experience. We do have TAZ type demonstrations or actions, i.e. burning man, or different demos, and they play an important part essentially being an easy handle by which the general public can acknowledge the existence of an alternative via the mass media. Earlier today I was reading about how the feds set up camp in eugene to work on dismantling the ELF and other anarchist actions emanating from there in the early 00s. This was an article on the green scare tactics and was capped by some common sense security culture type advice very similar to the practical points of the CWC interview with some of its Greek participants.
Key observations are: we need to increase our presence. The action in Greece was ostensibly a reaction to the death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos being a 15 year old anarchist, mobilizing both communities. Riots in France in 05 were widely termed both youth and immigrant, and immigrants had a notable presence early on in the action in Greece. They have plenty to be pissed about. In our own country, there are probably thousands of youth from high schools to colleges to drop outs, with lots of righteous angst, now seeing the curtains crash down around them all over the place revealing a living hell 180 degrees in contradiction to the moral pompous bullshit we can't seem to get away from in the ubiquitous mass media, total saturation of baldfaced lies all the time. How does a community foster their involvement, expression and development of a sophisticated praxis based worldview which in itself is a moment of TAZ and the incubation of dual power?
This has been true for a long time. Those of us old enough to have a greater set of means at our disposal from either our compromised work involved lifestyles(like myself) or the more experienced, ideologically pure sorts of individuals who have found their way outside, need to coordinate and open this front in the battle of ideas.
The key is us developing and maintaining hole space. Holes in capitalism are the places where its successor will be developed. It is a place where the rules of our capitalist society at large are suspended. It is a gradual dual power development strategy and in my opinion one of the most viable methods for social change. Holes will be spaces that are 24/7 free spaces, accessible preferably anytime it is needed, open to the public, gathering places, learning places, safe spaces. This is where the base community forms. The key is to extend the sentiment into the surrounding areas. To develop a walkable community radiating away from the convergence space. Guerrilla gardening, squatting abandoned buildings and other radical activities should coincide with like minded people owning or renting whenever possible, just being near there. It starts with the common space, the music, poetry, reading circles, Food not bombs servings & food pantry, really, really free markets, critical mass bike rides, & bike shares, tool shares, skill shares, potlucks, community gardens, infoshops, hostels and other stuff tbd. These are the basic building blocks of dual power. The next step or concurrent steps is / could be developing a worker owned business to help support the space, developing affordable coops, cohousing of green design buildings. You can do these more advanced development phases at anytime when you have a solid working group of people, but in order to truly try to surpass the boundaries of capitalism, you need a community and whatever resources those people have....
......so what if something like this already exists in my community, a show space, community center etc etc?
If there is already a space with a similar disposition, then great contribute to making it stronger especially if you don't agree with different points or people involved in running the space. My impression is that most of the time, people are put off by a lack of parallel process, i.e. not practicing what you preach within your own organization. If this is an insurmountable obstacle, then it may be time to factionalize and if possible federate or enter into as mutualist a relationship as is possible and or preferable. Dissent in the process makes people es experience with direct democracy more reality based and less theoretical.
A community needs many of these spaces. Developing a new space that is dedicated to this purpose may help to lead other spaces in this direction, by influencing the people most likely to frequent these spaces. Finding a niche of purposes not already served can help to boost the vibrance of the community. Shared promotion also give the appearence of a growing and coherent social scene apart from shopping malls or school functions which could add cache to it's value as an attraction.
What Greece and Exarchia have that we do not, is base communities with critical mass. The more we as like minded people interact and offer mutual aid in everyday life, the greater the community proper will become, the more it will be capable of agency, the more we can develop an alternative to the economy and state. like culture its going to be in the downtime, the things that sink into mundane existence will be where balance will emerge from the old order. Don't spend that time in counter productive regret...............