The answer, something I’ve eluded to and spoken to quite often here, is liberalism.  Specifically, in a society in which even those who do not benefit at all by the dominate economic systems and relations have internalized the logic of said system, an authentic and meaningful challenge to the status quo is exceedingly difficult.  At its most glaring, liberals feel compelled more by a desire to maintain a system in which their basic needs are met (never mind whether or not they’re met in an efficient or healthy manner) than any genuine desire for social justice, equality, or fairness and thus syphon resources to aid the spectacle rather than towards any serious effort to combat the socio-economic conditions which contributed to said spectacle, let alone towards meaningful systemic changes which could elevate real suffering.

The piece rightfully notes the role the mass media plays, and above I intentionally used the word “spectacle” for just this reason.  As the Guardian piece points out,

Media saturation obviously makes a critical difference. Scenes from Hurricane Katrina, the Asian tsunami, and now the Haitian earthquake were shown over and over again on all television news broadcasts…. The daily deaths of children in poor countries from diarrhoea, measles, and malaria are part of the background of the world we live in, and so are not news at all.

Which, of course is insane.  To say (and frighteningly enough, to say rightfully) that the daily deaths of children due to easily curable diseases and conditions is “not news at all” is to point out that in modern society our experience is not one of authentic human relationships to each other, but rather of relationships through images and representations of life itself.

Which brings us to Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle.  In that incredibly important work, Debord points out a modern society in which authentic social life is increasingly replaced by its mere representation.  Through a confluence of the State, advanced capitalism, and the mass media of each our lives cease to be authentic human experiences, our relationships cease to be between each other, but instead all is replaced by images and the mere representation of actual experiences and relationships.  From the surprisingly articulate wikipedia post on it:

In his analysis of the spectacular society, Debord notes that quality of life is impoverished, with such lack of authenticity, human perceptions are affected, and there’s also a degradation of knowledge, with the hindering of critical thought.  Debord analyzes the use of knowledge to assuage reality: the spectacle obfuscates the past, imploding it with the future into an undifferentiated mass, a type of never ending present; in this way the spectacle prevents individuals from realizing that the society of spectacle is only a moment in history (time), one that can be overturned through revolution.

Indeed.  Because in general we lack the knowledge to understand the causes (global capitalism, class divisions, colonialism) of poverty we lack an awareness of the means to alleviate such problems and human suffering; with no clear solution to systemic problems we gravitate towards the momentary tragedy instead- the spectacular images of which we are bombarded with by the mass media, furthering our own anxiety’s over the suffering of others in what we might call the last remnants of our instinctual drive for authentic, meaningful human relations.

—–

For starters, the word out Tuesday is that Democratic VT Senate Prez Peter “I really wanna be governor and I give a great speech but boy am I a big shallow phoney” Shumlin will force a vote this week in the Senate Finance committee and then next week by the full Senate on whether or not the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant should be allowed to operate another 20 years after it’s scheduled decommissioning in 2012.  For readers not from here and not in the know:  VT Yankee is a very dangerous disaster waiting to happen, currently leaking radioactive Tritium into surrounding ground water (and into the CT River- you’re welcome Springfield, Hartford, and New Haven) from underground pipes that company execs testified to the VT Legislature didn’t even exist.  To say nothing of cooling towers collapsing and the like; it’s been a bad couple years for the owners of VY.  Oddly, VT has no authority whatsoever over the plant, the Federal NRC does- except the legislature can act on behalf of VT electric rate payers, i.e., if the savings to Vermonters in their electric bills don’t justify keeping VY in operation 20 years longer than the plant was designed to last (at increased power output from what it was originally designed to generate).  Of note, the plant’s corporate ownership says VY is losing money, or at least not making enough to justify all the headache, and they’re proposing a fairly dramatic rate increase for a new contract, a rate increase above market value.

If VY is closed down on time in 2012 it will be one of the biggest political victories I can think of having seen up-close in my life.  I’ve already contacted all my Senators to urge them to vote ‘no’- have you?

—–

Commondreams.org (a site with it’s own liberal B.S. on occasion, but a really good, progressive site overall) is all over the last “socialist” bank in the U.S., the Bank of North Dakota.  I will say, it’s a good little story, and in fact the idea of a State Bank, which uses moneys earned towards paying for social programs is a decent one.  I personally prefer the credit union model, when we’re talking about banking choices.  But it’s nice to see non-corporate banking getting some positive attention.

—–

On March 1st I’m quitting cigarettes.  I imagine the tobacco company’s have custom search-engines that detect that sentence where ever it appears on the internet and then sends cartons of free cigarettes to ensure you can’t quit.  But I’m gonna do it, my first real earnest attempt at quitting in the 16 years since I first smoked a butt.  Of course I’m motivated now because I have a family and a kid and of course I wanna take care of my own health, but you know one of my biggest motivators: all you assholes who insist on giving smokers a hard time, all you non-smokers who somehow feel it your duty or privilege to point out to us in one way or another that it’s bad for us.  You know what:  ”no fucking shit it’s bad for me- you’re not proving you’re particularly bright by pointing out the obvious”.  Except maybe with our own children, people don’t generally go around giving un-solicited advise of this manner (“Mike, buddy, it’s cold, zip up your jacket or you’ll get sick”).   Ya know, each and every one of us has our own pathologies, our own traumas and challenges and “shit” to work through; smoking just happens to be a particularly noticeable symptom of certain unhealthy associations and reactions that have been un-necessarily (uselessly?) programmed in to us smokers.  Given how our entire culture is constructed in a manner that leaves us all in a game of “hide your pathology”, and given the number of taboos associated with addressing frankly our own and each other’s shit (“Hi Jimmy, good to see you…. yeah, I know, you don’t get out much ’cause you have mild agoraphobia due to the panic you’re consumed with when unable to feel a sense of control over your environment because of the trauma from seeing your best friend get hit by a car when you were five”) it seems at the very least a bit odd to me that with just this one issue people feel it their place to speech up.  So from where doth you non-smokers derive your divine insight to preach to me about my neurosis?  I’d agree that, obviously, if you’re a non-smoker and you’re stuck breathing someone’s second-hand smoke it’s negatively impacting your health and your ability to be happy, but incidental second-hand smoke like you standing next to me on a sidewalk is no public health problem.  If second-hand smoke really were such a danger, shouldn’t we be seeing dramatic decreases in certain kinds of cancer over the past few years as indoor smoking has more or less been outlawed over the past few years?  I’m just old enough to have been raised and to remember a world in which people smoked on airplanes, in gas stations (as of a few years ago when I was last out that way, they still do this in the South and Midwest); growing-up I remember many friend’s who, like me, one parent smoked and one didn’t, and yes, that smoking parent smoked in the house.  Yet none of these none-smoking spouses (my mother included) nor any of us kids have cancer or asthma.  I’m not advocating for indoor smoking- I’m just merely wondering about all your non-smoker righteousness in the face of a dearth of facts to justify your holiness.

So yeah, I’m quitting, but not because you non-smokers are ‘right’ about anything- because as a non-smoker I can’t wait to do to you what you’ve been doing to us smokers- “Good to see you Fran, and hey- don’t forget that even though you’re convinced your mom never loved you, you can still lead a happy and productive life!”.

—–

Geez, I’m this agro about this smoking thing and I haven’t even started trying to quit yet.  This could get ugly.

—–

Finally, the media.  The media sucks on Iran, the media sucks on Haiti, the media sucks at political analysis, the media sucks at journalism.  Just thought I’d clarify that.

—–

Seems it was a very good year to be a Washington lobbyist- the best year ever, actually.  The Center for Responsive Politics has looked into tens of thousands of  disclosure findings and found that in 2009 special interests of every kind spent $3.47 billion lobbying the Federal government.  ”Even when companies are scaling back other operations, many view lobbying as a critical tool in protecting their future interests, particularly when Congress is preparing to take action on issues that could seriously affect their bottom lines.” said CRP director Sheila Krumholz.  Among those numbers, the dollars from your and my health care premiums (if you’re lucky enough to even have health insurance) spent ensuring Congress could not pass a meaningful overall of the health care system was $266.8 million (that amount spent by the pharmaceutical and health products industries represents a record for one sector).  The report also notes- oddly- that this year saw a decline in the number of actual registered lobbyists, prompting speculation that in the face of tighter controls on lobbying from the Obama Administration some aspects of lobbying have moved under-ground; now there’s a welcome development: the seedy back-room world of those with power manipulating politicians for their personal gain moving into a closet in the back-room.  ”Democracy”? is that what you folks call this?

—–

I’m decidedly excited about organized labor threatening to “stay out” of this year’s elections in protest over the way the Obama Administration and Democratic leadership in both the House and Senate have failed to deliver much of anything for working people.  Lets face it, the Republican Party is not even an option- in terms of political choice- for working class people (I know what you’re thinking about Tea Party-ers and rednecks and religious fundamentalists and the like, and I’ll get to them, but I’m referring here only to those who are at least partially aware of their class-standing, the existence of class society, and who reject in general the inherent good of wealth concentrated among the wealthy (even if some of these things happen far from even their own waking consciousness)).  For years organized labor have leaned towards the Democratic Party knowing they’d at least get thrown some bread crust, and that that would always be better than the mere crumbs the Republicans may throw.  But in the face of being so hopeful, so full of excitement and promise (and after spending serious money and donating serious volunteer time) to get Obama in and with majorities and everything, labor has gotten jack shit.

What I like most about this strategy is that a Republican majority based on abstention from a large segment of the population would leave them weak.  I know, Republicans clearly don’t care at all about public sentiment when they’re in power, they just act brazenly and audacious.  But think, in the last non-presidential election voter turn-out was 40%.  Although the unionized population of the U.S. is only  somewhere between 12-15% (as far as I can tell anyway), and we know even if every union called for its members to sit-out an election not all would, I’d say it’s safe to guess that the number of members who went against the call and participated in elections anyway would approximately equal the number of non-members who would choose to abstain along with labor (I actually think it would be far more, but for the sake of not having that point distract from my larger one I’ll say equal).  If 15% of the population abstained in protest you could be looking at an election with 25% turn-out!  Republicans in control would go too far (because they’re that brazen, and for many, truly believe their regressive and anti-social scheme’s are right) and the left would strengthen.  It would have to.  Working people are already breaking their backs in this economy, and nothing positive would come from conservative measures (nothing has so far- and that’s all we’ve been getting); the left and labor would be much stronger for it.  Assuming, of course, that we all survive.

—–

Remember Greece?  Well, you may be hearing about the place in the news lately as part of the so-called “PIGS” sending Europe and potentially the world into financial ruin round 2 (“PIGS” would be Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain).  These four countries in particular are having a very hard time paying off the debt they own and balancing their national budgets, and the threat of any of them defaulting on debts has sent European financial markets a-drift at sea.  The capitalist argument, of course, is that social programs and services are too strong and too generous in these countries with ‘weak’ economies (read: they don’t sell enough stuff abroad to make enough money to buy lots of foreign stuff).  I’ll note my amateur-ish opinion that all four of these countries and perhaps most industrialized countries are plenty ‘wealthy’ enough domestically to have social programs like what they do- but the existence of financial markets and the participation by state governments in the global financial markets scheme causes a great deal of their “debt” and is thus most of the problem in and of itself.

Greece is in the mainstream press (here and in Europe) as the worst situation of all four countries, with Germany and the “leaders” of the EU (Germany, France, Italy, England to an extent) promising that they’ll pick-up the tab if Greece does in fact fail to pay on money it owes.  System reforms, to say the least, have been proposed.  The interesting thing is, proposed reforms to the social security system have brought all of Greece to a complete halt.  Working people across the board aren’t reacting with a whimper and a cry (or the formation of some bizarre, reactionary, right-wing, nut-job set of conspiracy theories)- but instead public sector employees on Wednesday went on a 24 hour strike.  Tax offices, social security, municipal and county workers, doctors and nurses (except emergency personnel), all teachers in all grades and all university faculty and staff, all archeological sites, all air traffic controls (no flights came in or out of the country); rolling stoppages plagued the rails and commuter trains.  In solidarity a number of private sector unions went on strike as well.

“But they’ve got to cut back spending to balance their budget!” you hear (or did I just hear you say that?).  Far from it, the reaction in Greece has been near-universal (except among the bankers, financiers, and the politicians, despite the government being under “socialist” control): the banks and investment firms made the problem, they can deal with it; working people had nothing to do with those choices, and so working people don’t need to suffer for them”.

What a shocking way to see the situation.  My advise to Greece (and the rest of us, really): default on the debt.  Just don’t pay it.  What are they gonna do, take away your country?

—–

Getting back to that certain, er, interesting segment of the U.S. population that most benignly we’ll just refer to as “under-educated”, here’s a great one:  A CBS poll posed this question: “Do you favor or oppose ________ being allowed to serve openly (in the military)?”  When the option for that fill-in was “homosexuals” 44% favored and 42% were opposed.  But when the option for that fill-in was “Gay men & lesbians” 58% were in favor and only 28% opposed.  What the…. ?!@#?!

—–

I do want to interrupt this train of thought momentarily to point out this really great piece from a few weeks back by Chris Hedges, “Democracy In America Is A Useful Fiction“:

Corporate forces, long before the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, carried out a coup d’état in slow motion. The coup is over. We lost. The ruling is one more judicial effort to streamline mechanisms for corporate control. It exposes the myth of a functioning democracy and the triumph of corporate power. But it does not significantly alter the political landscape. The corporate state is firmly cemented in place.

The fiction of democracy remains useful, not only for corporations, but for our bankrupt liberal class. If the fiction is seriously challenged, liberals will be forced to consider actual resistance, which will be neither pleasant nor easy. As long as a democratic facade exists, liberals can engage in an empty moral posturing that requires little sacrifice or commitment. They can be the self-appointed scolds of the Democratic Party, acting as if they are part of the debate and feel vindicated by their cries of protest.

Much of the outrage expressed about the court’s ruling is the outrage of those who prefer this choreographed charade. As long as the charade is played, they do not have to consider how to combat what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolincalls our system of “inverted totalitarianism.”

Yes, that’s right, as I’ve said all along (as has, generally, the radical left): capitalism is unreconcilable with ‘democracy’ (as it’s popularly thought of) and liberals are part of the problem.  But what are we gonna do?  what needs to be done is not particularly easy, nor pleasant.

Sigh.

—–

As for the afore mentioned conservative members of the American working class (and I mean, specifically the rising conservative populist movement): that, my friends, is not a good thing.  Not at all.  Think, for a moment, about the headlines recently about the conservative activist James O’Keefe (the guy who went undercover to film that ACORN vid that got America’s collective panties in a bunch) getting arrested for attempting to break into a Senator’s office and fuck with her phone system.  Oddly, the left (the liberal left, mind you) reported this story with a straight-face and a general tone of “these fucked-up conservatives are messing around and it’s not appropriate”.  I even heard MSNBC the other morning note it seemed “Watergate-esque”.  Nevermind how much these very same liberals love Ragging Grannies infiltrating Legislative hearings or Bush press conferences; nevermind how they make cultural heroes of the Yippies of the 60′s, of the protests of Veterans for Peace, of the antics of ‘civil disobedience’ and gladly spouting off the names of MLK Jr or Ghandi or Thoreau or Zinn or Chomsky they implore us all to take ‘action’ to do things like “defend our freedoms” or “our Constitution” or our “civil rights”.  Please see above Chris Hedges’ reference to empty moral posturing.

In the “inverted totalitarianism” mentioned above (and that’s really just a term- take it or leave it- we could describe the political and social temperature of the U.S. at this moment with any number of different titles), reactionary, right-wing populism is not only a fad, but a real, definite, extremely dangerous pole.  And because it is a pre-rational state, it can justify and reproduce itself extremely easily; it is, after all, free from any sort of genuine rationality, and therefor can apply itself at random and can merely create its own linkage.  Even worse, it uses anti-social norms such as racism, religious fundamentalism (xenophobia), homophobia, sexism, etc as its substitute for rationalism, creating a self-serving and self-reproducing “logic” that, quite frankly, will probably only grow.

That’s right.  Because non (pre) rational ideas cannot be argued against rationally.  They create their own logic, and thus live as a differend to rational thought.  Which means none of it is going to “go away”, nor will we see people (otherwise regular and ‘normal’ seeming friends, neighbors, and family) forget about or change their minds or out-grow this stuff.  Their demands for corporate rights, for freedom for the rich to fuck them and their communities over, to centralize government functions in the name of “anti-government” and “de-centralization” (i.e., in the name of taking power from teacher’s unions and giving it to the State), it’s all here to stay.  And it’ll get much, much worse than the current “a black guy can’t be president, he must be Arab or an illegal immigrant or a terrorist” B.S. that we see.

But don’t get me all wrong here.  Despite my general dreariness (which is furthered at the moment by having-a-5 1/2 month-old-sleeplessness as much as anything else) all is not lost and, as Lennon said, “There’s no problems, only solutions” (what, you thought I was gonna quote that Lennon? oh brother).

The answer, of course, is organization (as Kropotkin said: “Anarchy is organization, organization, organization!”).  The important work- the work that’ll get us not only through but even out of all this mess- is in building poles of power which center on the daily needs of working people.  And that, despite being really fucking hard, is surprisingly easy.  Power-dynamics doesn’t insist on any particular issue or strategy, nor on all of us focusing on a singular issue or strategy.  A housing/tenants rights group, labor organizing/solidarity, campaigns such as VT’s Health Care Is A Human Right, community or neighborhood associations.  There are countless choices for very, very good things to do to counter the corporate State (the above referenced “inverted totalitarianism”) and reactionary, right-wing populism.

And just as the thing isn’t so much the destination as the journey, so too any work that we do to build ground-up, popular, progressive organizations or movements or campaigns is more about the building than winning issues.  Of course, at some point winning on issues becomes not only important but necessary.  But more immediately, all that happens when we work to make these things happen is the accumulation of social power.  Social power, make no mistake, eventually can accumulate to challenge political power.  Any exploration of popular movements or political revolution will show it.

I know what your thinking: American society does that?  Yeah, well, sometimes.

Of course, bosses (in this particular case, the owners of VT construction firms) are not without a voice.  Which is where Associated General Contractors steps in.  They jumped out in front of the message machine this morning claiming that a PLA would mean that VT contractors won’t get to bid on one of the biggest projects happening because the vast majority of VT firms are “open shops” (read: “we hire you for what we want to pay you, under the conditions we set for you, and if you don’t like it, you’re out of work”).  The cynicism of these folks and their stance on worker’s rights (and livable wages) is clear:  Here’s Don Wells of DEW Construction, a AGC member:

“The majority of Vermont contractors are open shops, and what this really does is force them to expose their company and their employees to the union. And most contractors, myself included, would not choose to do that,” Wells said. “People that run open shops take a lot of pride in what they do and the services and benefits they provide to their employees. Typically what happens in a Project Labor Agreement is you lose your right to negotiate with your own employees.”

OK, first the fact-check: a PLA in no way, shape, or form requires anything about hiring unionized workers or having unions negotiate for workers- it merely sets minimums for wages, benefits, etc on a particular job.  Secondly, you just have to love the idea that being an “open shop” is what gives bosses a “right to negotiate with your own employees”.  The truth, of course, is that an “open shop” gives employers complete control over the conversation and puts workers in the place of accepting what the boss offers or finding work elsewhere.  So, excuse me Mr Wells, but you folks “take a lot of pride” in a system which allows you to personally pocket the most at the expense of paying more to your workers?  You “take a lot of pride” in a race-to-the-bottom wage system which ensures more Vermonters in need of economic help from the State?  But aren’t you guys the same who are backing conservative efforts to gut State-backed programs to aid the very workers who can’t make a livable wage off their hard work?

Another two points from AGC:  first, that a PLA would require worker’s on the project to pay union dues.  Sorry folks: if you’re not a union member, you don’t pay union dues.  But part of this brew-ha stems from an incident in the 1980′s when VT worker’s on one side of a bridge project realized folks working on the NY side- doing the same work- were getting paid better.  That led to VT worker’s striking.  So everyone has a stake in having wages equalized on both sides of this bridge.  But according to AGC VP Cathy Voyer “ensuring equal wages doesn’t require the Project Labor Agreement. On large federal projects, contractors are already bound by minimum wage standards”.

Oh boy.  That’s AGC’s idea of “fair” and “decent” and “livable” wages- minimum wage?

But the question her point brings up- considering all a PLA does in actuality is set a particular minimum requirement for wages which is more fair to workers- is why are VT contractors so against it?  AGC argues that the union-negotiated NY PLA would drive-up costs as to price VT contractors out of bidding, but that’s clear BS, as this is a Federally funded project, so every dime that the contractors bid is paid for.

The reason, of course, is that AGC is scared shitless that if workers in VT get higher wages because NY unions negotiated a PLA there’s plenty of reason to suspect that at least some workers might put two and two together and say “why don’t we have PLA’s here?  why don’t we have a union negotiating for our interests?”.

That, in turn, would mean less money for lavish vacations, outrageously over-priced cars, and fine restaurants for construction firm owners.  And, no one in power would want to see something as heart-breaking as that.

So the question, of course, becomes who to get to hike into the woods behind the house, chop down some trees, and haul them 500-1000 yards down the hill to the house.  I soon realized the answer was obvious:

• “….brought a bit of theater to the evening.  He startled the audience by starting his chainsaw, filling the auditorium with the stink of petroleum as he made his point.”
• Colby said that he told the arresting officer that, “I come in peace.” Colby said then the officer punched him in the stomach.  Wardinski said his arresting officer called him a, “punk asshole.”
• …demonstrators were arrested on trespass charges Wednesday night inside the Burlington offices of Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., while protesting what they said was Welch’s unwillingness to firmly oppose the Iraq war.
• Wardinski rattled off a list of political stands that included the immediate shutdown of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, universal health care coverage for all Vermonters in a publicly-funded system, a halt to public employee layoffs, and an immediate withdrawal of all Vermont service members currently fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and “who the hell knows where else.”
• “For Vermonters who have seen Howard Dean up close and personal for the last eleven years as our governor, there’s something darkly comical about watching the national media refer to him as the “liberal” in the race for the Democratic nomination for president. With few exceptions in the 11-plus years he held the state’s top job, Dean was a conservative Democrat at best. And many in Vermont, particularly environmentalists, see Dean as just another Republican in Democrat’s clothing.”
• “We go after the folks who have the power, directly, tenaciously, and in a way that empowers people.”
  

Michael Colby and Boots Wardinski, aka “Horse Loggers for Peace”.  Yeah, these guys will do just fine.  They’re polerizing, divisive, loud, and un-forgiving for it all.  They rub a lot of people- including many friends and aquiantances of mine- the very, very wrong way.  But of all the things we need and don’t need in this world, true iconoclasts will always be necessary.  So while I sit here “working”, Michael, Boots, and Michael’s trusty (and absolutely beatiful) horse are playing hard at work in the woods behind my house.  Thanks guys!

Honestly, as a person and an observer of the human  experiment over time, I find that to be simply fascinating.  What the hell is that?

I’m going back to that place, where life was an exploration, and fun, and fantastical.  I’m going back there and this time my co-pilot is my own kid.  I don’t know if you should be worried for her, or for yourselves.

—

Last week I went out back and cut down a perfectly healthy baby pine.  It’s not that I hate trees or believe Jesus will be coming down the chimney in a week.  It’s because it’s coming up on winter solstice, and there’s no better time to bring the living into your home and celebrate their slow, meaningless demise.

No, actually, it’s just my conservative side.  I like traditions; good ones anyway, about family and warmth and giving and Macy’s.

Besides, it’s all a part of my highly complicated land-management plan for our little homestead: remove enough trees for next year’s firewood, plus one baby evergreen.  If you do this, too, per every 10 acres you’re in charge of, you’ll preside over the most perfect chunk of earth imaginable.  Also, add an 18-pound eating, pooping, giggle machine for optimal results.  WARNING: said addition will be considerate enough to wake you up every 1 and a half or so throughout the night.

—

I started the other day back to getting this book-thing going.  75% of it is written, but just needs to be edited and filled-in to some sort of logical order.  Then the rest of the writing is just connecting the dots.  I think it’s more fun, for now, than this blog.

This blog has turned into a burden.  Everyday I think about it, want it, flirt with it, and go to bed.  It’s not that I don’t love writing, or that my opinionatedness has dried-up.  Nor is it true that there’s not plenty to be writing about, linking to, and saying in regards to the public sphere.

That article bellow, for instance, about our evolution towards caring and compassion?  That, my friends, is scientific evidence towards integral theory.  It also happens to be the subject of at least one book by Nineteenth Century Russian anarchist Peter Kropokin.  The materialist interpretation of Darwin, of course, won popularity.  But all these years later, Prince Peter’s interpretation of the Theory of Evolution seems to be slowly coming into our consciousness.

Perhaps exactly as integral theory- or even Kropotkin himself- could have anticipated.

And there, my friends, is a book.

—

What else?  The beer business is good.  I like beer, other people like beer.  Some beer is more interesting or exciting to drink than other beer.

And there, my friends, is a livelihood.

—

Now, it wasn’t hard to foresee that absolute garbage would come out of Copenhagen.  If there’s anything positive to be taken out of it all, it may be this:  a lot of smaller, poorer nations, as well as a lot of activists, NGO’s, and concerned people, are seeing that we can’t count on the State or the Head’s of State to do what’s right over what makes rich people richer, and so we’re on our own.  Fuck them.  We’ve just got to do what we can, despite and regardless of those who hold all the power.

Though it’s true that the summit itself represents a kind of forwards-progress for the whole planet (coming together, under consensus, to address issues of our collective survival).  It’s been a failure of sorts, but a positive one.

That, my friends, is seeing the glass half-full.

—

But then there’s America’s “health care reform”.  Is the Senate Bill good? Bad? Not so bad that it should be supported?  What did you really expect them to do, write a Bill note OK’d by the health lobby?

Listen: If your house catches fire, your community sends people to put the blaze out.  It wasn’t always that way; in fact, 200 years ago it wasn’t that way at all- we collectively evolved to consider it a right, a want, of people to be protected from such a disaster.  If you have a child, your community provides highly educated and skilled people to teach your kid the things they’ll need to know to make it through their time in our world.  It wasn’t always that way, we just collectively evolved to consider a basic eduction a right, a want, for people to advance through life.

It’s called taxes.

But if you break your leg or develop cancer or find an odd lump you want checked out?  For reasons as odd as capitalism, we say: pay up or die!  I have a word for that, it’s taken from the French, who actually took the word from the English; it’s pronounced the same in Canada, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, and in fact several other countries throughout the world.  The word is bullfuckingshit.  Look it up, I just did:  it means “the current system of health care as provided for in the United States of America”.

—

But elected leaders?  Are we really so surprised?  Do we really count on these clowns to give us what we want?  No.  We must demand what we want.  We must take what we want.

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War?  Don’t protest war.  Live a life that ridicules the logic of war; be a part of a movement that exposes the fallacy of the logic of war.  Capitalism, and the State, will always have someone to fight.  Be smarter than that.  Be more human than that.

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The holidays, as it were, always get me down.  Put me in a funk.  It is during this time that I am my most Buddhist, my most nihilist, my most cynical, and my most compassionate.  Today there was a car trying to back out into a busy street and a line of cars unwilling to spare 4 seconds on their rush home to stop to let the person pull out.  You know what:  fuck you to each and every one of those 7 cars who swerved and sped-up and wouldn’t let that person pull out.  Take a moment from your meaningless existence and cut that person some slack- they, too, were just trying to get home from a long day.

The truth of the matter is that your entire existence will be gone at any moment, and you don’t know which moment.  If you’re not careful you’re only impact on one of your fellow travelers could be “what an asshole”.  Is that the purpose of you life?  I doubt it.

But what do I know, sometimes I’m that asshole too.

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I feel a change coming on.  I don’t think this blog will ever be the same.  Or, this blog may not be anymore.  It’s hard to say right now.  What I do know is that I haven’t been able to make the time or the motivation to pontificate on politics or social theory.  Or maybe I’ll just get back in the swing of things with the onset of winter.  Or maybe I’ll start telling you tales of my youth.  Or maybe recipes for yogurt herb bread.  Just kidding on that last one: my cooking is about as memorable as the ’78 Mets.  Don’t know what happened to the Mets in ’78?  Me neither.

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Anyway, good luck out there.