Matters of opinion

[DualSlayer]

Where did everybody go? lol

[DualSlayer]

I have an interest in awakening this thread to further a discussion on a range of different topics that are relevant today, from the occupation movement and it's remefications, to peoples current view of what and where we are headed as a species on a global level. If any of the members who have previously posted are still around, or if any new members are please feel free to get it going

[sidecross]

The species of Homo sapiens is headed towards a bottleneck where if it survives a current population of seven billion people will have to be drastically reduced.

Whether we survive this process is an open question.

[sidecross]

OWS: To Change the Country, We Just Might Have to Change Ourselves

By Don Hazen, AlterNet

Posted on November 21, 2011

The emergence of what we know as Occupy Wall Street, or the 99 Percent Movement, has taken nearly everyone by surprise, producing a transformation of public consciousness. There is little doubt that something striking has taken place, far from our normal range of expectations. As a result, many thousands of progressives, excited that the logjam in American politics has been psychologically broken up, are still wondering exactly what has happened and why. Suddenly the style and conventional wisdom of traditional progressive models for social change have been pushed aside in favor of "horizontalism," general assemblies, culture jamming, and many other unconventional ways of doing politics.

The Antecedents of OWS

The DNA strands of some of these alternative approaches can be traced to Europe's Situationist International movement of the '50s and '60s, which combined radical politics with avant-garde art, and helped lead to a general strike in France in 1968. There are echoes, too, of American progressive movements that rose in response to the inequality, corporate excesses and corruption of the Gilded Age and the Roaring '20s. There are also reverberations from early in the labor movement of the large-scale industrial strikes of the 1930s, and also of the civil rights movement, and the women's movement's model of consciousness raising. Powerful acknowledgement must be given to the Arab Spring, for igniting the world's imagination. In Egypt, power that seemed incontestable was contested; protesters didn't have the answers beyond the end of Mubarak -- still they came and stayed.

Strong antecedents can also be found in the student-led antiwar movement of the late 1960s, which was also a fight against the dehumanizing effects of corporate power. Then, many young men faced being drafted to fight in a destructive and despised war. These young people and their families pushed back, saying, "Hell no, we won't go!" Many of today's millennials are also fighting back against circumstances that affect them directly. Student debt is more than $1 trillion, while unemployment for young people is at Depression-era levels. Declaring bankruptcy does not erase student loans; those crushing debts will follow them forever. Many of these young adults see their futures at stake. Not surprisingly, they want a solution -- either the jobs that would enable them to pay off their loans, or forgiveness of debt incurred under false pretenses.

Nevertheless, the movement that has burst out of a small park in Lower Manhattan feels like a new manifestation of the will for ordinary people to challenge dangerous and daunting forces that have come to dominate their lives. With its global reach and advanced technological and media tools, OWS may well usher in a new political and cultural era. Still, no one can say just where this thing will go and what the future will bring. And therein lies much of the power of OWS, and for some, the frustration. Pundits and organizers across the ideological spectrum have tried to understand the phenomenon, and explain it by fitting it into what we already know about how the system works, because not knowing is a source of great anxiety in our society, in the media, in the establishment, and even among progressives.

As Eve Ensler, global activist and author of The Vagina Monologues says, "What is happening cannot be defined. It is happening. It is a spontaneous uprising that has been building for years in our collective unconscious. It is a gorgeous, mischievous moment that has arrived and is spreading. It is a speaking out, coming out, dancing out. It is an experiment and a disruption."

Of course, nothing concrete has changed, yet. But the possibility of change -- really, the necessity of change -- is now in the middle of our nation's politics and public discourse. This alone is an incredible achievement because a few short months ago, many millions of us essentially had no hope.

Why Has the Tried-and-True Failed Us, and OWS Succeeded?

We may well ask why so much progressive organizing and billions of dollars of investments in social change over the past 20 to 30 years has failed to slow down the right-wing, corporate-dominated juggernaut or catch the public's imagination. And how is it that, remarkably, what is succeeding in front of our eyes breaks what we thought were the hard and fast rules of political relevance? We had come to believe we needed the development of charismatic leaders operating within vertical organizational models, with heavy emphasis on fundraising and electoral politics. But that is changing. Reality is undergoing an adjustment.

Micah Sifry, writing on the Web site Tech President, wondered, "Did OWS succeed simply because it was non-hierarchical in method, had smart framing in tune with public anger about the economy and Wall Street, and made really effective use of social media?" If so, he asked, "Why didn't a very similar effort, called 'the Other 98 Percent' take off last year? Why didn't the US Uncut movement, a spinoff of an ongoing street protest movement in England, take off here this past winter? Why didn't Van Jones' new Rebuild the Dream movement, which was launched this summer with the backing of MoveOn, labor and the progressive netroots, take off?"

Longtime organizer Andrew Boyd described a few key elements to Sifry. One is the powerful tactic of occupation itself, with the personal commitment and determination of people on the ground to see it through. "Continuous occupation creates a human drama" and a demonstration of dedication that matters. "People await the next episode. Will the cops kick them out? Will they outlast the weather? Will they participate in the elections?" Another reason is the lack of demands. As Boyd says, it puts OWS in the morally potent "right vs wrong box," instead of in the "political calculation" box.

Still another is the authenticity of OWS. As Sifry notes,

"Occupy Wall Street isn't slick. It isn't focus-grouped. It isn't something professional activists would do…As the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto wrote more than a decade ago, we instinctively know the difference between a human voice and a corporate voice. I know it may sound strange to say this, but could the reason so many progressive social change projects fail to connect with ordinary people and move them to action be because they seem too corporate in style? Think of all those hand-scrawled signs on scraps of cardboard vs. a thousand professionally printed signs from a union shop--which is more authentic?"

But there is something simultaneously much harder to grasp and incredibly easy to digest if one is able to suspend disbelief, to stop thinking in all the ways we have been taught and trained to respond in American politics. And get ready for a wild ride.

A Generational Shift

Even though OWS involves people of a wide range of ages, there has been a fundamental generational shift. Millennials have a different view of how to do things, with values and knowledge gained from leaders across the world. They have absorbed quite naturally the fundamental approach of horizontalism -- perhaps better labeled participatory democracy -- field-tested in places like Argentina, Spain and Greece.

As Marina Sitrin, a veteran of political organizing in Argentina 10 years ago and an early OWS participant explains:

"2011 has been a year of revolutions -- uprisings -- and massive social movements -- all against an economic crisis and crisis of representation. Most all of these new movements have taken directly democratic forms, and are doing so in public spaces, from Tahrir Square in Egypt, to the plazas and parks of Spain, Greece, and increasingly the United States. The words horizontal, horizontalidad and horizontalism are being used to describe the form the movements are taking. Horizontal, as it sounds, is a level space for decision making, a place where one can look directly at the other person across from you….Horizontalism is more than just being against hierarchy...it is about creating something new together in our relationships. The means are a part of the ends. The forms of organizing manifest what we desire; it is not a question of demands, but rather a manifestation of an alternative way of being and relating."

On a practical level, what this means is that Gen Xers and Boomers have much to learn from the different approaches to politics OWS represents. Instead of focusing on traditional power structures, the OWS operation seems like the "wisdom of crowds" combined with a fundamental sense that top-down power can't really ever change anything, because it will always, by its nature, reproduce the system it is trying to change.

For decades, we progressive Boomers (I am one) and Gen Xers have continued doing things the way we always have, believing that if we only organized a little better, raised more money, were a little smarter, tweaked the message just so, success would be ours. But we could not discover how to make a dent in the political hegemony of banks and corporations, in the political corruption, in unjust laws that protect the powerful. Life in the social and economic realms has declined over the past decades -- for the working class, poor people, people of color, students, and increasingly the middle class. Meanwhile, more and more corporate money is invested to game the system. The Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United was the last nail in the coffin, giving yet more influence over our "democracy" to the 1 percent.

OWS represents a challenge to many established orders. It challenges a large professional class of highly educated progressives who learned to work the funding system and to create a broad, comfortable and self-reinforcing progressive establishment. While millions suffer with joblessness, underwater mortgages and student debt, many in the progressive establishment are well-paid and thriving, fighting a battle on many fronts that it seems we are doomed to continue to lose. Why? Perhaps it is because our system and way of doing things mirrors the oppressive system in many ways. There is nothing revolutionary about movement professionals trying to negotiate with the Obama administration to tweak one policy or another. Or spending time convincing Americans to sign another petition or offer financial support -- things I personally promote, so I do not write this from a place of any superiority, nor do I have an immediate clear idea of how to change it, except that we must try.

Building on What We Have Done

Our old ways of doing things are going to be challenged and questioned every day. We have to be bold enough to resist running for establishment cover and use this teachable moment to take a hard look at what we have wrought. If we believe in our values, we have to adapt and change. At the same time, and this is crucial, we have to take stock of what we have built, which is significant. There are infrastructures in place that will help the OWS movement go forward. We must be creative and gutsy in imagining how to weave together the new with old, and not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We Boomers must remember that our early efforts of crossing many dividing lines -- of race, gender, class and sexual orientation -- provide the historical backbone of what the OWS movement is building on, 40 years later. It just may be that this generation is doing a better job than we did.

Moving forward, we have to distribute resources more broadly. We must bring people into productive roles who have been left out. None of this will be easy. But it could be amazing, and even more importantly, essential. Because if we are going to catch this tidal wave, if we are going to contribute to this huge fight against unbridled global capitalism, we must accept the anxiety and uncertainty of doing things differently. And many of us will. Already, many of us do sense that this is the best chance we will have in our lifetimes to reinvigorate our democracy, create a livable world for ourselves and future generations, and help millions, young and old, pull themselves from the grinding everyday pain of poverty and powerlessness.

We Are the Change

Joining the change will require reassessing both our habits and our organizations. And a fair question is, just what does that mean? I don't pretend to have the answers. But there are places to start. We can examine our privileges, share power, insist that resources be spread much further than they are now. We can think about relating better to all, not just to those in our political and social circles. As a daily practice, we can better value the people on whose work we depend, those who collect our garbage, deliver our food, clean our offices, do our laundry. And for the future of the earth -- we can challenge and change some of our greedy habits and remind ourselves of how easy it is to abuse the environment when we are privileged.

Many of us have been toiling for years, struggling for social change, for inspirational and accurate media coverage, for fairness and equality. We have been doing it the way we thought was right, and we should give ourselves credit for persistence, for not giving up. But we do find ourselves at a crossroads. Embracing the new has risks, and feels confusing, perhaps even threatening.

Eve Ensler has a way of artfully articulating the elements of key moments. She writes:

"If we are not afraid, if we open ourselves, we all know everything has to change. We need places to announce and actualize this change. Places are crucial. The ingredients involve stepping out of your comfort zone, giving up more than your share, telling your story and listening to others, not thinking in an obvious linear way, trusting the collective imagination to be more empowered and visionary than your own, refusing to participate in the violent destruction of anything. That includes taking anything that isn't yours, taking more than you need, and believing you have a right to dismiss or ignore or belittle anyone with less power or money or education. Believers...will be beaten with batons and pepper sprayed and dragged off. But no one can evict or silence what is emerging in Zuccotti Park."

Or what is emerging from the thousands of sister and brother occupations in the U.S. and across the globe.

It's clear. The movement that is OWS can't do it alone. They, and millions of us, need to be willing to step up, and change ourselves and change the world in the process.


Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.

© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/153165/

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/153165

[suebee]

my offerings have pretty much been about the future of homo idiotens since i started posting here. i have some hope in OWS as a means to change things, but its going to be a hugely LONG haul and people better be ready to tough it out. some kind of means to keep living while protesting (an away place to sleep at night and food) is needed to be able to keep occupying power centers during the day. long term is the only way this will work and as
more people fall into the non employed non assets nothing left to do but protest category, a means to keep people fed will be important. this is not exactly expressed in my usual articulate style...

[suebee]

on Occupy San Fran facebook postings today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9OLL...&feature=share

[Van Gogh]

Right on SB.Establish large farms on gov land.Lake Eufaula started out with 150 soldiers running it.They are now down to less than 10.Lake has 10,000 acres of fertile delta land and timber. Lake Eufaula,McIntosh and Pittsburg counties of Oklahoma.
Good time to work with local Federal and local govs.Spoken by a true Indian.Message me if you want to get to work or buy 5 acre lakefront farm.

[willoweyes]

I fell on my head so Im a little off. Not like the John Waters Movie. feel too old and achy-breaky to milk the goats. Im not sure if im the one to be any sort of a light unto homo idiocracy.

here is something I read about Matt Simmons today, written by James Howard Kunstler:

"Most of all, he was a good man who cared about the destiny of the human project. "

an eulogy we could all strive for.

[suebee]

matt simmons believed in the club of rome's predictions - heres one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

preaching to the choir, i know...

[suebee]

heres some good stuff i just heard about:

http://www.abundancethebook.com/download/
first chapter free, authors very cool...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/#46632845
one author's interview with dylan ratigan

[DualSlayer]

Many of my previous posts have been rather too abstract to say the least if not simply "irrational", and fueled be excessive alcoholism and habitual cannabis use. That being said, upon sobering up and simply the passage of time. Dispite the remnance of a mispent youth/young adult hood, however selfish I might add, or confess. It seems as though the state of the world is becoming pretty dire, my home town got flooded out with highway closures, entire neighborhoods submurged in a foot of water. And in the media people snorting bath salts and eating each others faces, dismemberment, etc. Is this ever increasing fear mongering of a few isolated events, however sick they may be, which is meant to perpetuate and further chaotic events, further the degradation of the populace, and economin decline ending in a technocratic orwellian state. or is there a divide amongst humanity, on one side those evolving closer together through embracing life, love etc. sharing experience. And on the other those ever more feeding into fear and in doing so growing further apart. At 28 after running and trying to consume as much knowlege about the world and where we're headed, and what the ultimate solution to it all is I've missed out on the most important thing of all "being" in the moment, and my liver and brain cells have taken the toll to say the least. I am beginning to believe more and more in God, and am afraid at times of where we're headed, maybe that means I haven't much faith yet. I can see depopulation being quite possible if not rather immediate as in within a couple years I hope I am wrong and have been fear mongered, but have read of the whole Fema camps, shackled train cars etc and recently read an article and heard that they bought 45 or 450 million rounds of bullets. Meant for who opponents of the nwo. Maybe there right, or anyone whose been rounded up too much credit card debt l be brought to slave camps while the rest are chipped and left to live in relative harmony. Crazy times thats all I can say.
Or maybe it's nibiru our creators reaking havoc on our collective consciousness and the earths lol. I watched the movie thrive and found that interesting but if such technology be put in place. obviously not. but it had some good thought within the last 30 mins or so. Let me know some thoughts as I am overdosing on reality here

[DualSlayer]

And that is what happens when you don't sleep for a few days drink too much coffee and read too many articles on the internet.

INTENSE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYDwW...feature=relmfu

[DualSlayer]

http://pages.innerpotential.org/sun.html

Just thought I would like to share this article and see what you all may think. Interesting, just goes to show how much we know about the nature of the universe, or rather what we used to "see/know" and now are proving through science fact, experiments, etc. In my earlier years I had a constant feeling guided by intuition that we once knew threw faith would come full circle and be proven through fact. Perhaps thats just one more way of conceptualizing the fact that we're now beginning to "awaken". And I believe each time the concsiousness of the planet goes through one of these stages, or rather a dark and then reawakening to the true reality of the universe we aid in the evolution of the "field" or rather consciousness of the universe as an entity itself. Now I am rambling a bit... just thought i'd throw it out there...
peace blaze one in the same

[DualSlayer]

What's up ya sick fucks. I recently cut alcohol out of my diet and have been sustaining this biochemical vessel on kale shakes and omega oils. Amazing what changing ones diet ca do. A rational teetering on insanity persists throughout mainstream society. But that's just here say alchemical brethren. Religious institutions have merged with corporate ravines I have nt slept in three days and were still waiting for the next crypto racy. Do cults persist throughout history 7 billion streams of consciousness inherently believe matter creates consciousness perhaps this is the origin of hypocracy. I live in a modern day museum where intellects are thought of as beyond sanity my what have we lost. Perhaps there are two new subtypes of human evolving. One which will follow the path of obedience in faith of corporate ravines such as Monsanto meat eating lovers of a desperate time and another who will sustain a beauty of free thought cultivating creativity freedom of thought to gain any level of experience while on this earthly plain to evolve throughout I finite. Responsibility to ones own fate is the only conscious way and the few will persist and out evolve this fleeting dream of imprisonment. Wake up or leave I think I'm here to stay.

[DualSlayer]

Im not sure if anyone reads these, but I'll keep posting if only for the one lonely guy assigned to moniter forums on the fringes for the CIA, and if you're reading this try to have a sense of humour not everything is meant to be taken literally after all. I've got a friend thats right I have a friend, who insists the moon is a satelite made by unknown intelligences that monitor activity on the earth among other purposes. Crazy right, but have you been there? I haven't at least not physically, so maybe to believe that it is a fragment of the earth that formed when a meteor collided with our planet and formed millions of years ago is just as delusional as the former. But tell that to a psychiatrist and he d suggest you begin taking lithium. Why? Because we've created a system of beliefs that allows progress on a mass scale and a culture with "morals and values" that I can only hope are breaking down daily. Truth is we don't know shit. We look to the stars like no other striving to one day explore them, when we are just begining to discover the true nature of the physical universe, and we know even less of the inner. I can only hope that more and more of future generations are becoming cognizant of this fact and will re examine what they're taught and how they relate to their enviroment and one another.