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2011: Time for a New Clear Vision
For the coming year, rather than short-term resolutions, I’m issuing an ongoing challenge that is at once both personal and political. Despite much evidence to the contrary, and notwithstanding the relentless news cycle that we frequent, I believe that 2011 will be the year that the majority of people in the world demonstrably turn away from the brink of destruction and embrace a spirit of positive innovation and creative intervention in their communities. This may seem like a preposterous conclusion, but then again if someone told you in early 2001 that we would be living in a perpetual state of terror/war and that our rights would be wholly eviscerated in short order, you might have said the same thing.
Watershed changes happen, and they needn’t always be to the bad side of things. I won’t attempt a predictive litany here, but any number of significant events could transpire this year that would forever remake the map of the world. One of the most troubling aspects of the present moment is that we’ve fostered a sensibility in which crises, conflicts, and cataclysms eclipse any comprehension of positive information in our midst. While bad news is trumpeted on every billboard and dutifully reprinted in a preponderance of blogs, the prospects of anything good happening recede farther into the nether regions of our neural and informational networks alike. At this point, it’s a fair question: if something monumentally positive were to occur, would anyone be inclined actually to notice and/or report it?
By most accounts, it looks and feels very much as if the fate of the world is approaching a fundamental crossroads, and for most prognosticators the future is grim. But that’s as much a matter of our willing perception as it is a venal construct of the mass media. While undoubtedly many of the major issues of the day – from politics and culture to economics and climate – are seemingly in a downward spiral, it’s also true that this is a time of great innovation, community-building, and creative visioning. For every corporate crony there’s a neighborhood activist; for every warmonger a peacemaker; for every usurer a micro-lender; for every profiteer a volunteer; and for every agribusiness an urban garden. In each case, we can expound upon the poverty of the former while also highlighting the power of the latter.
Hence, I make this call for a refocusing of our collective energies and a retuning of our antennae to the light side. In this, we need not abandon critical thought, and of course we must continue to “speak truth to power” and expose the disconcerting machinations of politicking and profligacy. Can we do this yet still actively strive to project a positive visage back to the larger world? Indeed, the real challenge would be to become both critical and optimistic at the same time, and likewise to be thoroughly steeped in the simultaneous virtues of deconstruction and being constructive in the same breath. I make no pretense that this will be a small task, given the stark realities and incessant crises of the world as it now stands. And yet there is a lingering sense that we are somehow missing the verdant forest for the bare trees.
Undoubtedly, we will have to suspend our disbelief to some extent. But once again, aren’t we asked to do this on a daily basis with everything from manufactured wars and prefabricated terrorist plots to “too big to fail” scams and celebrity gossip passing as news? The version of “reality” that we consume, and are equally consumed by, begs our constant acceptance of its inherent solidity. Thus raised on morsels of subsidized empty calories, we crave even more to fill the void, only to find that the hunger is never quite sated. This is the trap of the bad-news cycle – and much like the violence-begets-violence cycle plied by “realists” both among the elites and in the streets, it will take fortitude and vision to break it.
Consider how much of our energy is expended in reactive pursuits, rather than proactive measures. As the sense of real-time apocalypse becomes increasingly palpable, the most obvious responses are deepening despair and intentional avoidance. Yet in both cases, we are constrained to chart our course in response to the narrative being constructed by the purveyors of ostensible hegemony, and in this we are denied the rightful opportunity to develop our own stories, visions, and practices in this world freed from the shackles of inculcated negativism. Again, this doesn’t mean that we have to yield our critical thinking capacities, but rather it is to propose that we can use them to guide ourselves and each other away from lives steeped in the faux news that we have confused for real intelligence.
To be sure, I’m not suggesting that this will entail waking up and seeing only sunshine and rainbows everywhere, but more so that we try at least to balance our impressions of and ruminations on current events. Some of the most cogent and persuasive items I’ve recently read (and perhaps written, if I may) that analyze the moment in which we find ourselves tend to the mercilessly despair-laden side of the coin. One of the obligations attendant to being an educator – and punditry is a sort of public educative function, after all – is to take care not to further increase immiseration by highlighting merely that which has gone horribly wrong. In this sense, if we overemphasize the critical to the exclusion of the constructive, we will likely foster greater disempowerment despite our best intentions to the contrary.
In short, we can respect the critical perspective that aims to deconstruct the challenges before us, yet also acknowledge that without an equal emphasis on the productive potentials in our midst, pure critique can foster profound pessimism and lead to further entrenchment in the despair-denial cycle. My challenge for 2011 thus is simply to seek a balance and nurture a perspective that remains open to the possibility that good still exists despite the overseers’ attempts to abolish it altogether. Indeed, I believe that it never really went anywhere, and that we merely need to adjust our collective vision to see it again. Once we do, we might even be surprised at how pervasive it is, and that the task of unearthing the positive news in our midst is truly a great challenge that will thoroughly engage our searching minds.
In that spirit, I sincerely wish you all a very happy new year – and I look forward to creating it together.
139 Comments so far
Show AllSpay and Neuter your heterosexuals.
The population of the planet increases at three people per second.
I like what Randall Amstar has been writing recently; this and his last piece about being the dominant paradigm. I have thought for a while that we really have a great story to tell about a future of renewable energy, local food and renewed community. Things we haven't foreseen about a meshing of old fashioned communal work and skills intermixed with worldwide communications may surprise us.
In any case, it has been proven scientifically that expectations influence events so it matters what we think. To emphasize the point made here if we do not project a positive vision of the future, we have only the technocratic and war making one put out by the military corporate complex. I have been an activist and teacher for over 40 years so I don't say this as someone who thinks it will be easy to change power structures. To put any vision into reality first we must have it and second we must believe we can do it. If we only despair we are leaving it all up to the Masters of the Universe who have proven quite conclusively that they do not have a clue about how to live life on earth.
Bless your heart, Visiting Professor!
Strictly speaking, I ought to say "bless your mind-- and guts".
Your critique is trenchant and powerful.
I won't rattle on at length about this at the moment, but for months I've been ruminating over the memes that strike me as an upscale, high-minded, intellectualized, warmed-over variation of "the power of positive thinking".
I absolutely LOVE songs like "Accentuate the Positive" and even "High Hopes". I get the idea. But I'm left cold when a generally thoughtful, and certainly sophisticated, intellectual like Amster, creates an elegant and elaborate frame for a message that amounts to "lighten up".
Thanks, and Happy New Year to all! That's about as light as it gets for Yr Obd't Servant. ;)
Obedient,
I'm not sure that 'lighten up' is his message.
It's more an antidote to the power of negative thinking that we read and hear in the msm and even here.
memes that constantly tell us we are greedy, lazy, weak, victims, powerless, stupid, less than other people, etc
To effect change we have to envision a different better and possible way of being, whether that is personal or social.
And Happy New Year. :~D
I do not think that your comment is anything representative of Scrooge or Grinch. However, I do not believe that the author is acting as if we should just sit and be collective while the ship is sinking. I would in fact argue that this article is a forewarning that as our nation collapses, we should be prepared to not only rebuild it but also do it collectively. I have read your posts and I agree with you that we need to have a general strike but how do we do a general strike if we all are divided and fragmented? Do we not have any confidence to do anything progressively together? Look at Europe and see how people organize. I hear that people there of all ages unite with team confidence and strike. Yes, recent rightwing takeovers in some of the European nations are getting to be resistant and pushing ahead with austerity measures even when the public says NO but at least the protests are effective in slowing down the push to "austerity" and those politicians could be forced to think twice if they want to keep their political jobs. Compare that to this nation where the Left is fragmented and unable to confidently organize while the rightwing continues to heap more destructive policies against us. I could be reading Amster's article wrong but I see his article implying that whether we stay and keep trying to fix the existing system or jump ship and tear down the existing system that is already beyond repair in favor of a new one, we must prepare to think and work together with confidence with both caution and a positive outlook.
"My challenge for 2011 thus is simply to seek a balance and nurture a perspective that remains open to the possibility that good still exists despite the overseers’ attempts to abolish it altogether."
Here you go Randall. Happy New Year!
How do we develop a sustainable civilization? - By delivering the "holy grail of sustainable decision making" - a universal geometrical algorithm that balances the needs of people, planet and profit - The SLDI Code™ http://www.triplepundit.com/author/sldi/
The only way we can have a sustainable anything, is to think outside the box. In this case above the sky, were not a bunch of cromagnins wondering if were alone in the world. We live in a broad solar system of dozens of worlds of resources, waiting to fulfill our every whim.
We can freeze in our cave or get up and use what we have to make all our lives better. It's time and past to leave the nest and move out into the worlds. Time for the next frontier! I for one don't want to freeze in the dark so while some assclown hoarding the resources can live better than most every king in history, theres no reason, and theres certinally no lack or resources in the solar system, we like Columbis like Lief Erickson must be bold and go to those new shores for what we need!
>^^<
Are we going to think outside of the box of white privilege and the "American Dream," or are we going to hang on to those boxes a little while longer?
Odd that you would say this - "I for one don't want to freeze in the dark so while some assclown hoarding the resources can live better than most every king in history" - and yet attack immigrants and indigenous people at every opportunity for sharing that sentiment with you.
Is it just white people, such as yourself, who should not have to "freeze in the dark while some assclown hoarding the resources can live better?"
"We" should be like Columbus? What part of the world would you have "us" invade and exploit now?
I agree with you that "the only way we can have a sustainable anything is to think outside the box." I invite you to start doing just that. Every comment in your post is rooted firmly inside that box.
Artemix:
As for Me and my House, we stand with you and the author, the cup remains half full and I count for something.
Here! Here! Randall Amster.
There are more sincerely good people on this planet than there are not.
I would suspect an easy 90 per cent of all the people on the planet do the right thing or want to do the right thing. Of course, what we are taught as "the right thing" does vary. However, the energies toward goodness, I believe, can and will make the difference as to whether we ultimately will survive, and at the very best, thrive.
I woke up very early this morning with the sense of the gathering doom of the past ten years. A few hours later I went back to sleep, and when I awoke I said, "Enough already." It is I who have to change my perception. I have to change some of the things I do, and start doing some of those things that need doing, but that I avoid or discount.
Sounds like a typical New Year's Resolution.
But what good is all the critical thinking if we don't make use of what we conclude to be not good to possibly very good.
And from the above, the word is ACTION, ... to withdraw from the not good; to reinforce the good and help change what isn't whenever and wherever we can.
Every one of us is different, and what each of us think about or do regarding the previous sentence is an individual choice.
Let us make a CONSCIOUS CHOICE for GOOD, however, just once a day or as many times as we can during a day. That CONSCIOUS CHOICE can change your/my energy, the energy of those we are closest to, and the energy of those we encounter during the day. And, of course, then that CONSCIOUS CHOICE has the potential of a ripple effect to create more GOOD energy.
Let's try it.
Let's together make some GOOD energy, a COLLECTIVE GOOD ENERGY, from right where each of us are standing.
May we together create a Happy New Year against all the odds that have been laid down in print, on television and radio, and in our thoughts and conversations.
You never know. ... In my best Brooklyn accent from another life long ago, "Like chicken soup, it can't hoit!"
Here's to a goal of creating GOODNESS and reclaiming peace in our time.
Somebody's gotta' do it. Right? . . . Why not you and me? . . . If not now, when?
/cm
Cee Miracles
Beautifully said! Happy New Year to you!
The problems have nothing at all to do with what people are inclined to do, nor with whether or not they are "good." It is about what people are able to do, and so long as power is concentrated in the hands of the few there is very little that people can do.
The people in power want to hold on to wealth and power. (So does everyone.) That is why they do what they do, not because they are "good" or "bad" people. There are no more bad people among the wealthy than among the rest of us, and the same agreement about the way we have organized the society is pervasive at all levels - the myths about the system. Those myths are: those with more wealth or access to capital have a "right" to dominate those with less; that "right" is associated, or should be, with merit - the cream rises to the top; freedom and moral righteousness are associated with material prosperity, or should be; progress consists of Great Men having Great Ideas and this leads to Great Shining Cities on the Hill.
Uh huh, except that accepting there is very little we can do is maybe defeatist and not true. It takes a degree of cooperation to enable the status quo.
There is much that can be done. Everything and anything can be done. But nothing can be done with the existing power structure in place.
It was not defeatist before Emancipation for people to say "without overthrowing slavery, nothing can be done." It was, however, defeatist to say "given that it is not possible to overthrow slavery, what can we do to make life a little better and gradually improve things?"
In the 1850's, people resented the Abolitionists for "being negative" and continually talking about slavery. They wanted to feel "happy" and the Abolitionists were "discouraging" them. People also argued that slavery was merely the product of "bad" people and bad emotions, a lack of the proper enlightenment, and advocated improving people's morals as the necessary prerequisite to ending slavery. "Slavery exists because people are sinful, so we must focus on improving people's spiritual values in order to end slavery rather than trying to attack it head on."
Those people, attacking the Abolitionists claimed to be allies - "don't get me wrong, I oppose slavery, BUT..." Ironically, many people in the South knew that slavery was causing bad morals, bad morals were not causing slavery. They also knew - when many Northerners refused to know - that people were not enslaved because of their degraded condition, but rather their degraded condition was the result of slavery.
Many progressives today are making exactly the same mistakes that Northern Whigs were making back then, and are a barrier to progress now just as those Whigs were then.
I'm with donnalou here. There is a great deal we can do. And letting those in power keep it DOES require a bit of cooperation from us.
Frankly, I'm very optimistic about 2011 and 2012.
It seems, Two Americas, that you are pretty much measuring everything by the material assessment of the "have's and have not's." "... so long as power is concentrated in the hands of the few there is very little people can do."
I'm not talking about that at all, although that is one lens to look through and see and experience a particular reality.
Are you perfect, Two Americas? Is there nothing in the world you could do to make someone else feel happier, even if just for a moment and by so doing, perhaps create a little positive energy within a neutral or dead space?
I'm talking about CONSCIOUS AWARENESS so that with thoughtful consideration you might do one small act perhaps that is helpful to another, friendlier to another, more understanding of another instead of blowing your gourd, ... the kind of thing you wouldn't ordinarily do. You remember: Random Acts of Kindness but coming from an AWARE CONSCIOUSNESS that recognizes that one could make a difference for the good in someone's life, even if for just an instant.
Now if you are perfect as you are, Two Americas, and you are content with your view that you can't do anything up against all those people who hold the purse strings and the power, and prefer to see them only as good people doing their thing, that's fine and you have a right to your viewpoint. But I do get the impression that to you, life is a steam roller and you are quite ready to lie down in the street and let it roll over you because you are the very little guy/gal and you can't do anything other than lie there when told to.
Regarding the organizing myths of our society that you list, I can't quite tell whether you think these myths "should be" the way they are or not. You call it "an agreement" to have it be the way it is.
Maybe try a little red pepper in your oatmeal, just to see how it tastes?
And, yes, I am trying to jerk your chain.
But, if what you say and conclude represent the totality of your life experience and no way out is at all possible for you, you have my condolences, and I do mean that sincerely.
peace, cm
"It seems, Two Americas, that you are pretty much measuring everything by the material assessment of the "have's and have not's." "... so long as power is concentrated in the hands of the few there is very little people can do."
I'm not talking about that at all, although that is one lens to look through and see and experience a particular reality."
Perhaps you should be talking about that-especially because that's the 'particular reality' (just even using that phrase is so steeped in relativism that I feel degraded even by quoting it) that most of the world experiences.
Will your approach change that? No, I seriously doubt it. Will his approach change that? I think it's more likely that it will.
"Are you perfect, Two Americas? Is there nothing in the world you could do to make someone else feel happier, even if just for a moment and by so doing, perhaps create a little positive energy within a neutral or dead space?"
This is stunningly irrelevant.
Understood.
You are talking about spirituality, I am talking about politics.
You are talking about self-improvement, I am talking about improving the conditions under which we all live.
I did not say that we can't do anything up against all those people who hold the purse strings and the power. I said that so long as we do not have the power to do things, we do not have the power to do things, and "thinking positive" or changing our personal spiritual state of being does not change that.
I did not say that I "prefer to see them only as good people doing their thing," I said that whether or not the people in power are "good" or "bad" is not meaningful or relevant.
What does whether or not I am "perfect" have to do with anything? It is the rare person who has trouble with what I have said here. "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." I am not going to worry about the comfortable feeling offended by what I say.
When I say to people "never mind improving ourselves spiritually, as though we are at fault for what the wealthy and powerful are doing to us, and disregard the calls for that because they are just a trick to disarm and immobilize us. We need to fight for housing, food, health care, control over our own lives, to enjoy the fruits of our labor and not see them stolen..." I get a very positive response from the majority of people in real life. A small number gets "hurt" and "offended" and then belligerent, and then angry, and then murderously angry (all part of their enlightened evolved spiritual state, I guess.)
Two Americas, High Karate & Iconoclast
No, you don't have my number. No, I am not into the La La style, New Age Spirituality of envisioning everything to be okay, and VOILA, it's okay ... even as the Titantic sinks and drowns everybody.
I was responding to Two Americas' first post at 2:14 p.m., December 31, 2010, in which he/she said: " It is about what people are able to do, and so long as power is concentrated in the hands of the few there is very little that people can do." and that post went on from there in, to me, a very self-defeatist attitude. Read the rest of that post, please.
The other posts by you, Two Americas, came out swinging. So lying in front of a steamroller as it rolls over you is evidently not who you are, but seemed to be in your first post.
Someone else on another post suggested we try and keep a balance of staring the hard reality with all its nasty, on-going stuff in the face, and at the same time not allow it to poison our own positivity and the positive actualities and possibilities in others. I think that's the best approach.
I think you all would agree that given the sheer butchery going on with the U.S.'s bogus, unending "wars," and the denied genocide, assisted by the United States, going on in Zionist Israel against the Gazans, that there is no way to put a happy face on those things, nor can one do that with the numbers of miserable people in particular areas of the world, made more miserable by the day by capitalistic exploitation, with cruel dictators in power, both assisted to that power and assisted to stay in power by the U.S. oligarchic government and perhaps other western, old colonial powers.
I have my own history of activism, the most noteworthy of which was walking across the country with The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament and also some jail time. And I am 74 so I've lived a bit of history in my time.
My frustration in the years during and since the Reagan Administration is the absolutely rampant ignorance of the majority of our population and the disinterest and apathy of too many of our citizens even as horrific decisions affecting U.S. lives and billions of other lives, have been made to our mutual detriment. Too many ... still ... do not see or understand that. And, of course, there are many reasons for that. Orwell/Huxley have covered that ground.
You don't have to tell me what we are up against, nor do I have to tell some of you, although I was writing about how "over" it is, in terms of the Constitutional government of the U.S., long before others had a clue. You've either done your homework or you haven't.
I've had a monkey on my back since the year 2000. And still, as the model of our government and our nation has been relentlessly corrupted and destroyed, too many don't want to hear about it or get very angry when factual truth is given them. They don't want to know, even sometimes on this site.
Again I was responding to Two Americas' original post. I also do believe that the only way out of this disastrous mess that we ... and the world ... is in, whether climate change, increasing population, unending wars, violence as a way of life, life-sapping poverty, hunger to starvation to the death, and a very small percentage of people, 1 to 3 per cent holding the assets and the reins ... you know the list, ... is that we the people have to create and embrace a whole new paradigm.
And when I say "we the people," I am not talking about the United States alone.
I am talking about something much bigger than that.
And that's all I will say for now, except that one must balance what one does and what one is with the passion that comes from outrage and fury, but also by a passionate belief in possibilities that can be accomplished by an array of practical means and, yes, some faith in the notion that good ultimately is stronger and more effective than evil if that good can be coaxed out of fearful shadows and apathy and ignited into a blaze that becomes an unstoppable YES!
And that's all very poetic, I know, but that's all I choose to say at this time, except think outside of The Box, as others are already doing and acting on.
The waters swirling around the boulders in the river do wear them down eventually, even as those same waters, made up of singular drops, reach and become part of a vast, powerful ocean.
Shall we concentrate on the shipwrecks under the sea or the power of the waves that can sculpt and change a shoreline?
peace, cm
Very gracious, highkarate/jasondylan
"I don't think your cry of innocence is quite fair, ..." and "I for one find it a bit confusing at times, and I am only 42. lol"
Well, to the first part, sometimes I deliberately reach for a way to inject some positivity into what seemed at the time someone else's attitude of "nothing can be done." And sometimes that also is because I am trying hard not to show all the anger I feel and what I see coming, logically, by listing one fact after another that becomes overwhelming in the negative department. Some folks are just not ready to hear that much.
I don't think Randall Amster is naive. I think he knows the score and in his own way, he is reaching for and defining the positive because we are living the first day of the new year of 2011, and there is no question, it may be one hellava' year with the emphasis on a kind of "hell" some of our citizens never, ever expected for themselves and their families. It's been happening for several years now.
I will stick by what I said in terms of Consciously Choosing to bring a little more light into someone else's life if one's tendency is not to do that kind of thing. I'm not talking about being phony and manipulative, but maybe part of our individual responsibility is in cultivating a small discipline to Consciously Create a little goodness where we can, putting our own self aside for the moment to reach out to or do for another, even sometimes when we are in the pits ourselves. That effort and that action on the side of kindness, compassion, helpfulness, goodness is never wasted, and we gain in becoming more aware of the needs of others instead of just our own. And we end up feeling good too IF the other person responds positively, which most people do. If someone doesn't, which is rare, but it happens, then you back off and go on about your business. Who knows what that other person has suffered or is suffering that he/she can't accept a small kindness?
There were a few times in my own life when someone did say something kind to me or wanted to be helpful, and I turned away because I was crying. I was so vulnerable at that moment because I had been emotionally wounded beyond the pale. I was trying my best to appear "normal" when I felt like breaking down and screaming. That little bit of kindness undid me, broke right through my armor. I did manage to say, "Thank you," to that person, but got myself to the other end of the store as fast as I could.
In the film, "Star Man," with Jeff Bridges as the space alien come to earth, my favorite lines are when he talks about the best qualities of human beings. Paraphrasing, he says that human beings don't pay attention most of the time, but when there are calamities, humans are at their best because that's when their caring for other human beings comes out strongest. They immediately step forward and are ready to help others get through the emergency, long-term or short.
That's what I remember from my childhood at the end of the Depression and when WWII started and ran its course: decency, helpfulness, sharing, kindness, understanding, compassion, courage and honor. Not from all, but from most. And that is not an idealized childhood remembrance. It was so.
We'll all be tested increasingly, I suspect, in the coming year or years. And that may turn out not to be a bad thing.
Here's to the New Year ... come what may, and I'm sure all of us regulars here will have something to say about it!!! ; - )))
including you and me,
Cee Miracles, even though sometimes that requires a real stretch ...
Thanks for that post. I understand better what you are saying now, and have no serious disagreement. Well stated, good sentiments.
Much appreciated. Good post.
The MSM, Hollyweird and corporate entertainment have taken the Mayan 2012 and turned it on its head. I have it on good sources that what it represents is a galactic solstice, a new awakening, a higher consciousness. For many, it might represent the end of their world as they know it. For others, it will mark a new beginning. 2011 represents the gateway to that new consciousness. Step on board and work towards creating a new, sustainable paradigm. No talking the talk and not walking the walk. From each according to their ability.
The goals for 2011 are clear. A rollback of wars of foreign aggression are within reach. The prosecution of Bush and Obama for war crimes against humanity is doable. Developing sustainable lifestyles which further eschew the corporate consumerist paradigm must come from within.
Very good article about the power of our thoughts. Happy New Year.
Absolutely! Happy New Year to you!
Thanks mightymite!
and words. A good reminder I read somewhere is: Are my words necessary? Kind? True?
Thanks!
Good post. "Feel good fluff" - that is how I read the article, too.
However, I do not think that an enlightened minority is going to "save us." That idea is what got us into this mess.
99.999% of the efforts by "enlightened minorities" are in the service of keeping us down and promoting their own interests at the expense of the rest of us.
I understand what you are saying now. I am not certain what our role is. Developing and providing certain tools, maybe?
We are indoctrinated with a certain view of this - that the thinkers and writers and leaders contribute more. They are paid more, of course. (Bribe money, paid in exchange for never thinking, writing, or speaking in opposition to the ruling class.) This then dovetails nicely with the ruling class narrative about history - that it is all about Great Men with Great Ideas that build Great Shining Cities on the Hill. That in turn is a defense and apology for the supposed "meritocracy," which in turn supports Capitalism. The cream rises to the top, we are to believe, and that is measured by money, and those with more money have a "right" to control and dominate those with less.
The issue for progressives then becomes what shall we, the Great Ones, the superior ones now do to save the country? "Save the country" means give the working class peons enough scraps so that they will keep quiet and not overthrow the power of the "winners."
I see it the other way around. We know what the nurses, farmers, mechanics, mothers, teachers, elder care workers, bricklayers, and millions of others contribute to the well being of all. Educated intellectuals? That is not so clear. The struggle there is for them not to be merely useless mouths to be fed. As it is now, almost all intellectuals - educated people, writers, thinkers, readers, researchers - are in the service of the ruling class. They are rewarded with status, comfort, security and perks to the precise degree that they remain strictly in the service of the ruling class. The degree to which they stray from that is the degree to which they are then ostracized from the better social circles, punished, isolated, marginalized, and eventually silenced one way or another. We see this self-policing mechanism in play everyday right here.
As far as "socialist rhetoric" and talking down to people, etc., this is never a problem unless we are still thinking like bosses and fancying ourselves to be Great Men with Great Ideas. Socialism comes from the working class people as a class - it is based on the objective reality, not on ideals - and it does not come from us as smart people. I have a 100% success rate. I am not selling or preaching, and class analysis is immediately accepted and supported by just about all whom I talk to, and I have spoken to audiences all over the country. The only place I run into opposition is from educated people, especially from liberals and progressives. If you stay clear of college towns, suburbia, and certain Internet boards you completely avoid that 10% of the population.
The problem is not ideas - it is not a matter of converting or selling people on new beliefs or great ideas. The problem is which side people are on. Those who are on the other side are not on the other side because they have different ideas or beliefs, they are on the other side because they are on the other side, and the more successful people are the more likely they are to be on the other side. They are on the other side because they are on the other side. They perceive it to be beneficial to them to be on the other side, and they are probably right. The beliefs and ideas flow from that, not the other way around. "Ah, this is the side of the bread that is buttered for me - kissing up to the bosses - so now I will make up a bunch of beliefs and ideas to support that." That is where liberal and progressive political ideas come from.
duplicate
How are others avoiding this?
I am not sure right now where and how to be of use.
Where is your blog? (Sorry if I missed the link).
edit - I found the link.
"I believe that 2011 will be the year that the majority of people in the world demonstrably turn away from the brink of destruction and embrace a spirit of positive innovation and creative intervention in their communities."
Every year, such predictions are made but in truth it happens and then some. I already believe that some of it started towards the end of 2009 and picked up from there. It's hard to keep a positive anything when everything bad comes crashing down but I think I joined that new quest slowly through the year 2010.
"In that spirit, I sincerely wish you all a very happy new year – and I look forward to creating it together."
As many have argued on this site, there is more individualism and less of a desire to get it all done together. We still have a long ways to go before we can get anything great done together.
More sniffing of each other's assholes.
The only tool the species has - and it is flawed - is the United Nations. Nations, we all should have learned by now, are Psychopaths in a spherical maximum security prison, working out with weights in the Exercise Yard. We let their puerile representatives come to Manhattan and ignore parking tickets.
The NATIONS of the world will never stop fucking things up for each other, our species, and all other life forms.
This institution possibly could work for the rescue of our species IF what it became and represented were the United Peoples of the Planet. Basically, it is an intellectual means test - as noted by Mohandas Gandhi. If the artificially derived PEOPLES into which Homo sapiens have shattered cannot incrementally negotiate and mediate their way into global cooperation with each other for the good of all, including other species - then we deserve to go EXTINCT as soon as possible. Start with competing models of Social Contract. But -
Yes, we absolutely MUST stop breeding. In planetary terms, we have turned into Vermin. In stead of shaking hands and saying something inane like "How do you do" we should shake hands, look each other in the eyes, and say: "Earth would be better off without us." That is called soothsaying.
Trylon
God save Bradley Manning.
Tell Julian Assange a good, but dirty joke,
explain it later to Bradley.
I object to the anti-human sentiments expressed here - "stop breeding...vermin...better off without..."
That is called fascism, not "soothsaying."
I am a human being. I stand with my fellow human beings. I stand against those who would see us as "vermin" - (do they fancy themselves to be aliens, or merely superior and above the fray?)
Thank you.
Thank you 2!
Anthropocentric bullshit. Anthropocentric bullshit. I thought you were brighter than this, 2-AM.
Go spend a week at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. Spend six months in animal rescue.
Human beings on this planet have about the same value as head lice. And I do not make an exception for myself. I am part of the problem, but not by choice. I asked to marry a swan. A GIRL swan.
Trylon
Valuing human life is not oppositional or contradictory to valuing the lives of other creatures on the planet. In fact, the two are inextricably connected. Therefore, you are presenting a false construct here.
You say that human beings have about the same value as head lice. Do you value the life of the louse? If you do, then you also value human life - by your own admission. Do you not value the life of the louse? If not, then upon what basis do you determine that some life is to be valued and other life is not to be valued? What is it about the louse that makes it worthless? Simply because it is a pest to human beings? That then means that you value the life of a human being - the comfort of a human being - above the life of the louse. Ergo - you are full of it. Your self-righteousness and contempt for your fellow human beings can itself only be based on the fact that you value human life very much - especially your own. You simply represent the arrogance and will to dominance - in god-like fashion you will decide what life is valuable and what life is not - that is itself the very human trait that you use as evidence for determining that human life is worthless.
Oh you're so clever I'm just going to kiss where you point.
Only in America can you get insulted for being stupid, and then should you improve and expand your argument and put some time and care into it, you get insulted for being smart.
So, you assume we are all bad, are you part of the we?. Or are you special! One of those privilaged by god to be allowed the privlidge of air and sunlight?
The Bilderburgers have been working hard for decades to convince us that we need to allow our breeding to be controled and to allow someone (themselves) to determine if your life has value.
I don't buy it, as I see it most of our so-called shortages are artificially created. be it this years astronomical raise in corn prices(driven by speculators)Or the rumors we are to soon run out of energy. All these are attempts to raise prices and profits for the few. We manage to feed ourselves(just) by cooperation, if not blocked by selfserving prifit interests, we will be fine.
The sun shines and if converted and distrubited properly can supply all the needs and desires of pur world untill such time it burns out, ditto for food, water and every other need.
A few self-entitled assclowns excepted, if they don't like earth or humans are invited to leave, ther are 4 to 7 planetary systems in reach that will support humans just fine. And you can start fresh, maybe exposing your unwanted babes like the Spartins, or the American Indians did.
>^^<
"The evil that men do lives after them;
"The good is oft interred with their bones."
Under a cumulative and persistent legacy of evil begun under the castes that sponsored civilization in the first place, then continued as patronage, followed by aristocracy, and now by class, the only good that might come would be revolution -- unless revolution is the opium of intellectuals and hope is the penultimate delusion, just before the final inescapable delusion of self -- the source and product of despair.
What if evil dies and good endures?
Its not a probability, but it sure is a good New Years resolution and goal!
What if delusion dies? What if people discover that there is no self? That has already happened and that knowledge makes them more committed to self than ever! Watch Adam Curtis' BBC documentary "Century of the Self" available through Google video.
So we would like to get your opinion of what vanilla does for you. How about Jamaican Nut Fudge? Do you prefer that? Why do you prefer that? We are glad to provide either for the expression your inner SELF.
That is what I meant in my original post about the self being inescapable ... and the source and product of despair.
"Feel good fluff
That it is not. Randall Amster is simply trying to point out the reality that there are far, far more good people trying to do the right thing than not.
That rethinking our agenda's and policies...our positions and prejudices can't be a bad thing.
That joining with others to produce a good is more important than letting bad things happen because we judge others to be beteath us or inferior to us.
Here's hoping that 2011 is the year that democrats and republicans become American's again and agree with the majority of our people that confining people without recourse, occupying some one else's country, practicing selective compliance to our country's laws and refusing to do your moral asnd civic duty is no longrer acceptable.
Peace is always preferable to war.
Happy New Year to you all!
He is promoting the idea that good people doing the right thing can effect social and political change, that this is the way to approach the social and political problem. That is the same old denial and individualism that are the cause of the problem.
If there are far more good people trying to do the right thing than not, then obviously good people doing the right thing cannot be the solution, that is not where the problem nor the solution are to be found. The argument the author makes is therefore self-contradictory. That tells us that he either is more committed to an approach than he is to results, or else he is not being truthful about the results he is pursuing. I suspect the latter, but as with so many liberal articles it is almost impossible to tell - naive, or disingenuous? It has to be one or the other. It is hard to believe that a person of his obvious intelligence could be this clueless, could continue to advocate a course of action that is so clearly a failure. That then means that he is actually on the other side, on the side of the wealthy and powerful, and is defending the ruling class in a deceptive way.
"He is promoting the idea that good people doing the right thing can effect social and political change, that this is the way to approach the social and political problem. That is the same old denial and individualism that are the cause of the problem."
I agree with your first sentence, but disagree with your second.
THe fact that the majority of people doing the right thing takes longre to achieve results is self evidentuary in history. Dictators, wealthy elites, ruling classes take far less tiome to seize control than it does for good folks to defeat them or wrest control back from them.
I doubt he is defending the ruling class in any way, but you are certainly correct, with many liberal articles it is almost impossible to tell - naive, or disingenuous,uninformed or just inexperienced?