Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Someday I Want to Own a Yacht
As year-end reviews for 2011 start rolling in there is the inevitable attempt to rebrand, reinscribe and reimagine the memory of particular events. As banal and trite as many (most?) of these Year in Review exercises might appear at face value, they have a really important ideological value: to fix the historical place and meaning of specific moments and movements.
Time Magazine jumped the gun by naming ‘The Protester’ as its Person of the Year and pretty much every news outlet has drawn a straight analytical line from Tunisia through Tahrir Square to Syria to London to Occupy - 2011 as the year of in-the-streets dissatisfaction. And now even Russia has it going on too! It’s a tidily logical narrative and a tremendously powerful one: people across the globe inspiring each other to throw off their chains.
But in the rush to find a common thread between uprisings, a semi-consensus is starting to emerge that threatens to blunt and reduce their impact and transformative potential. The story that is being told is a slight twist on the Fukuyamian End of History – that all these protestors are really clamouring for is a more realized liberal democratic inclusivity.
The corporate media has seized on the Occupy resistance to inequality, attempting to rebrand it as a particularly vibrant/virulent form of entitled whining (I want my piece of the pie! I want to own a yacht too! I don’t want to pay my student loan! I want mine!) and tied it to Arab Spring calls for democratic governance as really all one and the same thing: some people are getting left out of the party.
By fixating on a particular rendition of ‘inequality’ it becomes possible to view the whole spectrum of uprisings from London to New York to Cairo as a call for more of the same economic and social order, just with more people able to benefit if the wealth is better distributed: everyone can get ugly rich. This way the fundamental issues of poverty, oppression, violence, privilege and colonialism are blunted and the incredible energy that has been mobilized through 2011 becomes a backhanded reinforcement of the existing neoliberal order: we just need a kinder, gentler capitalism, maybe a few more taxes on the really rich, and perhaps a financial transaction levy while we’re at it. It’s a narrative that dominant interests can live with.
We need a better story than that.
It is absolutely right to point to inequality. The grotesquery of corporate domination and the concentration of wealth is well documented and visible everywhere. That’s a great start but far from adequate. We need a lot more systematic and radical analysis of a social and economic ethic that reifies capital accumulation as our right and duty and makes severe inequality inevitable.
We need to start imagining beyond a predatory economic system that is predicated on land theft and colonial imperatives and start building something beyond the ecological disaster of late-capitalism. If the fight against inequality just means more of the same: a bigger flat screen and three cars in every driveway we’re not getting very far. If, on the other hand, we can listen to the amazing energy and vision of people on the street in 2011 maybe we’re on the verge of something revolutionary.
- Posted in
18 Comments so far
Show All(I want my piece of the pie! I want to own a yacht too! I don’t want to pay my student loan! I want mine!)
of course these vain and shallow people believe that.
ones character must have depth to comprehend depth.
Something of Value
This rigid system of earth ownership
is straining and cracking.
Removed from the whole
there is not enough now.
Especially for those that only want more.
Sooner or later
the unspoken truth is.....
this shall have to be undone
so that we may fall through the cracks
into our Mothers arms. T.D.
thanks!!!!!!!!!!!
That was good. Thank you.
Oh! How I want to own my a yaght, just like my hero (sarcasm!) John Phoney Kerry!
What's with the title?
It's an eye-catching title -- now someone just needs to write an article to fit it.
It's possible to experiment with little tiny sections of community economics, until you know that it's probably going to work.
We need local, mostly closed economic systems to be sure of some things:
That our money that goes out is our money that comes back in -- that we have jobs because we hire each other.
That we know our farmer, and so we know that our farmer isn't poisoning our kids with trace chemicals.
That we're not paying some anonymous rich creep to turn around and stab our government in the back. I don't care what country the rich creep is in, he needs to be cut out of the pie at great cost.
That we know our energy sources.
That we have a collective government capable of making changes in our world, that we take community ownership as citizens of our community and our world.
How fucked up we are that what was once as plain as the nose on one's face is now a matter of framing, reframing, directing, redirecting, narrating, addressing and, in other words, nothing more than a propaganda war and a matter of perception. People are beat up, imprisoned, oppressed and that means nothing. It's all about who tells the story better and who has more trolls on the internet screaming against or in favor of. Right and wrong be damned. How I weep for humanity. The more we advance, the more stupid we get.
Well,
Before the crash, I used to own a yacht. A fifty footer. It was my retirement toy for me and my wife. But I never would have bought it if I had any friggin idea just how much pollution it creates! It burns over thirty gallons an hour and only has two staterooms. The thing doesn't even get one mile per gallon at a top speed of twenty knots (and this thing had small motors). There's no smog systems on them. The fuel vents get clogged easy and the fuel overflows out of the tanks on hot days unless you know that's a risk and don't fill it up. There's oil leaks everywhere! The only way to fix this is to "flood the bilge" with sea water and bilge cleaner and then scrub the oil off and blow it over they told me! I refused! And when I finally sold it, that cost me a lot of money since the engine room was not pretty. Every time you see a big ship, you can be assured that massive pollution and legal overboard dumping at sea is happening. The Coast guard sticker on the thing was a shocker: said you could dump anything except plastic as long as the "dunnage" was ground to a certain size and dumped a certaion distance from shore. No wonder the gulf is dead! No wonder the Oceans are a mess!
These damn things are unnecessary, a real hazard to the environment and should all be outlawed. And this horsechit Globalization with dirty dry stack container ships passing each other with identical cargos just to bilk the consumer has to end!
That's what I think anyway.
TJ
You didn't know that a fifty foot yacht with (I presume) diesel motors would pollute? Really? You didn't research any of this stuff before you bought? And, if you were so concerned about the pollution this thing caused, why didn't you scrap it rather than sell it? What, the new owner is not going to burn fuel and dump waste?
I do admire you for getting your hands on one of these things to begin with, though. Wish I could. That's livin', if you can afford it.
dwatkin9,
Good points and you are right. It is "the hook" of "unfettered Capitalism", imho. At that time I was a foot soldier of the wall street corporate empire. All foot soldiers march along, day after day, dreaming of the day when they can be like the CEO and fire up two obnoxious motor yacht diesel engines, smoke everybody off the dock, cast off and pretend to be somebody that they are not.
Marinas are full of these kind of people, these silly dreamers who rationalize the diesel smoke is not as bad as commuting to a hotel in a taxi, or that sitting naked in the cool water shut down burns less power than running air conditioning at home. But many of them don't have a clue what they are getting into when they buy their first boat, it's true. I highly recommend the movie "Captain Ron" if you can find it. I remember that maybe a quarter of these things never left the dock for years, many because the owners didn't realize that the costs to keep these things seaworthy was more than they sold for in many cases after a few years. I remember a lot of guys buying a 100,000 dollar boat not realizing that that boat cost 500 dollars to fill up. They already spent every penny they had or borrowed, and now, they couldn't even afford to paint the bottom or buy insurance. A number of them sank, right at the dock!
After getting hit by two hurricane eyes, I had to sell it for nothing. It's gotta be on blocks or scrapped by now. I'm just lucky to be alive. It was fun, but it was the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. Yes, it was the American Dream, but that dream is gone from me now. Once the horror hit me that the North Pole had melted, I realized just how wrong my tribe was about these things.
Ezeflyer nailed it. The day a boat Captain buys his yacht is the second happiest day of his life. The happiest is when he sees that damn thing sail away with the new owner....
TJ
Well,
I own two canoes... (been canoeing since I was a child).....
Thomas Gilbert-
"We need to start imagining beyond a predatory economic system that is predicated on land theft and colonial imperatives and start building something beyond the ecological disaster of late-capitalism."
Agree, that is a good start.
Then we have to imagine a way to convince the wealthiest, most evil, powerful, insane, ruthless, autocratic dictatorship, one that transcends national borders, that we are right and those in power need to mend their ways.
When George H. "Daddy" Bush was defeated in his bid for a second term he announced he was going to dedicate the rest of his life to solving the most serious threat to mankind -- population growth. This, he said, had been the great motivating force of his entire life.
Those of us who wrote him off as a bungling fool, as a man without convictions who in his obsession to stop population growth went ahead and had 5 or 6 kids -- we were the fools. He was not talking about reducing births.
Bush and those like him, his fellow corporate-crimminal despots, are aware of the destruction being done to mother earth. They too want to leave a more beautiful planet to their privileged descendants. For them, just under 2 billion slaves is probably manageable. That means about 5 billion human beings have to go.
That is what we are up against.
I wonder how many thousands of Americans will freeze to death this winter because of slashed federal subsidies to the States for Low Income Heating Assistance? I've no doubt the government and corporate press will eagerly cover this figure up--like so many other ugly numbers.
Why own a yacht, plane, Lamborghini etc. when you can rent one? "If it floats, flies or fucks, rent it". No one needs to have that much money and no one should have all the power conferred by too much money; power over the rest of us.
not being able to pay back predatory student loans for education that should never have been so expensive in the first place is HARDLY the same thing as wanting to own a yacht
to me, that line killed the entire premise of this article
equating students who just want to be able to get their educations without becoming slaves to their debt with greedymongers who need to own yachts is an absurdity that renders moot your entire argument
wanting an education (which should be FREE in this rich country) is not the same as wanting boats, cars, fur coats, cocaine, etc
The author of this piece, Matt Hern, writes:
"We need to start imagining beyond a predatory economic system that is predicated on land theft and colonial imperatives and start building something beyond the ecological disaster of late-capitalism...If.....we can listen to the amazing energy and vision of people on the street in 2011 maybe we’re on the verge of something revolutionary."
***
Here is one place to look: intelligent, realistic reflections on where we are -----
www.duaneelgin.com/articles/
***
CULTURE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
Global Consciousness Change: Indicators of an Emerging Paradigm
By Duane Elgin with Coleen LeDrew Elgin, May 1997, 38 pages.
This report brings together, for the first time, most of the major global and U.S. surveys pertaining to a shift toward a more reflective, living-systems perspective. Includes a guide for group dialogue and study. Download a PDF: Global Consciousness Change.
Collective Consciousness and Cultural Healing
By Duane Elgin, October 1997, 40 pages.
This report explores the scientific foundations, evolutionary implications, and psychological dimensions of the theme of collective consciousness and cultural healing. Includes excerpts from interviews with 18 leaders and visionaries. Download a PDF: Collective Consciousness and Cultural Healing.
Transformational Philanthropy
Co-authored by Duane Elgin & Elizabeth Share, February 2002.
This report summarizes two years of inquiry regarding the creative role of philanthropy in responding to our rapidly changing world. A core question was whether it was possible to identify “transformational initiatives” that recognize the world-system is moving through a time of profound change, creating a unique window of opportunity for seeding initiatives that support the turn toward a more sustainable, just, and compassionate future. Download PDF: Transformational Philanthropy.
The Self-Guiding Evolution of Civilizations
By Duane Elgin, Systems Research and Behavioral Science Journal (affiliated with AAAS and UNESCO).
Because the impact of humanity is now global, that is the scale at which we are challenged to become reflective if we are to be choiceful about our common future. The vehicle of collective attention at a civilizational scale is the mass media, particularly broadcast television. If civilizations are to realize their potential for reflective consciousness and become self-guiding in their evolution, then it is vital for the public to mobilize the public’s airwaves on behalf of the public interest. Download: Self-Guiding Evolution of Civilizations.