On 5/22/07, s.artesian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
"Mayor Daley's "What trees do they plant?""
Rhetorical question from one ('The policeman isn't there to create
disorder...') who was too ignorant and corrupt to know the answer or
tell truth at any point in his career.
I was a 21 year old back to the land hippie a few years after he said
that (actually, after the Vietnam war ended and I felt it wasn't an
abandonment of the 'movement' to move away from the 'belly of the
beast', NYC... power center) ... so were thousands of other folks who
thought the 'American way of life' was, by it's very tenets,
dehumanizing.
If you can't 'wipe it off the slate' as Paul Goodman suggested in his
speech to the National Security Industrial Association (the military
industrial complex), you side step it.
.
I planted trees...
But seriously,
s.artesian: "Not going to happen, or more precisely, will only happen
episodically..."
Episodically is OK. It takes a while to teach an old economy & the
population who prosper or perish under it new tricks.
s.artesian: "...as the rate of return allows it, thereby creating the
basis for even more unequitable distribution.
Which will be resisted further as the 'other people' (the proles, if
you would), remember that Episodical (sic), forcing the swing back to
'equitable'.
s.artesian: "And you've got it wrong, it's not any individual
secretary who can do more or better than any student of the
Grundrisse; it is the class of secretaries who can do better than the
class of capitalists, once the class that includes secretaries takes
over... and doing better will require, I am certain, reading the
Grundrisse.
The Grundrisse!
If it hits the ground, do I have to kiss it? Just call me pastoralist,
but I think, given the state of urbanization in, at least the United
States, study of Wendell Berry or Euell Gibbons would be much more
relevant to the welfare of those secretaries living in a state of
urban decay that will occur as the price of hydrocarbons continues to
rise.
The Grundrisse was written in the milieu of industrial society
society on the rise, the mid-1800s. Whether the currently hydrocarbon
driven global economy can risk finding out if it is as relevant in a
milieu of hydro-industrial collapse is a big gamble.
..and yes... Secretaries are more powerful enmasse, enclasse, than as
individuals no matter whether they read Mad magazine OR the
Grundrisse. Class conciousness exists wheter one reads about it or
not.
Imagine... an army of radical administrative assistants!
Daniel Davies: "...and when you've done all that, what do you know?
No more ad execs, I'll know that...
...and the brokers/financial analysts/advisors?
Well, if they surrender, we'll train them to do something useful which
will pay just as well, and the stress level will be much lower,
leading to a longer healthier life. Working in the community garden..
Hell, they can figure the distribution ratio of legumes to fruit
instead of figuring out how to churn money to make (mythical) money.
"The same people still own the means of production,"
That's OK, the owner will live down the block, and we can lynch
him/her if they cheat their community/workers.
"...they still aren't you and you have to go to work in the morning."
I'm not a lazy hippie, just a ticked off one, and as G.I. Gurdjieff
taught, and Ouspensky westernized, 'A' can NEVER equal 'B', we do what
we do, but you can create the situation where A & B are playing with
the same economic deck.That is not currently the case. I think Cuba
makes a pretty good example of other socio-economic options. Venezuela
is rising to the challenge of building a more ...humane... society
currently.
I instinctively understand what Michael Leibowitz' term 'proactive
democracy' means, but it requires the proactive participation of a
community, which in my estimation, can currently only happen on a
micro scale in the (narcissistic) US.
That's what my goal as an individual is, to coax people to a
decentralized model socially, and economically, where they CAN be
proactive. IMHO, centralization, and homogenization = destruction.
Which leads to ...
"Only difference is that there is now a recession."
God help me!
My carrots are going to wilt & my ex is going to come back!
I've spent most of my life living simply... many would say in some
state of poverty, but they measure wealth ...differently, and I've
never noticed that I or others on the edge 'suffer poverty' more due
to recession, the children perhaps, but the middle class feels it
disproportionately. Suffering builds character guys. C 'mon, suck it
in.
Leigh
"We believe that your way of life itself is unnecessary,
ugly, and un-American. We cannot condone your
present operations; they should be wiped off the slate."
-- Paul Goodman, Speaking to the National Security
Industrial Association, October 1967
On 5/22/07, s.artesian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yes, the remark was meant as taking exception to Leigh's comment.
Gut-checking somebody by discounting the importance of theory, its
"practical significance in the world" can be done by anyone to anyone
and usually is. It's just another version of "work within the system,
and you can make a real difference in people's lives." Or "join the Peace
Corps." Or Mayor Daley's "What trees do they plant?"
I don't agree that the point is to more "equilaterally distribute
the wealth now." I don't even know that there is any point to
discussing more equitable distribution of wealth now. Not going to
happen, or more precisely, will only happen episodically, as the rate
of return allows it, thereby creating the basis for even more
unequitable distribution.
And you've got it wrong, it's not any individual secretary who can
do more or better than any student of the Grundrisse; it is the class
of secretaries who can do better than the class of capitalists, once
the class that includes secretaries takes over... and doing better will
require, I am certain, reading the Grundrisse.
-----Original Message-----
>From: Leigh Meyers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: May 22, 2007 3:29 PM
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Kucinich's wife and the American Monetary Institute
>
>On 5/22/07, s.artesian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Gee, reads a bit like the old "If you're so smart, why
>> ain't you rich?" dismissal, doesn't it?
>>
>
>
>I think that barb was aimed at me Doug...
>Oh right, you and Lou Proyect junkfile my mail, so you won't see this.
>Censorship begins at the inbox, I alway say.
>
>sartesian, the point isn't to get 'rich'... whatever that means.
>
>The point is how does one more equilaterally distribute the wealth
>*now*, not when you get done reading a book, *now*, and, as has been
>said in one of the industries I've worked in, music, then you 'fix it
>in the mix'.
>
>Read Grundrisse then, there will be more free time after the wealth
>has been redistributed.
>
>Albeit, the Doug Henwoods of the left, the people who invest in, earn
>an income from, an inherently inequitable system even as they rail
>against it, will be hard pressed as to what to do for a living.
>
>Leigh
