And people wonder why
we decided not to buy a house just now. Granted, there were other reasons, but I've often suspected,
as Mike Whitney writes, that the housing bubble is going to collapse, leaving people hurting badly.
If I ever do buy a house, it will likely be after this collapse when houses are much cheaper. Of course, the economy may tank with it, so buying houses will be impossible for someone of my income bracket.
Doesn't really matter... the notion of private property bugs me. I'm not in a hurry to become a homeowner.
naughty blogger
I'm such a naughty blogger lately. I mean, 6 posts in the entire month of July? Come on....
But, things continue to move. I've just been wholly uninspired to write lately. Well, that's not quite true; I've been wholly uninspired to blog. I've actually been writing some the old-fashioned way, with a pen, and my handy new little blank-paged book. It's good to write this way for a change.
Another problem is that I'm experiencing technical difficulties with my laptop. Something is up with the power supply; it will work just fine for a few minutes, and then either just instantly reboot (like I hit the power button) or just completely freeze up. So since I do all my email from the laptop, emailing me will be unreliable until I fix this. I can still do web stuff and chat on my desktop machine, but for the time being I want to keep everything emailish on the laptop.
As a result of these problems, blogging could be a bit lighter on this front for a while. I'm not making any specific commitments either way, but don't be surprised if the light bloggage continues.
I'm noticing an interesting change in my body (WARNING: diet and exercise babblage ahead). I've had a nice thick layer of fat for many years, especially in my belly. I think I'm definitely losing some weight as a result of my recent endeavors, because a) my clothes are loose; my pants fall down and I've had to cut new notches in my belt, and b) my fat doesn't seem as "dense" if that makes sense. My skin seems looser in my belly, like there's not as much under it. A friend of mine lost a huge amount of weight many years ago in a short time, well over a hundred pounds in the space of less than a year. And I remember how it took his skin a while to catch up, it was loose and hanging off of his body. So this is nowhere near that extreme (yet... heh) but it strikes me as being similar.
radicalpolYtics.org
I haven't mentioned it in a while, but the
radicalpolYtics.org site is slowly expanding and developing. The latest article there is an eBook compilation of George Caffentzis' recent writings on war, oil, capitalism, and class struggle. You can download
No Blood For Oil! Energy, Class Struggle, and War, 1998-2004 in PDF format; the
entire book is available, or go to the radicalpolytics page to get each individual chapter.
Not much else going on. Actually, that's not quite true, but blogging just hasn't been a priority lately. So there.
local vibrations
I haven't been in the mood to write much lately. But, there's lots going on. Things are still moving, big time. In no particular order:
- Freakwitch has a new drummer. Things look quite promising on this front; it would appear that he is interested in the long curve of Freakwitch progress, as opposed to just sitting in. He's a bit rusty as he hasn't played much in six years. But, he's played with us 3 times which means I have 3 points from which to extrapolate a curve. And this curve looks quite promising. He's a bright guy, with room in his life for a project like this, he's been a good friend to the family for several years, and he seems dedicated to the long haul. This is the best Freakwitchy news in a long time, despite the fact that it means we need to shift gears somewhat in terms of album recording. Doesn't matter; it'll dramatically improve everything: albums, gigs, everything.
- Fitness is going well. It's amazing how much better I feel -- mind, body, spirit -- when I eat less. And I feel strong from the exercises I'm doing. But I promised that I wouldn't bore people with fitnessSpeak(tm) in this space, so that's enough for now.
- I've been interested more in the intersection of quantum physics and magic or metaphysics. I've been trying to think of a name for this: quantum psychology isn't quite it, but perhaps quantum mysticism is. Who knows. I'm rereading my copy of Hawking's A Brief History of Time. A good review. I'm still itching to study calculus; I've never taken a calc class before. I didn't get that far in high school for a variety of reasons, and in college I only needed a basic college math course. I also took a logic class which was fun.
- It's cloudy, cool, and dreary here in Maine. Odd for July. July was birthday month in my family, my (now deceased) aunt, my mother, myself, and my father have birthdays in July, as well as my parents' wedding anniversary. So I have lots of memories of July, and very few of them involve highs in the 60s and waking up cold in the middle of the night. Ah well.
- Still moving through the energies and emotions of the past few months. It's been difficult, but a good journey. It feels like an initiation of sorts. I can see some pretty amazing realities from where I stand now; it's a matter of skillfully navigating the quantum field before me to manifest those realities. Move toward the good stuff, and let go of the bad stuff. Easier said than done... but eminently possible.
- My to-do list currently contains finishing George Caffentzis' book, installing a new version of Linux onto my laptop, and fixing a fan on my desktop computer, as well as installing a new version of Linux there. I need a long, uninterrupted day to accomplish these computer tasks.
- Trying not to be too weirded out by the terrorist attacks in London, and my recent prediction that there would be another imminent terrorist attack based on the proliferation of shark attack stories in the corporate media. Less than a week later, boom. Funny old thing, life...
you say you want a revolution, well you know...
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these
rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever
any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it
is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Government, laying its foundation on such
principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments
long established should not be changed for light and
transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn,
that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms
to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object,
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it
is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their
future security.
I've always preferred the
Declaration of Independence to the
Constitution as a document of political philosophy. Indeed, after studying both texts, I found it odd how the US Constitution utterly fails to create a form of government based on the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
But so many people fail to see this. As a culture, as a nation, we regard the Constitution as some sort of quasi-divine document; in that regard it is almost subject to the same level of textual privilege as the Bible. But there are many problems with the Constitution.
I'm wearing black and purple today. In some way, I guess it's symbolic of the bruising America has given, and continues to give, the rest of the world. Not to mention its own people.
But today I'm working. What better way to celebrate American Freedom(tm) than to sell my labor for a 12 hour shift?
Enjoy your fireworks, America. These fireworks are almost obscene, given the number of bombs America drops on a regular basis. Boom.
a new John Chuckman rant
I've mentioned
John Chuckman before; he is definitely a master of the exquisite political rant. Anyway, he has a new rant,
Drowning in Filth that touches on everything from George Orwell to Hillary Clinton-bashing to America's legacy of slave lynchings to Terri Schiavo to flag-burning criminalization to torture at Guantanamo Bay to America's use of napalm in Iraq to Deep Throat to Seymour Hersh.
Whew. But he's an entertaining writer, so go read it.
does anyone else find it odd...
...that in a time when there are
millions
of
people
actively
resisting
capitalism, the biggest news item in the mainstream media is that beasts from the ocean
are
attacking
people
in Florida?
I take you back, dear reader, to late summer 2001, when before Nine-Eleven(tm), the media was saturated with similar coverage of carnivores from the sea.
A friend of mine recently predicted another major terrorist attack before the 2006 elections. Not sure it's gonna be that long...
Eros and Civilization (and Politics)
Last night, I read the
Political Preface to
Eros and Civilization by Herbert Marcuse. It's interesting stuff; an analysis of Freud's theories from a Marxist perspective; in a sense he's taking the notion of suppressed Eros and applying it to society rather than just the individual.
The book was written in 1955, but in 1966 it was republished and Marcuse wrote the political preface. There's some amazing stuff in there:
I hesitate to use the word -- freedom -- because it is precisely in the name of freedom that crimes against humanity are being perpetrated. This situation is certainly not new in history: poverty and exploitation were products of economic freedom; time and again, people were liberated all over the globe by their lords and masters, and their new liberty turned out to be submission, not to the rule of law but to the rule of the law of the others. What started as subjection by force soon became "voluntary servitude," collaboration in reproducing a society which made servitude increasingly rewarding and palatable. The reproduction, bigger and better, of the same ways of life came to mean, ever more clearly and consciously, the closing of those other possible ways of life which could do away with the serfs and the masters, with the productivity of repression.
. . .
The rejection of affluent productivity, far from being a commitment to purity, simplicity, and "nature," might be the token (and weapon) of a higher stage of human development, based on the achievements of the technological society.
. . .
The system has its weakest point where it shows its most brutal strength: in the escalation of its military potential (which seems to press for periodic actualization with ever shorter interruptions of peace and preparedness). This tendency seems reversible only under strongest pressure, and its reversal would open the danger spots in the social structure: its conversion into a "normal" capitalist system is hardly imaginable without a serious crisis and sweeping economic and political changes. Today, the opposition to war and military intervention strikes at the roots: it rebels against those whose economic and political dominion depends on the continued (and enlarged) reproduction of the military establishment, its "multipliers," and the policies which necessitate this reproduction. These interests are not hard to identify, and the war against them does not require missiles, bombs, and napalm. But it does require something that is much harder to produce -- the spread of uncensored and unmanipulated knowledge, consciousness, and above all, the organized refusal to continue work on the material and intellectual instruments which are now being used against man -- for the defense of the liberty and prosperity of those who dominate the rest.
The last paragraph is perhaps most interesting to me at the moment; in a sense it is a longing, from 1966, for something like the Internet, something "much harder to produce -- the spread of uncensored and unmanipulated knowledge." I wrote about this in
The Virtual Enclosures; the fact that anti-capitalists now have a tool like cyberspace make it even more vital that this tool be kept functional to us. It should be kept Free and in the commons.
