Taking off...

red-winged blackbirds as Exiters, Tule Lake, Cal/Ore

In the future there will be no patriotism

Patriotism is for tyrants and the dupes of tyrants.

If you're a good citizen and decent person, you support your country/group when it does good and oppose it when it does bad – no "patriotism" needed.

Isn't it as plain as day that patriotism is just a way for bad leaders to keep the gullible supporting them?

Patriotism is for the same kind of losers who need the "ten commandments" to know how to be a good person (see below for that rant) – this is a kind of person that won't exist in a future true democracy.

1 of 9000

strange blossom, Balboa Park, San Diego CA
[click for bigger]

Presumptuous / pedantic notes on morality

The question of morals or ethics
is the question of
how to be a good person
since personhood is irreducibly a social phenomenon, the question of morality or ethics is a social issue -- how to act in public (with regard to ethics, how a person thinks is irrelevant except to the extent it affects action).

That being said,
the ten commandments is morality for dimwits.
Which is not to say that some of the principles expressed in them should not be incorporated into a decent moral system, but that the style, the approach, the implicit theory underlying the idea of putting morality into "ten commandments" is stupid and authoritarian and facilitative of a dim, consumerish outlook and attitude easily used by authoritarians to manage and control the stupid.

Isn't this undeniable?:
People who do not believe in God, whether agnostic or atheist, and are good people anyway, are better people than those whose being a good person somehow involves or is tied to the existence of God.

Because we're not good people based on some fear of hell or shame or a desire to emulate or please God; we’re good because it's the right thing to do and we want other people to be good and we wouldn't expect them to be good if we weren't being good – and we believe that people can and generally will be good if they are not subjected to authoritarianism.

Dimwits deride the concept of "situational ethics." But that's life – situations, and determining how to act in them.

Ideally, one would work up an analytical calculus of whether and how your proposed actions affect other people negatively, and then making a reasonable determination – the same determination most other people trying to be good people would make – about whether to proceed even with the negative consequences to others.

If people were honest and thoughtful and reasonable, that is if we were all good citizens, and strove to follow this method, that is all the morality we would need.
(Although it would inevitably need to be supplemented by a little bit of law, specifically some kind of punishment/education/rehabilitation of people who repeatedly make moral choices that reasonable people would not make.)

Reasonable people agree...

sign from AfterDowningStreet.org and VelvetRevolution.us, which will be driving it around the U.S. Capitol building on a billboard truck.

The sad state of the union 2006

Anyone who attends to the mass media or politics on the internet is aware of the intense polarization in our society. Typically characterized in the oversimplistic language of red states versus blue, left versus right, liberal versus conservative, Democratic versus Republican, the polarization is real and pervasive. Other than eradication of the opposition, the way to reconciliation must begin with the fundamental common ground of respect for truth and a willingness to deal honestly with reality rather than insistence on some partisan fantasy version of reality. This is why I am so pessimistic.

This is why I must unfortunately conclude no reconciliation is on our horizon: the people with power and their followers, the people who call themselves "conservatives," no longer value truth; they prefer to live in the fantastic, self-congratulatory world of delusions and lies crafted by their dear leaders Bush, Rove, Cheney, Fox News, etc. In other words, the problem with our society, as I see it, the reason we are speeding toward a disastrous, authoritarian, third world future, is the conservatives, the people who think Rush Limbaugh talks some sense, would vote for Bush even given what we know now, and purport to "support the troops" by putting magnets on their Arabia-dependent SUVs and backing the power-mad leaders who send our military people into an incompetently-planned imperialist war justified with lies and the spread of fear.

Conservatives used to oppose big government, but apparently out of a rather pathetic fear of attack, today's conservatives have no problem with the dear leaders making the government both more secretive and more powerful. This is the truth: George Bush has declared that if he says there's a war, as commander in chief of the armed forces, he can do anything he wants, even if Congress has passed a law specifically saying he can't, and even if it violates the Constitution he swore to uphold. This is what the domestic wiretap scandal is about: to spy on citizens without a warrant from a judge is against the law, and, worse, directly violates the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

I wonder how many conservatives have taken time to read the Constitution recently, particularly Article 2 describing the powers of the presidency. If any have, they know Bush's neo-emperor view of the presidency is nowhere in there. That's why the only people who believe in it are the people obsessed with power, like Cheney and Rove, yes-men like Alberto Gonzalez, and authoritarians like Samuel Alito. This is not a partisan issue. Sensible Republicans who believe in the Constitution rather than absolute power are opposed to the warrantless spying "program" and Bush's assertions he can do whatever he wants because this is "war." This is the truth: Bush's radical power-grab runs directly contrary to the relatively decentralized, checks and balances system written into our Constitution. George Bush is trying to change America in ways no one should support. Anyone who looks at the last few years objectively must see that the dear leaders govern through bullying, fear, and tricky, obscurantist declarations that used to be called lies. Centralized power, secrecy, fear, lies – these are the hallmarks of authoritarianism occurring in our lifetime, right before our eyes, but somehow a significant percentage of the population – they call themselves conservatives – is all for it. Until the conservatives come back to reality where honesty is valued and lies are scorned, my message to them is this: don't tread on me (see U.S. Const., Amendment 2).

It's in there

Santa Barbara at night [click]

The Exiters -- ideas toward an off-this-grid society

For a while I have had the idea of 'the Exiters,' a movement of people united in a general idea of a good society based on less materialism, more idealism, consensus democracy, and more FREE TIME!

My idea was that people like us would over time move into the area between San Francisco and Vancouver BC, and begin to form a better, more democratic society there. (I moved from SoCal to high desert Oregon last year.) But we have to do something more than just live in the same area. UGLY BOY – his characterization, not mine – reasonably wonders what people can do to start forming new, semi-underground/off-the-grid societies (besides or along with moving into MC SOFSERV's commune). Of course one person cannot produce the necessary answers, but here are a couple of ideas for discussion ...

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Alternative currencies such as Ithaca dollars / hours
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC41/Glover.htm
http://www.ithacahours.com/

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Farmer direct food purchasing (either as an individual or even better thru co-ops)
http://www.farmersmarketonline.com/aboutus.htm

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vegetarian cars!
http://www.greasecar.com/

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Try to limit purchases of things that at this point seem necessarily corporate-produced (like stereos or cars) to 'previously-owned' items – turn the detritus of mainstream society into the resources of our Exiter society!
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Use homemade soap, cleaner, cheese, candles, clothes, ... whatever we can make or find being made by someone else ...
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Advocate for the 20-hour day!
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other ideas??

Everything is in light

a pond in fall in Ashland Oregon
[click to enlarge]

SLOW DOWN WEEK -- the politics of time

SLOW DOWN WEEK

has been declared by the folks at Adbusters for January 15-21.

"Slow Down Week is all about exploration and adventure, experimenting with new rhythms for a more enjoyable, fulfilling, interesting and meaningful life."

http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/slowdownweek/

Light as a utopian frontier

MediAlito & the quest for a good society

The media's endorsement of Alito, miscast (not necessarily consciously) as the inevitability of his confirmation, is, of course, infuriating.

(Note this kind of crime against democracy is not necessarily always pro-Republican -- Clinton's nomination and eventual victory in 1992 was facilitated by similar acts; remember when Clinton was dubbed the Comeback Kid and annointed with the mantle of frontrunner/inevitability when he came in SECOND in the New Hampshire primary?)

Perhaps the very ubiquity of the media-tors contains the seeds of their demise. In that respect, this Alito situation is yet another opportunity to refine our pro-democracy analysis of the media's role in politics and society.

One point that I think needs to be right at the root of our understanding is the fact that what is called the "mainstream media" would be better dubbed the "corporate media". This would emphasize the fact that these powerful public voices that pretend to neutral reflection of objective reality are in fact capitalist organizations that exist to make a profit for shareholders – members of a class of about 10 or so percent of the population that owns over 80 percent of the stock market and "capital" generally. These are the true, yet weirdly hidden (even from them/ourselves) "Establishment" elites in whose interest democracy is suppressed by the corporate media and politicans.

In other words, built into the corporate media is a pro-Establishment bias that could and sometimes does reflect the views of Democrat-style members of the top 10 percent/Establishment/corporate/elite, but will apparently tend toward the more authoritarian, power-centralizing Republican views, which, in the short term at least, seem most likely to advance the abstract (but real and effective) interest of capital. On top of this, of course, is the last 30 years of "conservative" attacks on the corporate media, which has them cowed or 'reeducated' or willing to be bought off.

So should our goal be to cow or reeducate or buy off the media to get them to reflect our views? Ulitmately, like many of the other real issues progressive people should be confronting, the question might be do we directly confront the Establishment power, as if we would like to take our turn at those reins, or do we work somewhat separately, even a bit underground, and start establishing a better society on our own, happily separate to the extent possible from the Establishment's tottering edifice and its legions of tyrants, sycophants, and dupes?

I know this is utopian, but I believe if we give up utopian impulses and goals, we have given up altogether and surrendered the possibility of a good society populated by good people to the selfish, anti-democracy Establishment.

nine thousand flowers -- the idea

Consensus democracy is the only moral form of government.

Given the practical infeasibility of consensus in a large, complex society such as ours, we must judge our government based on how earnestly we strive for and how close we get to the ideal.

Approaching the ideal moral government in a society such as ours requires democratic pluralism -- let nine thousand flowers bloom.