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Good post Paul. I don't know why we can't spend
at least as much time and resources investigating Dubya' shenannigans as we did investigating the Clinton- monica affair.
posted by
SlyCy
on June 2, 2004 at 5:38 AM
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Pray, Yes...
...but do the footwork, too. Vision is crucial to focusing social energy. It is a large beast, indeed, that does not move nor think as quickly as any one of us alone can think or act.
There are needs that must be met if any movement is to survive to carry out its goals and objectives. A mission statement is one of those objectives. Every detail can be deployed from the mission statement. Task One is to create a mission statement for the movement.
Beyond the meta-level, we have logistics needs. We need to anticipate the worst, yet hope for the best. So that if the worst does come, we are prepared to deal with it, but we are not consummed with worry because we see civil liberties compromised and people abused in the streets. For this model, we have what the German people themselves did during WWII under the Nazi occupation.
They set up a secret network of individuals who could be trusted to move people and materiel around the country to where they/it were/was needed. I don't know enough about how Solidarity did what they did, but I know it involved alot of fax machines and satellite phones. If the government clamps down on fax traffic, we also need to be prepared to go back to good ol' fashioned word of mouth communication.
We need a network of 200,000 people willing to participate. They should be able to direct the operations of one million people fairly effectively. What those one million will be called upon to do will flow from the mission statement and the supporting goals and objectives.
We also need to consider operating in precisely the same manner as Hegel directed the rich elites in the 19th century -- dichotomously. In other words, you play both sides of the political/economic street so that you deny having and role in either side fairly effectively.
A core group has to direct these operations while an external group which surrounds the core contributes to the legitimacy of the overall movement. Like the Masons. This core group, ideally, should number no more than 20, 200, or something in between, and each individual should be well protected.
That would be my initial proposal. Organize a plausibly deniable and secretive structure around a mission statement, and then proceed to carry out the objectives in support of the mission. Then comes the important part: we DISBAND. We do not cling to the organization and simply let it go. Poof. No egoes, no bureaucracy.
posted by
Volaar
on December 31, 2003 at 6:52 PM
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I feel energized.
First off, thanks Paul for yet more critical, raw information from the field. You're like an intelligence officer in this nascent movement we may very well have here to take back the earth.
T99: What DL said...here's another thing you can do, and I ask everyone not to discard the notion in hand: Pray.
Pray for this world. Pray that humans will figure out the right things to do to preserve liberty, dignity, the earth that God gave us, and everything else. It is not the only thing we should do, but I do believe it generates the indispensable, positive energy that will give rise to the tangible, good works.
posted by
BrWiSk
on December 31, 2003 at 7:21 AM
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No, I Do See...
...your point. But i also see BrWiSks point, when he says that people specialise, and focus on their strengths. Paul clearly is an energiser here, a motivator. He MAY be able to nail that energy into concrete action AS WELL, but maybe not. If not, he needs someone to come in and offer solutions to the issues he raises, towards which the energy he's created can be channeled.
For me, the more people offer ANYTHING - energy, ideas, solutions, information, resources - the better off we'll be. Conversely, the more people that are more inclined to take any of the above, or wait for them to be offered, then the worse off we'll be.
D
posted by
DamonLeigh
on December 31, 2003 at 4:22 AM
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You missed my point, Damon
My point is that he is bringing up issues but not offering concrete solutions. Certainly I can take actions on my own, but if you are going to incite the type of energy he is trying to create, he needs to direct that energy into concrete steps. If you build it, and DON'T provide an outlet, then people will find their own outlets....and you have lost the power of directed energy.
Sunlight on its own is powerful.....but focused via a lens, it becomes a tool. You have harnessed that energy and direct it towards your needs. He is attempting to gather the energy, but is not focusing it. My questions are there to help him hone his ideas so that they will be USEFUL, and not just rage-inspiring.
I am asking him to FINISH what he's trying to start here by giving us a PLAN - not just a cause.
--T99
posted by
Tamara99
on December 31, 2003 at 3:48 AM
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Great Post, Paul, And...
...your comment is nearly another post on it's own.
Tamara - you are sounding somewhat powerless and defeatist on this one. Once you understand what your priorities are in all this, then you'll know exactly what actions you can take. Here are a few suggestions...
- Reduce your consumption, for this is the engine. This may mean walking to work, buying less stuff, owning less stuff, recycling and re-using, get solar panels and get off the power grid, grow your own food, buy only from one-stores (ie avoid all retail chains) and so on.
- Seek out ecological, ethical and authentic businesses and support them, either through buying from them (to replace some of your current chain-store purchases) or investing in them.
- Get a group of friends. Go to Wal-mart. Fill a trolley each with food. Time it so you're all taking up one till each at the same time. Then start asking detailed questions about the GM contect of each item. Snarl the store up for hours!
- Harass your local representative on issues that you care about - Patriot II, or why for every 10 of your tax dollars spent on childrens education, 80 are being spent on weapons, or whatever.
- Get rid of your TV and stop buying newspapers. Plug into alternative news sources to get a wider spread of opinion and views than will ever be offered by Big Media.
Email me if you want more ideas, or discuss some of your own (which is where the best ones will come from!)
D
posted by
DamonLeigh
on December 31, 2003 at 3:18 AM
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I'm still not seeing what actions you would like me as an individual to
take. I am not a billionaire, a corporate crony, a member of Congress or the Supreme Court. I'm not in the military. I have no connections that forge foreign policy, nor am I an intelligence agent, or a power broker. That's all well and good as a vision, but you are not giving ME, the ordinary American, a concrete step-by-step plan.
You're effectively saying "We should go to the moon", but without knowledge of rocket science, it isn't going to happen. What you have stated are broad goals, they are not STEPS towards those goals.
Break it down for me - what could I do today to effect the change you seek?
--T99
posted by
Tamara99
on December 31, 2003 at 1:52 AM
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Here's A Couple O' More to Add to the Laundry List of Things to Do:
We need to restore integrity back into the judicial process. This crap of allowing judicial appointments to become political circuses with judges expected to defend decisions of law on political grounds is putrid. This business of voting in a President of the United States by a packed Supreme Court has been a complete, and totally partisan, nightmare.
We need to defend our State and National governments' sovereignty against corporate manipulation and blackmail. The entire, "State's Rights," argument, while on the surface seems reasonable, in practice it has proved to be little more than a means to allow corporations to control the entire political machinery within whole States of the Union.
Closely linked to "downsizing" corporate cronyism, permanently, we need to restore the meaning and integrity of a free and fair press. That means the antitrust laws of the days of regulation of the broadcast industry must be restored. And no more covert attempts at destroying the sanctity of the free press on the web by planting malicious software on websites deemed to be sources of unfavorable information regarding the behavior of the government of any country.
The last, and perhaps most important, task we have at hand is the unwinding of our foreign policy/espionage apparatus from our business development apparatus. We have intelligence agencies that recruit from the ranks of our socially elite specifically because of their access to large sums of cash and vast amounts of political influence. We then send these agents on cloak and dagger missions where the only payment or compensation they can possibly receive, other than a quiet pat on the back, is a free hand in the financial unfoldment of the policies they create unbeknownst to the US Senate or the American people. This has lead to fraud and drug trafficking on a massive scale as the intelligence machinery rushes to find sources of funds for projects that Congress would never approve of because of what it is.
I also want to mention that the "rush-rush" and microwave speed at which our country operates at is by design. Meaning that the power brokers at the top have been slowly turning up the heat on the middle class just as the Nazi Party turned up the heat on the German people. We are so busy getting caught in line in between large corporate organizations we need professional secretaries just to handle our business affairs, not to mention our shattered personal affairs. The solution to this madness is to get off the merry-go-round. Refuse to be bamboozled. If the whole process seems crazymaking it is BECAUSE that is precisely what it is. Crazy people can't make sound decisions...they're too busy trying to rationalize their craziness to themselves and everyone around them.
The linchpin in all of this, as I see it, involves coordinating all movement with the disaffected leadership within the American military establishment. I'd start with probes into General Shinseiki's basic openness and temperment and start from there. Any grassroots movement hoping to change the complexion of things to come has to have the support of the military. Hey, let's face it folks, we've been turned into the same sort of banana republic that we've been creating in Central and South America for the past century. The only way to throw off the chains of fascism is through implied or direct force. We may never need that level of involvement, but you can't force these pendejos to the table based on their need to preserve their honor and their integrity...they clearly have neither and could care less if we do.
The other important key area of support has to come from the billionaires who are actually running things. Threat of force goes a long way towards preserving their good will, but well reasoned arguments based on self preservation and enlightened self interest will certainly go a long way towards getting the influential to hop on the freedom train. George Soros might be a good place to start. If he's not a CIA, or other intelligence agency, plant, that is. The Mossad do come to mind in this regard as well.
Once we restore our national integrity, believe me, the countries around the world will be as much in awe of us as they were the first time we had to throw Britain out on its ass. They will be ready to hear what we have to say. And I am painting this rosey picture because I am of the opinion that, by and large, the primary troublemaker in this world has been the CIA. I am convinced that their obsession with arms sales, drug profiteering and the manipulation of people, cultures and sovereign nations has caused the lion's share of the danger that exists in this world.
Finally, I think we would be remiss if we did not attempt to see what the ruling elites were attempting to accomplish with their efforts at, "globalization," and worldwide fascist authoritarian rule. Quite simply, these folks do not believe, because they themselves are incapable of it, that the world community is capable of the level and kind of unified action that would be required to save our species from extinction. And there are at least two threat areas that could require massive conjoint and well-coordinated action. Area one is outerspace and the issue of interstellar objects crashing through our atmosphere. The other area is massive geological events that trigger Ice Ages. We're, at present, 40,000 years overdue for one. What is needed is a global cooperative that can be trusted to provide credible evidence of threat, and then be able to provide sanctions against any member state's government that does not comply with previously passed and agreed-to resolutions. And that would mean that every member State would have to have a mechanism that allowed it to poll its constituency to determine if they agree or disagree with the findings of the UN general council of nations. If they agree, then the government of the state must either comply or the UN can fund the elements within the member state to enforce compliance. If the constituency disagrees, then its the world against the rogue state.
We do have to get along better as humans. We do have to learn to let go of our borders and adopt better strategies for living on the planet. We can't get there by allowing our biggest bullies to beat up on countries that can't defend themselves against us. That is so unAmerican. But that is so fascist. So Hitlerean. So Nazi. And it makes my blood boil to think of all the blood we spilled to rid the world of these pompous freaks only to have them resurrect themselves in our own country. What a nightmare.
posted by
Volaar
on December 31, 2003 at 1:34 AM
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so simple, it's beautiful
Let's now pray that Dubya and friends won't implement martial law before the elections, or that Diebold and its computer election system cronies won't steal the election.
You know what? Come to think of it, we gotta do a mother lode of praying this time around.
posted by
BrWiSk
on December 30, 2003 at 10:43 AM
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Okay, I'LL offer a solution!
Do NOT re-elect President Bush in 2004. This will mean Aschroft will no longer be Attorney General. Whoever is elected president can introduce legislation to renounce the Patriot Act and restore the Bill of Rights. Then, as our forefathers envisioned, the rights of an accused criminal ... accent on the "accused," ... will no longer be trampled. I am embarrassed that this great nation of ours can now, because of a gutless Congress that will rubber-stamp anything this popular president puts in front of it, has suspended the Bill of Rights and can now hold whomever they deem to be a "threat" in jail without pressing charges, for as long as they want to, without giving the accused access to his or her attorney, or family, or anybody!
When we do the same things the countries that we despise do ... do we not become what we despise?
There's your solution. You are now free to make fun of me.
posted by
daBobber
on December 29, 2003 at 4:52 PM
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frankly...
...that is a poor attitude. And I like you, so don't take it personally.
Again, I encourage you to consider the following: How does your reaction help things? How does the communication of problems not help things?
We all must play our roles in a functioning soociety. Some of us are great at manning the lookout tower and alerting others to potentially grave problems. Others might be better at developing solutions in the face of the new knowledge.
You are, at first blush, asking the messengers to be jacks of all trades. At second blush, it appears that you wish to master no trades at all to advance the cause.
This is unfair and defeatist. Do not let the oppressors win by cashing in favorably on their bet that most people will sit idly by in blissful ignorance or, even worse, as cynical quitters.
posted by
BrWiSk
on December 29, 2003 at 4:15 PM
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Because I'm not the one citing the problem.
If you're going to bring me a problem, bring me a solution too - otherwise all you are doing is being a snivelling snot-nose whiner, and I have no time or patience for that.
posted by
Tamara99
on December 29, 2003 at 4:06 PM
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Why must we always wait for someone else to make the plan?
Tamara99...while I understand and even empathize with your frustration, why not entirely circumvent this stumbling block that has effectively hogtied humanity for millennia? I speak of, naturally, the proclivity to look to others for answers in the face of facts.
posted by
BrWiSk
on December 29, 2003 at 3:51 PM
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And do what?
All you're doing here is inciting people's emotions. Come up with a better plan, and I just might support it.
posted by
Tamara99
on December 29, 2003 at 3:39 PM
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I'm sitting here in my cubicle...
...seething with rage and simmering with constraining frustration.
"How can I possibly do anything to stop this?" everyday citizen, of whom I am but one example, says to himself. "It's all I can do to be a good person, work hard, pay my bills, and raise my family."
And therein lies the rub. The art of living is too fast to be art any more; it is now merely survival.
In a fight or flight response, the human race's basic instincts have emerged before our very eyes and across the spectrum of cultures.
posted by
BrWiSk
on December 29, 2003 at 3:32 PM
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When and Where, Paul...
I'm ready to go.
-Ek
posted by
Ekildog
on December 28, 2003 at 10:52 PM
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Bush used his fortuitous "capture" of Hussein, as I had stated many times earlier, to either ram more of his fascism down our throats or drown out many of the investigations now focusing on him and his greedy coterie.
This is bad, bad news.
Shawn
posted by
ShawnMichel
on December 27, 2003 at 4:39 PM
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