Could you please enumerate the natural resources that we are “using up”? Yes, fossil fuels, in their most available states. OK, I give you that one, although we’ll still have hundreds of years of coal even after all the oil is so depleted it’s no longer economical to develop.
What other resources are being used up? Metals? Gravel? There’s a difference between using and using up. Most resources are either re-usable, or are available on a vast scale.
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If an economic system requires that humans not be greedy or self-serving it is destined to fail. The beauty of capitalism is that human self-interest is harnessed in usefull ways.
Picmr: Of course capitalism is impossible without the rule of law. Without police, without enforceable contracts, without independent courts, without civil society, capitalism can’t work. What you have in those situations is a kind of feudalism like Russia is developing.
Raw untapped idealism, so eager to find a pretty story to believe in. Not quite ripe yet, but current and future cult leaders, take notice. He’s getting there.
Actually been there, more or less. I was asked to be a cell leader in this terrorist organization. This looks kind of innocent, but believe me, they have violence on the mind. It will probably never come to be, but damn it was scary how much I believed in that shit until I saw what they were willing to do, and how fanatical they were.
I understand that I am overly idealistic, and I am too eager to find something to believe in, but dammit I need something to embrace and love and move with. I need a movement, I need to be a part of something larger that WILL make a difference. I don’t want to run off and be a part of some alternate society, and just live outside. I want to be inside and make a change. I don’t even know how or what really, I just want to spread… love. The protests, the violence, the fighting, they don’t make any real change, they just isolate people.
The social unrest and uprisings during that time seemed like a sure sign of change to more than a few people who were around then. I go by their accounts because I am overly idealistic. I try to keep this in check, because I know it gets me in to trouble, but sometimes it just comes out. Other times I am really at peace with myself. I’m the kind of person who can tell random people he loves them and be serious. I do love people. I really do, and it fucks me over every time, because people don’t know how to be loved.
If you want to spread love, then spread love. You don’t need to have an organization to do that. Some people made excellent suggestions in their responses to the OP. Volunteer…food service or housekeeping at a shelter, food and clothing collection for Salvation Army, volunteering to work the campaign of a political candidate that you think can further your goals, senior services volunteer, simply visiting a nursing home on a regular basis…some of those people have family that haven’t visited them in a decade or more. There are thousands of things you can do as an individual that are just as (more, actually) effective in spreading love as joining a revolutionary group.
Every generation has their “revolution”, and every generation eventually grows out of it and realizes that they have to enter the world of rigid demands or starve to death. The baby boomer flower power revolution only looked bigger because it was. There were more baby boomers than any other recent generation…but sheer numbers do not a relevant philosophy make. The hippie philosophy was no more relevant to the world of realities than the flapper philosophy was in the 20s or the bobbysoxer philosophy was in the 50s or the punk philosophy was in the 70s.
No revolution that is not pursued by individuals as lifetime personal philosophies (rather than “something to do in my spare and boring time” philosophies) is going to persist. There are people still living the flower power lifestyle today. But they’re damn few. And there aren’t huge numbers of people looking to them as the leaders of the revolution anymore.
And there have been significant changes made…not necessarily because of the flower power movement, but rather because anything that doesn’t change stagnates and dies. The way businesses function internally has mostly changed…a lot. The way parents and children relate has changed a lot (and in some ways, for the worse). The way that Americans, at least, interact has changed radically…race has a much smaller impact now (and I’m not saying it has no impact, just smaller), opportunities and friendships and relationships between races are much more open, gays and women have better opportunities and treatment legally and socially than they’ve ever had before. There are still things that haven’t changed much, but expecting everything to change overnight (or even in 30 years) is a bit impatient. Society doesn’t move quickly, and even less does it move smoothly. AIDS set gay rights and recognition back at least a decade, probably two. Women had to fight against the sudden mobilization of the Religious Right against the Liberation movement. These things happen, and there’s no corporative way of fighting them. Individuals do things. If enough individuals do the same things, then those things become the norm and societal change is effected. If not enough people do the same things, then it remains a subculture and there’s not a lot you, as a member of that subculture, can do other than keep doing those things and advertising them and trying to convince others to do them. But patience is not only a virtue, it’s a requirement.
Ok, I already spend most of my summer working as a volunteer for Habitat For Humanity, and this summer I will be working as a volunteer counsellor at a camp for disabled kids.
I already volunteer to help out pretty much anywhere I’m asked, and I go out of my way to be courteous to people I won’t see again. Basic stuff like letting someone in during a high traffic time on the highway, holding a door open, saying thanks to the clerk at a store. Nothing big, but I am always sure to spread at least that much joy around.
I understand that I don’t need a group, but that doesn’t stop me from looking for one. I have a sad little fundamental need to be a part of something larger, and that just isn’t much of an option here. We don’t even have something as broad as flappers or bobbysoxers. What original movement do we have here in the 90’s 00’s? We had grunge I guess, but I missed that by a couple years, and that was a pretty weak-ass movement. Now everybody conforms, and the way that they flaun their “non-conformity” is by listening to corporate rock bands and wearing $30 T-Shirts with a licensed band logo or something. It’s fucking silly.
I have to study for exams now, but I will check the thread later on, and maybe post again tonight. If not, see ya tomorrow.
You’re likely to be again. Someone will come along with a prettier story. And you’re in a prime market for them.
No, it doesn’t look innocent, and I do believe you. If you said they didn’t, I wouldn’t.
There is no such thing as a “movement” or a “society” or a “culture” that is anything more than individuals and the relationships between them. The relationships are subordinate to the individuals. The movement and actions of individuals, the relationships they form and dissolve, that is what makes the world. Others have told you the only way anyone can improve it; by choosing actions that add, little by little, to reducing the amount of suffering around.
This doesn’t sit well with you. It doesn’t sit well with many people, frankly, because as narratives go, it’s not a pretty one. Truth-with-a-T may be Beauty-with-a-B and vice versa as the good Mr. Keats insisted, but the truth, the kind with a small t that you can touch and demonstrate down here in the trenches, was he died early drowning in his own blood, as did millions of others without leaving work for later individuals to remember them by, and that particular truth is a tangible thing, and an ugly thing. Tuberculosis is now almost unknown in the modern world that subsequent individuals have made–and that too is a truth. It didn’t magically go away. Individuals made it happen, and they didn’t need a Movement to do so. There may not be Beauty in that, but there is wisdom. There may even be Wisdom, but I’m hardly qualified to judge Important Capital Letters.
Many people who need Movements don’t want to change the world. When it comes down to it, they don’t want to do anything. What they want is for a Movement, some giant magical hand–whether The Proletariat, or The People, or Love, or Jesus Christ, or Horus the Crowned and Conquering Child, or whatever narrative face is being slapped on an appealing Messiah-brand meme–to sweep down and pick them up, change the world for them, while they get the thrill of the ride.
Life doesn’t work that way, and thank god. Idealism doesn’t have to die. The world will improve much more rapidly, however, when it gets a lot less stupid and credulous.
She was a particularly outspoken activist against the Vietnam War. Was it because she disagreed with the politics of the war? Was it because she wanted to be part of a movement that would change the world?
No. She spoke out against Vietnam because she had a brother, a boyfriend (I call him Dad now), and countless other friends who were prime targets for the draft. People she knew and grew up with flew around the world to fight for a country they loved and trusted, and came home in body bags, for reasons no one could articulate.
Yes, the monied interests are in control, but what is the direct effect on our everyday lives? It’s getting harder to buy a decent cheeseburger or find something good on the radio. Health care and gasoline are expensive. Farms are being torn up to create yet more Luxurious Townhome Communities and Applebee’s restaurants. Sure, the corporate oligarchy is committing much more insidious crimes than these, but they still don’t create the sheer visceral impact of seeing your friends sent away to die. That’s why you don’t find that many people (relatively) rising up against The Man these days. We’re like the lobster resting comfortably in the pot with the water temperature slowly rising.
That doesn’t mean you have to sit comfortably with everyone else–you can do your part. Walk to work. Don’t go see “Pearl Harbor”–rent “Requiem for a Dream” instead. Better yet, go see a local band. Don’t eat at McDonald’s. Live in a house that doesn’t look just like the one next door. Turn off your television and create something. Save money, invest it responsibly, and give generously. Concentrate on making the world better for the people around you, and I’ll do the same.
I don’t think morons with masks on (re the WTO protests)
have a fucking thing to say.
I don’t recall the antiwar demonstrators in the 60’s wearing masks and destroying/burning neighborhood businesses.
Sorry if it comes off as a contrarian attitude, but a lot of “protesters” today just want to destroy shit. “Yo dude, lets start a riot downtown”.
Ask them what they are protesting, they say “who fucking cares, lets raise hell”
And yes, I think people protesting things today should have a voice, it’s just that the fucking idiots get the press, taking away from the whole point.
I wholeheartedly agree with Klaatu, although I was not around in the '60s.
It is really depressing to see idiots going on a rampage in almost every corner of the world for some foolish reason or the other. Today the Indonesian Parliament meets to decide whether to impeach president Wahid, and already Wahid’s supporters have been destroying property and heading to Jakarta the past few days.
It’s sad that people cannot make a point without violence or insult. Whether it’s always been like this, I am not qualified to say!
Who was it that said that to calculate the average intelligence of a mob you take the IQ of its smartest member and divide it by the number of people in the mob? I think Heinlein wrote about this in one of his books, but I he may have been quoting someone else.
Several years ago my dad talked to me about how back when he was a teenager, he and all his friends wanted to be DIFFERENT, so they all dressed and acted…THE SAME. Some things just haven’t changed, I have to tell you.
Heck, why else is there a hippie “look”? They wanted to be different, so they all ran around looking…the same as each other! (My dad was not one of them. My mom, on the other hand, was.)
This is not a new phenomenon. I must congratulate you on noticing it at your age, but it has happened before and will happen again. I don’t mean to be patronizing, but I see people in their mid-twenties who really should know better still doing this shit.
Did I mention that I liked ‘MarxBoy’ more? But ‘Lucky Charms’ is still pretty damn cool.
I know it doesn’t seem like much but your second paragraph up there contains the seeds of a life-affirming ability to influence the world.
Just being considerate of others can have a tremendous impact. I know there’s no way to trace it but doing whatever you can to make someone else’s life a little easier is worth all the ‘movements’ in the world. Make it policy for yourself and mention it to others. I once had a freshman (I was a senior in college) remark that he thought I was really strange for saying ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ to whomever was doing directory assistance on the phones when I needed it. In that I was setting an example.
Or, to quote a Death, from the Sandman, “It’s just as easy to be nice as to be creepy. And it’s a lot more fun.”
Look, there is something very primitive in all humans that makes us want to be a part of a larger group. Whether that’s joining Amnesty International or tailgating at a football game that drive has a grip. But you have to define your groups carefully to make sure you’re doing the right thing. You don’t need to join a ‘cult’ (not that I think you will, you seem to question too much right now)(ask me sometime about my dork-a-rama pals who just joined the Landmark Forum) or a ‘terrorist cell’ or a ‘movement’ (which, as I stated before, I believe to be mostly hype) to get that feeling. Realize that you are already part of a unique group, the largest one there is: you’re human. You’re part of the only intelligent species we’ve ever known. A species who’s history isn’t static, it keeps getting better (anyone who disagrees with that should have the polio vaccine in their arms removed surgically). The only species with the ability to make the world a better place and that, despite the evidence, chooses to more often than not.
And that’s something to believe in. So be kind and considerate. It’s more important than most people think.
Oh, and study hard. That’s more important than most people realize as well.
When I think of the 60’s all that comes to mind is a whole bunch of self-important teenagers dressing like shit and fucking anything that moves.
[Cartman]Hippies! Hiiiippiiiies! Everywhere! They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad![/Cartman]
There is a movement that I associate with the 60’s. That’s that the 60’s were the bowel movement of the 20th Century. We tried to flush is the 80’s but a few stubborn flecks remain clinging to the side of the bowl.
There is one great tradition of the 60’s I’d like to see return. Whatever happened to turning the fire hose on to a mob of protesters. I would dearly love to see a couple million gallons of water turned loose on those WTO protester pukes. And throw in a couple bars of soap for good measure.
dour You mean like they did in Quebec City? Along with breaking people’s skulls, spines, and windpipes with plastic bullets, shooting at journalists, clearing out medical centres and indy-media outlets at gunpoint, and firing enough tear gas aimlessly into peaceful crowds to give asthma attacks to everyone in the area code? As has been since condemned by Amnesty International?
And what about those of us who didn’t wear masks in Seattle, Washington, or Quebec? There were more of us than there were of them.
See, here’s where ya got me confused. Are you lumping the whole WTO protest movement together as “morons with masks on” or are you just saying that the mainstream press focuses disproportionately on the anarchistic elements?
Bull Connor would be proud. [heavy sarcasm]“Them niggers ‘n’ hippies didn’t wash much either before they came to Birmingham.”[/heavy sarcasm]
Me? I protested in Washington. I shower daily. So does my comrade Ben, who protested in Quebec. We both have steady jobs too, fuck you very much.
Olentzero, why don’t you peaceful protestors DEMAND that the assholes remove their masks? You know, I know, and the American people know, that the only reason a protestor would wear a mask is so they can be anonymously violent.
You complain that only a few violent people are getting all the press. Dude, it is up to YOU to control the violent people in your fawking movement. If you cannot control the violent people, then your movement is a violent movement. It doesn’t matter how many people want it to be peaceful unless they are willing to take the steps to ensure that it is peaceful. If you aren’t willing to do that, you are endorsing the violence. Not judging the violence is judging the violence.
In my experience, the most pernicious idea of the 20th century is the idea of a “movement”. If only enough people get together and act and think the same way, then we can create a better world. And anyone who gets in our way is trying to prevent that better world. And that makes them a criminal. And criminals have to be dealt with.
I say, let’s hear it for the individual! I agree not to enslave and destroy you, even though I disagree with you, if you agree not to enslave and destroy me, even though you disagree with me. Fuck movements.
Lucky Charms, what I’m hearing you say is that if you could figure out what would work to improve conditions for humans in North America now and for the future, you would do just about anything in your power to make it happen. This is a very commendable attitude; if you could figure out how to do it, I would vote for you to be benevolent dictator of North America. Maybe discussions like this one are the most powerful tool we have for making things better (and I think we would all agree that there are some things that could be improved, even if we don’t all agree on which things they are).
It’s worth noting that the myth of the 60s is an idea that has been pretty ruthlessly sold to us by the man–the rhetoric of nonconformity sells a hell of a lot of products.
Perhaps the biggest part of that myth is the idea that everyone was in on it, that it swept everyone away, that it was this force everyone could see. The best comparison to the sixties I ever heard was to the American Revolution: 1/3 of the people in the colonies were rebels, 1/3 were English, and 1/3 really didn’t give a damn. Years later, everyone wiht an ancestor in America in 1776 assumes that they were at Valley Forge. Same deal here.
Remember, too, that any widespread movement demands that you shelve other issues: the various groups in the 60s were concentrated on a handful of issues that everyone more or less agreed on. These days, the “causes” out there have multiplied exponentially: If you want a groundswell of interest in one issue, you gotta decide which issues people should stop caring about and jump on your bandwagon instead. Then you gotta convince them why capitilist explotation of the 3rd world is more important than female genital mutilation or the humane treatment of animals or continued discrimination against African Americans or layoffs of American workers or the depletion of old growth forests or unreported sexual molestation in America or untreated Gulf War Syndrome or honor killings in Pakistan or At Risk kids or rights for the disabled or anorexia or first amendment rights or global warning or so on and so forth.
Lastly, remember that as much as the rhetoric around the 60s lambasted the thinkers of the 40s and 50s as being to simple-minded and naive about the world, the activists were also pretty naive. The reason so many of the world’s problems linger is because they are sticky. There are no simple answers, and something like a movement needs a simple, unambigous goal. These days we try to teach kids to see both sides to a story, to recognize that the world is filled with shades of grey, and movements tend to founder when the single-minded purity of the cause is diluted by the fact that almost every change in the world causes something bad to happen to somebody.