Acquisitions

Do Not Serve in This War

Eric — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:23:28 GMT

How do you "Support the Troops" in a bad war? You support the troops by asking them to consider their actions. You ask them to consider the consequences of following illegal orders. You tell them that their choice is between spending the remainder of their tour in the brig, or spending the rest of their lives as a murderer, a torturer, a killer of children and families, a destroyer of villages and cities, a war criminal. You ask them to do what we veterans, most of us, didn't have the courage to do when we served, and use your own credibility as a veteran to make them take you seriously. You ask them to stop serving. You ask them to refuse to obey. And you let them know that by asking them to do this you are breaking US law, too. Serving your country cannot be honorable if your country asks you to do dishonorable things. The deal was supposed to be that America acts like America is supposed to act, and in return you'll act like an American is supposed to act, and serve your country. But the Bush administration broke the contract by asking that you behave dishonorably. That, and attacking another country is simply wrong. By attacking Iraq and by asking you to wage war against Iraq, this administration has broken America. The only way we can bring America back is to stop serving it until it behaves like it should. You can still be the man or woman you hoped to be when you signed up. You do this by refusing to serve a false America. You do this by demanding that America keep its part of the bargain it made with you and will all nations: not to begin wars of aggression and not to ask you to do dishonorable things. If you refuse to serve you will be breaking US law and obeying International law. In a dirty, illegal, and pointless war that's the only way you can serve the America you signed up to serve. By writing this message I am breaking US law, and anyone who passes this on will be breaking that law too. But together we will be serving the America that we hold in our hearts -- the America that does not kill and destroy wantonly and without justice, the America that does not spy on its citizens, the America that does not make its young men and women torturers and killers of children and grandparents -- and we will serve all of humanity. If we all break the US law together, and we all refuse to serve, WE will be America. Like it or not, we all broke the law when we allowed Bush to start this war. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. Robert H. Jackson, American prosecutor at Nuremburg

motto up for grabs

Eric — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:31:09 GMT

This may not be your idea of a fun motto for burners, but it 's certainly mine! In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni Which translates to We Spin Around the Night Consumed by the Fire A nice phrase, even suitable for t-shirting. But it's also a palindrome! Found in the NYTimes: "The French writer, theorist and filmmaker Guy Debord's 1978 film, "In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni" will be featured as part of the annual Views From the Avant-Garde program." In this spirit, and recognizing that titles are not copyrightable, I'm thinking of changing my "Fire Safety for Jugglers" to "What to Do When You Are Consumed By Fire," which is a NYT best selling book at the moment.

Fire Safety for Jugglers & Spinners

Eric — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:24:33 GMT

The 4th edition is available as a downloadable pdf. www.foreworks.com While you're there, get some wick.

Why do you love fire?

Eric — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:31:03 GMT

I don't. I'm somewhat indifferent to fire, though I enjoy a good camp or stove fire. I grew up with a coal/wood kitchen stove and a wood fire heater. (The house had one electric outlet, three oil lamps, a hand pump in the kitchen for water, an outhouse, and a crank telephone and party line). I'm of the last generation for whom fire was commonplace. I suppose I think of fire much the same as I think of religion: I'm not personally fascinated with it, but I am fascinated with why other people are so fascinated with it. Why is fire so fascinating? Fire is a technology that we've largely abandoned, having replaced it with electricity and central heating. But it's still a technology, and the rule still holds: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Even if the technology is archaic. So it's not surprising that people today feel spiritually charged by fireplay. It's an adrenaline-high version of steam punk. A dangerous form of retro. It's dragons' breath on your skin. It affirms your relationship with the elements, with the natural. It's kitsch with pain. And while fire is dangerous, it looks vastly more dangerous than it actually is (or there'd be many more crispy critters among us), which makes it an easy entre to personal coolness. Fireplay is also like in the early days of computers, where the nerdy kids found that, unlike their teachers and parents, computers (and fire) never lie to you. If you don't respect it, it will hurt you, and then scar you. But if you do respect it, and if you inquire deeply enough into its needs and demands, others will recognize your mastery, your special relationship with this ancient and fearsome element, and its embers will seem to glow deep from within your eyes, and they will forget your years of work in theatre arts, literature, political science, and social history, and call you "the fire guy." .

Signs

Eric — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:13:36 GMT

I got my ducts cleaned today. Not a medical procedure, it was the heating/AC ducts; and therein, of course, lies a story. It seems a small woodland creature crept into our house, probably by burrowing under it, up into the understory, and thence through the moisture barrier and next to a duct joint where it got all warm and cozy, and immediately died. We eventually figured this out with the help of Eddie, the Angies List Recommended Duct Cleaning Guy. Eddie is extremely knowledgeable and very good at what he does. If duct cleaning were a religion, he would be its Pope. According to Eddie (TALRDCG), the first Sign was the appearance of flys in the house. Not many, but some. And it wasn't fly season and we don't leave the doors open. Surely this was a Sign. Spontaneous generation? Immaculate conception? Virgin birth? (How does one tell if a fly is a virgin [and why would one want to know?]) Eddie did not speculate or comment, but I'm sure he knew. The second Sign was the smell of a deceased woodland creature. An unmistakable a Sign and the first such that indicated a new and unexpected presence. According to Eddie (TALRDCG), if the smell goes away within a week or two, its a mouse. If it takes a month, its a rat. If it takes longer it may well be the possum who lives (lived?) in our back yard. But more likely it is simply a mole, a mouse-sized woodland creature, who somehow lost his way and found our home and made it his crypt. We'll see. Eddie (TALRDCG) knows that whatever it is or was, it didn't get into the ducts themselves because there were no other Signs (bits of fur left on projecting sheet metal corners, feumets, nesting materials, etc.) Eddie knows because he said he could see all the way through our ducts, from end to end. Eddie has powers allowing him to do this and many other things, which is why Angie recommends him. It is good to rest one's faith in the powers of Eddie because the ducts needed vacuuming anyway, having never been cleaned in their eleven-year history, though Eddie (T . . . etc.) recommends ritual cleaning at least every five years. Our ducts are cleansed now and Eddie is gone, leaving almost no trace of his own passage other than our good wishes for him, a modest entry in our checkbook, and (as soon as I finish this) another recommendation in Angies List. Signs of our small woodland creature are still present, hanging softly in the air. But such Signs are fading and there are no further flys, so there is hope. Perhaps we have been blessed.

What's Really Wrong With America.

Eric — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:13:41 GMT

First see http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10022 for a refutation of the myths of Social Security Insolvency , the Fundamentalist Take-over, and American Racial Polarization. Myths, all. But some snarks are boojums. There's an old New Yorker magazine cartoon showing an alien humanoid crossing the desert on hands and knees, pleading to aloud to the baren landscape: "Amonia! Amonia!" It's time for a similar cartoon, this time showing a "typical American family," crossing the desert on hands and knees, with the father begging for "Insurance! Insurance!" Health care is not the problem. Insurance is the problem. In the sixties, Kaiser Hospitals discovered that merely by managing the Medicare program for its own current health-care members, it would increase profits by 20%. No new services or medical care, just shuffle the paper and increase your profit margin. Blue Cross and all the other HMOs had the same epiphany. This established health care as a commodity rather than a service, and the search for the bottom line was shielded from ethical scrutiny by layers of insurance accountants. For them, the more that is spent on health care, the better -- so long as they get their cut. Doctors, who are now free to advertise their services and incorporate themselves (to escape liability), are quite happy to be shielded from responsibility of managing costs as well, and eager to point helpless fingers at everyone else, beginning with patient demand. Other factors are the direction of patent law, the subversion of the university research system, and the failure of government to support (and regulate!) science and industry sufficiently to protect citizens from predation and abuse. Isn't that what the citizens created government to do? The mythical monsters of Political Correctness, Predation by Lawsuit, and Liberal Social Coddling are supposedly responsible for the ills of health-care management gone wild. The true monsters, as with the myth of Social Security insolvency, are those who benefit from things as they are. Follow the money. The problem here is the same problem of all unchecked and unregulated capital-intensive entities: they know no limits to greed and have no decency. As for plutocracy, a real American problem and not a myth, let's give the estate tax and the truly progressive income tax another chance. We already have a flat tax in effect, and it's given us none of the benefits advertised for it. The great divide in America is most clearly shown by the distribution of wealth among citizens and families, not of income. The Chicago School of Economics followed up on the work of Walker and Puller in taming Central and South America for American interests, and robbed them blind. The payback is that we have believed our own propaganda and are now robbing our own citizens blind. (Meanwhile our southern neighbors are busy ignoring us and creating their own economic and political realities.) The US money machine is fixed in favor of the most wealthy, the oldest money. A redistribution of opportunity is in order, and that only happens through taxation that promotes wealth accumulation at the bottom before hording at the top. It's that or revolution. Take your pick.

in the parking lot

Eric — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:14:32 GMT

In the parking lot, I wonder what she sees when she looks at me and stiffles a smile and looks down. Her kids call me V. I hate that movie: bloody revolution, abuse of trust, betrayal as love. (They don't know they know, but they do.) Her husband and almost-grown children standing there. My wife and her chair already packed, now watching her watching me. I hug her, and then each of them (the daughter, surely, knows!) except my wife, and get in and drive away. V couldn't have played it better. We both know that some day, probably when we're both too old for it to matter, we will have each other, too old to hold illusions but trying anyway, after. The sushi was very good, too.

Sexual Ambiguity Solidarity

Eric — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 07:25:45 GMT

Some years ago a friend was describing his college-age daughter's progressive ambivalence in her modes of relationship. During her second year at San Diego State University she declared that she was a lesbian. In her third year she decided that while she still enjoyed sexual relations with women there was a definite place for men in her sex life, as well. In her final year at SDSU she announced that she was more experienced and aware of the larger world so that her identity now was primarily Goth. My friend said he and his wife were concerned and asked me for my thoughts. I told him that they had to take a longer view of these things. That sometimes one had to let bi-goths be bi-goths.

An Open Footer

Eric — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 07:40:11 GMT

ABOUT THIS POST: This is version 1.0.1 of the product you are now reading. You are hereby licensed to read, reproduce, and distribute this product for non-commercial purposes, at no cost to the recipient, if and only if this notice and the attribution of any change to it or to the product is appended hereto. Contributors of significant revisions or responses are encouraged to forward them to the author for possible future builds or releases. In reading this product I understand and accept that no literary purpose, use, or function is warranted, that no rights are transfered, and that all implications, interpretations, and liabilities for consequent behavior are solely the responsibility of the reader.

9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Eric — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:37:14 GMT

> http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2893860.ece < Shame on Fisk for even bringing up the matter! Within a week he'll be misquoted and abused beyond his worst fears, and no refutations or disclaimers will stop it. It should be apparent to everyone by now that this issue cannot be resolved. Believe what you wish, but understand that the purpose of conspiracy theories is to keep people intellectually and emotionally distracted, wasting time and energy that they might use to actually do something. The newspapers should start to print box scores on conspiracy theories, just like they do baseball statistics, and with about the same effect on the game (or reality) itself. Fans of conspiracy theories are just that: fans. They are not players, nor are they theorists, they are second-hand fabulists, picking which of the hundreds of opinions to adopt and mouth as their own, and carefully choosing which little hill of sand to build their castles on. They are consumers, not producers, and they do not particpate in democracy. They are politically irrelevent, morally bankrupt, and physically impotent to affect or confront power. The lesson they teach is that nothing really matters because the truth is not findable; and even if you found it there is nothing you could do about it because it's bigger than you are. Dictators, fascists, unitary executivists, they all love the fans of conspiracy theories. Do not listen to them, the conspiracy fans. Do not argue with them. Do not respond to them. Do something real instead: picket a recruiting station, speak to students, march, vigil, write editorials, raise funds and knock on doors for local candidates. Be active in, and be a meaningful part of the world; not just a "fan."

slapstick and black humor

Eric — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:15:01 GMT

Slapstick elicits two kinds of laughter: "at" and "with." Laughing at someone else's misfortune is simply cruel. We expect this in children too young to recognize that others feel pain just as they do. We expect adults to have learned empathy, and consider them sociopaths when they don't. How then can an adult with a fully developed sense of empathy enjoy a portrayal of the suffering of others? This requires the temporary suspension of our social judgement, and the temporary suspension of our self-judgement. Just as suspension of disbelief is necessary to enjoy fiction of any kind, suspension of judgement is necessary to enjoy physical comedy and satire. We acccept the meta-reality of the "play" by suspending social and moral judgement of the behavior of the players, and at the same time accept our own behavior in laughing at them. We put ourselves a "pretend" state so that we don't leap onto the stage and punch the villain and rescue the maiden. We step into their shoes and out of our own shoes, for the sake of enjoying the story. This is one of the functions of childrens' play: to learn to take the part of another, and to learn to make a heirarchy of realities. We do much the same thing in expressing "black" humor about unfortunate situations over which we have no real control. When your friend slips and falls in the kitchen, splattering cookie batter all over the walls and bloodying her nose, you help her staunch the bleeding with ice and paper towels. Then you both sit on the floor, eating cookie dough off the walls, holding each other and laughing hysterically. In this instance, since the age of 5, my friend has had to choose between walking around on her knees or using a power chair. The knee-walking freaks out the civilians. But at home, mine or hers, it's just easier to be the geek that each of us, in our own way, very much is.

From outrage to depression, in one.

Eric — Thu, 24 May 2007 20:04:59 GMT

"What's the difference between Republicans and Democrats? Democrats blow. Republicans suck." Lewis Black. "The Entire Government Has Failed Us on Iraq" http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052407A.shtml Keith Olbermann. and my own too-damned-mad-to-spit observation on the failure of nerve of Congress: This is not the country we thought it was. We are not the people we thought we were.

No really, we're just friends.

Eric — Sat, 12 May 2007 19:28:13 GMT

That look you sometimes give me, your deep laugh, your mouth, the little sounds I'm sure you make in your sleep, almost make me come.

What, a concept?

Eric — Sat, 12 May 2007 19:25:45 GMT

underwear outerwear upperwear tupperware spidermonkeys

Older 3

Eric — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:15:23 GMT

In silence I hear the sound of that last firecracker, thrown too late, forever.

Mintz, anyone?

Eric — Wed, 09 May 2007 23:49:02 GMT

The last time I really disliked someone, he grew up to be Eliot Mintz. You see his name in the papers sometimes, but when I knew him in the mid-sixties he was the phoniest wannabe executive hippie in Los Angeles. He wore tailored disco clothes long before there was disco, with a small brass bell on a beaded hemp rope around his neck. Out of nowhere he became a programmer (advice for teenieboppers and lost/befuddled hippies) and a producer at the Pacifica station KPFK, where I was working. I borrowed his girlfriend for a few weeks (she turned out to be Harlan Elison's girlfriend, too, but that's another story) before she went back to Eliot, who was crazier and more manipulative than it ever occured to me to be. But that's what the beautiful Dona wanted. She decided I was bedable when I corrected her, on the air, after she announced that the fund drive had reached its goal. It was $7,000 short. She liked correction, a lot. I evidently clinched it when I saw her toying with her food at the Copper Penny restaurant and said the magic words "anorexia nervosa." She turned pale and insisted that we go back to my place, immediately. I'm sure I was merely a nice change of scenery, and probably a vacation for her. Now that I think of it, I was probably an assignment, too. Marvin Siegleman, the ex-CIA station manager of KPFK, had tried to co-opt me by having his wife (his beard, actually) seduce me, possibly for whatever influence I had with Judy, who he fired because her show, The Drop-Out University of the Air, had the most subscribing listeners. (The Firesign Theater had the most non-subscribing listeners.) Whatever the reason, it didn't work. Dona tweaked my pheromones with much more success than Mrs. Siegleman, but when she started talking about how some very powerful people wanted Eliot to be their front man and agent and be in close contact with important celebrities, and how she and I had talents that Eliot would find useful, I started laughing. Even then, in 1966, at age 22, he was a Personal Manager. (Now they call them Publicists.) His first client, who I'll bet anything doesn't appear on his resume, was Sal Mineo, who was mysteriously attacked and beaten to death, thus losing Eliot his first client. The speculation was that it was payback for not heeding the "safe" words in some S/M games. Equally speculative was the theory that in real life he was just as whiney as the characters he played, and just got on the wrong person's nerves. Mintz later managed John Lennon and Bob Dylan, and I think still does Yoko and son. Makes you think that the conspiracy crowd may have a point, or that there are some who play at making weirdness happen at high levels because it suits their weird-fuck little minds to do so, and because they can. Nobody that I knew and liked at KPFK took Eliot seriously. And many refused to work with him or take his guidance even when he was appointed as their show's producer. He had the sense never to impose on anyone who wasn't a fan already. When Dona told Judy (my wife now of 38 years) that Eliot wanted her to submit an outline before every show, Judy told Dona to tell Eliot to go fuck himself. Dona turned pale and said she couldn't possibly say that to him, but she'd take him a note if Judy signed it. Leonard Brown, by far the finest audio-collage creator at Pacifica, made a point of obscurely dissing Mintz to his face. "Eliot, did you know that sideburns were so-named for General Burnsides? Like you, he had magnificent sideburns, but he was a piss-poor general." And Ted Sturgeon, Judy's friend and frequent on-air guest, announced to her after-show crowd, while Eliot was standing a few feet away, that Eliot was the only person he'd ever met who wore a bell around his neck and had no sense of humor. There was dead silence for five seconds, and then six people laughed so hard they had to sit down. The Firesign Theater crew was decidedly anti-Eliot, and riduculed him whenever possible. The night they took over the station, played the Star Spangled Banner continuously, and announced every ten minutes that the people's revolution had arrived, their original plan had been to gag and tie Eliot to a chair and set him naked in a window as a show of their earnest intentions, but Eliot kept away from the station that night. I don't know if Eliot was really evil, but he was certainly creepy. That impression came directly from his expectation that everyone should think he was very wise. Exactly why anyone would think that was never clear, but Eliot assumed entitlement to near-worship, respect, and deference to his obvious wonderfulness, and let you know it in his every word and movement -- and he often got it. Perhaps it was his voice, which was radio-resonant. Perhaps it was his habit of granting people permission to do whatever it was they felt mildly guilty about doing -- that they deserved the pleasure they sought. Given the power over people that he was constantly seeking and sometimes getting, I suppose it's only natural that he got where he is today. Had we all had the sense and the courage of our impressions to have shot him rather than laugh at him back then, the world might be a better place today. Perhaps Mineo would have become the first John Lovett, perhaps Dylan might have stayed acoustic, and just maybe John Lennon could have lived a little longer. Ah, well. I see the Eliot made the society gossip column in the Oregonian today (May 9, 2007), for confessing to a judge that he had told his client, Paris Hilton, that she could drive to work (work?) with a suspended license, so she really shouldn't have to do the 45 days of jail time the judge had sentenced her to do, because it was really his, Eliot's, fault that she busted her paroll. The judge, a wise man, recognized horseshit when he saw it, said as much to Mintz, and sent Ms Hilton a-slammer-o. That weekend, at his church, the congregation gave the judge a standing O for his perspicacity. I may join that church.

Jonathan Miller said:

Eric — Wed, 09 May 2007 06:07:41 GMT

"I feel uncomfortable using the term 'atheist'. After all, there isn't a term for people who don't believe in ghosts, or witches." Some of my friends call themselves witches. I think of this as a C.S. Lewis-like exercise, in which one acts as if one really does believe, and perhaps one day finds that it's so.

Older 2

Eric — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 07:00:08 GMT

Older is reflexive scratching at phantom thoughts, recollections of other itches better scratched. Softer memories and erections, less urgently relived. "Look! He must be chasing something!" He is.

Older

Eric — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 03:49:31 GMT

My grandparents' ghosts live with me now, as floaters. My cats come back, too. I blink away the floaters, but If I could just not turn, not leave my old cats in the corners of my eyes, they might stay.

Night Sky

Eric — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:41:17 GMT

It's not the light of the stars that blinds and fascinates, but the distances between them. Rushing further apart as it all winds down, until the universe fills with emptiness, and vanishes. And I, and all the stars, and all my loves, are one again.

This Is A Test

Eric — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 04:15:20 GMT

This is a test. Had this been an actual revolution you would all be lying in a heap at the base of the wall. This is only a test. This is a test. Had you been doing purposeful work instead of reacting to the work of others, they would now be reacting to you. This is only a test. This is a test. In the event of an honest personal evaluation you would be several miles from here naked and hiding, in the dark. This is only a test. This is a test Had this been a meaningful encounter you would have changed, and so would I. But this is only a test.

unhelpful spelling hints

Eric — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 07:23:08 GMT

A as in aisle, (I'll) B as in bdellium, (dellium) C as in czar, (zar) D as in djin, (gin) E as in ewe, (you) F as in phonics, (fonics)* G as in gneiss, (nice) H as in heir, (air) I as in Iago, (ee-ah-go)* J as in Jai Alai (hi-lie) K as in knot, (not) L as in llama, (yama) M as in mnemonic, (nemonic) N as in Nguyen (yuen, ruan), also Ngo (go) O as in Ouija, (weegee) P as in phthalate, (thalate) Q as in quay, (key) R as in Argentina, (okay, it's a schwa; so sue me)* S as in tsunami, (sunami)* T as in tsunami, (sunami) U as in Uitlander, (oitlander) V as in veldt, (felt) W as in wrote, (rote) X as in xipe, (hype) Y as in ytrium, (Itrium) Z as in Zouave, (djoo-ahv) There are several print and Internet versions of this exercise, all very much alike (see esp. the remarkable http://www.questrel.com/records.html#selected_lists_word_that_is_a_confusing_code_for_each_letter, or http://tinyurl.com/2am3zt, and then "Word That is a Confusing Code for Each Letter," and surrounding lists), but none are perfect, including this one. I like mine better than the others, but there's no accounting for taste. I'd rather use words that begin with the letter they name (see * above) but don't sound. I'd prefer to avoid foreign or obscure geographical names. But then, "obscure" is relative. Ask any Scrabble player. I have used non-Western names if they are not uncommonly used in the U.S., and commonly recognized regional or ethnic terms (Uitlander, Zouave), but I would prefer to use relatively common American-English terms findable in Webster's 11th+ Collegiate dictionary or the equivalent. All of the Webster's' have been thoroughly combed, along with the OED, and other standard references, so we'll just have to wait for new words to be coined, foreign words to be adopted, or old words to become popular again. Please use, modify, and distribute this list as you will. A few of you may be so enchanted as to memorize it and use these words to "help" spell other words that are unclear to the listener. Will Shortz does this. In addition to being the "puzzler" of National Public Radio and the editor of the New York Times Crossword, he is also the historian of the National Puzzlers' League, whose monthly magazine I've printed since the mid-1980s. Hence my interest in such silliness. I hope it's yours, too. If it is, please see www.puzzlers.org for a lifetime of fun. =Eric Bagai, Portland, 2007

Add yeast and knead.

Eric — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:54:34 GMT

As promised a week ago, here's my suggested plan of action for the Socialist Party in the US and all its various US iterations. Change the nature of monthly or bi-weekly membership meetings into working meetings. Begin with small things. Begin with household chores at the home where the meeting is held: emptying trash, vacuuming rugs, sweeping the porch, weeding, etc. Some meetings should concentrate on a joint effort at a single task, such as painting a shed or a room. All members should be pre-assigned a roughly equivalent task that is proportional to their abilities for each meeting. Everyone should know what they will be doing before they come. Those who cannot attend should make an appointment to do their task at a mutually convenient time. Members may trade tasks. Each meeting should be held at a different member's house, so that all may benefit. Consideration and analysis of work done and to be done should be an ongoing item of agenda at meetings, but should never take more than one quarter of the total time allowed for any working meeting. Self-criticism and constructive suggestion should be encouraged as it is much more useful than disparagement, which should be discouraged but given a fair but brief hearing. Discourage analysis without action, rule-making, power accumulation, and all the behavior typical before working meetings were initiated. Eventually the group will come to meetings with the expectation of doing something worthwhile, no matter how trivial, and come away from meetings with a feeling of accomplishment, no matter how small. This is an unusual feeling for an American Socialist, but with continued application and encouragement, it can become a normal part of their lives. After a time, the members will begin to enjoy working together for a common good and will take pride in their group's achievement and in their part in it. Sooner or later the membership will express an interest in doing work outside of their own homes. This is the beginning of social consciousness which is the foundation of socialism. Groups should consider what work can be done in a given neighborhood that can be accomplished in a few hours, and that will have an observable effect -- just like the house and yard work they have been doing in each others' homes. Some work will soon be seen as requiring several meetings to accomplish, or need daily or weekly application. Each group will find it has a unique range of interest: street cleaning, graffitti removal, helping the elderly, conducting neighborhood conflict resolution clinics, doing habitat for humanity construction, stream restoration, kudzu or English ivy clearing, community patrolling, and so on. When a group's current selection of work is completed, is no longer needed, or has proven untenable or counterproductive, they should congratulate themselves appropriately and begin new work immediately. If nothing comes to mind, the group should return to doing basic household tasks. This will help the membership to more readily recognize when it's time to move on, what it is possible to accomplish, and to more quickly recognize how much can reasonably be accomplished with the resources at their disposal. A succession of accomplishments and completed projects can only improve the group's self-image and pride. The hope is that this behavior will generalize into other areas of their political and personal lives. The more the group becomes intimately involved in the needs and problems of its community, the more effective it will be come at finding solutions and resolutions. In some groups this may lead to city, state, national, or international action. But working groups must always begin with and be grounded in the most basic and needed actions. The SP, along with much of the left, both secular and religious, has concentrated for too long on repetitive behavior as a means of making their will felt. Unless such behavior produces immediate and visible change, it should be discarded. To continue purposeless behavior may be comforting, but it is still without purpose. Protests, leafleting, vigils, and rallies should be recognized as at best social functions, and at worst as replacing good work with inefficient or even pointless work. When you rally in a park, also have a party or dance, and then clean up the park and sweep the street. When you protest the behavior of a congressman, wash his windows, empty his trash, vacuum his rugs, and invite him or her (and staff) to join you for a drink at the local pub. This all seems simpleminded and petty when weighed against the problems of our nation. But consider what socialists have in fact been able to accomplish: damned little, actually. Even though the concepts of socialist fairness and equity have become a part of American economic and political reality, socialists themselves have had little effect of the issues of the day. The Working Meeting is an attempt to return to the best precepts of American Socialism: fairness and equity, good work and immediately observable results. These are the things that attracted the working class to socialism, and made proud traitors of middle and upper class discontents. The economic theories of Marx have mired us in analysis instead of action, relection instead of work, and most self-declared socialists no longer think of themselves as Marxists. At the same time, the Democratic Party has adopted the guise and words of fairness, equity, good work, and observable results, while systematicly betraying their meaning. We must return to our roots and rediscover what made socialism attractive. Begin small. Do good work. Explore what then becomes possible.

check the cables

Eric — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:02:26 GMT

Spent the last two days re-cabling my comcast modem, configuring my router, and re-setting the three computers in my local net. Finally looked deeply into the cable sockets and found two slightly askew wires in the comcast modem's ethernet port. Tweaked them to match the other wires with a paper clip. Problem solved. I first learned to begin by checking the cables in 1958 in USMC radio school, and again in 1980 with my TRS-80. So that's what I checked first. The flashing lights kept telling me the connection was good, but they lied. None of this is of the least interest to anyone but it cost me two days and I knew the solution all along but it still cost me two days. Shit! Never trust light: it's a wave (whap!), it's a particle (whap!), it's a wave and a particle (whap, whap!), . . . oh, it's a cable socket.

The Inevitable Rise of the Masses -- not!

Eric — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 09:14:17 GMT

In the last few month the Socialist Party USA has lost about 50% of its membership. While I don't subscribe to Marxian economics or political theory, I'm sad to see one of the few humanitarian-based political movements disappear. So I suggested the following analysis of the State of the Party. The principal and various Socialist Parties in the US live on the fading glow of the accomplishments of their forebearers. Current members no longer do anything that affects the political structure or actions of the nation. All thoughts are turned inward, and what little action is taken affects only themselves. They argue about how things might have been different if things had been different, and periodically rearrange their organizational furniture and refine or dilute their principles. Because there is nothing else to do, someone eventually accumulates enough institutional power to exercise it by excluding those who object to such power gathering, or ho object to them personally. Because there is nothing else to do, the excluded ones and those who side with them re-group to insure that such exclusion shall not happen again. In this way the various parties, tendencies, and factions proliferate without expanding. New members are recruited from those who appreciate the group's history and principles, but they leave on finding that existentially, there isn't any there there. Those who aren't bothered by this lack of substance stay to participate in the furniture moving, historical fantasizing, principle polishing, power accumulating, and re-grouping. Occasionally a more power-hungry group begins to prey on other groups (which may or may not be Socialist) by infiltrating them, sowing dissention (about furniture placement, principle shininess, or personalities), and offering safe haven for the disaffected or excluded. Through the individual exercise of socially useful skills and abilities, a handful of Party members may achieve public political office. The Party neither funds nor supports them because they will not take ideological stands to match the principle-polishing of the Party which will surely alienate the larger public. And though they may claim to abide by the greater principles of socialism, they must eventually cooperate with politicians of other parties if they wish their own agendas to be supported. This further isolates them from the Party, until the Party no longer recognizes them at all. Some party members find that a career of denouncing the Socialist Party is lucrative, and even affords influence and power among parties with principles antithetical to Socialism. Their influence increases with the vehemence of their denunciation, and their rewards increase with their ability to portray Socialism as a vast structure with gravely unrecognized threats and dangers to the American public. Thus, everyone gets to feel that they have been taken advantage of or that they are a persecuted minority. This justifies any action they might individually or collectively take, such as power accumulation, exclusion, regrouping, predation, isolation, or denunciation. It also justifies not taking any action at all in the outside world, which relieves everyone of responsibility and guilt for breaking the cycle and actually succeeding in something. A secure position of inaction also allows one to criticize any action plan proposed, and undermine it if it is pursued. And so the Socialist Party in the US continues. When you find yourself helplessly perpetuating a self-defeating neurotic cycle, the first thing you must do is stop doing that. Then, if you must, analyze why stopping hurts so much. Then do something entirely different. Next week: Why it hurts so bad when you stop doing that to yourself. (Suggested reading: Games People Play, by Berne.) Then just go back two paragraphs and read to the end again. Next week, revised: What to do instead.