Writings
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Written by Mickey Z
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Monday, 27 November 2006 |
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by Mickey Z.
 My wife and I moved into a new apartment earlier this year. Just a few
blocks from our old place, it's been a major quality of life improvement in
almost every possible way. One unexpected adjustment, however, was closet
space. This moderately sized one-bedroom apartment has only two narrow
closets. (You couldn't fit a scandalous skeleton in them if you tried.)
Keeping in mind that the building is more than 78 years old, how might we
explain this egregious "oversight"?
a) The architects were idiots
b) The architects callously cut corners
c) Americans had far less "stuff" in 1928
d) All of the above
Accepting as a given that all humans are idiots that callously cut corners,
the can't-miss answer is, of course, D. However, in this particular case, I
believe C is far more accurate. In fact, I'll bet the original tenants here
considered themselves mighty lucky to even have two closets. They may have
believed that whatever didn't fit inside was superfluous. Imagine that: A
two-closet existence.
Long before shopping became hard-wired into human biology, Voltaire said,
"When it's a question of money, everybody is of the same religion."
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Written by Robert Jensen
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Monday, 27 November 2006 |
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by Robert Jensen
[Remarks to the first in a series of “Last Sunday” community gatherings in
Austin, TX, November 26, 2006.]
We billed Last Sunday as a place for people to come together to explore the
intersections of the political, artistic, and spiritual. The idea came out of
conversations among friends: Eliza Gilkyson, a singer/songwriter with interests
in politics and spirituality; Jim Rigby, a minister who has a knack for stirring
up trouble, theologically and politically; and me, a professor involved in a
variety of political groups.
There are lots of organizations and movements taking up issues that we care
about. Last Sunday was designed not to compete with those, but to create a
different kind of space, where people could bring all aspects of themselves for
conversation and connection. The name plays off the “First Thursday” tradition
on South Congress Avenue, with perhaps an invocation of the Last Supper for
some, though I want to be clear that none of us has any messianic inclinations.
We hope people will not only listen to what comes from the stage, but connect
with friends and allies in the hall. We hope that existing progressive projects
will be strengthened and that new ideas will emerge from those conversations.
So, there’s no hidden agenda tonight. We’re not recruiting or selling anything.
Like so many, we’re just hungry for that conversation, that connection, that
sense of community.
Okay, but what is Last Sunday really about?
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Written by Mike Whitney
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Monday, 27 November 2006 |
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by Mike Whitney
 “People do not forget. They do not forget the death of their fellows, they do not forget torture and mutilation, they do not forget injustice, they do not forget oppression, they do not forget the terrorism of mighty powers. They not only don’t forget; they also strike back.”
Harold Pinter, Nobel Laureate
The central tenet of American foreign policy hasn’t changed since the early 1980s when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger summarized our involvement in the Iraq-Iraq War saying, “I hope they kill each other.” Kissinger’s dictum reveals the basic racial and religious odium which animates the current policy and has become the organizing principle for maintaining the global empire.
Now that the Muslim world has been systematically ravaged from the southern-most part Gaza to the northern tip of Afghanistan, we can see that the application of the Kissinger Doctrine is an effective method for decimating societies where coveted resources are located.
By all accounts, it’s been a huge success.
The policy seems to be working best in Iraq, where provocative counterinsurgency operations have incited a massive sectarian war. The conflict produces an ever-increasing number of civilian casualties many of whom have been killed by other Iraqis. No doubt Kissinger is gratified that his theory is working out so splendidly.
The western media portrays the disaster in Iraq as the natural upshot of years of repression under the former dictator, Saddam Hussein. But, Saddam had nothing to do with the violence which is ripping Baghdad apart. That’s just a way of pacifying the American public so they can go on their Christmas buying-spree without pangs of remorse. In fact Saddam is no different than America’s other tyrant-friends in Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. He simply stood in the way of Big Oil’s dream of direct control of Iraq’s resources and created a likely rival for “good friend” Israel.
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Written by James Kunstler
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Monday, 27 November 2006 |
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by James Kunstler
 Last week, I had one of those clarifying moments when the enormity of the American fiasco stirred my livers and lights again. I was riding in a car at sundown between St. Cloud and Minneapolis on I-94 through a fifty-mile-plus corridor of bargain shopping infrastructure on each side of the highway. The largest automobile dealerships I have ever seen lay across the edge of the prairie like so many UFO landing strips, with eerie forests of sodium-vapor lamps shining down on the inventory. The brightly colored signs of the national chain fried food parlors vied for supremacy of the horizon with the big box logos. The opposite lane was a blinding river of light as the cars plied north from the Twin Cities to these distant suburbs in the pre-Thanksgiving rush hour.
All that tragic stuff deployed out on the prairie was but the visible part of the storm now being perfected for us. On the radio, Iraq was coming completely apart and with it the illusion of America being able to control a larger set of global events -- with dire implications for all glowing plastic crap along the interstates, and the real-live people behind the headlights in those rivers of cars.
The main fresh impression I had amidst all this is how over it is. The glowing smear of auto-oriented commerce along I-94 (visible from space, no doubt) had the look of being finished twenty minutes ago. Beyond the glowing logos lay the brand new residential subdivisions full of houses that now may never be sold, put up by a home-building industry in such awful trouble that it may soon cease to exist. If suburbia was the Great Work of the American ethos, then our work is done. We perfected it, we completed it, and, like a brand new car five minutes after delivery, it has already lost much of its value. |
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Written by Frank Pitz
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Monday, 27 November 2006 |
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by Frank Pitz
 So,
the Democrats won, Rummy quit, why am I not jumping for joy and getting
out here in cyberspace with more rah, rah postings? Perhaps a
psychological impediment has grabbed hold; or could it just be plain
old skepticism? But then again, it may just be a case of the blahs,
caused by the daily bombardment of “stuff.”
I’m
generally “the glass is half full” kind of person, and meditate on a
semi-regular basis, which tends to help through most down episodes.
But, sometimes you want to just chuck it all and scream, “stop the
world, I want to get off.” Read a piece recently on AlterNet titled “The Clownification of America” by Stephen Pizzo. He wrapped an article around that particular quote by James Howard Kunstler. It summed up for me-in a small way- just why I am feeling a bit of disquiet right now.
We’ve been American Idolized damn
near to the point of no return. It is, after all, Orwell personified;
up to and including the ubiquitous electronic eyes and ears of Big
Brother surrounding us completely.
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