Sunday, April 11, 2010

Awareness vs. Community

Posted by Mickey Z on 04/11 at 06:57 PM
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  1. I like this one: “Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

    What I think is important to add to this historical truth is something I’m always saying here and to anyone who will listen.

    When we analyse history and change people tend to deflect criticism by saying certain attitudes were ‘of their time’ or that thing were just different then, or even just that society was simply less developed.

    However.

    In every epoch of history from which we have writings or sayings or stories there is ALWAYS an example of perfect awareness and dissent.

    You can find someone who could see it all and clearly state it was wrong. We have piles and piles of evidence that humans were capable of seeing through slavery,war, discrimination, abuse of power and environmental destruction as long as there’s been a concept of a society.

    If only I could work it into a sound bite smile

    Posted by Andy from Shanghai  on  04/12  at  01:59 AM

  2. Alright, I’m first! I haven’t actually read the articles, but I just saw the two titles in my email and found them to be the perfect subject matter to start the discussion of Mickey’s next DC Event.

    ***

    To start, captcha sez: single. Perfect. That is the problem. We’ve got too many “aware” lone wolves trotting around unaware of each other. Back to this in a sec…

    I recommend the chapter “Starting to See” from Jensen’s The Culture of Make Believe.

    ***

    I once wrote a bulletin on MySpace (MySpace? that’s so three minutes ago) where I said something along the lines of, “if the internet had existed in 1968 there would have been a global revolution.” Which I now believe, was the dumbest thing I’ve ever said.

    FUN FACT ABOUT 1968: The top selling artist of 1968 in the US was not even the counter-revolutionary Beatles….nope, The Monkeys.

    The internet is a un-fucking-believable mechanism for sharing information and horizontal consciousness raising. It’s also a great place to jerk off (in more ways than one!) As Che said about Communism maybe being a great way to distribute goods but not necessarily a Revolutionary way of life, the same goes for the internet; what made that cultural flare-up in the sixties happen were the Relationships that developed out of the necessity of face to face organizing.

    ***

    As we near the one anniversary of the great Jensen/Z extravaganza what have we learned? For starters, for those of us that were there we can probably conclude that the person who walks into an event with Mr. You-Know-Who and asks “If I, like, take out a dam will you guys set up blogs for me and see me as a Hero when I’m in prison, and like put my face on t-shirts” is not what is needed right now. I wanted to yell out, “The fact that you just stated what you stated in the middle of the Capital of Global Fascism and in your narcissistic fantasy “winning” is you getting caught and going to prison perhaps less-than-legal dam removal shouldn’t be your line of work.” But I didn’t yell that. I went outside and had a smoke…

    Which was where the action was…all night.

    Almost everyone I met said the same thing that I was saying, “I just thought that I’d come here and see if I could find some new friends that see the world the way that I see it.”

    Mickey usually quotes Arundhati Roy with something like, “Once you see it, you can’t un-see it.” It’s true. But then what? Or the now “classic rock” “another world is possible.” People, once that “awareness” creeps in, want to do something about the former and start living the latter. Immediately. I guess what I’m trying to say is that—to paraphrase Einstein—your next event should be a preview of life’s coming attractions. The whole purpose of the event—all of our events actually—should be the “audience.”

    Shit, the clock just struck 2:51. I want to finish this tomorrow, there is more.

    It’s great to be Expendable again!

    Posted by Maxwell Black from Arlington Va  on  04/12  at  02:00 AM

  3. Dammit Andy! By one minute!
    I’ll be back post-gym tomorrow.

    Posted by Maxwell Black from Arlington Va  on  04/12  at  02:11 AM

  4. I believe you that you were here first, Maxwell. Andy just typed faster.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  04/12  at  04:52 AM

  5. Only 4 responses to awareness and community?

    Around these parts, people are unaware of developing real communities. Too much fear, distrust, accepting corporate induced separation.

    Too much experience dealing with everyone else’s neurosis, very poor communication, especially about everyday life. People, apparently enjoy being miserably alone, dependent upon the mainstream with very minimal satisfaction. Terrible dilemma we have here.

    Real communities cannot have followers and leaders,
    hierarchies, manipulation, this is what we need to get beyond.

    When I have proposed some ideas for communities, I sense people prefer to have a seemingly, pathetic, but somewhat predictable life...in other words, they will be glad to own their brainwashing.

    Posted by Joe of Maine from The Window  on  04/12  at  10:57 AM

  6. Wow, great replies from Maxwell and Joe. Legendary comments!

    Good articles too Mickey, great idea for a counterpoint set up.

    Me and some friends here are so happy with the stuff we’ve been doing here that we’re going to set up a new blog at our site called Indie Everything. Basically we’ll write up the nuts and bolts of all our projects and say the numbers and give the contacts etc.

    The idea being that other people here can immediately find the community in real life and do the same stuff.

    It came in part from our talks here on what would be useful in writing and info. We always come round to tools and step by step guides.

    Maxwell is right, the internet is a good way to communicate, but it must then lead to real life projects and action.

    I guess we all say that smile

    Oh my god ..no shit ..captcha sez: group

    Posted by Andy from Shanghai  on  04/12  at  11:06 AM

  7. Thanks, Joe and Andy. I’ll have something up relatively soon about the Internet and its role in activism.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  04/12  at  11:14 AM
  8. ood articles. Thanks, Mickey for the Debs quote.

    Yes, we need to do more than just distribute information. The Tea Party has been successful at spreading its message. It took me a while to figure out what they know that we don’t.  Maybe it is the fact that their members put their own own self interest first (or what they mistakenly believe to be in their best interest). Advocating for the future of the planet and future generations necessitates some empathy beyond our own skin. USAers are empathetically challenged. Even after seeing the videos of the slaughter of civilians and even knowing that 45,000 of us die every year from lack of access to heath care, there is not much movement toward peace or Single Payer.

    Obviously, I don’t have any answers.  If I knew 50 years ago what I know now, I’d be living in Denmark.

    Posted by RMJ from Ward Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  04/12  at  12:10 PM

  9. Today’s post and responses belong in the all-star file.

    I’m having a tiny bit of community by volunteering at a food co-op. Will have to see where that leads.

    Real vs. virtual: even at teach-ins through the late 90’s, before the internet became the common cold of human communication, few connections lasted beyond the next weekend. That’s the academic part of the American left.

    Empathy vs. cruelty: someone wrote that the brownshirts and SS could not have appeared without the appalling conditions in post-WWI Germany. So too in neoliberal America, leading to videos like the one Wikileaks just released. Against this physical and psychic numbing, even small acts of empathy can have a huge impact. I enjoy such mini-rebellions.

    Posted by Zen Prole from Pac NW  on  04/12  at  01:04 PM

  10. “mini-rebellions” - that has a nice ring to it.

    captcha says “involved”

    Posted by RMJ from Ward Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  04/12  at  01:47 PM

  11. I’m really loving the vibe here these days.

    New post going up live soon.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  04/12  at  05:01 PM

  12. Okay, as promised, a brand new post is now up. See you there.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  04/12  at  05:08 PM

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