Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Steal this city
The healthy lack of faith in the good intentions of people running primarily self-serving, selfish and paranoid institutions was a big issue for the court intellectuals of the ‘70s. The basically anarchist start ups in trade, social services and medical care scared the hell out of them. Eminent Domain, condemning buildings, harassing inspections and manufactured hysteria over “crime waves” to scare the hell out of dreaming America put a big dent in the social justice movement.
I was a teenager back then, a little precocious politically, getting involved and I wound up acting exactly the way the people running that concerted counterstrike wanted. My faith in liberty and community was destroyed, by me, acting on myself, in line with what would best serve the people I loathed. Guilt, shame and fear serve control freaks well. I’m still in “recovery”.
I linked up your article on Sander Hick’s coffee shop a while ago. It got a few of the people who read my blog pretty excited. I think what he does is one of the ways forward.
Posted by Harry on from 04/10 at 09:31 AMI feel you, as usual, have hit it square on the head, Harry...and I sure can relate to the “control freak” issue.
Today, ideas like “dial-a-freakout” or “free clinics” would be punchlines in a Dennis Miller monologue and the younger generation would be laughing the loudest. I’ve said it many times before: The lessons of the 60s were best learned by the status quo.
Btw, can you provide a link for the discussion about Sander? I’d like to send it to him.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from 04/10 at 10:29 AMMost of it was by phone and email. There’s a cite on a friend’s blog, in which you are mentioned, which went into a digession rather quickly. The excitement is assumed largely from my site meter stats, which showed a lot of reads after I posted it. The ratio of reads to comments runs from about 70 x 1 to 300 x 1. A lot of commentary depends on how provocative a post is or whether it has funny pictures. The most popular thing I ever posted was a picture of a pretty girl holding an AK-47.
Here’s my friend’s blog link .
http://loosepoodle.blogspot.com/2005/03/alright-enough.htmlThere’s a cite on Infoshop, too, with a mixed bag of commentary. Sander might be more interested in that.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050301122213593
Posted by Harry on from 04/10 at 10:50 AMThanks, Harry...I sent him the Infoshop link.
It’s really funny for me to see one site call me a “web hero” and the other deride me as a “hipster.”
Posted by Mickey Z. on from 04/10 at 11:10 AMThe game of “more radical than thou” is very rewarding for some internet bulletin board commentators. I doubt it amounts to much of anything when time comes for them to actually do something. I’ve often found Wendell Berry-reading conservatives more aware of social justice issues and more inclined to work with others. They’re much more my ilk. The nominal lefties with militant keyboards can clutch their hollow web triumphs as tightly as they like. They’re cold comfort at the end of the day.
Sam Smith put it very well (paraphrased): “If a pistol packing nun wants to work with you to save the environment, by all means get her a place on the committee”.
Posted by Harry on from 04/10 at 12:15 PMMickey,
re surviving in NYC, I read a while ago that the ‘Big Apple’ was quite famous for its subsidized health care, education and other ‘socialist’ achievements - until the late 60’s, that is, when everything started to fall apart.
Slightly but not entirely OT: there’s a great quote I just saw:
“Too many policemen, no liberty; Too many soldiers, no peace; Too many lawyers, no justice.” Lin Yutang (1895-1976)
Nearly as good as your quotes, no?Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 04/10 at 06:05 PMAnd another thing: I quite like the word ‘hipster’ but then I grew up in the 60’s! So many dashed hopes ..
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 04/10 at 06:07 PMThings didn’t “fall apart,” Helga...they were purposefully broken.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from 04/10 at 06:39 PMWays of sowing discord within social justice movements, breaking their members and undermining their economic basis have been intensely studied, Helga. There are, literally, manuals on the nastier means of doing it.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/Human frailty, such as the kind that might lead to acrimonious spats, gets multiplied under external pressure. What would normally be a disagreement becomes a feud. The victims of the external pressure often unconsciously assimilate the aggressor’s narrative. They become reactive rather than building and personalities trump ideals.
Posted by Harry on from 04/10 at 07:21 PMThanks for enlightening me, Mickey! And more than 30 years later, they are still broken (not there is much to break any more ..)
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 04/10 at 07:27 PM
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