Blueprint for after the revolution
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Feral Scholar
Making the Connections
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It is not a coincidence that postmodern paralysis is a condition that mainly afflicts academics, for it is only at a distance that human meanings assume the appearance of 'constructions.'
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Sks:
I hate blueprints. I love dreams…
22 June 2006, 10:23 pmElki:
The problem I have with models like this (and i have issues with these types of models when i see them), is they look great idealogically & theoretically, but putting them into practice doesn’t take into account the realities of life. External variables effect this model: for example something simple like each person’s CHOICE has a great bearing on whether this model would find its feet. And since when do we need to putting things in baskets. I’m not criticising the ethics presented in this model, in fact i support these activities that bring positive and active change, but models aren’t what pop into my head when im thinking “I need to tell my friend about ‘this issue’ so that ‘this’ will happen. It all looks great on paper/screen but in actuality models are flawed.
23 June 2006, 3:30 am*This is my personal opinion and is subject to change if otherwise convinced otherwise*
BTW Stan, I love your work, keep on doing what you do best =) x
Mark:
Thanks Stan for introducing me to this great site. I will definitely be passing it along. I has a really good synthesis of a lot of interconnected ideas.
I think the only bone of contention I have is what I think of as the ‘utopian’ idea that we can make civilization sustainable. This is to say civilization as the term is typically used; the concentration of human populations into urban centers. I can’t see where any system where people can’t live off their land base is sustainable in the long run, and it seems as though it will inevitably result in those people who can’t live off their land base attempting to appropriate (conquer) the productive land of others.
I believe that unless we undertake to radically de-urbanize, the post-hydrocarbon world will do it for us in a most unpleasant fashion.
In response to Elki, while I understand the wisdom of changing attitudes through education and encouragement, I don’t think the route of simple individual choice is going to get us where we need to be in time. Contrary to the popular mythology of our culture, we didn’t arrive at our current situation via free choices in a marketplace of ideas. Everything from brute force to economic arm-twisting to sophisticated propoganda was used to turn us into oil guzzling hyper-cosumers. It’s going to take concerted political action to steer us onto a new path.
23 June 2006, 10:57 amJulian Real:
I am wondering WHO, exactly, came up with this, and to what degree they consulted IN POLITICAL COALITION WORK with Indigenous people all over the world. I would suspect they did not–except, of course, for reading and reaping what they wanted from those cultures. This is not “straw-manning”. I went to their site. I looked over a lot of what they present as “a solution” for sustainable living.
I would appear, from so much of how that page is laid out, and what it says, that most of the people who arrived at this idea of “how things should be” are white men.
Why do I say that? And why is this a problem, politically and spiritually?
This is from their site:
ZONE 0 — The house, or home centre. Here permaculture principles would be applied in terms of aiming to reduce energy and water needs, harnessing natural resources such as sunlight, and generally creating a harmonious, sustainable environment in which to live, work and relax.
ZONE 1 — Is the zone nearest to the house, the location for those elements in the system that require frequent attention, or that need to be visited often, e.g., salad crops, herb plants, soft fruit like strawberries or raspberries, greenhouse and cold frames, propagation area, worm compost bin for kitchen waste, etc.
ZONE 2 — This area is used for siting perennial plants that require less frequent maintenance, such as occasional weed control (preferably through natural methods such as spot-mulching) or pruning, including currant bushes and orchards. This would also be a good place for beehives, larger scale compost bins, etc.
ZONE 3 — Is the area where maincrops are grown, both for domestic use and for trade purposes. After establishment, care and maintenance required is fairly minimal provided mulches, etc. are used, e.g., watering or weed control once a week or so.
ZONE 4 — Is semi-wild. This zone is mainly used for forage and collecting wild food as well as timber production. An example might be coppice managed woodland.
ZONE 5 — The wilderness. There is no human intervention in zone 5 apart from the observation of natural eco-systems and cycles. Here is where we learn the most important lessons of the first permaculture principle of working with nature, not against.
* * *
“The wild” and “The wilderness” are terms European white men have used for a long time to describe that land upon which white people do not live.
I have heard many Indigenous folks talk about urban cities as “wilderness” (above, ZONE 5), and the less populated sections of the Earth as “Home” (above, ZONE 1).
So, the terms here, the worldview, is whitemale and for me, THAT is a SERIOUS part of the problem: the white men refuse to look outside of their own worldview to see how MANY PEOPLES WHO AREN’T WHITE HAVE BEEN LIVING SUSTAINABLY WITH THE EARTH AND ITS OTHER NON-HUMAN INHABITANTS, long before white people took over so much of the world, massacring Native populations with THEIR worldview, and the genocidal/exterministic practices which inhere in it. To come along now, with this idea of how “we” can address (and I quote) “The Most Important Issue: how to get our society to understand the need to make THESE SHIFTS FOR US TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE. [emphasis mine] Are these ecological-social architects DEALING RIGHT NOW with the on-going genocide of Native Americans, or is it just making white people live on and on and on, not just surviving but THRIVING! In this new model white folks are thriving more sustainably, than their exterministic brethren: and that’s “the most important thing”. Says who?
Also from their site:
Last year we launched an ambitious experimental project called In My Village (link here soon) which grew quickly to 380 people then as quickly disintegrated. We learned some powerful lessons. The most significant was that we can’t build community! We discovered that we can form small circles of people who learn to love and trust each other. And if these circles get to know, love and trust each other we discover it feels like community. I’ve come to call these circles archetypal family unity. They are the basis of community, historically and everywhere.
I’ve experienced white/”Western”/European models of “family” as the place of atrocity, personally. White ideas about family are not usually in sync with those of other people who live with different understandings of community and friendship, without the enforced hierarchical binaries that plague white Amerikkka, and amount to “The Plague” for so many people who are not white, and male, and heterosexual, and adult.
As a gay survivor of incest, “family” as defined and practiced in white societies, is not holding any promises of utopia for me. A white feminist theologian and ethicist, Eleanor Humes Haney, who worked closely WITH Indigenous people in the Minnesota area and also as an activist in the Black Civil Rights Movement, and who chose not to be heterosexual, recommended an ethic of friendship replacing an ethic of “family”. Given the Christian Right’s unrelenting death-grip on this white dominant cultural notion of “family” I have to wonder about it, a lot.
“Family” in the white-cultural areas of the world, among others, is code for intimate oppression of and atrocities against women, for the oppression of and atrocities against children, all under the rule of the father.
In support of all children who are spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, and sexually harmed (systemically, systematically) in families, I say “No thank you”. Please see the novel, Push, by Sapphire, for a description of what happens in “family” in whitemalesupremacist societies, and how the protagonist finds some stability and support, and love, PRIMARILY in her friendships.
Also from the site:
The People of THE NEW SOCIETY, by Michael Kane, Staff Writer [emphasis mine]
WHOSE new society? Aren’t there some folks who are struggling to maintain their OLD societies, which are being plundered and destroyed by white folks who want, now, to create a NEW one?
I am reminded of Neale Donald Walsch (Conversations With God author) speaking of the need for “one voice” spiritually. Given that his god speaks with a whiteacademicallyeducatedmale accent, I worry what the implications of this “one voice” are for those who hear and speak different voices. Diversity goes out the door, it appears, when white people decide what’s best for “all of us”.
From a link from the mainsite:
An interview with whiteman John Seed, conducted by Ram Dass.
RD: I recall Florence Kluckhohn, the anthropologist, who differentiated between cultures that were human under nature, human in nature, and human over nature. And I associate most of the rituals you’re talking about as something to, in a way, appease the forces of the universe, which came out of the human under nature trying to calm everything down by honoring. And I think you’re more talking about the human in nature cultures. What are examples of those kinds of cultures?
JS: Well, I’m thinking in particular of some dances and ceremonies that I saw among the Hopi Indians on those mesas a couple of years ago. I was particularly interested in them because they seemed so like the Council of All Beings, which is the particular form that I’ve been mainly involved in, where a hundred dancers were dressed from top to toe with different animal features, animal masks and feathers and all kinds of things. And I realized then that these people think this was the oldest continuously inhabited village in the Western hemisphere had been performing these ceremonies and rituals without break for thousands and thousands of years. So this isn’t a process that you complete. It’s not as though, “Well, we are alienated therefore we need these therapies and then we’ll be okay.” It’s more like being okay is to realize that these ceremonies have to have a space in our lives. It’s not something that we’re ever finished with. So I’m thinking of that and the Penan in Sarawak who are the last nomadic hunter-gatherers in Southeast Asia, who also speak for the other voices of nature just to make sure that everyone
remembers those voices.
* * *
JR’s comment: Obviously the “everyone” is NOT the Penan nor the Hopi. Obviously, and not surprisingly, the whiteman’s view is “those” wonderful cultures are to be used as prototypes for “THE” new society. Anyone see the problem with this way of thinking about/doing social change?
* * *
RD: Is that process of your awakening to your relation of ontogeny and phylogeny and all that a rational process? Is it intuitive? Is it a cellular wisdom? What level of awakening are we talking about when we talk about that miraculous awakening?
JS: Well, I think it has to be all of those things because, though our concepts may be of some use to us, in fact reality has no seams, you know. My own awakening shall we say started when I left my job as a systems engineer for IBM and I dropped out and was living on the land. I had no interest in ecology but then I found myself, just through circumstance, involved in the defense of a particular forest. And in that forest I was gripped emotionally, and much against my beliefs at that time, found myself defending that forest. Once I started to do that I also started to become intellectually interested in the subject, and then I discovered that this rainforest that I was defending was in fact the place where I had evolved for the last hundred and thirty million years, and therefore it wasn’t in the least surprising that it was able to get inside me and affect me so powerfully and use me in this way. So it kind of makes sense on every level. And when we do, for instance, one of the processes in the Council of All Beings, where we recapitulate our evolutionary journey, what we’re hoping for is that the intellectual agreement that this is indeed what we did, coupled with the physical involvement of our bodies through dancing and crawling and gliding — this whole process will awaken the deep memories. I think there’s a lot of evidence from rebirthing and LSD research and so on that the cellular memories do exist, but through our conceptual framework and filters we shut them off from ourselves most of the time. That’s where ceremonies and rituals really have the power to release us from those normal filters and to allow these other realities to enter us.
* * *
JR’s comment: This again speaks to the whitemaleegocentrism of thought: it is only when white men figure out that something is good for them, that it registers as a social-ecological-spiritual justice issue. What if what “best serves” the Earth and its many diverse cultures, non-human animal as well as human animal, is for all white men to move out of leadership positions, and to work towards Indigenous peoples to define worldviews and policies and practices that may or may not be in white men’s best interests?
What follows is a short review of a book written by a Native American activist.
From this site:
http://www.cokesbury.com/?pid=0896085996&vsl=0001
All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life
Author: Winona LaDuke
For image, see: http://deptorg.knox.edu/newsarchive/news_events/img/2001/laduke_s.jpg
Review of her book:
This eagerly awaited non-fiction debut by acclaimed Native environmental activist Winona LaDuke is a thoughtful and in-depth account of Native resistance to environmental and cultural degradation.
LaDuke’s unique understanding of Native ideas and people is born from long years of experience, and her analysis is deepened with inspiring testimonies by local Native activists sharing the struggle for survival.
On each page of this volume, LaDuke speaks forcefully for self-determination and community. Hers is a beautiful and daring vision of political, spiritual, and ecological transformation.
“All Our Relations” features chapters on the Seminoles, the Anishinaabeg, the Innu, the Northern Cheyenne, and the Mohawks, among others.
“One of the pleasures of reading “All Our Relations” is discovering the unique voices of Native people, especially Native women, speaking in their own Native truths.”-”Women’s Review of Books”
…”as Winona LaDuke describes, in moving and often beautiful prose, these misdeeds are not distant history but are ongoing degradation of the cherished lands of Native Americans.”-”Public Citizen News”
…”a rare perspective on Native history and culture.”-”Sister to Sister/S2S”
“Hers is a beautiful and daring vision of political, spiritual, and ecological transformation. “All Our Relations” is essential reading for everyone who cares about the fate of the Earth and indigenous peoples.”-”Winds of Change”
“No ragtag remnants of lost cultures here. Strong voices of old, old cultures bravely trying to make sense of an Earth in chaos.”-”Whole Earth”
Publisher:
23 June 2006, 12:48 pmSOUTH END PRESS
Publication Date: 10/1999
Binding: Paperback
Item#/ISBN: 0896085996
Suggested Price: $16.00
Cokesbury Price: $12.80 (20% discount)
Author: Winona LaDuke
Julian Real:
Clarifications:
First, this is the end of Seed’s words:
[…] They are the basis of community, historically and everywhere.
What follows is mine:
I’ve experienced white/â€Westernâ€/European models of “family†as the place of atrocity, […]
This: and to work towards Indigenous peoples to define worldviews and policies and practices that may or may not be in white men’s best interests?
Should read: and to look to, follow, Indigenous peoples […] WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN LEADERSHIP.
23 June 2006, 12:58 pmJulian Real:
Correction:
I have heard many Indigenous folks talk about urban cities as “wilderness” (above, ZONE 5), and the less populated sections of the Earth as “Home” (above, ZONE 0). (Not zone 1.)
Apologies for any confusion.
23 June 2006, 1:02 pmStan:
I am genuinely curious about your thinking, Julian, on what does need to be done to deal with the real problems on the horizen… fossil fuel is finite, probably peaking now… agriculture as currently practiced is reducing the arable land needed to feed an increasing population… potable water is already inadequate to the actual needs to maintain 7 billion people in a healthy way… global climate change will continue to have biblically catstrophic consequences for the most vulnerable on the planet…
I posted the image, not the whole site. Tell me which of the suggestions on the image are bad ideas, and why?
I’ve said for some years that begins with organizing to take political power… but if we get it before the whole thing collapses into global warlordism, what suggestions do you have for how we achieve a soft energy landing that minimizes the pain for future generations? I’m serious. Take us on a hypothetical journey from where we are now through some practical solutions to these mundane issues of food, water, shelter, health, education, and sustainablity.
Don’t disqualify yourself out of any white liberal guilt from having an idea. The over-identification with victimhood that flows out of that kind of guilt reduces politics to an individual moral question, and paralyzes us, imo. I say that as a white southern male US citizen “heterosexual” et al… no one needs our perennial guilt. They (all “others”, which may include pretty much everyone I know with like three exceptions) need our attention and respect, our genuine solidarity, and to share our social resources (and vice versa).
Food security.
Water security.
What do you say? Practical suggestions.
23 June 2006, 1:49 pmCyndi:
Allow me to preface this post by saying that I don’t assume to have any answers, just an observation. And after studying the above chart these thoughts came to my mind.
23 June 2006, 2:23 pmI recommend people spend some time in New Orleans with a group called Common Ground, or in Slidell, LA with another organization called Bayou Liberty Relief, and I am sure other groups such as these can give a quick 101 on how a system like this is not only possible but is a reality. Common Ground, on a smaller scale, is practicing this “model†of revolution and it is working, albeit on limited resources, but it is working . About people’s choices, it was so liberating to wake up to the choice of creativity, because most days that’s all that’s available. I’ll be going back, because the most important issue of how to get our society to understand the need to make these shifts for us to survive and thrive already exist in New Orleans. I know I have a lot to learn about that. It’s a start.
Stan:
Exactly… they are occupying and using the physical spaces that were abandoned by the system in the scheme of its metacollapse.
There is a social movement waiting for this, which I hestiate to call what it is (emergency experimental socialism) or it will get a 20th Century rep. Tell most of these folks you are a “Marxist-Leninist” and they’ll run for the hills. Show them you know how to re-open a school and RUN it, or recycle gray water more effectively, and they’ll take you home with them. They are directly involved with real living bodies and the needs of those bodies every day.
Here is a link to wiwi on permaculture.
23 June 2006, 2:59 pmJulian Real:
That’s a good question, and I’m gonna do some research, contact some folks, and get back to you with some people who are better suited to answer that question.
23 June 2006, 8:04 pmJulian Real:
My suggestion is to contact these people, and ask them: What can activist white men of conscience do that would be most helpful to Oppressed People’s struggles for sovreignty and self-determination:
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/ElenaFeatherston.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/ElviaAlvarado.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/WinonaLaDuke.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/CarrieDann.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/MariannetteJaimesGuerrero.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/AndreaSmith.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/GraceThorpe.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/MadonnaThunderHawk.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/HaunaniKayTrask.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/LakotaHarden.html
http://speakoutnow.org/People/WardChurchill.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/JakeSwamp.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/NickTilsen.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/ShaktiButler.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/RuthWilsonGilmore.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/VictorLewis.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/ElizabethMartinez.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/AnuradhaMittal.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/CarlosMunozJr.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/LorettaRoss.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/ReneeSaucedo.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/MabSegrest.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/NoemiSohn.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/AliceWalker.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/DianaWiwa.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/RinkuSen.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/NinotchkaRosca.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/MiriamChingLouie.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/LauraHershey.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/GracePoore.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/RichardMoore.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/WalterTurner.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/KarlFlecker.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/BobWing.html
http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/RevLuciusWalker.html
23 June 2006, 9:54 pmJulian Real:
I don’t feel guilt. I feel the moral imperative to support those voices who aren’t at the table, when plans like this are being created. Not having these people at the table leaves the planning to white men, who, too often, don’t look at things from the point of view of the folks listed above.
I am a white male who recognizes that I have lived a difficult, privileged, and very sheltered life.
So, there’s my list of folks to contact, and each of them will likely know more people to contact.
That’s practical, no?
23 June 2006, 10:01 pmCyndi:
A couple of questions (for now).
Stan when you say “some of this we can start now.†Where do we start? Am I wrong to think that it has already started in the south?
Have we not experienced catastrophic consequences due to global climate change already? To the most vulnerable? Do we have to wait for something else? There is a whole community, society, people that recognize they can’t wait. Am I wrong to think that the revolution is already here?
When you say “tell most of these folks you are a Marxist Leninist and they’ll run for the hills,†what people are you referring to? Show up with a shovel, crowbar, hammer and a pair of work boots, and the people I worked with could careless if you are white, brown, female, gay, or inexperienced. They know the value of the solidarity being offered. Correct me if I’m wrong but my impression is that the community did re-open their own school and they are running it.
I don’t know. What I saw and heard and discussed with survivors I can’t help but think this is where the revolution could and should evolve. Please bare with me. I put my questions to you because I want and need to learn. I threw myself into this unaware of it‘s influence on me, but now I’m part of it. Does that make sense? I did read the link to permaculture. For the most part that’s what’s being executed in New Orleans, again on a smaller scale. Things are happening down there. There’s a buzz in the beignet cafes, in the greasy spoons, inside FEMA trailers, at Steel Pulse concerts, and on the streets through out the city. Do we pay attention to that buzz or do we swat it away?
By the way if I never joined your Vets for Peace march in March, I would not be where I am today. I didn’t get a chance to say it then so I say it now thank you.
To Julian: Huh?
24 June 2006, 2:13 pmRobin Hering:
Well, it seems I can’t get to the computer often enough or before the crowd moves on, but I’d like to say that I’m convinced this is the only real way to attract a critical mass for the revolution, and to stop the beast.
I’m involved in a relocalization group, and everybody is welcome at the table. Everybody. In fact, it’s all based on “community†including the lowliest earthworm and extending out to bioregions and interrelating to all other communities. It’s about place, and who lives in that place. It’s about defending space, too. Defending somebody’s spiritual space because it’s their spiritual space; defending the space of the ground squirrel who lives in proximity or even beneath your garden, because it’s her space, too; defending South Central because it’s somebody’s food and their community.
Finally, and best of all, it’s about not feeding the beast. You don’t participate vertically, as in say, elections or demos. You participate horizontally, help each other, make sure everyone is cared for, and help each other disconnect from “the systemâ€. Deprive the system of sustenance, and it can’t survive.
If you have a look at books on permaculture at the library, you’ll see that it’s about letting the wild be wild. It’s about food and medicine forests and what we’ve learned from so many indigenous cultures around the world (excluding those that went empire… like the Egyptians, the Mayans, the Aztecs – which exhausted resources because they didn’t give back, had hierarchies and wealth accumulation toward the top, slaves, and priests to keep the people not very free.) The tenets are: Care of people. Care of the earth. Share the surplus.
It’s about saving the best and an egalitarian society.
Stan, I know this isn’t new to you because you’ve had that link to Prout on your site.
All, here’s a decent book, published by Prout folk: After Capitalism. A tad dogmatic here and there, but gives a framework of hope for the future. I especially like the section on warriors.
25 June 2006, 12:43 amStan:
The march to New Orleans is where ths stuff really took hold for me, too. It was the stop at the MLK High School where the local activists and the relief workers were coeaning up, re-opening, and going to run the school… someone said, “We can do this better than they did.” We sent one vets contingent out for one day with the Arabe Wrecking Crewe and accomplished more assistance and releif that FEMA does with tens of thousands of dollars in a tiny fraction of the time.
When I was writing Exterminism & Katrina, I had the germ of the notion simply from applying Harvey’s analysis of accumulation through dispossession to the situation in the Gulf and to the more general process of gentrification, which is a legal way to accomplish the same kind of theft, using rising property taxes to eject the surplus dark folk from coveted urban spaces.
After seeing the MLK HS reconstruction and hearing that simple phrase, it was like aha!… there is a spatial component of this that we haven’t considered in a borader way… at least, I hadn’t in any serious way. But we saw it. Tent cities popping up in strip mall parking lots, where people were doing survival and solidarity… and taking their sense of meaning from it!!!
As to the whiteness and maleness of the permaculture stuff… there is an annual Black-run event here in NC, the North Carolina Environmental Justice Summit, where many of the key members are members of the Black Farmers and Agriculturists Association (the first president was a gay Black man, and a close friend), and over time, they have had Cubans, local organic farmers, RAFI, and a host of others who have linked up with them to sort out strategies for retaining what land was left and using it to move toward Black self determination… which they are clear means, before anything else, food security. Two of the major forces in the annual planning were Savi Horne and Nan Freeland, both Black women (Nan passed recently, a blow to a lot of us).
The process of capital accumulation that happens within the model described by Marx (M-C-M+) is a class dynamic in which the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are locked together in an unequal partnership (like in compulsory heterosexuality), mutually dependent, with one aspect of the contradictory relationship dominating and controlling the other. The number of actual proletarians globally who are directly involved in the valorization of capital now is shrinking, and within that dynamic, the US has evolved into one major role within the valorization process — consumption (as this process advanced, we saw the “housewife” role evolve from one of thrift to one of consumption of consumer goods — just one manifestation that was gendered).
The overall shrinkage of the proletariat and the further concentration of the total global capital is not just cause, but symptom, of the reassertion of the law of value against all the emergency fixes (political and financial tricks) as a cumulative crisis, based on the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, and the changing organic composition of capital. There is ne free lunch in thermodynamics, and there is ultimately no free lunch in the law of value either. The re-launch of accumulation waves has been on accumulation by dispossession, war, et al, Luxemburg’s primitive accumulation. The connection between Prigogene’s generalization of the 2nd Law to understand disipative structures is the place where the physical and the social actually and materially come together, a point not unlike the “intent neuron” identified in brain studies that lights up just as a decision is about to be taken… the direct interface between the tangible and intangible.
In this process of systemic decay, which we are witnessing now as much in New Orleans as in Iraq, or even in the slums of Port-au-Prince or Washington DC, surplus people are not only abandoned by capital, but spaces that are not immediately useful for capital accumulation.
This raises a kind of post-Maoist possibility. Mao led a successful independence struggle using the principle called People’s War. Mainly, it said go outside the cities and organize the rural population, which was outside the boss-worker dyand, build the movement in those spaces, then strengthen it to gradually encircle and strangle the cities.
A post-Maoist 21st Century notion might be … and this is just speculation, but the basis for a popular movement is there … to build in the abandoned interstices of the system, begining with a network of “oases,” and use those toeholds to expand influence by establishing cultures that are attractive to the outside precisely because they offer meaning and community. Materiality is the basis of this idea, because it begins and ends with the human as a physical body in mind… protecting it, nourishing it, and re-connecting it to the conscious and creative activity of people. Staking out spaces that we continually work to get off the grid, which is a meaningful definition of self-determination.
The politics that transcends localization will become clear as this process advances, and then the programs needed by all will grow not out of some inmaginary schema, but directly out of shared need across regions.
Voltaire may have been right… we must work in the garden.
25 June 2006, 3:14 pmlapetrov:
I find it very interesting that the diagram doesn’t include the spoke: “education.”
What, “The Revolution” is going to have taken care of that already, and permantently? HA!
very silly indeed
25 June 2006, 4:44 pmJulian Real:
From Stan: I am genuinely curious about your thinking, Julian, on what does need to be done to deal with the real problems on the horizen
Hi Stan. You and I see different horizons. But…
The only thing I can think of that makes real sense is to have all white men self-sterilize, and to have all frozen test tubes of whitemen’s sperm thawed and disposed of safely. I say this not because I believe there is anything inherently wrong with pale-skinned “male-bodied” people, children or adults, but because once they/we become whitemen, there is so little hope for us being interested in the condition of peoples who are not “white” or “men”. And I use those terms in their most political sense, and not at all in any “natural” or “essentialist” sense, to be clear.
From Cyndi: To Julian: Huh?
To Cyndi: I am speaking about the need to have Indigenous people INVOLVED AT EVERY LEVEL of reconstructing societies, especially their own. I am noting that whitemen are very good at figuring out how to save whitemen, and if they are progressive, then they’ll/we’ll try and save other folks too, but not if it harms us whitemen.
From Robin Hering: […] what we’ve learned from so many indigenous cultures around the world […]
To Robin: This is precisely what I am speaking about, and addressing here: that the “we” is not “Indigenous”. Why isn’t it?
and this: It’s about saving the best and an egalitarian society.
To Robin: Since the above “we” is not Native North Americans, then whose society are “we” saving? Theirs? I don’t think so. I think we are not considering “them” in our efforts, to be honest.
From Stan:
As to the whiteness and maleness of the permaculture stuff… there is an annual Black-run event here in NC, the North Carolina Environmental Justice Summit, where many of the key members are members of the Black Farmers and Agriculturists Association (the first president was a gay Black man, and a close friend), and over time, they have had Cubans, local organic farmers, RAFI, and a host of others who have linked up with them to sort out strategies for retaining what land was left and using it to move toward Black self determination… which they are clear means, before anything else, food security. Two of the major forces in the annual planning were Savi Horne and Nan Freeland, both Black women (Nan passed recently, a blow to a lot of us).
To Stan: I am delighted to hear this. Would you agree this is, how to say it, UNUSUAL? God love each of the people who have made sure the event IS Black-run. And God bless Nan Freeland, and may she rest in peace. Regarding the Black-led event: I’ll bet it wasn’t whitemen who made it so. And what other events are there, annual or more frequent than that, that are NOT Black-led, or led by other men of Color? Or by women of any ethnicity?
This could, and probably does, all sound rather preposterous. But given the dire circumstances that Indigenous and other “non-white” folks have been enduring (and not surviving) for centuries now, I think calling things “at a critical stage” is to ignore that “the critical stage” has been going on for many, many non-white, non-male people for thousands of years, due to whitemen’s social-political activities.
I cannot muster up any special “panic” for the plight of the world ONLY when white men are impacted negatively. Sorry. Too many women have been and are being raped. Too many children molested and incested. Too many sex-slaves, virtually all of whom ARE NOT white men. Too many Native populations disappearing or disappeared, with only a city name left to mark their stolen territory. White men panic and feel “we have to do something” when white men are endangered. I cannot jump up for whitemen, not even for myself. If the polar caps melt and lots of white men drown, then we drown. People who aren’t white or male have been drowning a long time. Some are still alive, and most are not. Too many left us during Hurricane Katrina, and let’s not forget: poor folks around the world are dying in great numbers every hour. Not many white men in a panic about that. Maybe Bill Gates WILL do something truly amazing for non-white, non-male humanity once he stops being CEO of Microsoft. But God knows we’re all gonna know about it, unlike the efforts of people of Color, and white women, all these years, to try and stay alive and sane, against great odds.
I guess my humanism comes and goes. But I am glad you are out there, Stan, doing what you are doing. I believe in you. I love you, even though we haven’t met face to face. But please do not expect me to get all riled up NOW, when I’ve been riled up and depressed my whole life, trying to survive what whitemen have offered me as life-on-Earth. I’ve lived though white men treating me worse than toilet paper. I’ve seen my mother in catatonic states; I saved her life by pulling a serrated knife out of her hands when I was around 21. I have spoken with too many women, in tears, about the effect of the rape or rapes on them. I have seen too many men of Color go down in self-destruction, or by being destroyed outright by white men, including not a few in blue uniforms. I have seen too many women of Color fight for the possibility of being heard AND understood, right here on your blog, as well as elsewhere. My former boss, my last boss (before the State recognized me as disabled), is a Black woman and her whitemale boss fired her recently. She’s a single parent. What’s she gonna do? I’ll go over to her house, maybe tonight, and console her as best I can. She’ll cry and worry, and will also be brave and strong, because that’s how she is. Her son may have to postpone or not go to college to get a job to help make ends meet. Bright fellow, he is. Should be college-bound. Other women I know are real ill right now.
I’ve witnessed a lot of atrocity, a lot of pain, and heard no white men screaming “WE GOTTA DO SOMETHING!!!” until reports are in that “we’re” running out of oil. Funny that. (Not.)
I am mad as hell about what happens to people, cruelly, unjustly, and systematically, but not ONLY to white men. Never only to white men. As long as I live.
(I guess my humanism comes and goes. I always did think Anne Frank was naive, God rest her soul.)
25 June 2006, 7:04 pmRobin Hering:
It would have been better for me to say, “What we’ve learned from so many indigenous cultures around the world and throughout history.†I thought it was a given when I traced back through time and mentioned those cultures which had “gone empireâ€.
Just off hand, I know we have three self-identified Native Americans and two Palestinians in our group (we don’t all meet at the same time and I haven’t met everyone). There are well over twenty Latinos, our co-op and commons area is managed primarily by a couple from India, our CERT advisor speaks with an accent I can’t identify.
Things are a mess and bound to get a whole lot worse. We are where we are.
We are trying.
and this: It’s about saving the best and an egalitarian society.
Saving the best we can from all of human history. Medicine, healing arts, understanding and knowing of spirit, practical skills and techniques. For example, where I live, which plants are native to the south-west, will grow in a drought? How do you save and carve gourds?
This particular group, although it’s one of my communities, isn’t my “immediate†community. It’s a resource and a conduit for knowledge and planning.
“My community†is my neighborhood where there’s a spectrum of politics, racism, genderism, knowledge, education, awareness, religion, income level, employed/unemployed. It’s the brand new family from China who barely speak English, it’s the Saudi realtor, and the woman from Ireland two doors down who endured years and years of repression and would love to have her ways respected, with reverence, and who shares her family recipes; it’s the county sheriff, and a man who still nukes dandelions so his yard has the appearance of an “estate†and resents a neighbor’s kitchen garden, and on and on. It is what it is.
Here’s a great book by Derrick Jensen: Listening to the Land. Interviews with Jeanette Armstrong, Starhawk, Sandra Lopez, Matthew Fox, Christopher Manes and others.
25 June 2006, 11:32 pmRobin Hering:
Latin@s. I like that @. All those Romance languages are genderized. @ helps.
25 June 2006, 11:43 pmJulian Real:
To Robin:
That book sounds good, Robin. As do others by D. Jensen. But I seriously wonder what he says about child sexual abuse, pornography, prostitution, sexual slavery, the oppression of children and women, and rape. Do these realities factor into his thinking? I haven’t read him, so you can tell me, OK?
I have no expectation that every author can deal with everything. But I think those who take matters of “sustainability” and “preservation of the species” seriously are obligated to include the voices of people who are not surviving well at all, and are, in fact, dying from whitemanmade conditions, systems, and institutions, that, far too often, go under whitemen’s radar as “beside the point” or “off-topic” (namely those that do not affect white men, or impact on their entitlements of sexual access to women and children). How is the colonization, violation, and exploitation of women and children’s bodies, for the use and abuse of men, especially white heterosexual men, not part of the very discussion he is writing about, primarily?
I hope to check out the book you recommend.
Just for the record, other readers, in case it isn’t clear, Starhawk is a white Jewish non-Indigenous woman, and a feminist. Her name might imply other identities. I am glad she is included in the book, but not if her name is being used to imply there are more Indigenous women’s voices in that book than there are.
26 June 2006, 1:31 pmJames M:
Amid all the devastation and neglect we witnessed on the march, Bayou Liberty Relief Camp was for me the stop that inspired the most optimism about possibilities for a new-model rebuilding strategy to follow in the wake of eco/petro-collapse. I grew up in Louisiana, but that was the first time I can remember having deep, warm feelings for the place, such that immediate flight back to CA wasn’t a pressing desire.
With places like Bayou Liberty there are of course problems of food and energy production and other such practicalities, but one HUGE problem that also needs to be considered is that of culture.
My friend, who just got back from gutting houses in St. Bernard Parish, and who is queer, writes:
When people from the neighborhood would come by in the evenings to drink, hang out, and chat, I heard on three different occasions mentions of “fags being abominations” or things along those lines. It’s particularly interesting to me the dynamic between people down there right now (volunteers and residents) because from what I gather a disproportionate percentage of volunteers are GLBTQ, pansexual or whatever. There’s a delicate balance.
Somehow it seems easier to change patterns of energy consumption, building models, etc., in the wake of disaster than to change hardened minds and to create a new culture. Religiously- and societally-instilled prejudices are hard to break, even when the usual objects of that prejudice are people who are helping gut out your wrecked house.
I don’t think the problem of backward culture is intractable, however; just something to be kept in mind as a very important piece of this post-collapse paradigm.
By the way, on the topic of new sustainability models, I think Richard Register is someone who’s worth listening to. He’s a Berkeley native who’s currently giving talks on ecologically-sound ways to rebuild New Orleans. His site is
http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/
26 June 2006, 6:38 pmDeAnander:
@julian, Derrick Jensen has written extensively on abuse w/in the family. his book A Language Older Than Words documents his own experience with an abusive father, and what patriarchy means on the ground, in the actual life of a child and a wife and so forth. in The Culture of Make Believe he connects the dots between child abuse and rape and prostitution and whitefella exterminist capitalism, colonialism and war, at length and in moving, passionate prose which I think might really speak to your heart — I know it kept me absorbed for hours, unable to put the book down. Jensen also does work with prisoners, teaching literacy and writing skills. he has written about deforestation (Strangely Like War) and one of his central premises is that whitefella “Civilisation” is untenable and has to end. I think you’ll find he connects the issues ably and creatively and is not “just another whiteboy Greenie”.
26 June 2006, 8:01 pmJulian Real:
I’ll take that recommendation/commendation of him and his work, from you, especially, De. Thanks so much for filling me in more on the depth of his understandings and experiences.
I’m gonna start reading him soon! Wow.
27 June 2006, 6:19 pmDeAnander:
@jr
well you may find little in Jensen that is actually new to your brain, but it might be a pleasure to discover a kind of fellow traveller… sometimes it is just good to know that one is not all alone out on the far edges of cultural criticism, alienation from the whiteboy corporate hegemony, etc.
27 June 2006, 8:47 pmJulian Real:
Hi De.
I thought that’s what Stanny was for?! But, yes, knowing there are other male voices out there who “get it” is re-assuring.
Check this out and pass this along too:
Men Speak Out: ProFeminist Views on Gender, Sex and Power
How can we better understand and imagine new possibilities for men and
feminism?
Men Speak Out: ProFeminist Views on Gender, Sex and Power will be
published by Routledge in November, 2007.
DEADLINE: September 15, 2006.
LENGTH: up to 6,000 words.
FORMAT: Essays must be typed, double-spaced, and paginated. Please
include your address, phone number, email address, and a short bio on
the last page.
SUBMITTING: Send your essay electronically as a Word document (format
file with a .doc extension) attached to an email to
MenSpeakOut@yahoo.com .
PAYMENT: No money; possibly copies of the book.
Are you a guy who hates sexism? Do you call yourself a feminist? Have
you spent hours over coffee (or beer) thinking about issues of gender,
power, race, class, and sexuality? Are you involved with social justice
activism? If so, then you have stories to tell and I’d like to hear
what you have to say.
I am collecting essays for a book tentatively titled Men Speak Out:
ProFeminist Views on Gender, Sex and Power. I’m interested in
first-person accounts of growing up male and identifying with—or
questioning—the ideals of feminist movement. There are so many
directions your essay could take, but I am NOT looking for an academic
essay. No citations, no footnotes. I AM looking for stories written in
your own unique voice using language you actually use when you talk
with your friends.
You can use personal stories, things that happened to you, things that
people said to you, or that you said to them (or wish you had). I am
looking for a wide range of experience and perspectives on men,
masculinity, and feminism.
This book respects the risk involved in being willing to critically
investigate gender and power, especially when this isn’t what some
people expect from guys. There are lots of good books written by and
about young feminist women. Men Speak Out is written by, for, and about
men and their experiences with and thoughts about culture, society,
masculinity, feminism, women’s studies, social justice, or anti-sexist
movement.
Your essays and stories may reflect on growing up, they might focus on
a day-in-the-life vignette, they might explore experiences with racism
or homophobia, or they might pose questions that you’ve asked yourself
about not power-tripping as a man in a sexist society. These questions
might not have answers and this is entirely okay. This is your story in
your own words and only you can tell it. Ultimately, the focus,
content, and tone is up to you and based on your own thoughts,
experiences, concerns, fears, hopes, struggles, and surprises. I’ve
included themes and ideas below to get you started.
Feminism
Do you call yourself a feminist? What does this mean to you?
Have you been questioned or challenged for your feminist beliefs? Have
you been supported in your feminist perspectives?
Do you support gender equality and social justice, but reject the term
“feminist� Why?
Do you incorporate feminist ideals into your work, relationships, or
activism? How do you do this? What does this look like?
Do you want to ally feminist movement, but you’re not sure what you as
a male can do? Are you wondering if you’re even entitled to be part of
it since you’re not a woman and don’t quite know how it feels?
Do you question or doubt the foundations and/or goals of feminism?
What does it mean to you to be a feminist guy? Or a profeminist? Or a
feminist ally? Do you think you have to claim a title to be opposed to
sexism?
Masculinity and Identity
How are concepts of “man†and “masculinity†changing? What is your
engagement with masculinity from transgender, transgressive, and/or
queer perspectives?
Are you male-identified? How does this take form in your life? How do
gender-queer perspectives shift our understandings of sexuality?
Do you love sports and reject sexism? How do you negotiate being part
of a masculinist culture while rejecting the patterns of domination and
sexism that can go along with it?
Have you had a specific experience with gender, race, class, sexuality,
or feminist issues that left a lasting impression? What is this story?
What does it mean to invite questions of race and men in relation to
feminism?
Have you experienced sexism as a man? Do people expect you to be a
certain way because you are male?
Have you experienced prejudice as a gay or transgender man? Do you
think there’s room in feminism to address these issues?
When did you first start noticing masculinity, sexism, and feminism?
Was there a pivotal event that got you thinking about these issues? Was
there a series of events? What did you do once you started noticing
sexism, racism, and social injustice in our society?
Is your girlfriend, partner, or wife a feminist? How does this affect
your relationship?
What does class have to do with how you define gender or feminism?
Women’s Studies/Gender Studies
Have you taken women’s studies/gender studies courses in college or
high school? What was this like for you?
If you’ve taken women’s/gender studies courses have you:
confronted or changed your beliefs about yourself, your relationships,
society?
had to explain your choice to your teammates, family, or friends?
Do you think you are or you will be a different sort of boyfriend,
partner, husband, father, or co-worker because of your feminist
perspectives, from taking women’s studies classes, or from other life
experiences?
What would you want to tell a guy who’s thinking about taking
women’s/gender studies? What should he know? What did you wish somebody
had told you?
Demanding Change
Have you had it with sexism, racism, classism, and homosexism? Do you
demand change now? How do you envision this change?
How the personal is political. How does your personal life have
political meaning? How are your politics personal?
Are you involved with social justice activism that you see as linked to
feminist movement? Describe your activities and perspectives on these
issues.
Intergenerational Dialogue
Were you part of the women’s movement in the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s?
What are your recollections about your involvement?
Do you have experience in social justice activism? What can you tell
others about what you’ve learned about the process? What works? What
doesn’t?
Do you want to dialogue with younger or older men about challenging
“isms†in a sexist, racist, homosexist society? What do you want them
to know?
Did you grow up in a feminist household? What was this like?
Are you a younger man who has questions for profeminist men who have
gone before you? What do you want to ask them? What do you want them to
know?
Do you think you are a different sort of partner, father, or co-worker
because of your feminist perspectives? How have you navigated these
commitments?
Feel free to pass this call for submissions to friends you think may be
interested in this project. Although submitting an essay does not
guarantee it will be published, doing so early in the process
definitely gives you an advantage, and it does ensure that you have a
pivotal role in shaping this book.
Editor: Shira Tarrant is a writer, activist, and professor. Her work
has appeared in Genre, Off Our Backs, and Women’s Studies Quarterly.
Her book When Sex Became Gender (Routledge, 2006) explores the social
construction of femininity in the post-World War II era.
Publisher: Routledge, a member of the Taylor and Francis Group,
30 June 2006, 2:16 pmpublishes in the social science and humanities subject areas.
Comandante Gringo:
This one graph tree graphic sure elicited a strong response. But IMO clashes like these are the natural result of a dialectic — dialog — in which one party initiates things by coming in ‘cold’ into what was a previously dormant and unreflected, unrealized potential. The other party usually, naturally, responds in some ‘polarizing’ manner. Especially if they are not explcitly conscious of this dialectical process. And thus the ‘dance’ begins — rr doesn’t, because one of these parties soon stalks off in a huff…
This diagram certainly accomplishes that initial bold, cold-call.
4 July 2006, 12:35 amComandante Gringo:
Besides some people taking this ball and promptly running off with it here, the point is made all around that schemas like this are not organic products of real movements of masses of people, but only the products of a few, elite minds. And this would certainly be true to an extent, based on what we see here. But it would be as wrong to just summarily reject such schemas too. We need blueprints. We need plans. And we need to start somewhere. And whenever we start out, things are, uh, ’sub-optimal’, most likely to begin with.
The key to approaching this stuff — and the failure of so much of it in the past — is working any such preliminary, schematic notions _into_ those organic mass projects with a true life of their own, which we all? recognize as ‘going concerns’. Fact is: this plan is as good as any for a place to *start*; to pick it apart; or to add to it, etc. It has to be seen in that light. The graphic even has *a great, big disclaimer right up front*. So I’m sure the original authors are quite aware of many of their limitations. They are ‘inviting comment’, in other words. As is Stan. So cut them some slack, however far off the mark they may be in any particulars.
Myself? I have big problems with e.g. “identity politix” and Left anti-communism — too much of which I detect on this blog, AFAIC. That’s where I myself keep running into this ‘two solitudes’ kind of monolog/talking past each other. I’m quite prepared to deal with a lot of heat and little light on that front, as long as I know the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the proverbial oncoming train — because the payoff is higher consciousness and greater unity in the mass movement.
We grow together by hammering out what we share in common, thru a constant dialog. We share our experiences, however far they are apart, because thru that process they _necessarily_ become less so. And our lives couldn’t possibly be as far apart as we all are from the mentality and existence of the super, filthy Rich and their henchmen.
4 July 2006, 1:04 amStan:
“I have big problems with e.g. “identity politix†and Left anti-communism — too much of which I detect on this blog, AFAIC. That’s where I myself keep running into this ‘two solitudes’ kind of monolog/talking past each other. I’m quite prepared to deal with a lot of heat and little light on that front, as long as I know the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the proverbial oncoming train — because the payoff is higher consciousness and greater unity in the mass movement.”
Can you give specific examples of “identity politics” or “left anti-communism”?
The reason I ask is that my general experience with these two terms come from my time affiliated with a “Marxist-Leninist” group who used them in a particular way: “Idnetity politics” was used as a code for hostility to feminism, and “left anticommunism” was used as a code for anyone who didn’t cleave to this group’s own “line” (which in this case, meant aggreeing with the Party on virtually every social and tactical question).
I won’t speak for commentary, which is all over the map, as blogs are prone to be — with good reason. Speaking form myself, the POV from feminism that I push here is one opposed to the “identity politics” which grows out of a postmodern academic herd mentality. And if you can show me one instance where my criticism of the communist movement has ever been anything but a peer review from someone who has never for a moment concealed my own identificaiton with this movement, and who wants to strengthen this movement to accomplish its central task, then I’ll be curious to see that.
I know these were offhand remarks in a larger post, but I consider these to be serious remarks; and I would ask you to clarify them with particulars.
4 July 2006, 8:31 am