tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4585562291378459312024-03-12T21:56:27.907-07:00Wobbly TimesPoetry, movie critiques, book reviews, critiques of political-economy, conceptual formulations for socialism/communism, short stories, speculations about a possible classless society and critiques of class society in general are what form the content of "Wobbly Times".Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.comBlogger200125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-53349582373553938502016-11-16T00:49:00.000-08:002016-11-16T09:05:15.055-08:00Wobbly times number 200<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="186" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vIwuPQQJIyE" width="330"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://downthememoryhole.blogspot.com/">Down the Memory Hole</a>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-11602475427125001382016-11-07T04:02:00.000-08:002016-11-07T04:07:56.258-08:00Wobbly times number 199<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="186" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RpD2FfB0fEM" width="330"></iframe>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-18063636858597058672016-07-30T00:05:00.000-07:002016-07-30T00:09:50.442-07:00Wobbly times number 198<h2 class="fs-14 fw-600 sprite" data-subject="Stammtisch at the Oasis by Mike Ballard" data-tooltip="Stammtisch at the Oasis by Mike Ballard" id="yg-msg-subject" style="background-color: #fafafc; color: #3f3f3f; cursor: pointer; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o9vmmtf-wuw/V5xRGBiCM8I/AAAAAAAAB5M/REN2dwwuMXE4_lQpteaSuXGr-TQBDGtewCLcB/s1600/oasis-building.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o9vmmtf-wuw/V5xRGBiCM8I/AAAAAAAAB5M/REN2dwwuMXE4_lQpteaSuXGr-TQBDGtewCLcB/s320/oasis-building.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</h2>
<h2 class="fs-14 fw-600 sprite" data-subject="Stammtisch at the Oasis by Mike Ballard" data-tooltip="Stammtisch at the Oasis by Mike Ballard" id="yg-msg-subject" style="background-color: #fafafc; color: #3f3f3f; cursor: pointer; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">
</h2>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Stammtisch at the Oasis <br />
<br />
<br />
Clockwise 'round the short bar<br />
<br />
sit half a dozen guys<br />
<br />
on Friday night<br />
<br />
four drinking beer<br />
<br />
two drinking soda<br />
<br />
the scene <br />
<br />
becoming progressively chaotic<br />
<br />
as more people file in<br />
<br />
to the Oasis<br />
<br />
to quench their cravings <br />
<br />
after another<br />
<br />
week of it<br />
<br />
whatever their particular<br />
<br />
IT is:<br />
<br />
A homeless black, the rest white<br />
<br />
a Berkeley Prof, an Intel millionaire<br />
<br />
an unemployed printer<br />
<br />
a retired librarian in his 70s and<br />
<br />
a minor author--an ex ops-man <br />
<br />
from that same library<br />
<br />
a university library<br />
<br />
in a university town<br />
<br />
the next town down from the Oasis<br />
<br />
where Steinbeck set a part of EAST OF EDEN<br />
<br />
The conversation swirls above<br />
<br />
the cacophony of <br />
<br />
autre voix<br />
<br />
It is nine in the evening<br />
<br />
loose tongues<br />
<br />
speak volumes of<br />
<br />
forgettable prose about<br />
<br />
sports, long distance driving routes--<br />
<br />
U.S. 6 is the longest--movies, stars, races<br />
<br />
and friends departed--most with liver failure<br />
<br />
And of a sudden<br />
<br />
it's time to turn in<br />
<br />
inwards again<br />
<br />
ever inwards<br />
<br />
and bid good fellows fond adieu<br />
<br />
as the week begins anew<br />
<br />
and the wheel turns <br />
<br />
on its screw<br />
<br />
turning higher<br />
<br />
ever higher<br />
<br />
to be sure<br />
<br />
but not by muchMike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-4159385783108660822016-06-15T14:49:00.002-07:002016-06-15T14:51:55.691-07:00Wobbly times number 197<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5814816-writings-of-daniel-deleon" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Writings of Daniel Deleon: A Collection of Essays by One of the Founders of American Revolutionary Socialism" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347529665m/5814816.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5814816-writings-of-daniel-deleon">Writings of Daniel Deleon: A Collection of Essays by One of the Founders of American Revolutionary Socialism</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4626370.Daniel_de_Leon">Daniel de Leon</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/285796249">5 of 5 stars</a><br />
<br />
The best introduction to socialism you can get. DeLeon deals with reformist tactics, revolutionary unionism, the abolition of wage labour, the change necessary in the mode of production and the establishment of common ownership of the collective product of labour...aka socialism. From here, go to "Value, Price and Profit" and then to "CAPITAL" v.1-v.4 THEORIES OF SURPLUS VALUE. <br />
<br />
The reader can safely disregard DeLeon's bitter rejection of the post-1908 IWW. In this reader's opinion the Preamble to the Constitution of the IWW actually improved after 1908 and was in no way an endorsement of anti-political sects.
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/7704248-mike">View all my reviews</a>
Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-58609173581896994572016-04-14T23:50:00.000-07:002016-12-17T16:49:37.832-08:00Wobbly times number 196<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rT-uihhuhVo/WEN20rBMCPI/AAAAAAAAB8I/yG8X3anI70Q1Srr8mp1CL0vShj43T1CiACLcB/s1600/13417496_10154352125023395_4143872570924596042_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rT-uihhuhVo/WEN20rBMCPI/AAAAAAAAB8I/yG8X3anI70Q1Srr8mp1CL0vShj43T1CiACLcB/s320/13417496_10154352125023395_4143872570924596042_n.jpg" width="241" /></a></div>
<br />
Once more, I shall attempt to clear up some confusion with regard to the conceptual framework within which Marx, Engels and indeed, many communists were working in the 19th century. To accomplish this task, I shall refer the reader to what Engels wrote about their interchangeable use of the terms socialism and communism i.e. why he and Marx sometimes used the term "socialist" and why "communist" in their writings over the years of their lives. Both terms meant the same thing to them, however why they preferred communist identity at the beginning of their studies and organization whilst socialist at the end remains well stated in Engels’s Preface to the English edition of 1888 as well as his Preface to the German edition of 1890 of the Communist Manifesto:<br />
<br />
“Nevertheless, when it appeared, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. In 1847, two kinds of people were considered socialists. On the one hand were the adherents of the various utopian systems, notably the Owenites in England and the Fourierists in France, both of whom, at that date, had already dwindled to mere sects gradually dying out. On the other, the manifold types of social quacks who wanted to eliminate social abuses through their various universal panaceas and all kinds of patch-work, without hurting capital and profit in the least. In both cases, people who stood outside the labour movement and who looked for support rather to the “educated” classes. The section of the working class, however, which demanded a radical reconstruction of society, convinced that mere political revolutions were not enough, then called itself Communist. It was still a rough-hewn, only instinctive and frequently somewhat crude communism. Yet, it was powerful enough to bring into being two systems of utopian communism — in France, the “Icarian” communists of Cabet, and in Germany that of Weitling. Socialism in 1847 signified a bourgeois movement, communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, quite respectable, whereas communism was the very opposite. And since we were very decidedly of the opinion as early as then that “the emancipation of the workers must be the task of the working class itself,” [from the General Rules of the International] we could have no hesitation as to which of the two names we should choose. Nor has it ever occurred to us to repudiate it.” <br />
<br />
Neither Marx nor Engels ever used the term "socialist State". Socialism yes. But socialism for Marx and Engels meant a classless democracy and the political State was always meant to describe class ruled government. Included in this description would be a workers' State--the now infamously used term, "dictatorship of the proletariat". A workers' State would not be socialism. It would be class rule by the overwhelming majority, in reality, a proletarian democracy. Marx and Engels used the word State to indicate the governing structure of class rule whether the ruling class was the slave owning class, the land owning class of feudalism or the modern day capitalist class. All political States were and would be class ruled. With the establishment of socialism by the working class, the State would die out because the social relation of Capital would no longer exist, common ownership and democratic control over the collective product of labour would necessitate the abolition of the wage system, commodity production and with it Capital as a social relation of political power.<br />
<br />
A political State controlled by workers would include other classes. For instance, if the workers as a class controlled the State, they could get legislation passed which would tax the wealth of the capitalists and landlords in order to use that revenue to benefit people who had to work for wages in order to make a living. An example might be something like free healthcare paid for by the government using the aforementioned revenue. A proletarian democracy would be run by the workers in the class interests of the useful producers. <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/">The Paris Commune of 1871</a> was an example of a proletarian democracy or "dictatorship of the proletariat".<br />
<br />
<br />
A worker controlled democratic republic is what Marx and Engels are proposing in section II of the <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm">COMMUNIST MANIFESTO</a>. The reforms listed at the end of this section are general proposals which a workers' State might implement in 1848:<br />
<br />
<br />
"Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.<br />
<br />
<br />
"These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.<br />
<br />
"Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.<br />
<br />
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.<br />
<br />
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.<br />
<br />
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.<br />
<br />
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.<br />
<br />
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.<br />
<br />
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.<br />
<br />
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.<br />
<br />
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.<br />
<br />
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.<br />
<br />
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c."<br />
<br />
Further, it should be noted that even after the Paris Commune of 1871, Marx and Engels would speak in terms which many think they renounced after that workers' revolt. On <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/09/08.htm">September 8, 1872</a> more than a year after the Paris Commune was drowned in the blood of the proletariat, Marx said:<br />
<br />
"But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same.<br />
<br />
"You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor."<br />
<br />
As for the so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat", it was never Marx's or Engels' intention that it would be Lenin's dictatorship of a party. In fact, that's just what they were arguing with the anarchists about in terms of the interpretation of the concept. If there has been any doubt as to whether the USSR was a dictatorship of the party, as opposed to being a proletarian democracy after the 10th Party Congress of the CPSU (B) in 1921, then I would suggest reading the well documented work by Maurice Brinton titled, <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/brinton/1970/workers-control/">The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control </a>.<br />
<br />
The point of writing all this is to get people who "know" to understand what Marx and Engels actually wrote about the question of communism. Without reading what Marx and Engels actually wrote about socialism or communism, if you will, many, if not most people calling themselves "Marxists" have failed to grasp that they might be taking off from a conceptual base which does not correspond to the conceptual base Marx and Engels were taking off from. So, to reiterate:<br />
<br />
<br />
1. A workers' State is controlled democratically by the workers. It is not common ownership and democratic control of the collective product of labour after the wage system has been abolished i.e. it is not the lower stage of communism/socialism. It is not a classless democracy. It is, like all political States, the dictatorship of a class, in this case, the still existing working class. Commodity production for sale can still exist in a such a proletarian democracy. A wage system can still exist. Under the wage system, labour power is a commodity.<br />
<br />
<br />
2. Communism or socialism, if you will, signals a change in the mode of producing wealth from the capitalist mode which depends on wage labour and commodity production to the communist mode in which a free, classless association of producers democratically decide how to distribute the collective product of their labour. Socialism/communism means that commodity production for sale with a view to profit no longer exists, whether in its initial stages or in its more advanced stage. You can begin to see the outlines of this in various writings of Marx and Engels. <a href="http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/wobbly-time-number-88.html">Wobbly times number 88</a> contains some quoted examples.<br />
<br />
<br />
"The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves...the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule." - Marx, 1864Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-3526628674835302172016-04-07T16:20:00.001-07:002016-04-07T16:31:18.176-07:00Wobbly times number 195<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NZXmq-E2tM&nohtml5=False">Gort! Klaatu barada nikto.</a></span><br />
<br />
Looking for the POTUS. S/he'll help us out of this climate mess we're in.<br />
<br />
Oh no! It's Gort come to punish the human race for destroying the ecosphere! No Gort! It is the capitalist class and their system of wage slavery which is leading to the Great Collapse. Don't destroy us! Destroy the wage system!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="186" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/svY0olOUUA0" width="330"></iframe>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-35417162143400137352016-02-27T21:52:00.000-08:002016-02-27T22:28:50.406-08:00Wobbly times number 194<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--mLgOOb1e7g/VtKKHYTLsgI/AAAAAAAABrU/R3nvgsFl6SU/s1600/41vq-syzkzL._SX334_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--mLgOOb1e7g/VtKKHYTLsgI/AAAAAAAABrU/R3nvgsFl6SU/s320/41vq-syzkzL._SX334_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It is as clear to me now that was upon arrival as an immigrant that there is no link anywhere to be found between the child who I was in Zimbabwe and the adult I was forced to become upon immigration. I had learn to speak again, from scratch, and when I did it came of as academic jargon. I had resorted to teaching myself from book, the only companions who were tolerant enough to bide with me until I’d figured enough things out. I still had the choking hesitation in my voice, of the strangled child, but I was on fragile steps, little mermaid walking on a ground of swords steps, in order to assert myself and my perspectives.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-322b0630-265f-a7f1-357f-20c6f6bc9e46" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Donald Meltzer, the psychoanalyst, says that those who murder their inner child develop a grave capacity for brutality against themselves and others. Mine wasn’t dead yet, and was doing her best to stay alive, but all was based on precepts from a different cultural paradigm, which I could not have dwelt in any more, due to my growing need for knowledge, even if a part of me had wanted to remain that innocent--to retain the innocence of a child indefinitely.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Give it a go. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1326071718?keywords=The%20Father%20Daughter%20War%20Jennifer%20Armstrong&qid=1456638424&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1">THE FATHER DAUGHTER WAR</a> is very well written. Have patience. Keep reading. At first, her father’s voice adds the adult to the child’s first person memory. Reality is captured through an ever maturing scamper through the memories of one, Jennifer Frances Armstrong. Grieving for a lost home where nature was everywhere and taken for granted. Armstrong is honestly pulling you back to a different sense of time and place. Immersion in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1326071718?keywords=The%20Father%20Daughter%20War%20Jennifer%20Armstrong&qid=1456638424&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1">THE FATHER DAUGHTER WAR</a> will help cure some of your uncritically examined Cold War narratives.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From the impressionistic imagery of first childhood memory to the growing consciousness of a girl becoming teen, you can feel like you’ve been there, in a certain part of Africa, in a certain set of circumstances from a certain individual’s maturing memories, reflections and experience.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Remember what it was like to be 12, a child on the edge of puberty?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What did you know about the world then?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What amazing discoveries were you making every day of your life?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, at least to you, they appeared as “amazing discoveries”. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Only this was Africa, specifically a Rhodesian child’s life. Things were different from the way you remembered them at 12 or 2 or 4 or 16, unless you lived in Borrowdale before 1984. Still, there is a connection to be had in the sheer wonderment of the adventure life was when we were children flowing through <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1326071718?keywords=The%20Father%20Daughter%20War%20Jennifer%20Armstrong&qid=1456638424&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1">THE FATHER DAUGHTER WAR</a>. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be sure, there were the differences.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Want to go on vacation? Better catch the convoy or risk being shot in an ambush along the way. Everyday life in a zone of civil war. You read about them nowadays--personal stories of everyday life in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. And then, the trek out to the new land. Culture clash is part of the immigration story. For one thing, nature changes. Fauna and flora in the outdoors are much more under control in the Perthian urban setting. Nature seems drier, hotter and much less fecund. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This has its effects within the culture. There are other matters, many other matters covered in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1326071718?keywords=The%20Father%20Daughter%20War%20Jennifer%20Armstrong&qid=1456638424&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1">THE FATHER DAUGHTER WAR</a>. You’ll see.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ever wanted to hug your secret 6th grade heart throb? Of course you did. And so, when the opportunity arises at a girlfriend’s birthday party, you grab Paul kind of tightly. Jennifer is coming of age. But the convoy and Paul come years after she has eaten African soil, liked it and been punished for it by having her mouth washed out with soap by her mother. It’s also after being told by her elementary school teacher that playing with boys’ toys was wrong. Bricks are not for girls! But that happens after soil.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Give it go now. You’ll be glad you did.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-23265483227661451222015-11-15T04:26:00.004-08:002015-11-15T04:36:03.182-08:00Wobbly times number 193<br />
<br />
<br />
Reading from: THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN:<br />
A YAQUI WAY OF KNOWLEDGE<br />
<div class="a-fixed-left-grid-col a-col-left" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #949494; float: left; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 13px; margin-left: -160px; min-height: 1px; overflow: visible; position: relative; width: 160px; zoom: 1;">
<div class="a-row" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 160px;">
<div aria-hidden="true" class="a-column a-span12 a-text-center" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; margin-right: 0px; min-height: 1px; overflow: visible; text-align: center !important; width: 160px;">
<a class="a-link-normal a-text-normal" href="http://www.amazon.com/Teachings-Don-Juan-Yaqui-Knowledge/dp/0671600419/ref=la_B000APXVFG_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447590300&sr=1-1" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0066c0; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Product Details" class="s-access-image cfMarker" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51d4jCpKIYL._AA160_.jpg" height="160" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: top;" width="160" /></a><br />
<div class="a-section a-spacing-none a-text-center" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px;">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="a-fixed-left-grid-col a-col-right" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #949494; float: left; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 13px; min-height: 1px; overflow: visible; padding-left: 11.3px; position: relative; width: 565.025px; zoom: 1;">
<div class="a-row a-spacing-small" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px !important; width: 553.725px;">
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<a class="a-link-normal s-access-detail-page a-text-normal" href="http://www.amazon.com/Teachings-Don-Juan-Yaqui-Knowledge/dp/0671600419/ref=la_B000APXVFG_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447590300&sr=1-1" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #c45500; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;" title="The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge"></a><br /></div>
<h2 class="a-size-medium a-color-null s-inline s-access-title a-text-normal" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; font-size: 17px !important; font-weight: 400 !important; line-height: 1.255 !important; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none !important; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></h2>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<a class="a-link-normal s-access-detail-page a-text-normal" href="http://www.amazon.com/Teachings-Don-Juan-Yaqui-Knowledge/dp/0671600419/ref=la_B000APXVFG_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447590300&sr=1-1" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #c45500; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;" title="The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge">
</a></div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="248" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JU3FkhxNjx8" width="330"></iframe>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-13345435311710112402015-11-13T17:15:00.000-08:002015-11-13T17:45:09.900-08:00Wobbly times number 192<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="248" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aoYRO0H-REU" width="330"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
This is where I was on Friday the 13th of November, 2015. <br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.456px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
I was at two union demos yesterday. Comrade <a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=100001875616610" href="https://www.facebook.com/john.tattersall.50" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">John Tattersall</a> came over to my place at 6:45am and we took off in his car for the rally in the video below. I went home on public transit, had brekky and then off by bus and train to another union rally at Liberal Senator Michaelia Cash's office in West Perth.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.456px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
The bourgeoisie are out to break the unions in Australia. Their polytricksters are putting in legislation to put downward pressure on wages and working conditions all the ti<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">me.</span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.456px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">
Personally, I don't see much sense in making appeals to reason to bourgeois democrats in our government. What's needed is class conscious political and industrial action by rank and file workers. Considering the embedded leitmotif of social Darwinism which plagues our collective Mind, it's going to be a very tough road to hoe. My freedom equates with your unfreedom. I stab you in the back in order to get the job or the promotion or any of a number of other positions of political power over you.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
I've known this for decades. My Hegel prof at Michigan State brought it to my consciousness. That was back in 1970. The reality hit me like a tonne of bricks yesterday as we waited for workers from BAE to come join us at the rally in front of the AFP guarding the office of Senator Cash.</div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="fqp7j-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; direction: ltr; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<br /></div>
<br />
Thanks to Jennifer Armstrong for editing this rather wobbly video.Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-16292513018329002212015-11-09T01:20:00.000-08:002015-11-10T15:51:47.783-08:00Wobbly times number 191My extended family (Benson side) gets together for a BBQ at the Livingston's place in Baldwinsville, New York. I think this event took place in 1957. (Turn the sound up high to hear my narration of this otherwise silent film).
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="248" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UmayZhJTbuU" width="330"></iframe>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-83736753537632530352015-10-11T11:50:00.000-07:002015-11-09T06:53:26.944-08:00Wobbly times number 190<h1 style="font-family: ariel-black; font-size: 36pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">On the question of unionism</span></h1>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<iframe width="330" height="186" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VGe1aEA4UOw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px;">An address delivered by Daniel DeLeon at</span><br />
<span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px;">the New Auditorium Hall, Newark, N.J.,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px;">April 21, 1904</span>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-72146591339396274972015-10-07T16:52:00.000-07:002015-11-09T06:56:08.262-08:00Wobbly times number 189<iframe width="330" height="186" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/imDirbhgC-0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-66280937411628275562015-10-01T02:55:00.000-07:002015-10-01T03:16:55.971-07:00Wobbly times number 188<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/139772287">An Introduction to Bataille's ACCURSED SHARE</a></span><br />
<a href="https://vimeo.com/139772287"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">with a side trip to Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" </span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8j5fEnos9PE" width="420"></iframe>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-1221404990381371062015-09-22T21:14:00.003-07:002015-09-22T21:17:06.290-07:00Wobbly times number 187<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Another afternoon at Jen's and Mike's</i></span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/89gx717JLX0" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i> (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/my_videos?o=U">my ZoggyDoggy videos are here</a>)</i>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-21210908673091574892015-09-22T21:03:00.001-07:002015-09-22T21:19:16.527-07:00Wobbly times number 186<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N7sDyuOFnto/VYZZ0DkgUdI/AAAAAAAABTw/g1L5PXkXccw/s1600/post-231939.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="129" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N7sDyuOFnto/VYZZ0DkgUdI/AAAAAAAABTw/g1L5PXkXccw/s320/post-231939.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It takes a leap of faith to believe intelligence existed before intelligence evolved. It also takes a leap of faith to give credence to hypotheses concerning the existence of parallel universes and less of a leap of faith to believe other intelligence has developed somewhere in "this" universe, composed of trillions and trillions of stars.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-btMTpyi3ekM/VYkAnC9MWOI/AAAAAAAABUI/xp1r82pGGuw/s1600/1493522_10152473706574535_1829691648_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-btMTpyi3ekM/VYkAnC9MWOI/AAAAAAAABUI/xp1r82pGGuw/s320/1493522_10152473706574535_1829691648_o.jpg" width="278" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm not you, even though I share a hell of lot in common with you--for example, your race. I am also a member of the human race.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I am not white. If I was white, my face would not be visible this photo. Some would say that I'm surely the social product of white culture. When they say, 'white culture', they mean to fence me into only being culturally influenced by a very narrow ideolgical construct, perhaps, Doris Day. Poor Doris, poor me. Hell, Doris Day was influenced by 'Black culture'. We're all culturally influencing each other all the time, except when the dominant political authority segregates us from each others' cultural influence. <br /><br />I am an advocate for freedom. I am an advocate for individual sovereignty. Individual sovereignty is contained within the concept and reality of freedom. I can see that other people are being dominated by people with power. My question is: Where does political power come from?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The answer I've developed, so far, is that political power grows out owning the labour time and the product or service created by another. Thus, Capital is a social relation not only of exploitation, but also of political power.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;">From a <a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/france/archive/lissagaray/ch23.htm">history</a> of the Paris Commune of 1871</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px;">The shelling of the 3rd April roused them a little. On the 5th, the municipal council of Lille, composed of Republican notabilities, spoke of conciliation, and called upon M. Thiers to affirm the Republic. That of Lyons drew up a like address; St. Omer sent delegates to Versailles; Troyes declared that it was ‘heart and soul with the heroic citizens who fought for their republican convictions.’ Mâcon summoned the Government and the Assembly to put an end to this struggle by the recognition of republican institutions. The Drôme, the Var, Vaucluse, the Ardeche, the Loire, Savoy, the Hérault, the Gers, and the Eastern Pyrénées, twenty departments, issued similar addresses. The workmen of Rouen declared their adhesion to the Commune; the workmen of Havre, rebuffed by the bourgeois Republicans. constituted an independent group. On the 16th April, at Grenoble, 600 men, women, and children went to the station to prevent the departure of the troops and munitions for Versailles. On the 18th, at Nimes, the people, headed by a red flag, marched through the town to the cry of ‘</span><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px; word-spacing: 0.2em;">Vive la Commune! Vive Paris! </em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px;">Down with Versailles!’ On the 16th, 17th, 18th, there were disturbances at Bordeaux. Some police agents were imprisoned, some officers ill-treated, the infantry barracks pelted with stones, the people crying, ‘</span><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px; word-spacing: 0.2em;">Vive Paris! </em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px;">Death to the traitors!’ The movement even spread to the agricultural classes. At Saincoin in the Cher, at the Charité-sur-Loire, at Pouilly in the Nievre, the National Guards in arms carried about the red flag. Cosne followed on the 18th, Fleury-sur-Loire on the 19th. The red flag was permanently hoisted in the Ariege; at Foix they stopped the transport of the cannon; at Varilhes they tried to run the munition trains off the lines. At Périgueux, the workmen of the railway station seized the machine-guns.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-32807132125393303802015-03-22T18:37:00.000-07:002015-03-22T18:37:15.156-07:00Wobbly times number 185<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/82bUOcI8Sfs" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Workers produce the wealth of nations for wages.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The upper 10% own 80% of the wealth workers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">produce. The social wage gets some of that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">wealth back to the workers. The social wage</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is funded by taxes on the wealth workers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">produce. Trickle down economic theory states</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that the taxes on the upper 10% should be cut.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This leads to the declaration of 'budget emergencies' </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by conservative politicians and to calls for</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">either more regressive taxes e.g. widening and</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">raising the GST or cuts to public health, education</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and welfare, including the age pension.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How much wealth would be produced in Australia</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">during the month of May, if everyone who depends</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on wages to make a living went on <b><i>general strike</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from May 1st to May 31st?</span>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-41682337229595285232015-01-08T21:27:00.003-08:002015-01-08T21:29:17.897-08:00Wobbly times number 184<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/PHY2I3_ncl4" width="560"></iframe>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-82560159118864785812014-11-28T03:00:00.001-08:002014-11-28T03:22:42.599-08:00Wobbly times number 183<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"> <span style="font-size: large;">The Pleasurable Revolution</span>
from the Wobbly Review of Books
by
Mike Ballard
THE BOOK OF PLEASURES, by Raoul Vaneigem
ISBN 0 904665 03 8
Published by Pending Press, London, 1983
</pre>
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"></pre>
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2dqSuYZXxi4/VHhVq_-cJlI/AAAAAAAABFk/dmR7TkD4Fng/s1600/quote-Raoul-Vaneigem-people-who-talk-about-revolution-and-class-34637.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2dqSuYZXxi4/VHhVq_-cJlI/AAAAAAAABFk/dmR7TkD4Fng/s1600/quote-Raoul-Vaneigem-people-who-talk-about-revolution-and-class-34637.png" height="261" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
</pre>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Warning: this book will squeeze your adrenal glands. It is the
very personal statement of a French revolutionary, who's
organizational history and political profile can be found in the
Situationist movement of the 1960's, a movement which carved
its niche in history with the paving stones dug from Parisian
streets during the heady days of May, 1968. It is a
psychological snapshot of one, Raoul Vaneigem, circa 1979. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> LE
LIVRE DES PLAISIRS was translated into English, as the BOOK OF
PLEASURES, by John Fullerton in 1983. Its latest incarnation can
by purchased from Left Bank Books, at 4142 Brooklyn Ave. N.E.,
Seattle, Washington 98105. It's a fairly expensive 105
pages--$12 in paperback-- but considering its lack of
availability in most libraries, being able to read it is usually
going to be limited to being able to buy or steal it; an irony,
I'm sure, M. Vaneigem would appreciate. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "All pleasure is creative", he writes, "if it avoids exchange.
Loving what pleases me, I have to build a space in life as little
exposed as possible to pollution by business, or I will not find
the strength to bring the old world down, and the fungus among us
will rot my dreams. While the state is in disarray, strike hard
at business and its friends." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Raoul Vaneigem sees the social relations and the consciousness
which springs from them under the rule of capital, as turning the
real world upside down. Human desires, traits, labor,
creativity, indeed human beings themselves, come increasingly to
be viewed as attainable in exchange for money: sexiness through
soap commodities, joy through the purchase of brand named
alcoholic commodities, self-esteem by buying a certain car or
truck. This upside down (reified, if you will) world permeates
human communication and therefore, consciousness in modern
industrial societies. It stifles human self-awareness and blocks
the road to social revolution, the road toward what M. Vaneigem
describes as "universal self-management". It is culminating
today in the almost total commodification of human relations. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "There will be no proletarian emancipation unless we strike the
shackles off pleasure.", Vaneigem writes. In order to crack
one's way out of this multifaceted shell, he proposes that the
individual worker focus first on her/ his need for pleasure and
then to use it as the engine of psychological emancipation.
Duty, guilt, and sacrifice-- the traditional left, liberal, and
religious motivators-- tend to produce less than liberating
results and in fact, according to Vaneigem, are counterproductive
or worse, reactionary in nature.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Doing exactly what you feel like is pleasure's greatest weapon,
connecting individual acts with collective practice; we all do
it. If rejecting survival made the 1968 movement taking hold of
life will open the era of universal self- management." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Agree? Disagree? Curious? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Pick up the BOOK OF PLEASURES.
Follow M. Vaneigem's id though the psychological thicket of our
collective super-egos. You may see yourself and your co-workers
inside, suspended within this sphere of self induced repressions,
reinforced by the admonitions of all the official authorities of
modern ideology: religion, the State, the Economy, media
pundits... Choose your poison. Raoul Vaneigem would have you
choose pleasure. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Admittedly, this can be a dangerous path and Vaneigem deals with
many of your objections as he argues, appeals, and taunts.
Sometimes a Freudian/Reichian map would seem helpful; but in all
commonsense and a tuned-in critical faculty is all you really
need. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> It is true that M. Vaneigem can sound pompous at times.
His aphoristic phrasing can put one off too. His pronouncements
pooh-poohing organization in favor of spontaneous autonomy left
me cold after awhile. While this notion may be appealing, it
will never satisfy the desire of those who wish for more than a
psychic liberation from the rule of capital. Generalized
self-management can only be realized on a societal level as a set
of social relations based on democratic practice. Individuals
can only go so far by themselves. A cooperative commonwealth
requires democratic mediation of individual differences and
individual desires. This is sometimes hard work which is not
always immediately pleasurable. C'est la vie, non M. Vaneigem? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I don't mean to throw cold water on the BOOK OF PLEASURES though.
The insights which pack this book are extremely useful. They
continually stimulate and challenge the reader. I think
Vaneigem's observations can help us as, "we are forming the
structures of the new society within the shell of the old." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> This review is reprinted from the April, 1993 edition of the
"Industrial Worker", the newspaper of the Wobblies.</span>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-44323748300558336902014-11-16T23:51:00.000-08:002014-11-18T15:21:02.012-08:00Wobbly times number 182<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Entropy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Somethings come and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">somethings go</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">and some last a long </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">long </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">change is constant </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">We are </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">We will not be</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It is </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It will not be</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Being banged</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">from nothing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">to nothing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">we return</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6u9YmpCg9bY" width="560"></iframe>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-66589218940598252292014-11-10T00:15:00.000-08:002014-11-20T04:11:23.741-08:00Wobbly times number 181<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/michael-ballard/wage-slaves-escape/ebook/product-21890898.html">Click here to go to Lulu Press in order to download my e-book</a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UGqd9JTNl2I/VGBzOjz16NI/AAAAAAAABD0/ymFJxmItxKg/s1600/10414457_10152869417373033_8496109072838873470_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UGqd9JTNl2I/VGBzOjz16NI/AAAAAAAABD0/ymFJxmItxKg/s1600/10414457_10152869417373033_8496109072838873470_n.jpg" height="252" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-30722345047758892342014-10-21T00:17:00.000-07:002014-11-24T18:42:42.764-08:00Wobbly times number 180<a href="https://play.spotify.com/track/02MZmyUI2Vgb6jcK4mrZQY"><span style="font-size: large;">Recommended for those who want to break free from the 'norm'.</span></a><br />
<br />
Australia is huge and still relatively unpopulated. There's a reason for this. The reason is rooted in the fact that Australia has a very old surface. <a href="http://www.kimberley-australia.com/kimberley-attractions/bungle-bungle-ranges/">The Bungle Bungles formed some 360 million years ago</a> is not a geographical spot where many people are going to be able to provide food, water and shelter for themselves. That's just one example. Here's another:<br />
<div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px; line-height: 14.5600004196167px;">My road trip with John Tattersall from Perth to <a href="http://www.westernaustralia.com/uk/Attraction/Inside_Australia_-_Antony_Gormley_Sculptures/9029939?cid=twt:lkebal:oct">Lake Ballard</a> with stops in Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie, The Broad Arrow Tavern, Ora Banda and Menzies. Antony Gormley placed 51 pieces of sculptures which represent casts taken from residents of Menzies, making Lake Ballard one hell of an art exhibit. Sorry about the wind drowning out my excellent commentary on Lake Ballard itself. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px; line-height: 14.5600004196167px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; line-height: 14.5600004196167px;">Suffice to say, Western Australia is an awesome exhibit of its own. Its flora and fauna have an amazing resilience to them. I include the citizens of Australia in this description. You see them depicted, out on the lake, under the moonlight. The starlit skies are to die for. The weather can be harsh and unpredictable. The flies, as you may be able to detect in the film, are ubiquitous during the daylight hours, but seem to disappear as the Sun sets. There's a lovely tinge of wild and dangerous when you're out there in your swag listening to the wind, looking up through your insect screen. </span></span></span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px; line-height: 14.5600004196167px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px; line-height: 14.5600004196167px;">Think of a vast, empty, hot, sparsely populated sunny landscape and there you have it: Western Australia and its people depicted as a work of art on dry salt lake. <a href="https://play.spotify.com/track/0nNS07d6MeUS6Yl2vVgEws">Makes you want some cool, clear water...</a></span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Kindly edited by Jennifer Armstrong.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/pV1PWDCA2LA" width="560"></iframe>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-36299780154300150362014-09-11T23:22:00.000-07:002015-03-13T01:36:00.010-07:00Wobbly times number 179<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PSXAvTdaGi0/VBKkQQDx5kI/AAAAAAAABAc/7ZvYjKwMErU/s1600/DP119115.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PSXAvTdaGi0/VBKkQQDx5kI/AAAAAAAABAc/7ZvYjKwMErU/s1600/DP119115.jpg" height="235" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gFiUva95PhY/VBKj2qi2bUI/AAAAAAAABAU/9imyd6OmQjM/s1600/s.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gFiUva95PhY/VBKj2qi2bUI/AAAAAAAABAU/9imyd6OmQjM/s1600/s.gif" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Large print is easier for those who are seeing impaired. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Today's a nice 70 degrees fahrenheit. Tomorrow, 70 degrees centigrade? Who knows? Depends on how far forward you're projecting your tomorrows. I suspect the temperatures during mid-September will be in the 90s F by 2050. </span><span style="font-size: large;">That's like the mid-30s for the celsius oriented. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Still, the lizards are out, snapping up some insects on their quick, lurching hunt. Beautiful, the day is. With Sacred Ibis flying cross the pale blue sky, a gentle breeze issues slowly across the fern leaves. Yes, ferns have leaves. And our Sun, radiating the brighter light of the coming spring, which this year falls on the 23rd. I mean the vernal equinox. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's September, 2014 in Perth, Australia. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Liberty is being attacked but, it has always been unpopular with rulers big and small. Liberty was never granted. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNg1Cq5KzDw">Slavery</a> has been imposed by others on us, to various degrees and with our acquiescence within political boundaries of our own making. Still, we demand liberty. But we have not always had the power to enforce our will. That power has come by degree over the centuries. Our power has grown since enough of us united against chattel slavery. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Chattel slavery didn't die as complete a death as many of us would like to think during the era of feudalism. French and Spanish ship crews knew that they could be captured and held as slaves by the Moors/Saracens</span><span style="font-size: large;"> until they were ransomed as they sailed the Mediterranean Sea. This was a norm during the centuries when the feudalist mode of production prevailed. Owning and power were accepted as being beyond the notion of liberty. It was the <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/10/lawyers-socialism.htm">Dark Ages</a> and they are still with us in many ways today. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="186" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/V9fr4R3wYJA" width="330"></iframe>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-52368593362175863592014-08-27T19:34:00.000-07:002014-09-11T22:24:16.584-07:00Wobbly times number 178<b><i>My dialogue with Jennifer on how </i></b><br />
<b><i>shamanism relates to Bataille, Marechera</i></b><b><i> </i></b><br />
<b><i>and the upheaval </i></b><b><i>of 60s freaks who </i></b><br />
<b><i>used </i></b><b><i>psychedelic </i></b><b><i>substances as catalysts </i></b><br />
<b><i>to transgress </i></b><b><i>the bounds </i></b><b><i>of </i></b><br />
<b><i>"The Death Culture" while </i></b><br />
<b><i>attempting to create an alternative </i></b><br />
<b><i>society; but failed to transcend the </i></b><br />
<b><i>domination of Capital in the end.</i></b><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="186" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/eAPz9oeIwHc?list=PLtLznD1v-AJE4ee98PwrQtyUSo6MyElIr" width="330"></iframe>
Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-90293050806254287862014-08-27T19:13:00.001-07:002014-08-27T23:15:03.495-07:00Wobbly times number 177<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.5600004196167px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.5600004196167px;">Images</span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>For Rosa</i></b></span><br />
<br />
Light follows darkness follows light<br />
in the twirl of time around and forward<br />
What was young must get older<br />
while producing young again<br />
Time is moving<br />
Change inevitable<br />
"I was<br />
I am<br />
I will be"<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IoUhdfjFaVI/U_adeUD4X9I/AAAAAAAAA_g/c3YMM7bFoiA/s1600/Luxemburg__Rosa-e615aadb62b8685612ce1e94ef30316c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IoUhdfjFaVI/U_adeUD4X9I/AAAAAAAAA_g/c3YMM7bFoiA/s1600/Luxemburg__Rosa-e615aadb62b8685612ce1e94ef30316c.jpg" height="309" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">Dialectics of Dialogue</span></i></b><br />
<br />
I'm not saying that you have to do it this way. I'm just saying that your imagination should be exercised, not put into the 'naughty corner'.<br />
<br />
Are you crazy? If we did that, unity would disappear. <br />
<br />
Where would it go? Into some safe corner? Are there safe corners or only places to die?<br />
<br />
Ever see a performance of 'The Iceman Cometh'?"<br />
<br />
Yeah. I was thinking of that very same question.<br />
<br />
How intolerant we make ourselves.<br />
<br />
T'is pity.<br />
<br />
Perhaps a little forbearance would be in order.<br />
<br />
Yes. Allen Ginsberg advised forbearance.<br />
<br />
Wise fellow in many ways.<br />
<br />
A gentle, gay spirit, making his way in the world. <br />
<br />
Indeed. Were there more poet messengers.<br />
<br />
How about Omar Khayyam... <br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">"Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="43"></a><br />The Bird of Time has but a little way <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="44"></a><br />To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing."</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Interesting. I can only recite the famous one from memory...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;">"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="67"></a><br />A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="68"></a><br />Beside me singing in the Wilderness-- <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="69"></a><br />Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CwTrR2mzhg8/U_ad6IGqRjI/AAAAAAAAA_o/drtW0E8MYp4/s1600/download%2B(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CwTrR2mzhg8/U_ad6IGqRjI/AAAAAAAAA_o/drtW0E8MYp4/s1600/download%2B(1).jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<br />
<div>
<span style="background-color: #ffffcc;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Art Vandemark in 1960 </b></span><br />
<br />
<br />
Drove like a bat out of hell<br />
turned his eyes to switch the dial<br />
as he passed that slower driver<br />
on that bloody hill<br />
smashed head-on<br />
crushed that coming car<br />
Art Vandemark dead<br />
at a mere 16<br />
He drove too fast<br />
and went too far<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eVqIvLtSbvA/U_agIRwWjoI/AAAAAAAAA_w/ZXFrqQMwDeI/s1600/2315406594_4fe54315b4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eVqIvLtSbvA/U_agIRwWjoI/AAAAAAAAA_w/ZXFrqQMwDeI/s1600/2315406594_4fe54315b4.jpg" height="236" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: -webkit-center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #ffffcc;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: -webkit-center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #ffffcc;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: -webkit-center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #ffffcc;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: -webkit-center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #ffffcc;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: -webkit-center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #ffffcc;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-458556229137845931.post-32011549397093490792014-08-08T18:23:00.000-07:002014-08-12T01:37:00.001-07:00Wobbly times number 176<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">Short Stories From Another Time</span></i></b><br />
<b><i>(The first years of communism)</i></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Abe's reflections</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CNkmIePw8aE/U-VyphLO6tI/AAAAAAAAA-k/Z2uBgTw-RTk/s1600/stables.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CNkmIePw8aE/U-VyphLO6tI/AAAAAAAAA-k/Z2uBgTw-RTk/s1600/stables.jpg" height="210" width="320" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
The farms were enormous. We had decided long ago that divvying up the land into small, personal, but sustainable lots, had become a burdensome time sink. So, those who wanted to do farm work did that part of our necessary, collective labours to accomplish what we needed from agriculture and what we needed was food and drink. Still, sustainably produced, to be sure. The land was important. It had to be taken care of, like an old friend. As a result of going large, our productivity grew and our free time increased.<br />
<br />
Drink?<br />
<br />
Yes, the farmers were in charge of beer production, from the beginning of the cycle, to its end in bottles, for home or just available, fresh on tap from the various pubs which dotted our communities. Parties were spontaneous then. Wherever they occurred, there was always plenty of fresh beer to quaff and well tended marijuana to toke. The farmers' product was ours and the products of our labour time were theirs. Common ownership was understood by all.<br />
<br />
We knew that we had to work. That was necessary and sometimes even, what we wanted most to do with our time. But, most of us relished our free time, away from necessary labour. In any event, every moment was lived in all its sensuous glory, even when we spent time doing what we all knew was necessary namely, producing food and drink. We were farmers. Of course, there were slackers, ones who didn't apply themselves to the tasks at hand. They were shunned and ridiculed for a time. Most of them came around to seeing that their lives could be more richly rewarded, if they just did what was needed. It was their choice as to what task or activity that might be. In other words, if they did what was needed, they would not be cast outside our association or made poorer, in any significant way, than their neighbours. The others, the ones who refused to apply themselves to the effective labour time required of them to remain in the community were eventually left to fend for themselves in the wild. Community pressure was too much for them. We did not condone stealing personal possessions from one another and that included stolen time. If someone refused take their tasks seriously enough to get them accomplished, with the best quality they could provide, we all knew it. By quality, I don't mean perfectly, but just doing the job as best an individual could. And if they didn't, we'd eventually make that person so uncomfortable that they would leave and perhaps, try their luck with another community, although, to be fair, this was unlikely to meet with much success as that community would have very similar standards. As I said, most everyone thought that their free-time was a core measure of fulfilment.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>An anonymous producer's observations</b></div>
<br />
We had it good. We could go to the store and pick up what we needed and still have time left over to acquire things we never really wanted, things beyond our needs. Online catalogues displayed a thousand choices and all you needed was time to get them. It was great! You'd never have known that dresses or tools took so little time to produce as we did when we were using money. Using time-credits, we got what we needed and even more, much that we wanted beyond our immediate needs.<br />
<br />
Anyway, being yourself was the greatest thing you could do. What did they call it? Living without dogma? Yes. That's it. No veil of tears or puritanically inspired notion over your mind. You do what you want during your free-time and try as much as possible to combine pleasure with the work which you do in your necessary labour time. Not everyone does the same job every time. No need for that anymore.<br />
<br />
We all had homes. Some of us actually preferred to live in apartments, concentrated in cities. But most spread out and lived in the small houses which peppered the countryside. Of course producers who could do plumbing were necessary. But that's fine. Some like to do a little plumbing every once in a while. Need met with skill was paramount. What's needed is what's necessary and that is how we design our time.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-en6hYLLH5mc/U32ni77ejQI/AAAAAAAAA2c/GTQUCt7vNqI/s1600/205587_83546a62f20d90372389b6fd9341eed3_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-en6hYLLH5mc/U32ni77ejQI/AAAAAAAAA2c/GTQUCt7vNqI/s1600/205587_83546a62f20d90372389b6fd9341eed3_large.jpg" height="216" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>A Catholic's view</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It was kind of like feudalism. I remember how the people I knew thought it resembled a medieval Catholic nunnery or a monkish order. I mean there were similarities. For one thing, what was produced was shared, no one person or group was formed to get more than others. Arrogance was punished with silence, shunning and physical means--if needed. Well, that made it different from feudalism. Even the Church had its hierarchy of power over human time. Of course, nowadays those who have faith still gather and worship their deities in their own ways. I still take communion and go to mass. And our sex lives were so much more easy-going what with equal political power between all men and women being the norm.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Anyway, I liked it. Of course, I was only a kid then. In fact, it was great. All you had to do was put in your 'socially necessary labour time' at whatever was available via the online notice board, providing you could actually do the task. For instance, some librarians chose to become public transit drivers or anything else on offer. It was a cinch to get four hours in; which meant you got three hours out of the store of social labour. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Me? I actually enjoyed my necessary time spent at our organic farms and with book shelvers in our libraries.<br />
<br />
Organic? Yeah, all our agricultural produce was farmed organically after the revolution. The principle of living in harmony with the Earth meant that poisons and non-organic fertilisers couldn't be used anymore. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Exploitation? You mean the 3 hours for 4 put in? <br />
<br />
Naw.<br />
<br />
I get it, naw. That other hour went to those who couldn't contribute anything communally useful. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
End story. I think I'll smoke a joint.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JVvBqDj_xAE/U-V1Rhlwj6I/AAAAAAAAA-s/miIHUPNx5B4/s1600/cannabis-farm1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JVvBqDj_xAE/U-V1Rhlwj6I/AAAAAAAAA-s/miIHUPNx5B4/s1600/cannabis-farm1.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>All tomorrow's lovers:</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>a reflection by Naomi on the liberation from monogamy</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-s48Yk9LX_0A/U89sIpVwulI/AAAAAAAAA8U/fBesC_oMe7I/s1600/41_00180966~love-in-the-golden-age---franck---c-1585.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-s48Yk9LX_0A/U89sIpVwulI/AAAAAAAAA8U/fBesC_oMe7I/s1600/41_00180966~love-in-the-golden-age---franck---c-1585.jpg" height="194" width="320" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Family was whomever you loved. I had a dozen husbands and a couple of children, four fathers and ten mothers. Of course, they all had brothers and sisters. The children were brought up where they they felt most wanted at any particular time and there were plenty who wanted, indeed, needed them around. Of course, when they were babies, all of us went to them and took care of their needs and made sure the others would be around all the time to make sure they didn't get themselves into dangerous situations, like being too close to a solar boiler or electric stove. Yeah, all of that came naturally and if it didn't, there were always others around, including those contributing their socially necessary labour time in nurseries and kindergartens.<br />
<br />
Yes, formal education was still important for us. Formal just took on another shape. With the advent of common ownership, the means were there to provide each child with time in school until such a time when students would graduate at whatever level they wanted and were capable of attaining. Supporting this, was all part of what working that fourth hour was about. Hell, in terms of labour time, it only takes a social minute to make a decent beer.<br />
<br />
We blissfully met each other and if we had desires, we fulfilled them right there on the spot. It wasn't uncommon to see couples making love, although most preferred the privacy of some secluded spot. I always did. Which is not to say that there weren't those encounters on those long electric train trips....<br />
<br />
I remember reading about the history of State/religiously sanctified monogamous marriage under class rule during my formal education period. What a mess it turned the lives of so many into. Many suffered decades of silent desperation. Not that there weren't some good marriages and very successful monogamous relationships then or when we were living during the first years of communism. Once we established common ownership of the land and the collective product of our labour, the conditions became ripe for love, for what undermined love before were deeply embedded notions and practices concerning property which put a brake on our desires. <br />
<br />
Women and children were treated as property of the father in marriage for millennia, all the way back to the time when chattel slavery was the norm. Of course, this plague on our sensuality also damaged polygamous marriages. Whole societies were permeated with myths about what was 'natural' for how human beings should to relate to each other. You can see it within their cultural expressions from comedy to tragedy, from novels to painting and film. It's all there: the history of how fucked up we were. Fortunately, that was changed by us changing the way we related to each other. No longer was a relationship a power play. This factor added a deep, ongoing, life/libido changing movement to our lives which carried over to how we thought about the environment and even the non-humans with whom we lived. Life truly became sacred.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2FnZwhJIikg/U-cghrrnXlI/AAAAAAAAA_I/2MSFUkj74AE/s1600/995840_233781170134896_352673183_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2FnZwhJIikg/U-cghrrnXlI/AAAAAAAAA_I/2MSFUkj74AE/s1600/995840_233781170134896_352673183_n.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Ben reflects on the end of alienation</b></div>
<br />
Loneliness was impossible; but privacy was always respected. That's the way I remember it the first years of communism.<br />
<br />
You see, back in the days of prehistory, we often got very lonesome or so, the literature of the time tells us. Richard Yates was always on about it. Of course, there were others, many, many others. Whether they knew it or not, they were describing something which sprung from the roots of loneliness. <br />
<br />
It was in the painting as well. Edward Hopper's work is a great introduction. And the psychological imbalances it caused. My, my. Loneliness was the silent killer of the era. <br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XU2PoOuau28/U7-kVuVQuYI/AAAAAAAAA6c/a0zdABBOJ2M/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XU2PoOuau28/U7-kVuVQuYI/AAAAAAAAA6c/a0zdABBOJ2M/s1600/download.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
In the years after we established common ownership of the wealth we produced. We began to breathe more freely than ever. We also left loneliness behind. We opened up public space by de-privatising what had been commodified. Truly, the end of commodification meant the end of bourgeois notions of freedom. No longer were we tied to the mast of the ship of fools, we were able to go out at any time of day or night and enjoy ourselves at public gathering places. Nobody was afraid of losing their job or losing the respect of their peers by being themselves. If one person didn't like another, they just associated with someone else. Ah, the chimes of freedom were not only flashing, they were positively blazing. <br />
<br />
And yet, we could always retire to whatever level of privacy we needed. For the first time in history, we all had homes. As all the human race was being well housed in those first years, the cities, as they had been, began to disappear. We discovered the need for them had been embedded with the needs of class dominated civilisation. We had no need for 'financial centres' nor had we a landlord class anymore with their petty needs to jack up rents and property prices for their own enrichment over non-property holders.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Zane relects on the end of nationalism</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
Yeah, it was funny back then. I mean during late prehistory. People continued to believe that they'd be liberated if they just had their 'own' political State. Amazing really. Even most of the people calling themselves socialist believed, one must say, almost religiously, that national liberation was possible, as opposed to being the dominate ideology of the era, the ideology of capitalists. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Marx wrote something once when he was in his 20s in which he proclaimed that the State was inseparable from slavery. And slavery it was, wage-slavery to be sure, but a form of bondage, nevertheless.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
How could one feel emancipated under a system based on the dominance of the employing class and the subservience of the producing class under constant surveillance? </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Impossible. Yet the myth was sown and from it sprouted all sorts of moral verbiage supporting one nation's claims against another. Nations did nothing, of course. The humans that make them up did. The dominators told the producers to down tools and pick up the gun for the father or motherland. Patriotism, it was called. And it's most virulent advocates were the Fascists:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: #ffffdd; font-family: arial, helvetica; font-size: x-small; line-height: 13.519999504089355px; text-align: justify;"><i>"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. . . . War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it." Benito Mussolini</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Some saw through it. But they were treated like lost sheep in the paddock or largely ignored, if they had become somehow, respected members of the community:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #ffffdd; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; text-align: justify;">
<i>"In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.</i></div>
<div style="background-color: #ffffdd; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; text-align: justify;">
<i>How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?</i></div>
<div style="background-color: #ffffdd; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; text-align: justify;">
<i>Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few -- the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.</i></div>
<div style="background-color: #ffffdd; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; text-align: justify;">
<i>And what is this bill?</i></div>
<div style="background-color: #ffffdd; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; text-align: justify;">
<i>This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="background-color: #ffffdd; line-height: 16.639999389648438px; text-align: justify;">For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out."</span> Major General, Smedley Butler, USMC </i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Most people, living through late prehistory, knew who Mussolini was and even though they may not have been fascists, most were firm nationalists, as Mussolini himself was. They most probably never actually knew what the core ideology of fascism was, but they'd heard of Mussolini and Hitler. Few ever heard of Butler. Butler was a nationalist too; but his critical stance toward the capitalist class was considered too radical to be actively promulgated or memorialised by the liberal or conservative bourgeoisie.<br />
<br />
Butler was a 1930s' Republican. He himself was conservative. But he was also firmly committed to the sort of democracy the U.S.A. had during his life. He recognised the imperialist drive inherent in ruling class control of tremendous amounts of wealth. That drive could only be satisfied with the acquisition of more wealth and with it political power over more people. Fantasies of empire are dreamt up within the matrix of these sorts of drives.<br />
<br />
The point is that nationalism is only important these days as an historical subject. Today, we live without borders. The Earth is our home. The world is classless, democratic and free. The sovereign individual is where the power lies. The sovereign State, which sublated the Sovereign monarch, is dead. Class rule remained.<br />
<br />
Cultural variety, far from being suppressed, through our sublation of the nation with its borders, has flourished for, with the end of the nation State, the end of commodity production and sale also occurred. It's not that culture was absent during prehistorical times. Sure, there was plenty and its best expressions are still regarded as worthy of attentive time. Why, I'm reading DON QUIXOTE right now. Last week, I watched a performance of THE DEATH of a SALESMAN, recorded, I believe, in the mid-1950s.<br />
<br />
The desire to possess the latest thing was mostly a result of the commodification of everything during prehistory. Commodified society put a premium on cheapness. To gain market share was one of THE driving principles and that could, most efficiently be accomplished through increasing the speed of life. Thus, the latest thing could actually be cheaper in constant currency than it had been before. The question which occurred to many a subconscious was, "Was it worth it?" And the answer was mostly yes during the last stages of prehistory. However, this acquiescence had psychological consequences of the sort related to what many see as inauthentic behaviour by some individuals today. I mean, a sort of generalised malaise was being felt; but one didn't know quite why it was being experienced. <br />
<br />
Now, we consciously enjoy what we desire regardless of age but with regard for others and the health of the Earth. Doing harm to either is considered bad form and yes, we still have to segregate some people away from our communities because of their sadistic behaviours. There is no reason to get physically aggro with another person. We have what we need and we should realise that we can never possess another free individual. After all, we have no slaves, no bondsmen, no servants. We are all free from any material dependency structure, other than our own mutual need for each other to participate honestly when putting necessary labour time into the production of good and services for our own use.<br />
<br />
Now, we get what we need from the social stores of goods and services. But right after we abolished the State, we still hadn't developed the trust we have today in each other. Back then, we used <i>logged in</i> labour time during necessary tasks, operations, services and so on. By 'logged in', I mean there was tracking system in which how much labour time you put in, was put into an account which you drew from when you visited a social store for material goods or received a service. Most people were able to contribute something for the use of all. The ones who weren't able to produce anything useful were taken care of on the basis of their needs as much as any average producer was. Nobody had a lot; but some had more than others because they put more productive time into the social store. All labour time wasn't equal either. Those who worked in more dangerous and physically exhausting jobs were allowed to count their single hours as e.g. two hours. More free-time was the incentive and the average work day was the norm-- 4 hours 3 days a week or a 12 hour day per week or 4, 3 hour days. Time was left to the individual. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>We really struggled with authority..a reflection by Mary</b></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1FDhzLbO8mU/U-V3oMP1NJI/AAAAAAAAA-4/S6Y7GNtS3Rc/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1FDhzLbO8mU/U-V3oMP1NJI/AAAAAAAAA-4/S6Y7GNtS3Rc/s1600/images.jpg" height="99" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Authority was changing. We dealt with it all the time back then. The leftovers of the old social relations kept cropping up. At first, rape still existed. Yes, even after we'd established a communist society. Still, the psychology of dominance and submission was within many of us. And, many of us were passing it along. Loyalty to the authority in order to prevent chaos. This had been the sine qua non of class society's rationalisation for the authority of the authorities as long as their domination became embedded in our own sense of justice. What an ideal, 'justice'. All sorts of contents can be shoved into that category and with political power, it becomes all that more convincing.<br />
<br />
As time passed and all the dependency structures which we had participated in, both mentally and physically, started to melt away, the more irritated we became with them. The authoritarian shibboleth began to crumble. The very idea that a freedom could be based on dominance was absurd, especially when you began to realise it in everyday life. People you met no longer thought of you as a rival for your job, you place, your status in short, for what you thought of as being, <i>'your possessions'.</i> What a <a href="https://play.spotify.com/album/5bZq8O7C36JRzoVND8ZFk6/0oAMHrz4QA5SyEgyhJBRWl">blessed relief</a> this was.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VS48LL85sj8/U9Sjsf7eQPI/AAAAAAAAA8o/aC_wE11tD-A/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VS48LL85sj8/U9Sjsf7eQPI/AAAAAAAAA8o/aC_wE11tD-A/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>When common ownership became the norm, boredom seemed to disappear.</b></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
One of the main things people used to think about communist society was that it would be boring. Everything would be the same, flat, grey and without definition. As it turned out over the first few years, we became even more defined as individuals. As individuals, we finally had power over our needs and wants. Gone were the ads telling us that we could be all that we could be if we just purchased this or that. Gone were the amplified voices who served the ruling class. Instead, everyone's voice was expressed and heard at the same level. This was the negation of domination not the initiation of boredom.<br />
<br />
When one was saying something sensible, others who agreed would use the counsel given well in their own discourse with others. As a result, we became more, not less, our own selves as individuals. Oh not in the sense that we saw others as rivals for our freedom. Our freedom was guaranteed by our power to control what we produced and determine what the nexus of need and our own expended labour time was for, whatever we felt we needed, we would have to help put in the time necessary to produce whatever it was.<br />
<br />
We revelled in our free-time; but as the years passed, many of us became more and more enamoured with spending our time doing things which would push us outside our Earthly pleasures and into the hostile environment of outer space. Projects, we called them. The main project was to terra-form as many planets and moons of our solar system as possible, leaving the others to small colonies of those who would devote time to gathering scientific knowledge about the planet, moon or asteroid. Some were quite into that. <br />
<br />
Jack Andersen comes to mind. He became fascinated with Europa's global oceans of water. Spent years there, with about fifty others, examining, experimenting and publishing his observations in <i>"The Solar Journal"</i>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H3WbZNfeyxs/U9So9SZCbJI/AAAAAAAAA84/xyCi9kwfMM4/s1600/Jupiters-moon-Europa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H3WbZNfeyxs/U9So9SZCbJI/AAAAAAAAA84/xyCi9kwfMM4/s1600/Jupiters-moon-Europa.jpg" height="316" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b>A reflection by</b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b> Ilana Ben Amos </b></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
It just occured to me that I drink beer to be closer to my father. No, not through genetic testing. I knew who my father was because I was brought within a monogamous family. I don't think my parents crossed the sexual line with others after they were married. In fact, I'm confident of it. But that's another story.<br />
<br />
My father drank beer. I can still remember him swishing around in his mouth before swallowing his beer. Have you ever done that?<br />
<br />
I do it sometimes. That reminds me of my father too. And, the practice does lend the palate a greater variety of flavours to savour. Works with wine too. Swishing and chewing your wine, maybe not all the time, but every once in awhile, especially when trying a new vintage will bring out more to be appreciated. <br />
<br />
An increased sensuality emerged after the revolution. We began to really taste life. No more did we feel obligated to spend our lives figuring out the tax system or even doing our taxes. Some peoples' jobs, thus their labour time, were tied to advising and accomplishing feats of wonder with the tax system. That's how absurd life had become. <br />
<br />
After the revolution, there were no taxes to figure out. One hour of our time at work we gave gratis to support the services we all depended on, services which did not directly produce wealth; but which helped us remain healthy, educated and entertained. Whatever other time we put into necessary labour, we decided ourselves,for that time would allow us access to the social store. What a revelation it was to know that only two seconds were socially necessary to produce a fine ale. Our productivity had finally been turned into free-time for ourselves. <br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F3dkJU-guEk/U-HV2u0qQ9I/AAAAAAAAA-A/XkJSqMHj2F8/s1600/Proudhon-children.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F3dkJU-guEk/U-HV2u0qQ9I/AAAAAAAAA-A/XkJSqMHj2F8/s1600/Proudhon-children.jpg" height="237" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Jean describes some of how her life is changed since our classless democracy was established.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<br />
<br />
See that concrete pier out there in the ocean?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ROrxtqn7UB8/U-HW0Yz4FBI/AAAAAAAAA-I/ROanYcGHztY/s1600/alone-concrete-pier-clear-ocean-stormy-clouds-road-to-freedom-39629620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ROrxtqn7UB8/U-HW0Yz4FBI/AAAAAAAAA-I/ROanYcGHztY/s1600/alone-concrete-pier-clear-ocean-stormy-clouds-road-to-freedom-39629620.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
That used to be where the coast guard boats tied up between rounds of performing their duty of keeping the borders secure. <br />
<br />
The borders--what were they?<br />
<br />
We were insecure then. This was before the revolution and even after it, we were a mess, still dominated by many of the insecurities which plagued us before the State was abolished and with it, borders. Politically owned territory became Terra, our planet. The same was true for all of the former political States. The Earth was ours because the social product of our labour was now ours to control, to plan and to distribute.<br />
<br />
That goes through my mind as I gaze at that now unused pier. It's not totally unused. A very few people are always fishing from it. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The fog comes in, blanketing the coast. The air grows cold. Night descends. The fog horns still bellow, out there in the grey mists, "Waaarrrrrrrrrrning. Coastal shore close by." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I live in the geographical space of the state formerly known as North Carolina. Marines and Coast Guard personnel were stationed here, once upon a time. We no longer live cooped in political States needing to protect borders. We live on a borderless Earth. </span><br />
<br />
We are classless, as we have been since we made the revolution. Now we see each other as human beings. There are no illegals as there are none of the old legalities when it comes to citizenship of a particular area of the planet, designated by its ruling class as a State. No, we are all citizens of this planet now. We are all Earthlings.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Maryiana Yohana from </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Nueva Santiago</b></span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You ask me how things changed after the revolution in relation to Patriarchal monogamy. Well, the revolution changed our conception of love. Love is everywhere, we all share it. I knew this before the revolution, but it was hidden by Capitalism. <span style="font-family: inherit;">Loads of pe</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">ople used to think that humans were mostly nasty and selfish. After the revolution, the meaning and the practices of love changed, and we all h</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ad doubts about how it should be… </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the first few years, I was busy building the theory and the praxis of Communism. Well, I wrote loads of propaganda and theorized a lot, I enjoyed it and made me feel useful. But the main changes came from the day-to-day praxis… </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">Like Anarchists have always said. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">It happened with Patriarchy. I thought it was deeply ingrained in us, particularly in my culture, in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean… I was wrong. Self-management of resources meant that everybody was involved in decisions and actions; chauvinism, like classism, just faded in a few years, as everybody got a voice and the community applied reverse hierarchy dominance…</span><br />
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, I didn’t question things back them. I was seeing the good of it everywhere. Feeling free from Patriarchy, I didn't have any trouble with sex and partnership. I had regular or occasional sex with many. Most young people did quite a lot of this, I think. In a way, the regularity of the sex was an expression of the closeness of the relationship, though not always…</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Generally, our society extended the idea of what “romantic love” was: the “romantic” connotations decreased and the “companionship” or “fun” connotations became stronger, something like that. Romantic love got dissolved in the general “brother/sister” relationship. Sex lost some of the implications that it used to have, not when it came to emotions (expression of emotion increased), but in relation to strings and obligations. Stuff like “exclusivity” and “for life”, so important to “love” “Hollywood style” (as we used to call it as a critique to Patriarchal love)… Well, most people felt very strongly that these should change, but everybody seemed confused about how. Many of the people who were married stayed married, others split up...</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Looking back, I think that we just started applying the old rules in a more flexible way. This was easier with self-management as a daily practice… and the extended family being already part of who we were as a community. I mean, before the revolution family was not just a couple and their children, it included all close relatives. Also, we used to marry more than one person in our life, or we would live with them, and they became part of our families, often even if we split up. This was normal already. We were officially monogamous , but we used to cheat on our partners, both men and women; it was supposed to be bad, but it was also common sense that people, couldn't help but to do it, only angels could. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It still makes me laugh, yeah, we would make a lot of drama about it, but most people would still do it quite happily. Friends would help with the hiding of affairs, of course. So, in a way, it was a relief to everybody that we could just “sleep” with whomever we wanted, and nobody would have the legitimacy to be upset about it. As the requirement for “having” a partner also faded, all the upset people became much more chilled about it, I believe. Not everybody wanted to go having sex with different partners all the time, anyway. Most people stayed with one main sexual partner most of the time, for shorter or longer periods of time, very much like in the old times. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Children were taken care of by the extended family, as they used to. But now, more in a relaxed way, since nobody was into stress by lack of food or security. So, people wouldn't stay together because of the children or out of a sense of duty… These pressures eased for everybody once the new conceptions were generally accepted and practices in decision making and social relations changed. Our natural ecosystem was favourable and we didn't have the problems of a densely populated society… Things were smooth.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, I know it’s more open, but back them, we were also quite open, because the idea of what was good for yourself and others had changed: no person or animal could be private property any more… They were our companions in the management of our relationship with nature. Still, monogamy as “companionship” prevailed. Most people would do, as in the old times, “serial monogamy”, and their old husbands or wives or boyfriends or girlfriends would remain part of their families, and the families even increased their members more than in the old times, because people changed couples more often and would stay close to their old partners more often, so more people became the second, third, fourth partners…, who they would still love so much, and every one of them would be accepted as a new member of the family and didn't have to stop being so. Same with the uncles and aunties and cousins that were your closest friends and your blood brother’s closest friends, and that kind of thing… It all was what we used to do, but more of it, so the concept of family got extended, and that was very healthy I think. This settled the foundations for what we do today.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not that I don’t have criticism to the way we understand love and sex these days. I think that people still wanting to marry is a sign of the old religious and property rules. Yes, we are free regarding to who we have sex with, but still we engage on a “sanctioned love” ritual. Nonsense, in my opinion. I mean, I had some sort of “husbands” myself, not really any wife, I mostly like men… But I didn't call them husbands. I didn't believe that anybody or anything should make me live according to their rules: I rule myself well, thank you very much. I didn't need a ritual, a social sanction, for my love of nature or society or family or comrades, or a partner. I rather performed the daily rituals of love in relation to all of them, creating them every day, also questioning and changing them all the time. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I believe that there is still a sense of self-sacrifice in the concept of marriage, a sacrifice to something higher, starting with society. I believe that marriage is still a possession ritual. It also establishes a separation from the rest of society; people who marry tend to do fewer things independently within the community than those who, instead of marrying, just “are” together in different ways.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the other hand, the fact that we all live in big, dynamic, changing extended families makes partnership easier to “break” and easier to maintain than it was in the old times. Surely the link between sex and companionship has changed a great deal. This makes sex much more egalitarian and fun than it used to be! It also makes changes and conflict easier to face (there are many advisors and mediators in the houses and in the community!). Things are so much better than before the revolution… </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I once thought that the nature of love would never be understood… Now, I am sure that we understand it much better than before. More importantly, even if we still need further change (change is all that is permanent, as they say), I believe that we share much more love than we had in the last millennium. A huge improvement! </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hhH-8RNEb9g/U-VxSrzGpOI/AAAAAAAAA-Y/UUP-IhFy2sE/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hhH-8RNEb9g/U-VxSrzGpOI/AAAAAAAAA-Y/UUP-IhFy2sE/s1600/download.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hrI5ptXj57I" width="420"></iframe>Mike Ballardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410520975856239745noreply@blogger.com3