Can you all suspend paranoia, fear of redbaiting or Swiss-baiting (Julien)
while I try to make some honest observations?
You asked me for a proposal. Here is one-----> I suppose the easiest analogy
is to say you MUST fight a two front war, Stan. You must attack what
variously (and interchangably) is described as [Bourgeois
Capitalism/Imperialism/Global Capitalism/Capitalism] WHILE you fight to
defend the biosphere. Stan, you require we "win" some battle with "them"
*before* you turn your attention to the apocalypse. There is no time, you
only have the 25-30 years you allow yourself for inflicting damage upon
"them" --- and that strategy is flawed in ways I wish to discuss "some
other time", okay?
Here's a reason, a reality that is too often avoided: We are "them". We are
ALL (every one of us reading this) to some degree "capitalists." We are ALL
part of the damned and evil system, and we're all bourgeois, and we are all
contributing to the rape of the planet, when we don't have to. To the extent
that we are part of that system, ... to at LEAST that extent ... must we
immediately change our behavior. Not in some miraculous future when we
"win". Plus, the effect of all of us changing our behavior within the
capitalist system fights the war on two fronts.
(If you ask me how we change that behavior, I again say "attitude". If you
ask me what have EYE done to advance the cause, I can assert that indeed I
walk my talk on this issue, and also have reduced my footprint in the
natural world as much as I can and still remain an activist. I don't always
blow my own horn.)
Tom
PS the rest is addenda, less important:
First, I have re-thought something I recently posted to you, Stan. I now say
that if all we do on Crashlist is educate some of "the left" (forgive me) to
the environmental components of the apocalypse, we will have done much. You
are correct to call for education.
On personal "argument": Is it possible to believe that someone like Julien
or me could be suggesting
a change in your strategy and not be opposed to your efforts at the same
time? Is there no place for genuine disagreement or critical discussion
without "Automatically assuming that a critique is developed of a system
forpropaganda purposes is quintessential caricature-constructed
redbaiting."? -- If not, then you are requiring a priori total agreement or
... nothing. No one is
asking you to put aside your goals, Stan, just to work smarter. I indeed
support your goals. Howabout a little support of OUR goals too? (Or mine,
one is never sure of Julien's. <g>)
> Message: 14
> Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 17:01:15 -0500
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> From: bon moun <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: RE: [CrashList] Grim forecast, warns climate report
> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
> >So I am redbaiting?!? Are you a bit paranoid sometimes?
>
> Automatically assuming that a critique is developed of a system for
> propaganda purposes is quintessential caricature-constructed redbaiting.
> Do I need to explain this further?
>
>
> >>The very fact that you say you don't care about capitalism indicates to
me
> >>that you don't get it. ...
> >
> >Misunderstanding. That's my approximative english. I meant that I do not
> have any
> >interest in defending capitalism.
>
> But you also seem to have no interest in how ***inextricable*** capitalism
> as the EXISTING SOCIAL ORDER is from the very problem we have under
review.
>
> >
> >>The problem with capitalism is not that it's evil. It's
> >>that it's in very essential ways undirected and uncoordinated. There is
> >>quite simply no chance of gaining the kind of comprehensive control
> >>necessary to confront the problem being discussed here without
social(ist)
> >>planning.
> >
> >Maybe we have slightly different ideas of what social planning might mean
in
> >practice, but I agree.
>
> Not likely that we have different ideas, when in the absence of a clear
> picture of what things will look like if and when we replace the old syste
m
> (as opposed to devolving directly into anarchy and barbarism), I wouldn't
> presume to begin designing measures at this point. We quite probably have
> very similar ideas about some of the goals, however, as they relate to
> reversing our current evolutionary direction.
>
>
> >>Then why do you continually discard any reason that can be interpreted
as
> >>systemic? Is the social order imaginary? Last I saw, the police and
the
> >>army were carrying real, not imaginary, guns.
> >
> >I don't understand where you're getting at. I discard not any systemic
> reason, but
> >any systemic reason which is not backed by a good argument. And mere
> historical
> >coincidence is not a good argument.
>
> Julien, there is no such thing as "historical coincidence." Methods of
> production and social systems did not accidentally evolve alongside one
> another. They are part and parcel of the same reality.
>
> >
> >>But who held political power? This is a key point, then and now. It's
not
> >>an abstraction. Who held then and holds now the legal monopoly on
deadly
> >>force? And which class does this political establishment represent?
> >
> >Yes, this is the key issue.
> >Before 1450, in some places and times, bourgeois power did exist, but not
> on a
> >scale large enough to survive for several centuries. But I don't see how
> bourgeois
> >power did exist after 1550 in England. So much for historical
hairsplitting.
>
> Huh? I am absolutely sure that you have written something which you did
> not intend here. You have just said that bourgeois power did not exist
> aftet 1550. Re-look. This is obviously a typo.
>
>
> >Now, to the real issue: How does bourgeois power correlate with
ecological
> >problems? I do not see any reason for which only bourgeois power would
yield
> >exploitation of fossil fuels and other problems.
>
> NO one said that only bourgeois power yields exploitation of fossil fuels
> or that capitalism is the only system with "problems." Our point is that
> bourgeois power exists NOW, and that this class NOW stands in the way of
> effecting the very changes we need for the survival of civilization. This
> is not a question of comparative morality. It's practical.
>
> Historically, there has been
> >numerous cases of societies without bourgeois power exploiting fossil
> fuels. OK,
> >the techniques are techniques created by a bourgeois-dominated society.
> But why
> >couldn't these techniques outlive it? The techniques would be applied in
> another
> >social context as they already have been in the past, but the ecological
> problems
> >remain whatever the social context.
>
> No one's arguing with you about this. Socialist states directed their
> economies along a path of development mapped out by capitalism--for a lot
> of reasons--and along a path that was utterly dependent on fossil fuels.
> No one's arguing that the very techniques we now apply are wrong-headed,
> and ultimately destructive. No one is arguing for a return to the Soviet
> development model. What we are saying is that while socialism in itself
is
> no guarantee of a reversal of continued petroleum dependent development,
> the continued existence of the current system is an ABSOLUTE guarantee
that
> we can never do what's necessary for that reversal.
>
> >Also, other environementally damaging and unsustainable techniques than
> >exploitation of fossil fuels were created by other types of societies
than
> the
> >bourgeois-dominated ones. Not to mention the demographical problem.
>
> Which demographical problem? And how do pre-capitalist techniques,
> whichever ones you are referring to, change the fact that the current
> "techniques" are privately owned and secured by the states which those
> owners control?
>
> Capitalism=private ownership and control of the means of production
> Socialism=social ownership and control of the means of production
>
> >
> >If any kind of society wants to stop to use fossil fuels, it has to find
a
> way to sustain
> >itself without it. Even if capitalism was destroyed, there is no way that
> we can do that
> >now.
>
> Maybe I'm missing the entire point. Is it that nothing can be done, so we
> can all just grieve together over email? Sorry, but if it's the end, I
> think Sherry and I should just hole up with some good marijuana, a
> collection of exotic films, and a lifetime supply of Nacho Cheese flavored
> Doritos. You guys are history.
>
> We could concievably enter a long path to that goal, but even without
> >capitalism this road would not be an easy one but a road that many would
> refuse to
> >endure when it is so easy to carry on as if there was no problem.
>
> Weeeelllll... I can't say about this. When the oil is gone, there won't
be
> much choice, will there?
>
> But for right now, I think I have good reason to continue to work toward
> smashing imperialism. Even if it's utterly hopeless, because I've known a
> few capitalists, and by and large, they are disagreeable people, and it
> gives me some personal satisfaction to afflict them in every way possible.
> If by some miracle, we win in my lifetime, we will begin seriously to make
> a plan for the bioregionalist, advanced organic, socialist reorganization
> of society. If not, we'll all be dead anyway at some point, so we won't
> have to experience the horrors of our failure for too awfully long. I
> figure I have around 25-30 years, barring special disorders or accidents
or
> a pissed-off CIA agent.
>
> Yours,
>
> Stan
>
>
> "...all truly great scientific abstractions are both universal and simple.
> They are simple not because they explain so little but because they
explain
> so much. Generality does not arise because an abstraction represents
> everything that could possibly happen, but because it remains valid no
> matter what happens."
>
> Alan Freeman
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