Personal responsibility is not political action. Dumpster diving wouldn't have stopped Hitler.

POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Friday, August 21, 2009 16:52
VIEWED: 9198
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SIGNYM

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 6:25 PM

Are we taking the easy route? Dumpster diving wouldn't have stopped Hitler, and composting wouldn't have ended slavery.

Derrick Jensen, Orion Magazine. Posted July 13, 2009.

Quote:
Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.

Or let’s talk water. We so often hear that the world is running out of water. People are dying from lack of water. Rivers are dewatered from lack of water. Because of this we need to take shorter showers. See the disconnect? Because I take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers? Well, no. More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings. People (both human people and fish people) aren’t dying because the world is running out of water. They’re dying because the water is being stolen.

Or let’s talk energy. Kirkpatrick Sale summarized it well: “For the past 15 years the story has been the same every year: individual consumption—residential, by private car, and so on—is never more than about a quarter of all consumption; the vast majority is commercial, industrial, corporate, by agribusiness and government [he forgot military]. So, even if we all took up cycling and wood stoves it would have a negligible impact on energy use, global warming and atmospheric pollution.”

Or let’s talk waste. In 2005, per-capita municipal waste production (basically everything that’s put out at the curb) in the U.S. was about 1,660 pounds. Let’s say you’re a die-hard simple-living activist, and you reduce this to zero. You recycle everything. You bring cloth bags shopping. You fix your toaster. Your toes poke out of old tennis shoes. You’re not done yet, though. Since municipal waste includes not just residential waste, but also waste from government offices and businesses, you march to those offices, waste reduction pamphlets in hand, and convince them to cut down on their waste enough to eliminate your share of it. Uh, I’ve got some bad news. Municipal waste accounts for only 3 percent of total waste production in the United States.

I want to be clear. I’m not saying we shouldn’t live simply. I live reasonably simply myself, but I don’t pretend that not buying much (or not driving much, or not having kids) is a powerful political act, or that it’s deeply revolutionary. It’s not. Personal change doesn’t equal social change.

So how, then, and especially with all the world at stake, have we come to accept these utterly insufficient responses? I think part of it is that we’re in a double bind. A double bind is where you’re given multiple options, but no matter what option you choose, you lose, and withdrawal is not an option. At thi

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SIGNYM

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 6:47 PM

In light of that, here are convenient links to pressure Eric Holder to investigate Cheney, to press for single payer health care, and other issues.
http://www.alternet.org/action/141289/press_attorney_general_eric_hold
er_to_bring_torture_architects_to_justice/

CANTTAKESKY

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 6:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Derrick Jensen, Orion Magazine. Posted July 13, 2009. Personal change doesn’t equal social change.

Indeed!

The problem is when people enact personal change solutions, or give to charity, it allows them to continue their current lifestyle (more or less) while assuaging their guilt that they are making a difference in the world. Personal change is the modern day indulgence. It allows us to keep on sinning, as long as we "pay" for the sins.

To make a real dent in problems of environment, social justice, energy, water, food, etc, we not only need social change, but government change. Because for better or for worse, government controls it all. Nothing short of a political revolution will change anything.

But folks don't want revolutions. They want to go to their jobs, eat at Olive Garden, take their bubble baths, barbeque in their backyard, and go to Disneyworld. Nobody wants to FIGHT for the change they say they want.

I think that is why I love Firefly, in the end. It is about a group of people who were willing to fight for what they believed in. Not just in the War of the Independents, but also fight for survival to live outside the control of the Alliance. Not many who would do that.

Not many at all.

GEEZER

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 6:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Food for thought.

And if we stop giving agriculture that water and energy it's "stealing" from the world, food for thought is about the only food we'll have.

But anyway, I've noticed that many of the people who take personal responsibility by making their small contributions to recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation, etc. are also the folk who are the most politically active.

Edit to add: And if you do feel active, here's links to join the NRA
http://membership.nrahq.org/
The Libertarian party
https://www.lp.org/membership
and Hunters for the Hungry
http://www.h4hungry.org/

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 7:24 PM

Quote:
And if we stop giving agriculture that water and energy it's "stealing" from the world, food for thought is about the only food we'll have

Agriculture wastes a lot of water. Simply irrigating by drip at night rather than spraying water into the air (sometimes during a windy 100 deg heatwave!) allows 50% more water to get to the plants. In addition, the infrastructure that transports the water leaks anywhere from 15-40%. No-till agriculture also saves water, an addition to building soil structure. So, there are many ways to save water. The problem is that the agriculture industry has done a good job of convincing various water boards that they "need" preferential rates. When rates are raised, its amazing how alternate technologies suddenly become desirable.

FREMDFIRMA

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:31 PM

Well, one can start by not letting the opposition set the "rules" of the engagement.

Some other thoughts for you.

People talk about Community, and how important it is...

Tell me, what is the root of this word ?

But oh noes, that's *gasp* red flag commie socialism and it's so EEEVIL... right ?

"In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it."
-P. Kropotkin.

You know, that's exactly the same dynamic as we apply to children who see the dystopic "future" of victimization were about to hand them, call us out on it, and we call it a "distorted worldview" or "psychiatric disorder" and try to medicate it, instead of admitting the truth that they have a point and working to change the reality they perceive, instead of their perception of it.

Also, one last bit...

In every discussion of Anarchism, comes up the thought - what about those folk who won't help the community, would use your yard as their waste dump, do this, do that, etc etc, and I got to pondering this a bit.

You know, I would not do that to you.
Would you do it to me ?

So, who are these people, where might these mythical roadblocks be found ?

Oh, yeah, that's right... GOVERNMENT, without the power of which, that being the primary thing that protects, coddles and encourages sociopathic behavior of that nature by removing proper consquence from it, said folk tend to receive proper comeuppance for that behavior in very short order, gee whiz, what a concept.

Hell, most decent folk have anarchist leanings to begin with, they just don't realize it.
http://www.anarchistresistance.org/abolishthebank/areyouananarchist.sh
tml

Anyhow, first things first, stop letting the other side frame the arguments and set the rules of engagement - that's every bit as ludicrous as begging "permission" for a *permit* to stage a fekkin protest, innit ?

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

GEEZER

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 11:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Agriculture wastes a lot of water. Simply irrigating by drip at night rather than spraying water into the air (sometimes during a windy 100 deg heatwave!) allows 50% more water to get to the plants.

And in small scale uses drip irrigation works well. I use it for my own veggie garden. Lots of small and medium commercial veggie farms use it. Try using it on a large wheat or corn (or most anything) crop, and you run up against a few problems. First, the amount of pipe, drip nozzles, etc. get pretty expensive when you're talking hundreds of acres. Second, drip works best when drippers can be placed right next to the plants. With the planting methods required for large grain fields, this can't work too well.
Third, the only way to harvest the amount of grains needed to feed us is with mechanized equipment. Doesn't work really well with all the paraphernalia sitting on the ground required for drip.

Quote:
In addition, the infrastructure that transports the water leaks anywhere from 15-40%.

And a good chunk of that infrastructure, especially in the West, is owned by the government. I'm not sure a private concern, having to make a profit, would be as wasteful.

Quote:
No-till agriculture also saves water, an addition to building soil structure.

It's not all positive. The farmers must replace their equipment with the new stuff needed for no-till. Yields may be lower for several years. It seems to be more climate-sensitive. See Wiki

Quote:
So, there are many ways to save water. The problem is that the agriculture industry has done a good job of convincing various water boards that they "need" preferential rates. When rates are raised, its amazing how alternate technologies suddenly become desirable.

So you're quite happy to see food prices go up?

This isn't to say that there can't be more efficient methods of farming, but I suspect your solution would be massive government control and collectivization. I'm not sure I'd support that, given the results of farm collectivization in Soviet Russia, China, Vietnam, North Korea, etc. I have no desire to starve for your dream.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:05 AM

Quote:
So, who are these people, where might these mythical roadblocks be found ? Oh, yeah, that's right... GOVERNMENT

Nope. 'Cause I KNOW entities which have literally tipped their hexavalent chromium waste into the schoolyard next door, and it wasn't government. It was BUSINESS. Yep. BUSINESS. I know you got this hobby-horse about government, but government is ammenable to popular pressure. Business, OTOH, is driven by profit. And PROFIT means shifting the cost to someone else.

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:50 AM

For the purposes of the argument spelled out above, I consider corporations a "government", which in essence they are, simply in another form.

One can certainly entertain the notion that a co-op run by folk who lived in that neighborhood would have a certain reluctance to engage in that behavior.

There's also the age-old argument that corporations would not have their way so easily were it not for the precedent of having the entire military might of that government at their beck and call to protect them from an outraged and exploited citizenry.

Far as I am concerned, ain't a dimes worth of difference between a Corp and any other type of coercive Govt.

-F

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 1:03 AM

Geezer, have YOU ever thought of joining the Know Nothing Party? 'Cause your insistence on road-blocking even the most MINIMAL and DO-ABLE of improvements, based on... well, nothing at all really, except ideology... is just astounding. According to you, strong, energy efficient-cars can't be made. Water can't be conserved. Solar power's no good. So, with a minimum of googling, here's your answer:

Quote:
Cornell University study.... As a start, governments should end irrigation subsidies that encourage inefficient use of water and instead reward conservation, according the report, "Water Resources: Agriculture, the Environment and Society," published in the February 1997 issue of the journal, BioScience.

"Undercharging for irrigation water in the U.S. and other nations hides the true cost of food and encourages the planting of low-value crops," said David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, leader of the 10-researcher team that performed the water-resource analysis. "If farmers paid the full cost of water, they would manage irrigation water more efficiently. We should reward water conservation, not water use."

The study examined factors responsible for a worsening shortage of fresh water, including usage that is increasing out of proportion to population increases. While the world population increased from 3.8 billion to 5.4 billion during the recent two decades, water use worldwide increased three-fold, the analysts found.

... Overall, global warming could increase the world's irrigation needs by 26 percent while worsening deforestation, desertification and soil erosion -- all of which affect water resources.

Our taste for meat is costly in terms of water, Pimentel noted. Producing a pound of animal protein requires, on average, about 100 times more water than producing a pound of vegetable protein. But some animals are thriftier, he noted: Whereas growing the grain to feed cattle requires 12,000 gallons of water for every pound of beef, chicken can be produced for only 420 gallons of water per pound of meat. {So, there's one strategy}

Not only is irrigation becoming more costly, in terms of energy expenditures, as underground aquifers run dry and water has to be pumped from greater depths, but energy production is taking more water, according to the study. Oil shale, coal gasification or coal liquefaction -- the last of the fossil fuel sources as the world's supplies of oil and natural gas are depleted -- require 20 to 50 times more water to produce an equivalent amount of energy, compared to oil and gas. {Maybe solar and wind energy isn't such a bad deal after all?}

... To make matters worse, much of the water for irrigation never reaches the crops, the study reported, because of losses through pumping and transporting. Worldwide, irrigation efficiency is less than 40 percent, and U.S. growers don't do much better, losing more than 50 percent of irrigation water.{Not the gubmint, the growers} Among the technologies and practices suggested to improve efficiency are surge flow irrigation (to replace the traditional method of slow, continuous flooding) as well as night irrigation, low-pressure sprinklers, low-energy precision application and drip irrigation, all help reduce losses by evaporation.

An old agricultural practice -- planting trees as "shelter belts" along with food crops -- can reduce evaporation from soil and transpiration from crops while reducing wind erosion of soils by as much as 50 percent, the researchers suggested. In particular, they recommend intercropping crops with "hydraulic lifter" trees, such as eucalyptus, which draw moisture from deep in the soil at night and make it available to surrounding plants. Intercropping also reduces soil erosion, the study observed, noting that the loss of topsoil cuts rainwater infiltration by 93 percent and dramatically increases water runoff and loss. When water runs off farmed land, it carries with it not only sediments but nutr

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HKCAVALIER

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 1:51 AM

Few things here. First, sure sounds like we're replacing the "what-you-can-do-to-save-the-earth guilt trip" with the "what-you-can-do-to-fight-city-hall guilt trip."

The folks who fought against Nazi Germany and Slavery were heroes. I don't expect heroism of anyone. Having found myself in the kind of hell that required heroism from me, I don't wish that upon anyone. I've got nothing against heroism, I admire it enormously when I see it in others, but to expect it from people shows a real lack of empathy.

Have we really stopped Hitler, Signy? Or has he just taken another form? Many forms? The only real solution to evil is not political action. And what is political action, finally? Coercion? Domination of the few by the many? At what point does that all shade into evil itself? Go ahead, folks, risk your necks in that struggle, try to push people around for the "right" reasons, and good luck, but don't you dare use that to feel superior to the rest of us!

And, I'm sorry, though we humans can be plenty destructive, no doubt about it, the planet is not going to DIE because of us. What an ego we humans have! What a desperate need to feel big, and bad, and powerful! WE may die, yes. But this CRAPOLA about how, ooooh, dangerous we tiny mites are to the planet herself is just way too grandiose. If need be, she'll just shrug us off like a gnat in her sleep, wake from us like a bad dream.

There's gotta be some push and shove in the world, I can see that. But healing, actual healing, actual diminishment of evil, is an inside job. It is personal. And it's social. It is--and I mean this very seriously--an art. It's really about education and expanding one's awareness and the awareness of others (and I'm not talking about enlightenment). Reducing the violence in one's life DOES make a difference, and it reduces the violence in the lives of others. Sorry it's just not big enough for some people to notice, or care about.

It may not be enough, ultimately, to save our skins, but after all your political pushing and shoving, you may fail to save us as well. We all gotta do our part, but it's up to each of us to decide what that part is.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

GEEZER

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 2:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
According to you, strong, energy efficient-cars can't be made. Water can't be conserved. Solar power's no good.

Wrongo.

I don't say it can't be done. I just say that it isn't as simple as you think it is.

Energy efficient cars are being made, but not everyone in the U.S. - or even a majority - want them. Water can be conserved, but there's a price in higher food costs. Solar power is OK, but it'll be more expensive that other sources for quite a while.

I also say that these issues won't be resolved - at least not efficiently - by government decree.

You seem to think that if we just had a "whatever" government, everyone would fall in line, all problems would disappear, everything would be cheap an available to everyone, and wonderfulness would rule forever.

Of course, to get to this wonderful place, anyone who disagrees with your program has to be censored, since they aren't telling "the truth". They have to be re-educated to fit with your world-view, since you've got the simple solution to all the world's complex problems.

I'm sure you'd have no compunction about sending the stubborn holdouts against your wonderful plan for everyone's happiness to the wall, since it'd be a cheap price for making a better world for those who buy your line of bullshit.

You really scare me, because you would happily allow folk to lose whichever of their individual freedoms conflict with your worldview if it meant things would turn out like you want. What's really funny is that if you got want you want, you'd be next in line for the wall.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:09 PM

Quote:
I also say that these issues won't be resolved - at least not efficiently - by government decree.

So how about we just stop subsidizing water?

More later.

KWICKO

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
I also say that these issues won't be resolved - at least not efficiently - by government decree.
So how about we just stop subsidizing water?

More later.

Maybe we can stop subsidizing large SUVs, too. You DO realize that truck-based SUVs - anything you can get categorized as a "truck", up to and including the Chrysler PT Cruiser, which somehow qualifies as a "light truck" under EPA guidelines - don't have to meet the more stringent CAFE standards that CARS have to meet, right?

Also, they don't have to pass as rigorous a battery of crash tests, either. If you can get your vehicle listed as a "truck" for whatever reason, you get all sorts of exemptions and loopholes - or in other words, you get subsidized by legal mandate NOT to meet the standards that every passenger car must meet.

Yesterday, right in front of my workplace, I got to witness an offset-head-on collision between a Chevrolet Dual-Cab Duallie pickup towing a flatbed trailer, and a Toyota Matrix. You'd've thought the Matrix would get the shitty end of that stick, but you'd be wrong. The Matrix driver popped out, going "What the fuck just happened?", while the pickup driver dragged his ass out of his truck through the passenger-side door, holding his shoulder, and with his forearm obviously broken. His truck was mangled - the driver's door wouldn't open, the passenger cell was misshapen; the Matrix, on the other hand, had a passenger cell that looked untouched.

Maybe it's time we make all vehicles that aren't registered to actual businesses or farms meet the same standards of fuel efficiency and safety. After all, if you're buying a truck, but using it as your CAR, you need it to be as safe as a car. Here in Texas, it's rare to see anyone use their monster-truck 4x4s for anything remotely "off-road" - unless you call cutting across the median at the mall "off-roading"!

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...

KWICKO

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:34 PM

Quote:

You seem to think that if we just had a "whatever" government, everyone would fall in line, all problems would disappear, everything would be cheap an available to everyone, and wonderfulness would rule forever.

I'd say Signy isn't the only one who thinks that way. You seem more than a little guilty of it yourself. If only we had no regulation, if only we had unfettered free markets, if only we could turn over the water supply to corporations like Enron, because there's NO chance they're going to screw anything up, right?

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 5:13 PM

Thank Kwicko, my point exactly. To beat this dead horse even further:

Quote:
Wrongo. I don't say it can't be done. I just say that it isn't as simple as you think it is. Energy efficient cars are being made, but not everyone in the U.S. - or even a majority - want them.

They're not being sold at the current price. And who's gonna bring the price down through mass production? GM? Chrysler?

Quote:
Water can be conserved, but there's a price in higher food costs.

Big users should be charged at the same rate as little user, no subsidies.

Quote:
Solar power is OK, but it'll be more expensive that other sources for quite a while.

And who's investing in making it cheaper? Exxon??? Shell???

Quote:
I also say that these issues won't be resolved - at least not efficiently - by industry action, given their history so far. You seem to think that if we just had a "whatever" market everyone would fall in line, all problems would disappear, everything would be cheap an available to everyone, and wonderfulness would rule forever. Of course, to get to this wonderful place, anyone who disagrees with your program has to be censored, since they aren't telling "the truth". They have to believe the commercials on TV to be re-educated to fit with your world-view, since you've got the simple solution to all the world's complex problems: capitalism

I'm sure you'd have no compunction about kicking stubborn holdouts against your wonderful plan for everyone's happiness to the curb, since it'd be a cheap price for making a better world for those who buy your line of bullshit. You really scare me, because you would happily allow folk to lose whichever of their individual freedoms conflict with corporations if it meant things would turn out like you want. What's really funny is that if you got want you want, you'd be next in line for the curb

"Keep the blinders on"

RUE

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 5:43 PM

Strange how little faith Geezer has in democracy - that thing which allows people to guide and run their own society for their own benefit. And how much he has in corporations.

***************************************************************

Banana republic, anyone ? ( - not the clothing - that thing with armed camps for the workers who must be made to enjoy the benefits of benevolent capitalism - for their own good, of course.)

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 5:47 PM

Quote:
And how much he has in corporations

Which have nothing but our best interests at heart.

KWICKO

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 6:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Strange how little faith Geezer has in democracy - that thing which allows people to guide and run their own society for their own benefit. And how much he has in corporations.

***************************************************************

Banana republic, anyone ? ( - not the sunscreen - that thing with armed camps for the workers who must be made to enjoy the benefits of benevolent capitalism - for their own good, of course.)

Well, in fairness, Geezer IS a big fan of "democracy" - as long as that's what they call it when strong-arm dictators friendly to western and corporate interests take over smaller countries with our support and backing! He's just not much of a fan of democracy HERE, where we allegedly have such a thing (although in truth, it's NOT a democracy any more than it's a "capitalist" system; it's a more-or-less democratic republic with hints of corporatism and oligarchism, and a touch of socialism and fascism tossed in for good measure.)

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...

GEEZER

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 6:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
So how about we just stop subsidizing water?

Fine with me. Doubt it'll happen.

I was listening to the Diane Rehm show today http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/07/15.php#26912 about the crisis in dairy farming. Seems that there is so much overproduction that it costs farmers $16.00 to produce a hundredweight (cwt) of milk that they can only sell for $10.00, there being so much surplus.

The proposed solution, of course, was to set a government-mandated price floor of $18.00 per cwt. No one on the show (that I heard. I missed a few minutes) dared suggest that maybe there were too many dairy farmers.

Does that sound right to you?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 6:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
They're (energy-efficient cars)not being sold at the current price. And who's gonna bring the price down through mass production? GM? Chrysler?

You can buy subcompacts for under $10,000.00. GM and Ford manufacture sub-compacts that go for $12-14,000.00 after rebates and get 35+ mpg. Strangely enough, folks still pay two or three times that for minivans and SUVs.

Did you know that Toyota loses money on every Prius they sell? They subsidize Prius for its Green cred using the profit on sales of their trucks and SUVs.

Quote:
Big users should be charged at the same rate as little user, no subsidies.

Fine with me. Expect to pay more at the market, though.

Quote:
And who's investing in making it (solar power)cheaper? Exxon??? Shell???

Nope, and neither are Toyota or Disney. It's not their market. Outfits like Tetra Tech and BlueFire Ethanol are carrying on the alternative energy research.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

RUE

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 6:42 PM

Not too many dairy farmers - too much agribusiness dairy factories competing with the mom and pop dairy farms.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

GEEZER

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 6:57 PM

But Signy, I forgot to ask you to provide your simple solution for the agricultural water problem. Stopping subsidies is fine, even if consumer prices go up. Drip irrigation and no-till farming have some utility, and are being used now, but they also raise prices to the consumer and have limitations relating to terrain and type of crop. What's that obvious thing that everyone's been missing that'll save us? The world needs to know.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 7:06 PM

Quote:
I forgot to ask you to provide your simple solution for the agricultural water problem... What's that obvious thing that everyone's been missing that'll save us?

I have no idea what you're talking about. Why are you pressing for one (only one!) obvious solution? That's like saying we should invest in high-efficiency home furnaces in Los Angeles, solar energy in Seattle, and cool-roof technology in Barrow.

GEEZER

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 7:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Not too many dairy farmers - too much agribusiness dairy factories competing with the mom and pop dairy farms.

Yep. We could do away with all the big efficient farms and let the mom & pop farms feed us. Except there aren't enough mom & pop farms to feed us, and not that many folk who want to start farming from scratch. Of course, we could just assign people to the farms...

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 7:17 PM

Mom-and-pop farms HATE being beholden to Cargill, Monsanto or whomever, from whom they must buy their (GMO) seeds, fertilizers, chicks, turkeys etc. and feed them the standard mix that Monsanto requires. Many of these farmers feel like nothing more than sub-contractors to larger firms.

Whatsamatta, Geezer? Have you no feeling for individualism and individual freedom? Or do you LIKE smaller producers being swallowed by big corporations? (Something which you have vociferously denied ever happens in many previous posts!)

KWICKO

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 7:57 PM

Quote:

Did you know that Toyota loses money on every Prius they sell? They subsidize Prius for its Green cred using the profit on sales of their trucks and SUVs.

Cites? According to Toyota, the current generation of the Prius, AND the previous generation - the one that really got noticed - are both profitable on their own.

"Expect to pay more at the market..."

Well, maybe a little more, at first. I don't *always* buy organic produce, but if the prices are anywhere close, I absolutely will. I'll support organic farms with my wallet, just as long as it's not going to break me to do it. Same with farms that put an emphasis on water conservation. While I may not pay DOUBLE to get that produce, I WILL pay more, and I'll make the choice to do it.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...

KWICKO

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 7:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
But Signy, I forgot to ask you to provide your simple solution for the agricultural water problem. Stopping subsidies is fine, even if consumer prices go up. Drip irrigation and no-till farming have some utility, and are being used now, but they also raise prices to the consumer and have limitations relating to terrain and type of crop. What's that obvious thing that everyone's been missing that'll save us? The world needs to know.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

I take it you're firmly AGAINST closing our borders and stemming the flow of illegal aliens into the country, then? After all, if you want to secure the borders and deport the 12 million or so illegals, I hope you're ready to pay more for your produce!

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...

GEEZER

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I have no idea what you're talking about. Why are you pressing for one (only one!) obvious solution?

Well, earlier, you suggested that the farmers all go to drip irrigation and no-till farming, seeming to think that those were panaceas. You obviously believe you have some sort of answer, but when asked what it is you don't seem to be able to provide a clear description. Sort like when you were asked who'd decide which "truth" the media should be allowed to broadcast, you went silent.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

KWICKO

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:36 PM

So, Geezer, what's YOUR one solution? Give control of all water to corporations, as you suggested earlier? Let 'em charge whatever they want for it, and put your faith in the free market that your prices won't go up?

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...

GEEZER

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Whatsamatta, Geezer? Have you no feeling for individualism and individual freedom? Or do you LIKE smaller producers being swallowed by big corporations? (Something which you have vociferously denied ever happens in many previous posts!)

If I didn't have to eat, I'd like to see the countryside dotted with little farms for all the mom & pop farmers who wanted them. However, there wouldn't be enough of them to feed everybody. I appreciate handmade cabinetry, but if we had to depend on individual cabinet-makers for all our furniture, we'd be sitting on the floor a lot.

The future of the mom & pop farm is most likely in niche markets where they can sell quality produce - probably organic - at a higher price. Lots are going that way sucessfully. Individual freedom includes the freedom to fail if you don't change with the times and the market. Would you have banned the auto in the early 20th century because it put buggy-whip makers out of business?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
So, Geezer, what's YOUR one solution?

Simple. Quit trying to come up with simple solutions. People who say 'if we only do this', 'if we only do that', 'it's all (fill in the blank)'s fault' are talking out their ass and have no idea how complex things really are. Above all, quit trying to make everything about your political agenda.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

RUE

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:52 PM

"Above all, quit trying to make everything about your political agenda."

Think I'm going to make this my tag-line every time I post to you.

***************************************************************

"Above all, quit trying to make everything about your political agenda."

GEEZER

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
...I hope you're ready to pay more for your produce!

Actually, I am. When possible, I buy from mom & pop farmers at local farmers markets, and don't mind paying more for better produce. I also grow and dry my own herbs and chiles, and raise my own hierloom tomatoes. Oh, and we bake most all our own bread, too.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

KWICKO

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 11:06 PM

Quote:

Simple. Quit trying to come up with simple solutions. People who say 'if we only do this', 'if we only do that', 'it's all (fill in the blank)'s fault' are talking out their ass and have no idea how complex things really are. Above all, quit trying to make everything about your political agenda.

But aren't YOU also trying to make everything about YOUR political agenda? Isn't saying "Do nothing; stay the course; maintain the status quo!" promoting your political agenda?

Telling people who say "if we only do this" and "if we only do that" to instead DO NOTHING is its own form of promoting a political agenda.

During the campaign, we had Barrack Obama telling us that "if we only checked our tire pressures and kept our tires properly inflated, we'd cut our gasoline use by 4 percent." Those in favor of never doing anything or trying anything roundly criticized him for that remark, saying "if only we drill here at home, we'd get about 4 percent more oil out of the ground". (Of course, they were neglecting to mention the more than 68,000,000 acres of land that the oil companies already HAVE drilling rights on, which they haven't even explored...)

When you look at a problem like water or oil, there ARE no giant simple solutions; you're right about that. But what there are are simple things that more of us can do, things that will add up to make a real difference.

I don't think I saw Signy advocating that ALL farmers must use one single method. What she seemed to be advocating was that if MORE farmers would use MORE of these methods, it would have a net cumulative effect that would be rather large.

If *I* switch my yard to xeriscaping, it's not going to have an effect on the city's water usage. It will impact MY personal water usage a bit, but the city won't notice. But if the whole city went to xeriscaping, you'd see one hell of a drop in water usage. I note that that is not THE solution, but merely one little thing that more people could do. But before you can get ANYONE to do that or anything else that will use less water, you have to make them aware that there ARE alternatives to what they're currently doing.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...

KWICKO

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 11:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
...I hope you're ready to pay more for your produce!

Actually, I am. When possible, I buy from mom & pop farmers at local farmers markets, and don't mind paying more for better produce. I also grow and dry my own herbs and chiles, and raise my own hierloom tomatoes. Oh, and we bake most all our own bread, too.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Actually, so do I.

So when you keep saying "I hope you're ready to pay more for your food", are you just trying to be alarmist?

Let's put it this way: In your life, have prices generally gone up, or down? Saying "I hope you're ready to pay more for your food" is like arguing against better mileage or auto safety by saying, "I hope you're ready to pay more for your cars." OF COURSE car prices are going up - and oddly enough, they've been going up consistently with no regard whatsoever for the fuel economy standards. So trying to link those is pretty much pure BS.

Prices are going to go up. The only thing that changes is what those price increases are blamed on.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 11:24 PM

Quote:
Well, earlier, you suggested that the farmers all go to drip irrigation and no-till farming, seeming to think that those were panaceas. You obviously believe you have some sort of answer but when asked what it is you don't seem to be able to provide a clear description

I posted an article from Cornell University which had about six or seven "answers". I even underlined them for you. Try reading it. And I made the point that was just one site out of many.

Quote:
Sort like when you were asked who'd decide which "truth" the media should be allowed to broadcast, you went silent.

If you recall, I gave you two pathways: either allow everyone free access to the media and let the audience sort it all out, or require that the media be held to some form of truthfulness. It seems to me that allowing lawsuits to be filed on the basis of non-factuality might be the way to go.

GEEZER

Thursday, July 16, 2009 1:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
But aren't YOU also trying to make everything about YOUR political agenda? Isn't saying "Do nothing; stay the course; maintain the status quo!" promoting your political agenda?

No. And I've never said the "Do nothing..." line. I'm just trying to point out that it isn't as simple as you, or SignyM, or Rue try to make it. People who have a lot more expertise than you or I are working on the problems related to efficient food production. Somehow I don't think folks who have read a few articles on websites that cater to their political viewpoint have the depth of knowledge about several different diciplines to propose a solution.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Thursday, July 16, 2009 1:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I posted an article from Cornell University which had about six or seven "answers".

Yep. They have six or seven "answers". Other folks got answers that contradict the Cornell ones. Should we just pick a few at random, apply them nationwide, and hope that not too many folks starve if we're wrong?

Quote:
If you recall, I gave you two pathways: either allow everyone free access to the media and let the audience sort it all out,

As the internet does. Internet Neutrality. Yay!

Quote:
...or require that the media be held to some form of truthfulness.

And for the umpteenth time, WHO THE FUCK decides what the standard of truthfulness is? You consistantly refuse to answer this question. I'm expecting you'll refuse to answer it again.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 16, 2009 12:41 PM

Quote:
Yep. They have six or seven "answers". Other folks got answers that contradict the Cornell ones. Should we just pick a few at random, apply them nationwide, and hope that not too many folks starve if we're wrong?

Cites please?

Other studies present other OPTIONS, which add to the armamentarium, not subtract from it. Saying that they "contradict" the Cornell study is like saying that hand-washing contradicts antibiotic use.

Other studies cite drip irrigation, crop replacement, low-pressure low-elevation sprinkling, laser-leveling, tailwater (runoff) re-use, and soil moisture monitoring. In some places they reiterate Cornell, in other places they overlap, and still others they complement. None of them "contradict".
www.pacinst.org/reports/more_with_less_delta/index.htm
www.twdb.state.tx.us/.../conservation/ConservationPublications/AgBroch
ure.pdf
What this all means is that farmers have a large number of options to choose from, which they can use in singly or combination to maximize irrigation efficiency.

Quote:
As the internet does. Internet Neutrality. Yay!

Ah, so now you're FOR internet neutrality? Good! Say- do you know what that is???? It's a regulation which "interferes" with the telecom's ability to charge different customers different rates. In other words, net neutrality is a gubmint function which interferes with business. Still for it?

Quote:
And for the umpteenth time, WHO THE FUCK decides what the standard of truthfulness is? You consistantly refuse to answer this question. I'm expecting you'll refuse to answer it again.

I answered it: Allow lawsuits to be brought against the media for lack of factuality. That way "everyone" decides.

I feel like I'm talking to a dolt who's got his head buried up his ass.

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 16, 2009 12:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
For the purposes of the argument spelled out above, I consider corporations a "government", which in essence they are, simply in another form.

One can certainly entertain the notion that a co-op run by folk who lived in that neighborhood would have a certain reluctance to engage in that behavior.

There's also the age-old argument that corporations would not have their way so easily were it not for the precedent of having the entire military might of that government at their beck and call to protect them from an outraged and exploited citizenry.

Far as I am concerned, ain't a dimes worth of difference between a Corp and any other type of coercive Govt.

-F

OTOH Frem.... the reason why the chrome plater tipped their waste into the schoolyard was because their sewer line had been blocked by the sanitation district for dumping toxic waste down the drain. Then ANOTHER function of the government .... the air pollution agency- stepped in and found out they were blowing it out their stack too. The extremely high "background" levels that we took indicated widespread contamination- which brought in the dept of toxic substances for soil testing. Eventually, the place was shut down, the owners went to jail, and the site was cleaned up. Seeing as hexchrome is odorless and an extremely potent carcinogen even at low levels, NONE of the neighbors complained at first. They didn't even KNOW there was a problem until testing showed otherwise.

You forget, Frem, that I work for the gubmint enforcing rules that very few businesses like. I've gone toe-to-toe with bad actors across the board: refineries, platers, illegal toxic waste dumps which caught fire, superfund sites, drum recyclers, lead refiners, aluminum smelters, cement makers, coke calcining operations, paint manufacturers. Businesses which knowingly traded human health for profit, which fought us tooth and nail. I hear every day how they feel pressured by business in China.

It's good old capitalism which drives everyone to the bottom of the barrel. Don't ever forget that.

GEEZER

Thursday, July 16, 2009 1:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I answered it: Allow lawsuits to be brought against the media for lack of factuality. That way "everyone" decides.

You mean in here?

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=18&t=39077

Nope.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 16, 2009 4:15 PM

No, I answered it here. TWICE.

You're stooping pretty low, Geezer. Must mean you have nothing to say.

GEEZER

Thursday, July 16, 2009 6:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
No, I answered it here. TWICE.

You're stooping pretty low, Geezer. Must mean you have nothing to say.

This from the person who goes back and edits prior posts to create an answer. An example of your version of "truthfulness" no doubt.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 16, 2009 7:18 PM

Quote:
This from the person who goes back and edits prior posts to create an answer. An example of your version of "truthfulness" no doubt.

Geezer, when I edit it's within about 1-3 mins of my original post, to correct spelling or format errors, add a sentence or change a word -or, in this case, add your quote for clarification (which I just did). But I don't recall any exchanges in this thread that were so lightening-fast that a minute or two lag would have made any difference. You replied about two hours after my original post- well past my "edit window". I can't help it if you read slow.

BTW- are you still for net neutrality?

Shall I go back further? You pressed me for a "simple" solution for water management, THEN you said it wasn't a "simple" problem. When I kindly pointed out there were at least a half-dozen options available, you objected to their multiplicity by saying they "contradicted" eachother!

Vehicles. I wasn't going to go back and stick your nose in your illogic, but what the hell. YOU said that energy efficient econoboxes were available, but that many people still preferred minivans and SUVs. That's an apples to oranges comparison. Why don't we have ENERGY EFFICIENT minivans and SUVs at affordable prices? Is that "not the market" of vehicle manufacturers?

You have argued with me many times in many threads that monopolization due to economies of scale doesn't happen. Then you cite it in this very thread and even trace out its mechanism:

Quote:
Yep. We could do away with all the big efficient farms...Individual freedom includes the freedom to fail if you don't change with the times

What are you saying Geezer? You've pulled un-cited facts out of your ass time and time again, and contradicted yourself at least a half-dozen times in this thread. You seem to be tripping over yourself repeatedly.

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 16, 2009 7:38 PM

HK- You are, as always, insightful.

But.

I don't think that personal change necessarily leads to social change. After all, MOST of the people in this world are pretty decent. They work hard, take care of their kids, generally don't go around punching people out for no reason (except male chauvinists), but that hasn't remade the world into a better place.

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, July 16, 2009 7:56 PM

But it can.

All it takes is one simply solitary thing.
Stop "taking orders" from the bad guys.

Enough folk do that, and they are finished.

My issue is dealin with those who take those orders not out of fear or ignorance, but out of pure fekkin malice for their fellow man.

Payin evil unto evil, because for those with malice in their hearts - what better way to feed it to satisfaction then upon those who prey upon the decent ?

-F

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 16, 2009 9:13 PM

Frem, we will have to agree to disagree on this issue. Interactions among a million people don't follow monkeysphere-size politics.

HKCAVALIER

Thursday, July 16, 2009 10:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
HK- You are, as always, insightful.

But.

I don't think that personal change necessarily leads to social change. After all, MOST of the people in this world are pretty decent. They work hard, take care of their kids, generally don't go around punching people out for no reason (except male chauvinists), but that hasn't remade the world into a better place.

Quote:
Interactions among a million people don't follow monkeysphere-size politics.

Hey, Signy, thanks a lot for your reply. It means a lot to me. I'd kinda figured my post had been long forgotten in the push and shove between you and Geez.

I grant you that it's singularly hard to make social change out of personal change, but isn't that why we admire the likes of Gandhi, Dr. King and Malcolm X so much? That they bridged that seeming chasm? Isn't it precisely that powerful conjunction that fuels the assassination of such men? These men were feared because of who they WERE, not how many bombs or guns they had backing them up. These men were able to expand their "monkey spheres" to include whole nations of people.

What if real transformation and evolution only happens in the monkey-sphere?

What if action in your "larger" political sphere always ends up with one faction simply beating down another?

I don't think anti-corporate political action will really work until you can reach the CEOs with your message. Corporate culture is what needs to change, otherwise you're just getting rid of one corporate "bad actor" and making room for another to take its place.

That's why Frem and I are always harping about child development--'cause that's where it starts and that's where it can be prevented. But are all the CEOs of the world beyond hope? Gandhi succeeded because the British Raj realized that they valued their humanity more than their control. The British realized that there was a limit to how evil they were willing to be to maintain control. I believe such limits exist in every human being and it is a matter of education, and the expansion of awareness in the form of true empathy to find that limit.

It seems to me what needs to happen is that we--someone--needs to inspire monkey-sphere evolution in the corporatists. Awareness of the planetary crisis seems to have inspired a lot of change in the corporate sphere, already.

Too little, too late, you may say, but that's the amazing thing about healing. Disease often gets worse before it gets better. So often healing becomes visible only in the proverbial eleventh hour--until a critical moment, it just looks like degradation.

There's the story about the North Sea, fished to near extinction before the Second World War, but with the war, all fishing stopped up there and after the war, the fish hadn't simply begun to return, but in that short time, they'd made up what had been lost over half a century or more.

The reason for this is the phenomenon of homeostasis. There is a healthy equilibrium that nature will always return to if we just lay off for a while. This is true of planets, ecosystems and children. Sure, there are diseases that need special therapy, but in the main, if you just back off, respect other living beings, it's amazing what can happen.

So I promote communication, I promote therapy, I promote empathy. I promote the expansion of your monkey-sphere to include not only the entire human family, but the natural world as well. None of us can be perfect, we're bound to let some folks, some species, some systems down; but on balance, if we do the work to clean up our own mess, work to expand our definition of "our own mess," that's gonna lead to real, lasting change for the human species. That's the movement I've seen in our history. That's what I've seen in the intellectual history of the last century with the discovery of developmental psychology. We really are learning, as a species, what's real and what isn't.

I guess, what it boils down to for me, is that real education cannot be

SIGNYM

Friday, July 17, 2009 3:35 PM

Quote:
What if real transformation and evolution only happens in the monkey-sphere?

Good question.

Needs much thought.

RUE

Friday, July 17, 2009 3:49 PM

Pardon my chiming in, but this is a topic that has been of interest to me for quite a while.

Most people are well-adapted to their environment, for better or worse. And that means they are part and parcel of the problems that exist.

For anyone to change minds en masse is a remarkable thing. Those visionaries negated lifetimes of cultural conditioning. But as remarkable as they were, what did they accomplish, in the end ? How many people carry those lessons with them today ?

OTOH, if you change the environment you de facto change people's minds. You change what they assume, how they rationalize, what they expect. If you remove that big pile of easily dominated fruit you change the chimps' social interactions. If you remove that whole layer of baboon bullies who cornered the local dump you make for a peaceable society.

I tend to agree with SignyM - society unconsciously responds to meta-conditions. I think of those as things that are generally beyond individual grasp (and perhaps those remarkable people found a way to resolve global conundrums).

There were several large-scale thriving societies that made it well beyond agriculture without war, without apparent hierarchy, without concentrated wealth, and mostly without religion. I think we could do much better for ourselves if we could figure out how their societies were arranged, and what they did to escape the cascading effects of agriculture and hierarchies.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

STORYMARK

Friday, July 17, 2009 4:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:

Of course, to get to this wonderful place, anyone who disagrees with your program has to be censored, since they aren't telling "the truth". They have to be re-educated to fit with your world-view, since you've got the simple solution to all the world's complex problems.

I'm sure you'd have no compunction about sending the stubborn holdouts against your wonderful plan for everyone's happiness to the wall, since it'd be a cheap price for making a better world for those who buy your line of bullshit.

You really scare me, because you would happily allow folk to lose whichever of their individual freedoms conflict with your worldview if it meant things would turn out like you want. What's really funny is that if you got want you want, you'd be next in line for the wall.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

God damn, you are one crazy ass motherfucker.

But bravo at living up to the name. Crazy ass coot.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

SIGNYM

Friday, July 17, 2009 4:31 PM

Funny thing is, it boomerangs right back at him:

"Of course, to get to this wonderful place, anyone who disagrees capitalism has to be censored, since they aren't telling "the truth". They have to be re-educated to fit with your world-view and believe the commercials on TV since you've got the simple solution to all the world's complex problems.

I'm sure you'd have no compunction about kicking the stubborn holdouts against capitalism to the curb, since it'd be a cheap price for making a better world for those who buy your line of bullshit.

You really scare me, because you would happily allow folk to lose whichever of their individual freedoms conflict with corporations if it meant things would turn out like you want. What's really funny is that if you got want you want, you'd be next in line for the curb."

Sadly, Geezer can't see it.

HKCAVALIER

Friday, July 17, 2009 6:15 PM

Hey Rue.

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Pardon my chiming in, but this is a topic that has been of interest to me for quite a while.

You're pardoned.

I'm a little confused though, you may have to go into a leetle bit more detail with your ideas, if you have the time. This part here, f'rinstance:

Quote:
For anyone to change minds en masse is a remarkable thing. Those visionaries negated lifetimes of cultural conditioning. But as remarkable as they were, what did they accomplish, in the end ? How many people carry those lessons with them today ?

What did they accomplish??? Gandhi, MLK? Really? You don't think they changed history--permanently? And as far as who carries their ideas--people in general? We gotta black President? As I said: confused.

Quote:
OTOH, if you change the environment you de facto change people's minds. You change what they assume, how they rationalize, what they expect. If you remove that big pile of easily dominated fruit you change the chimps' social interactions. If you remove that whole layer of baboon bullies who cornered the local dump you make for a peaceable society.

But to whom are you gonna grant the power to change the environment so drastically? In the case of the chimps, you've got all-powerful human scientists, toying with them--is that the level of social engineering you want to see? And beyond that, are you, personally, so dominated by your environment that you can't imagine other ways of thinking or being? And if you can, do you think you're special in that ability? Again, I'm mostly confused, 'cause I don't see your underlying logic, I just see various disconnected conclusions.

Quote:
I tend to agree with SignyM - society unconsciously responds to meta-conditions. I think of those as things that are generally beyond individual grasp (and perhaps those remarkable people found a way to resolve global conundrums).

Again, are they beyond YOUR grasp? Is the problem simply that human beings in general lack the mental acuity to grasp these things?

Quote:
There were several large-scale thriving societies that made it well beyond agriculture without war, without apparent hierarchy, without concentrated wealth, and mostly without religion. I think we could do much better for ourselves if we could figure out how their societies were arranged, and what they did to escape the cascading effects of agriculture and hierarchies.

Could you name names, please?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

SIGNYM

Friday, July 17, 2009 9:01 PM

I know Mohenjo-Daro was one, which failed after several hundred years due to river shift (did NOT fall in war). Possibly the Minoan culture on Thera (currently Santorini) destroyed by a volcano.

RUE

Friday, July 17, 2009 9:03 PM

Could you name names, please?

There was also one in S America - a large, robust and thriving culture which fell to a 500 year drought - but the name escapes me at the moment.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

RUE

Friday, July 17, 2009 11:10 PM

The name of the city is Caral - from Wiki:

"No trace of warfare has been found at Caral; no battlements, no weapons, no mutilated bodies. Shady's findings suggest it was a gentle society, built on commerce and pleasure. In one of the pyramids, they uncovered 32 flutes made of condor and pelican bones and 37 cornets of deer and llama bones. They also found evidence of drug use and possibly aphrodisiacs. One find revealed the remains of a baby, wrapped and buried with a necklace made of stone beads.

The town had a population of approximately 3000 people. But there are 19 other sites in the area (posted at Caral), allowing for a possible total population of 20,000 people for the Supe valley. All of these sites in the Supe valley share similarities with Caral. They had small platforms or stone circles. Shady (2001) believes that Caral was the focus of this civilization ..."

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, July 18, 2009 5:16 AM

HK,

I think you bring up a good point. Don't judge. It's a good motto.

But at the same time, I don't think it is mean or judgmental to note that changes in the monkeysphere do not result in large-scale systemic change. I'm not saying they are not valuable, but they are not the same thing. Making one's monkeysphere a nicer place is great, but it should not be thought of as the equivalent of making the world a better place.

Perhaps it boils down to different definitions of "better" and "change." I don't know. I just don't see how someone being kind or living a simpler life or doing any number of individually wonderful things is making a dent in the oppression of the Palestinian people in Israel, or the genocide of the Karen people in Myanmar, or the mass rape and genital mutilation of women in the Congo.

In my view, "change," the large scale systemic change that ripples across the globe, happens in about 3 venues: new technology, economic revolution, and political revolution. Most people do not engage in any of these venues, and do not care to.

That is fine. I just have some difficulty with the delusion that one is contributing their share in making a global difference because one bought carbon credits from a factory in China. Or gave a donation to the Red Cross. Or recycles their soda bottles.

It's a real big personal struggle I have. I feel like I am in a fancy restaurant, looking out at hungry people, some of whom have their noses pressed against the glass, and some of whom are having the shit kicked out of them by bad people.

I look around and I see people donating money to various charities claiming to be helping those hungry folks. They pat themselves on the back for having done "something" or "what they could," and continue to eat their fancy steak dinner.

I am not judging them. I am not saying their money is bad. I am just thinking they shouldn't give money and think that is making a difference or effecting change.

I don't see anyone fighting for the folks out there. Really fighting.

I sit down at my table, and eat my own fancy steak dinner. But I am ill at ease. I know giving money is not sufficient. But I don't know what to do. When do I get up, leave the restaurant, and go do something that would REALLY make a difference for the folks out there?

I hope that makes sense. I am nowhere near as eloquent as you. But those are my thoughts as clearly as I can explain them.

RUE

Saturday, July 18, 2009 6:50 AM

HKC

Well, now I have some time - sorry to take so long to get back to you -

"What did they accomplish??? Gandhi, MLK? Really? You don't think they changed history--permanently? And as far as who carries their ideas--people in general? We gotta black President? As I said: confused."

Many people were personally transformed. But over time the lessons died with those people. As an example: the Indian subcontinent. It is no longer a British colony - but one could argue that that would have happened anyway, as it did with the other British colonies.
As for Gandhi's vision of Hindu and Muslim and Buddhist and Christian and Jew living side by side in peace - not so much. All you have to do is think of the bombing of the Indian Parliament, the sore that is Kashmir, Sri Lanka and the Tamils, the very existence of Pakistan and Bangladesh ... indeed you find Hindu against Buddhist, Muslim against Hindu, Christian against Jew, the upper class against the lower, the owner against the worker ...

The same could be said for MLK and the other visionaries.

The problem with personal transformation is that no matter how sincere, it dies with that person.

That's an issue when it comes to achieving lasting social change.

"But to whom are you gonna grant the power to change the environment so drastically? In the case of the chimps, you've got all-powerful human scientists, toying with them--is that the level of social engineering you want to see? And beyond that, are you, personally, so dominated by your environment that you can't imagine other ways of thinking or being? And if you can, do you think you're special in that ability? Again, I'm mostly confused, 'cause I don't see your underlying logic, I just see various disconnected conclusions."

First of all, the chimp 'experiment' was an inadvertent one made by Jane Goodall trying to study chimps in the jungle. In order to bring them to the clearing where she could see them, she put food out, but happened to put it out in a pile. After a while, she realized that their interactions were pathological, and that when she spread the food out (as would be found in the jungle) the pathological behaviors disappeared. I don't believe it was a matter of an all-powerful scientist running the show - simply a series of accidental observations.

I'm not (a this point) talking about radical experiments on societies, enforced with a heavy hand by the few who claim to know better. For one thing, we don't know enough about what societies respond to.

But I do think it is a fruitful area for study - and a fruitful idea for consideration.

After all, we already have people bound and determined to remake society, and who are actively manipulating us for for THEIR benefit. They are the business-people: men of commerce and industry, cheesemakers and manufacturers of dairy products, men of authority. THEY have no compunction about telling us what we should and should not do, about making some products cheaply but harmfully, about running the place to ruin and telling us if we're not rich it's our fault. THEY have no compunction about wielding the whip hand of starvation and the goad of greed. For every Rue in this world saying that people should be free to choose their destiny, you have at least one Geezer saying people should be free to do things his way. And you always find Geezers in societies like ours. THEY do want their hierarchies and petty divisions.

And once we DO know what society responds to - once we all know - what then do we do with that understanding ? Do YOU see room for us all to decide that a society which serves us ALL better is entirely do-able ? Do YOU think a good portion of humanity can take a voluntary and hopeful step forward ?

(I do.)

"Again, are they beyond YOUR grasp? Is the problem simply that human beings in general lack the mental acuity to grasp these things?"

Yes, they are beyond MY grasp. I can see the potential - smarter people than I will have to elucidate the whole panorama.

**************************************************

SIGNYM

Saturday, July 18, 2009 5:25 PM

Quote:
smarter people than I will have to elucidate the whole panorama

Perhaps many minds together will.

I've given this some thought, and still come back to the idea that personal responsibility (or personal change, if you will) does not equal social change.

Just to give ONE example of the meta-conditions to which people are subject: Modern "human behavior"- particularly with regards to invention- did not begin until populations reached a threshold population density. A similar (older) study showed that certain cultures died out for lack of critical population density and loss of trade. There seems to be a critical mass which allows specialization and exchange of ideas. At the same time, population masses put more focal stress on the environment, which introduces new pressures. In addition, larger population masses allow (not mandate- allow) taller heirarchies, which would simply not be possible in a monkeysphere-sized society.

One of the interesting things about Minoan culture is that the altho the society transitioned from tribalism, it retained its matriarchal/ matrilineal roots. Its possible that Mohenjo-Daro and it sister-cities, as well as the Caral culture traced the same path. That may be one of the critical differences.

In any case, to summarize my point: larger populations allow many more TYPES of interactions than monkeysphere-size populations. Therefore, the feedback mechanisms on these interactions fall outside of the monkeysphere domain.

I regard personal change and personal responsibility as a dead-end for social change in a modern populated setting, UNLESS that change includes the widespread recognition that power relations must be deliberately shifted.

HKCAVALIER

Sunday, July 19, 2009 12:57 AM

Hi, CTS, thanks for your reply.

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
I don't think it is mean or judgmental to note that changes in the monkeysphere do not result in large-scale systemic change. I'm not saying they are not valuable, but they are not the same thing. Making one's monkeysphere a nicer place is great, but it should not be thought of as the equivalent of making the world a better place.

Y'know, this whole monkeysphere idea that there are only a hundred or so people one can really identify with strikes me as pathetically anemic. If I observe someone, apprehend their story, I'm going to identify with them--period--whether it's Tutsis in Rwanda or George W. Bush. I think that's the natural, adult response. I don't have some "oh, those people are on the other side of the globe, or that man is a corrupt bastard, I can't care about them" self-defense running in my head.

On the other hand, I recognize a profound level of personal responsibility in these matters. We, each of us, are not only subject to our suffering but participate in it. That's why removing a person from the original context of their suffering doesn't always end the suffering--people tend to reconstruct their suffering unless they properly examine their personal stake in it. That's why I say healing is an inside job.

Haven't you noticed that political change amounts to little more than a shell game most of the time? I don't think it's just because we have bad options from which to choose, I think it's the nature of the beast.

Quote:
I just don't see how someone being kind or living a simpler life or doing any number of individually wonderful things is making a dent in the oppression of the Palestinian people in Israel, or the genocide of the Karen people in Myanmar, or the mass rape and genital mutilation of women in the Congo.

Certainly not. The premise of the article seems pretty trite, along the lines of "bad things are bad" or "shallow people are shallow." The examples it cites, and those that you offer here are clearly token gestures, and those are always made in bad faith.

But you seem to judge yourself and others by a standard of superheroism. You see a problem and suddenly you think it's incumbent upon you to fix it--sounds a little like our American foreign policy, don'tcha think? Self respect requires that we accept our limitations, otherwise we destroy ourselves, sacrifice ourselves on the altar of perfectionism.

I'm not just talking about people in the far flung Congo, but your best friend who's husband cheated on her here at home--if you know there's something you can do, then you must do it--get busy! But if you don't know, then you're just throwing guilt at the problem and prolly making things worse for the folks who do know what they're doing.

Quote:
In my view, "change," the large scale systemic change that ripples across the globe, happens in about 3 venues: new technology, economic revolution, and political revolution. Most people do not engage in any of these venues, and do not care to.

Yikes! I really gotta challenge this idea that political revolution creates positive change. Look at the most famous revolution in history, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Did that really change things for the people on the ground? Or did the despotic faction ruling those people simply get replaced by another despotic faction? And now that the Berlin Wall is down, are the people in Russia better off because of that? Or are the people in Russia better off because of the slow but inexorable progress the human race is making toward understanding social and psychological reality?

I agree with you that revolutions in technology, revolutions in communication effect real change globally, but I think it's in the nature of perception and the growth of knowledge for this to happen--no one need be a technological activist to make this kind of change happen. The internet and such are making it harder and harder for tyranny to have free reign over its subje

RUE

Sunday, July 19, 2009 4:14 AM

"If I observe someone, apprehend their story, I'm going to identify with them--period--whether it's Tutsis in Rwanda or George W. Bush."

And what is their response to you ?

That is the essence of the monkeysphere missing from your scenario - their effect on you is present - your feedback on them is not. That is why people can run amok in large societies with multiple levels remote from each other: engaging in aberrant behavior that would not be tolerated if it were only simply visible on the street to random passers-by. It is the lack of direct social feedback by the normative social members.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

HKCAVALIER

Sunday, July 19, 2009 5:25 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
"If I observe someone, apprehend their story, I'm going to identify with them--period--whether it's Tutsis in Rwanda or George W. Bush."

And what is their response to you ?

That is the essence of the monkeysphere missing from your scenario - their effect on you is present - your feedback on them is not. That is why people can run amok in large societies with multiple levels remote from each other: engaging in aberrant behavior that would not be tolerated if it were only simply visible on the street to random passers-by. It is the lack of direct social feedback by the normative social members.

I'm sorry Rue, you've lost me. I don't know what my "feedback on them" would be. Back when the whole monkeysphere thing was brought up I thought it supposedly defined the limits of empathy, the largest body of people that could be considered an "us." Beyond this imagined threshold, everyone is a "them." I don't know if any individual Tutsis would consider me part of their "us." But I don't know that they wouldn't.

So, are you saying that a monkeysphere is bounded by how many people have MUTUAL and DEMONSTRATED empathy? 'Cause that's a pretty tiny number o' people--much tinier than the number of people affected by my adopting a "green lifestyle." So, I'm confused again.

Are you saying that as soon as I don't know what someone is doing, as soon as they have some privacy I cannot penetrate, they could be plotting some evil against me? Honestly, I'm really sick of this whole monkeysphere thing--seems it's too ill defined and I never thought much of it to begin with. If I brought it up, I'm sorry. I'm really not understanding what you mean with this post. "Multiple levels" of what? "Normative social members" who?

I'm goin' on a road trip for the next 4 days so I may not be able to respond right away. I still intend to reply to you previous post as well.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

FREMDFIRMA

Sunday, July 19, 2009 9:29 AM

Two points.

Quote:
"Haven't you noticed that political change amounts to little more than a shell game most of the time? I don't think it's just because we have bad options from which to choose, I think it's the nature of the beast."

Quote:
"Yikes! I really gotta challenge this idea that political revolution creates positive change."

Again, it falls back to playing in the card sharpers house, at his table, at his game, by his rules, with his marked deck.

At least have the decency to cheat, yes ?

We MUST stop playing by the "rules" which the powers that be inflict upon us for the specific reason of making us unable to assail their established social order, or there's just no point to any of it, it was this realisation in the first place which eventually drove me to Anarchism.

If mankind has one redeeming quality on a social level, it is the ability and willingness to commit Heresy.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

FREMDFIRMA

Sunday, July 19, 2009 9:39 AM

AFTERTHOUGHT.

Oh yes, I do believe I can indeed provide an example of the kind of change we're discussing.

Point of fact: It's not "OK" to beat your wife any more.

And by that change women finally got elevated from "property" to "people".
Now if only folks would realise the same bullshit excuses for mistreating your wife are no more valid when applied to your kids, we'd be getting somewhere.

Civilisation was just a beginning, it's the floor, not the ceiling.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

KWICKO

Sunday, July 19, 2009 11:30 AM

Quote:
Yikes! I really gotta challenge this idea that political revolution creates positive change. Look at the most famous revolution in history, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Did that really change things for the people on the ground?

Look at that *other* famous revolution in history, the American Revolution. Did it change things for the people on the ground? Did it change them for the better?

On the other hand, I didn't see CTS claim that those three engines of change were always about POSITIVE change, but rather large-scale, systemic change.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...

RUE

Sunday, July 19, 2009 3:37 PM

I think there are several underlying forces of "human nature" and "human society" at work:

People are cooperative.
People tend to identify with those in power. (Stockholm syndrome at extreme... but there are other studies backing this up.)
Cooperative behavior is more productive overall, BUT...
There is a minimum threshold of cooperative behavior required to sustain it.

As things are today, roughly 600 people own approximately 50% of the world's assets. That is a vanishingly small percentage and seemingly SHOULD be overwhelmed by the vast majority of which the system currently robs. But as Frem rightly points out, they could not do this by themselves, but require a phalanx of enablers and rules: "property rights", money, weapons. So I wonder: what is the MINIMUM percentage of cooperative behavior (or non-cooperative with current 'authority) required for a velvet revolution and a self sustaining system? 10%? 50%? Recent history indicates roughly 50%, perhaps more. But recent history (eastern Europe) also indicates its not enough to say "no". You have to put a system in place which will take the place of the current system and all its functions, otherwise you will prolly wind up with a lawless system in which the corrupt (mafia) quickly take hold of society again.

So my guess is that you would need roughly 85%-90% of all people willing to play by the new rules because (unfortunately) in the transition (power vacuum) SOME will take power. Also, people have to be willing to act in a UNITED fashion, they have to be consciously thinking about power and how to take it, whether that is by rolling boycott or mass non-cooperation.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

FREMDFIRMA

Sunday, July 19, 2009 5:30 PM

Well, a point of that is HOW willing.

I would take 20,000 folks willing to dump a little sand in the gears on an occasional basis, over 20 who would fanatically do so constantly.

I would take the half-hearted and lukewarm support of 20,000 people over the rabid loyalty of 20.

Think for a while about how prohibition was broken - it wasn't by fanaticism, it was by simple apathy towards the "rules" which everyone thought asinine, which is why the powers that be have done a psychological end-run by wasting public monies to demonise and then commit prohibition via taxation.

All it really takes is enough loss of SUPPORT, and the established system will collapse of it's own weight, although likely in a vicious fashion like a snake feeding on it's own tail, alas.

And all THAT takes is ordinary folks not supportin it - you can leave the rabid hoo-rah kill-the-peon jackboot lovers to us - all that WE ask is for you to gently and politely look the other way.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

CANTTAKESKY

Monday, July 20, 2009 4:23 AM

Edit to add: Oh my God. I'm sorry this is so long. Looked like I got mouth diarrhea. I was just thinking out loud.

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
]Y'know, this whole monkeysphere idea that there are only a hundred or so people one can really identify with strikes me as pathetically anemic.

Maybe there is another way to look at it.

In the movie, 10000 BC, they told a story: “A good man draws a circle around him, and in it he cares for his family, his wife and children. A great man draws a larger circle including his brothers, his friends, and protects them as he would his family. But then there is the rare man who has a special destiny. His circle extends beyond boundaries to include the world of innocents who lack the will to defend themselves.”

I don't think the "monkeysphere" is ever an absolute number. It is different for different people, and different for the same person at different points in his/her life. Some people have a monkeysphere of one. Some people draw larger circles. I think 100 or 150 is just speculation anyway, a probability at best.

Quote:
That's why removing a person from the original context of their suffering doesn't always end the suffering--people tend to reconstruct their suffering unless they properly examine their personal stake in it. That's why I say healing is an inside job.

Perhaps ultimate healing is an inside job. But you get get 99% healing sometimes simply from changing the situation. A woman who is dying in a line of thousands outside a genital reconstruction clinic could get a great deal of significant healing from the right surgery. The rest has to come from inside yes--the healing to defend herself, the healing to forgive herself, etc. But not being able to heal someone else 100% doesn't mean one should try to help others heal as much as possible.

Quote:

Haven't you noticed that political change amounts to little more than a shell game most of the time? I don't think it's just because we have bad options from which to choose, I think it's the nature of the beast.

If you're talking about changes in presidents, I have no argument there. That is like saying I've changed Masters, from Masser Smith to Masser Johnson. Doesn't matter if I am still a slave.

But there are other more systemic political changes that really make a difference--not always for the better. Iran changed a great deal when they went from the Shah to the Ayatollah. Americans changed a great deal when they went from King George to President George. The Chinese experienced great changes when they went from Emperors to Communists. Political revolutions, I mean the violent ones, effect huge changes.

Quote:

But you seem to judge yourself and others by a standard of superheroism. You see a problem and suddenly you think it's incumbent upon you to fix it--sounds a little like our American foreign policy, don'tcha think? Self respect requires that we accept our limitations, otherwise we destroy ourselves, sacrifice ourselves on the altar of perfectionism.

I understand what you are saying. I have spoken against the "rescuer complex" or the "savior complex" many times myself. We cannot rescue everyone. In fact, we mustn't rescue everyone. Most times, people are much much better off rescuing themselves. Rescue causes dependency, whereas self-rescue causes empowerment. I support a non-interfering foreign policy for precisely that reason, though of course, it often gets accused of being isolationist. It is not just for the sake of our own self-respect, but for the sake of the would-be rescuee.

Quote:
But if you don't know, then you're just throwing guilt at the problem and prolly making things worse for the folks who do know what they're doing.

Agreed. Nothing worse than ignorant meddling!

Quote:
I really gotta challenge this idea that political revolution creates positive change.

Most of the time you are right. Political revolutions are just coups.

But sometimes political revolutions are not. I think

RUE

Monday, July 20, 2009 3:14 PM

HKC

"So, are you saying that a monkeysphere is bounded by how many people have MUTUAL and DEMONSTRATED empathy?"

Almost (minus the empathy):

Monkeysphere - aka Dunbar's number:

WIKI
"Primatologists have noted that, due to their highly social nature, non-human primates have to maintain personal contact with the other members of their social group, usually through grooming. Such social groups function as protective cliques within the physical groups in which the primates live. The number of social group members a primate can track appears to be limited by the volume of the neocortex region of their brain. This suggests that there is a species-specific index of the social group size, computable from the species' mean neocortex volume.

In a 1992 article, Dunbar used the correlation observed for non-human primates to predict a social group size for humans. Using a regression equation on data for 38 primate genera, Dunbar predicted a human "mean group size" of 148 (casually rounded to 150), a result he considered exploratory due to the large error measure (a 95% confidence interval of 100 to 230)."

While it has been popularized as the number of people one feels a personal connection with (and therefore, empathy for) it is in fact about MUTUAL recognition within a GROUP.

George HW Bush has no mutual relationship with you. Therefore, you are not in the same monkeysphere.

***************************************************************

HAVE A GOOD ROAD TRIP !

RUE

Monday, July 20, 2009 3:58 PM

I used to have a sig line that went: "the hardest thing to change is a mind". It's a topic that I haven't gotten to the end of, and I'll probably be revising my ideas for as long as I live.

Recently I've been wondering about people who were abused in childhood. (I know a few.) I think the point of healing is to be able to move on - to have new ideas, new reactions, new feelings, new possibilites.

Some people, I suspect, do manage this through a review and understanding of their past. By this review they then can incorporate their trauma, learn from it, and grow beyond it. The people that I know personally, though, seem to be stuck in their pasts. Review, reflection, and thought about those pasts seem to be more of a reinforcement of them. They keep trudging the same old roads and rehearsing the same old reactions. And, inevitably it keeps them focused on the past.

And so I now question the assumption that this kind of process is ALWAYS good for everyone. Sometimes it seems counterproductive.

Recently I've been thinking that maybe there is a different way to deal with the past, and to get positive change. Maybe one answer is to put it aside for a while: to say yes, it was bad, I didn't deserve it, but it's over. Maybe by setting aside the past and living in the present you can create a new set of reactions and expectations. Maybe you can gain a NEW perspective that will, over time, allow you to eventually put your past in a larger context, and so, overcome it.

I think society is the same way.

Sometimes you have people of such clarity they can change many, many minds with their reflections about the past and their resolution of it.

And sometimes, you need to change the circumstances of people's lives through structural social change.

Finally, I wonder - if we DID understand the large-scale drivers of society, would that not be a hopeful thing ? After all, most people (not all) do what they do because they are making the best decisions thay can with the information available. That infomation today is terribly incomplete and severely corrupted with the ideas put in place by those in power. What if we knew - really knew - what it took to have a society like the one in Caral ?

Would not most people choose it ?

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

FREMDFIRMA

Monday, July 20, 2009 4:46 PM

Rue, M'lady - I sincerely recommend you read the articles in this place.
http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php

Given the mental "place" you're at with this, doing so will save you a great deal of needless duplication of effort and perhaps even offer insight into potential solutions for those people you know struggling with such issues.

Quote:
Some people, I suspect, do manage this through a review and understanding of their past. By this review they then can incorporate their trauma, learn from it, and grow beyond it. The people that I know personally, though, seem to be stuck in their pasts. Review, reflection, and thought about those pasts seem to be more of a reinforcement of them. They keep trudging the same old roads and rehearsing the same old reactions. And, inevitably it keeps them focused on the past.

Especially cognizant, that.

However, rather than trying to heal that problem on an individual level, what I am focusing on bit by bit, is doing so on a social level, and to my credit I have indeed accomplished a great part of that in removing one of the strongest sources of that infection.
(i.e. kicking the ass of the hellcamps till they ain't got one no more.)

Every life I've touched and helped has the potential to help others in the same fashion, it's part and parcel of all that we are, you see ?

And by that means one droplet becomes a dribble, becomes a stream, a river, and on one day a glorious waterfall with rainbows shining behind it - but only if we try.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

RUE

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 12:52 AM

Frem,

That you have dreams after what you've gone through is a tribute and a testament to the best that can be found in the human spirit.

That your dreams are so AWESOMELY MAGNIFICENT is a miracle.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

RUE

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 1:53 AM

To pick up on some ideas that have been scattered across a few threads:

As some people on these threads have demonstrated - while it may be one potential ideal to get rid of all rules, as a society we are not there yet. Our society is full of people who would take advantage.

But I have a more essential issue with that as an ideal. A little story first, though:

The Mayans were extremely warlike and quite warlike on their own people, what with the wars and sacrifices and all that, when it came to the hierarchy and the 'gods'. It just goes to show you how MUCH people will put up with when it comes to a predatory social hierarchy.

My understanding is that the sacrifices were at first merely ritualistic: the chief\ priest would pierce his penis (ouch) (or tongue or earlobe), drip some of the blood on paper, and burn it in sacrifice to the gods. As time went on, I'm guessing that it didn't always work so well, and so, the answer was to 'up' the sacrifice with enemies captured in war, or even MORE enemies captured in war ... and so on.

No on really knows what happened to the Maya.

But because their cities don't seem to bear the scars of war or revolt, it's assumed they underwent some decline - a few have suggested the people simply got tired of rituals and rules that failed to deliver the goods (good crops and prosperity) and quietly melted back into the jungle.

That's probably the best result you can get when you no longer have rules - or, at least, people who follow them.

But who wants to live as a short-lived and parasite-ridden individual scratching in the jungle when you can live in Caral ? There are benefits after all to living in complex societies that have a set of rules. And so I think that SOME rules are good things - common standards of behavior, common goals, common beliefs, and common benefits.

In order to get there from here, we HAVE to assume that societies can, and must, set up rules, formal or not. I would be really curious to find out what the rules were in Caral, in Minoa, and in Mohenjo-Daro. Wouldn't you ?

Oh yeah - for people who follow these things, when it comes to the Maya, remember December 21, 2012.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:21 AM

Really I think the basic keystone of those societys was naught more than simple respect of each others personhood, which they managed to successfully pass onto each succeeding generation of their children.

I'd be most interested to find out what their childrearing practices were, more than any other facet of their society, cause I think the key would lie within that.

As for dreams, they didn't start out like that, I got into this as a young and bitter cynic bordering on outright nihilism who wanted only one thing - to destroy this societies ability to create another "me".

And into that dark bitter soil went a seed of pure fury, watered by hate, nurtured with violence, and yet, somehow a flower grew, as through my war against it, my understanding of how folks like me came to be gave me far more powerful and effective weapons than violence, and through them, the ability to cast aside hate and fury save for when nothing less awful would serve, rather than clinging to them in desperate frenzy.

And against all odds, here I stand, as the hellcamps collapse into decay and disorder, and when I look behind me I see as triumph not the carnage, but all those who were rescued from it, all those who will be spared from it, and all the mercy and compassion they learned from someone most assume to have nearly none.

Any spark, however dim, can light the torch of another, to burn brighter in their wake - once you know that, there's no reason to dream lesser dreams.

-Frem

PS. Interesting take on a similar sentiment, in the Anime Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, Milliardo outright states this exact concept as his purpose for entering a hopeless fight made all the worse by his intent to fight it without killing anyone.

"If we let Mariemaia do this, the world will give rise to a second Milliardo Peacecraft!"

If you're going to take "revenge" that's the way to do it - end the chain of suffering.

RUE

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 3:33 PM

"Really I think the basic keystone of those societys was naught more than simple respect of each others personhood, which they managed to successfully pass onto each succeeding generation of their children."

It's something to try to learn, for sure.

It's also occurred to me that maybe they went through something like what the peaceable baboons went through - a major event wiped out the violent ones. And what was left behind was an ethic - we just don't do that kind of thing here.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

WULFENSTAR

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 7:08 PM

"
As for dreams, they didn't start out like that, I got into this as a young and bitter cynic bordering on outright nihilism who wanted only one thing - to destroy this societies ability to create another "me".

And into that dark bitter soil went a seed of pure fury, watered by hate, nurtured with violence, and yet, somehow a flower grew, as through my war against it, my understanding of how folks like me came to be gave me far more powerful and effective weapons than violence, and through them, the ability to cast aside hate and fury save for when nothing less awful would serve, rather than clinging to them in desperate frenzy.

And against all odds, here I stand, as the hellcamps collapse into decay and disorder, and when I look behind me I see as triumph not the carnage, but all those who were rescued from it, all those who will be spared from it, and all the mercy and compassion they learned from someone most assume to have nearly none.

Any spark, however dim, can light the torch of another, to burn brighter in their wake - once you know that, there's no reason to dream lesser dreams."

This is why I respect you, Frem.

I completely understand. However, Im still waiting for my "flower" to grow.

CANTTAKESKY

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 8:18 PM

Frem, a quick question.

Are you against corporal punishment of any kind at any age?

I am reading Alice Miller per your suggestion and see that she is adamantly against even a slap on the wrist. Just curious if you agree.

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 9:18 PM

Wulf

Quote:
I completely understand. However, Im still waiting for my "flower" to grow.

Then lemme water it for you - not only must you ruthlessly question your own perceptions at the boundaries and foundations...

But also you should understand that many of your "opponents" are actually badly damaged allies, trapped by ignorance, abuse, blinded by desperation and rage, wound up in the very same trap that their presence helps reinforce.

Destroying them gains you nothing but one less, easily replaceable foot soldier of the other side - but cutting them free, while more effort intensive, brings with it the chance of multiplying your own forces by that much, as they turn and start helping do the same.

You ever played Go ?
Learn.

CTS

Quote:
Are you against corporal punishment of any kind at any age?

Hell yes.

That doesn't mean that I will fanatically blow a gasket at someone who fails to live up to a standard that for them is near impossible cause of instincts wired from birth to accept it - but it does mean I consider the whole idea of striking someone to modify their behavior completely idiotic, especially in light of the same justifications for striking your children were once applied to striking your wife.

You shouldn't hit people, children are people.

That's also not to say I wouldn't pick up and hold steady a three year old who was violently acting out or step between a pair of fighting ten year olds to seperate them, or even bodycheck a suicidal fourteen year old girl who steps in front of an oncoming bus - what it means is that I am wholly against striking someone with intent to cause pain as behavior modification, because when you frame it in an accurate perspective like that, it brings up the ugly word of what it really is.

Torture.

One note I should make on this however, is that I do have something of an unfair advantage over most folk, in that the moment I make touch contact with a distraught person there's an immediate calming effect, HOW that works we've no idea, just a couple of theories, but it does work, you're welcome to speculate if you like.

The other edge is actually winning a childs respect - the girl I built the dollhouse for, even before that, one disapproving look from me was more effective and immediate in impact than any number of her mothers threats, and then there's being rung up on the phone to ask my niece to do stuff cause she WILL do so if I ask it, and my own sister can't seem to get it through her thick head why.

Once you've earned a childs respect, you ain't never gonna NEED to enforce your will in a physical fashion, and not only does that benefit you, it benefits THEM, cause they will internalise and learn self-discipline enough to keep themselves out of trouble, all down the rest of their lives.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

WULFENSTAR

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 9:35 PM

Frem,

At least you had a target.

I have to change the hearts and minds of these slow, sheeple.

And...truth be told, hitting someone to break their trance is the fastest, most efficient way to crack the spell.

Whether its with words or with fists, sometimes you have to smack someone upside the head to clear their mind.

One of the reasons Im so rough with folks here. (That includes Rue and Sig)

CANTTAKESKY

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:08 PM

Thanks, Frem. Well argued. I'm very ambivalent about it myself. I used to be very much against all corporal punishment. But I used "time outs" with my first kid, and it was literally torture. I don't see how time outs are any more moral than a slap on the wrist.

So now I am in the position of weighing using no punishment at all vs the various forms of punishment (some call it discipline, but it really is just punishment) that are either widely accepted or not.

That is why I am open to ideas. I like the idea of no punishments at all. Just not quite sure how to implement it.

WULFENSTAR

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:11 PM

I swear to God, this was what it was like waking up in my old bed, back in Jersey when I was a kid...

CANTTAKESKY

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:17 PM

Posted by Wulf:

Quote:
Whether its with words or with fists, sometimes you have to smack someone upside the head to clear their mind.

You just convinced me of the evils of smacking people upside the head for their own good.

--------------------------
Correlation does not equal causation

WULFENSTAR

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:20 PM

Really?

Well, then Ive won one for the gipper.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:22 PM

Quote:
Frem, At least you had a target. I have to change the hearts and minds of these slow, sheeple. And...truth be told, hitting someone to break their trance is the fastest, most efficient way to crack the spell. Whether its with words or with fists, sometimes you have to smack someone upside the head to clear their mind. One of the reasons Im so rough with folks here. (That includes Rue and Sig)

Wulf, how do you know we're not looking back at you, smiling and shaking our heads?

Also, the vid won't play. Can you give us some kind of indication what it means?

WULFENSTAR

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:23 PM

Sig,

Youtube.

Band: Boxcar Racer

Song: I Feel So.

and... just click the link, after it says "disabled".

WULFENSTAR

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:27 PM

Lyrics to "I Feel So"

Sometimes
I wish I was brave
I wish I was stronger
I wish I could feel no pain
I wish I was young
I wish I was shy
I wish I was honest
I wish I was you not I

'Cause I feel so mad
I feel so angry
I feel so callused
So lost, confused, again
I feel so cheap
So used, unfaithful
Let's start over
Let's start over

Sometimes
I wish I was smart
I wish I made cures for
How people are
I wish I had power
I wish I could lead
I wish I could change the world
For you and me

'Cause I feel so mad
I feel so angry
I feel so callused
So lost, confused, again
I feel so cheap
So used, unfaithful
Let's start over
Let's start over

'Cause I feel so mad
I feel so angry
I feel so callused
So lost, confused, again
I feel so cheap
So used, unfaithful
Let's start over
Let's start over

I feel so mad
I feel so angry
I feel so callused
So lost, confused, again
I feel so cheap
So used, unfaithful
Let's start over
Let's start over
Let's start over

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:38 PM

"An error occurred. Please try later." (again!)

But thnx for the lyrics.

RUE

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:45 PM

"At least you had a target."

But you DO have a target - only you're too stupid to see it. It's not the other victims - it's the people who run the show. The ones who put us in the arena with not quite enough for everyone so we have to fight each other for what's there.

Get a grip. Or a brain.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, July 30, 2009 2:31 AM

CTS

I've found that the whole concept of "making it right" works far better than some arbitrary punishment that does no one any realistic good.

You make a mess, you clean it - you broke it, you fix it or replace it, you wrong someone, you go to them and find a way to redeem yourself with them.

The tricky part of that for most folk is when more than one kid is involved, or there is a fight between them - but it's not as complex as most folk seem to think to sort out WHY a fight started, if you override the social stupidities of "all children are lying manipulators" and "their opinion means nothing" and actually discuss it like people - children are actually no good at lying, they lack the practice to keep a story consistent, and they learn that crap from us anyways, reinforced by the way we force them to parrot back our socially-acceptable lies when they can clearly see the truth.

One of the worst wrongs you can visit upon a child is to punish them for an act of self-defense, which is often enough what happens when some damned lazy school administrator cannot be bothered to actually do their job, get to know their students and simply chooses a policy of suspending both parties to a fight - I blew the hell out of that one in middle school by letting some other kid pound me in front of the whole class, the teacher, and the assistant principal - and it was worth it to me in order to expose the unfairness and stupidity of that policy.

Of course, once the adults precious egos got involved in it, I wound up takin worse and worse flak for even the most minor pretenses, and since I was gonna catch hell for stuff ANYWAYS....

The quickest way there is to shatter discipline and mutual respect between an adult and a child is to punish them for something they didn't do, or because they wounded your pride or ego, this reaffirms the truth of the world they are exposed to in public school, that it's all a sham and an excuse for the powerful to abuse the powerless - and sets them wanting that power for themselves, and leads down some very dark roads indeed.

As for self-defense, and my rabidity about it, one reason many adults are so quick to act against it even when you'd think they should know better, is that somewhere in the back of their mind that control issue pops up "I let this go and someday they'll defend themselves against ME!" - and so they feel the need to beat it down, lest they one day wind up on it's receiving end.

Damn sure my father did, if he hadn't left he was gonna have to sleep damn lightly for the rest of his days, and short enough those woulda been - and every time I see someone hell bent on removing my right or ability to defend myself I see that look in my fathers eyes when he realized what I had done - yeah, sure, he wanted me to put the knife down, and I knew WHY he wanted me to do that.

And while at that age I wouldn't have understood it even if you tried to explain it to me, "Molon Labe!" was indeed prettymuch the concept goin on in my little head at the time.

He packed his stuff and went.

Once I learned the dirty little secret behind the adult world, and later the powers that be, not liking the concept of self defense because it was a threat to them, I became a rather rabid advocate of the concept.

Every time you punish a child for what they perceive to be an act of self defense, you're setting up a reckoning, between your world and theirs, and some day that bill is gonna get paid in full - isn't it better to educate them in other ways of conflict resolution and de-escalation, rather than teaching them to roll over to superior force ?

Our force-control-more force methodology doesn't accomplish anything but emotionally stunting them, socially cripples them, and strips them of the very human empathy they need to become better people, warping them into twisted, darker copies of ourselves.

I understood this on a conceptual level by the time I was ten, and where it would eventually lead us by the time I was twelve, and it was the source of much frustration and ange

CANTTAKESKY

Thursday, July 30, 2009 12:02 PM

Frem,

Thank you. Thank you very much. What you say makes so much complete sense I don't know why I never thought of it myself. Too much brainwashing about "time outs."

I totally get what you say about self-defense.

Here is a stupid question for you, if you don't mind. I have 3 kids, and they are always fighting. Once I tried just letting them sort it out, but I found that my oldest would hit her younger brother just for brushing up against her by accident. So I removed the privilege/right of hitting him back. She was hitting him back too much for no good reason.

I could restore her right to hit him back when he hits her first. But how do I keep her from hitting him "back" when he doesn't? Talk to her? Teach her to use better judgment?

You know, you really ought to write a book. Seems a pity that only RWED'ers get the benefit of your experience and insight.

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, July 30, 2009 5:15 PM

CTS

Quote:
Here is a stupid question for you, if you don't mind. I have 3 kids, and they are always fighting. Once I tried just letting them sort it out, but I found that my oldest would hit her younger brother just for brushing up against her by accident. So I removed the privilege/right of hitting him back. She was hitting him back too much for no good reason.

I could restore her right to hit him back when he hits her first. But how do I keep her from hitting him "back" when he doesn't? Talk to her? Teach her to use better judgment?

Actually, although it comes from what you'd think at first a strange source for that kind of information, I believe the understanding you are looking for can be found here.

Personal and Shared Space
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/personalshared.html

Pyramid of Personal Safety
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/pyramid.html

That, with careful observation and a clear understanding amongst all parties of where the limits are should work wonders on the situation.

I also highly, HIGHLY reccommend Marcs work as a whole, cause it's well worth the time investment.

Quote:
You know, you really ought to write a book. Seems a pity that only RWED'ers get the benefit of your experience and insight.

Not just RWED, not by far - I work under many names, both online and off - I just happen to hang out here, in a shoot the breeze, water cooler fashion, with folk who's company I've grown to appreciate even if I don't always agree.

I can be less serious and less diplomatic around here too, which is always refreshing.

As for books, I've been really beaten to it by others, but I'll offer suggestions.

For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374522693/ncp-20

Another Chance to Get It Right
http://www.amazon.com/Another-Chance-Get-Right-3rd/dp/156971830X

Help at Any Cost
http://www.amazon.com/Help-Any-Cost-Maia-Szalavitz/dp/1594489106/

Also worth a note, come to find out that the Swarm-Theory Meritocracy by which the establishment* I founded is run - has actually been adopted in other places to the point where it's actually drawn some level of notice, you might look into something called the "Sudbury Model" of education/operation for your own interest, also.

-Frem

*That establishment is collectively known as CoTL, or "Church of The Lost", since at this point there's no real need for secrecy anymore, it's not just a rumor, it really does exist.

CANTTAKESKY

Thursday, July 30, 2009 10:50 PM

Thanks for the links. Most are in my wishlist now. I've been fascinated by swarm theory.

You'll have to elaborate on Swarm Theory Meritocracy. Doesn't take much of a leap to follow the two concepts combined, but I would love to hear how you are implementing it.

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, July 31, 2009 1:52 AM

Basically, it eliminates the whole "who's in charge" wrangling, is what it does.

Some problem comes up, everyone reacts by lookin at the person who they think is most likely to have the skills and ability to solve it - whoever the most folk happen to be lookin at gets stuck with the job, unless they have other obligations that prevent them, or for whatever reason don't happen to have any more idea than the rest of em.

Many cases that was me, save for situations where I might get a chance to successfully indulge my vengeful nature out of the public eye, which resulted in someone always being sent with as a minder cause I won't do that kinda thing in front of one of my own and they knew it, curses...

And it made the words "I have no idea" kind of a recurring meme.

Irony about it is, that kind of thing happens in many workplaces too.
"Oh crap, the copier is broke again!"
And sure enough, every one immediately looks right at the poor technically inclined slob who somehow managed to fix it last time, don't they ?

The refined version works in circles - you got the guy who knows how to do the thing, and then the guys who have enough of a clue about it to function as assistants, and then you got the spear carriers, none of whom bear a whit of resentment about it cause the important thing is getting the thing done quickly and efficiently.

The more complex the task, the more circles to it there are, and as always the human element of folks with family needs, people who have to handle other operations, watch the office, etc.

But there's no lasting heirarchy, you see - the instant the job is done we all fall back into just folk, and one of the grunts today might be the chief tomorrow, or an hour later, when something within his baliwick pops up.

The Sudbury Model seems to be someone applying this concept to education, far as I understand it.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

RUE

Friday, July 31, 2009 2:40 AM

To get back to the parenting issue:

While there are extremely abusive people who should never be parents - it would be hard to argue than anyone is perfect, or ever could be. If perfection is the standard for parenting - I have never so much as raised my voice - no one would ever be parents, not even the fairly decent folk.
Reading just the introduction to the Miller book, and some of the reviews, I could apply every cultural criticism to China - way back when, or now. Or India. Or Pakistan. Or Kenya. Or Chile ... I would be hard pressed to find ANY country, ANY culture, in ANY era, that gets it perfectly.

There is such as thing as good enough.

I say this also recognizing that some people have serious issues to resolve relating to extreme family violence.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, July 31, 2009 3:03 AM

Quote:
There is such as thing as good enough.

Ayep, the important thing is that they TRY.

Hence my not-blowin-gaskets comment earlier.

-F

CANTTAKESKY

Friday, July 31, 2009 3:05 AM

The Sudbury model sounds a lot like what we in homeschooling circles call "unschooling."

HKCAVALIER

Friday, July 31, 2009 3:52 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
There is such as thing as good enough.

Keep readin' Rue--Ms. Miller coined the term "the good-enough parent" to describe exactly what you're talking about. No one is talking about perfection here--but if you get a solid grounding in reality, then when you do eff up, you'll have a pretty good idea that ya did and you'll do what you can to make it right.

EDIT: Whoopsie, just checked my facts and it's looking like maybe it was Winnicott or even Bettelheim. Anyway, Alice Miller isn't talking about perfection--she's a mother herself and uses herself for plenty of negative examples in her works.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

UNABASHEDVIXEN

Friday, July 31, 2009 5:34 AM

Quote:
I look around and I see people donating money to various charities claiming to be helping those hungry folks. They pat themselves on the back for having done "something" or "what they could," and continue to eat their fancy steak dinner.

I am not judging them. I am not saying their money is bad. I am just thinking they shouldn't give money and think that is making a difference or effecting change.

But that's the rub, isn't it? You have no way of knowing whether it's making change. This whole thread is remarkably arrogant to me. The idea that if you can't change the world with your actions then you're deluding yourself with small changes is just ridiculous. For every "revolution" there are millions of tiny actions that precede and follow. I give $10 a month to a group called The Council of Canadians. It's not a lot of money. I have no illusions that it is. But my money gets pooled with the money of thousands of other people, and this spring the chair of the Council was invited to the UN to present to the General Assembly on water rights. Will it make a difference? I don't know. I think the fact that she was invited indicates a willingness to listen, always a necessary first step. Do I "delude" myself into thinking I've affected a great societal change? No. But nor do I delude myself into thinking I made no change at all. I recognize that I live in a society. There's very little I can change all by myself. But I've seen the results of collective action. I work for a Member of Parliament (the equivalent of a Congressperson). I see the result of collective action every day. Yes, I work in politics and am not jaded. I actually see the system at work, and it's slow, and lumbering, and painful a lot of the time. But it's also immensely important and powerful. So I choose to use it.

Think of it this way: if the Browncoats hadn't rallied, gotten their friends to watch the show, talked about how great it was, bought DVDs, written letters, etc etc, would we have gotten Serenity? It was a mass of little things. My letter might not have been the deciding factor - but thousands of letters might have. I bought the DVD set - and lent it to friends, some of whom bought theirs. My money helped to bring about something I wanted.

It's the arrogance of the young, Western, intellectual to think that if it can't be a big splash then it's not worth doing. It's also incredibly myopic. If I can't see the change, then it must not exist? Stop naval gazing about what to do and just do it already. Accept that this is the system you live in. You may love capitalist-based democracy. You may hate it. You may think governments are evil. You may think governments are the ultimate in collective action. Whatever. The reality is this is where we live. And we all stick around, so there must be something to it (could it be that we hold the most privileged place in the world? I'm a white, middle class, well educated Western woman. If I had a penis I would have it all). We can work with the system, or we can bury our heads in the sand because we don't like it. I choose to do what I consider my duty as a member of this country (in my case, Canada) and society and try to affect beneficial change. Sometimes I will be part of an effort that succeeds. Sometimes we'll fail.

Will history remember me? I sincerely doubt it. Will someone one day say "That woman changed the world"? Nope. Do I care? Not one bit. Because every time I take the time to live my values, I do change the world. It may be tiny, but it's there. And it has to be enough. Because I could spend all day wringing my hands about whether I should feel good about it or not. Or, I could just get on with it. I could recognize that I choose to do I job I think is meaningful and important, that I live simply, while recognizing that I live luxuriously compared to a lot of the world, that I think our system of government is deeply flawed, but I also realize that I am so, so lucky to live in a place where I can say that freely, and lots more (I have some particularly choice words

KWICKO

Friday, July 31, 2009 12:18 PM

Thanks for that, Vixen. That's pretty much my take on things as well. As a single human being, nothing I do will much matter. It matters TO ME, but it doesn't make a drop in the well in the larger picture. Still, if EVERYONE did what I do, it absolutely, definitively WOULD matter.

You don't have to change the world. Change yourself, and the world will follow.

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