Posted at the portland.indymedia.org site:
Homeless and etc. are allies others will exploit
Man holding up line in grocery store
Flailing man on Hawthorne
An orrior-style actions
Homeless are allies others will exploit
If we don't reach out to each other in radically excellent ways, we may find that those seemingly powerless (or so-called "worthless") now could be manipulated to be given tyranny over us in the future. This of course isn't the *best* reason to reach out to our fellow people, including homeless folks, but perhaps it's a wake-up call. Where do you think fascists and tyranny gets its footsoldiers for its martial stupidity? Where do you think the 1980s "Contras" (against the Sandinistas) came from mostly?
(Do you think this sounds naive? Discuss!)
I've reached out to various folks over time, had them over, even gave them a place to sleep off and on (especially in the cold months), and while I find some to be "much too wild" for me to be around every day (in their drunkeness), these folks deeply appreciate. And i've noted that appreciation develop over time.
If we could realize the value of informally aiding homeless folks in our midst, we'd find the reflections to be surprisingly significant. Don't throw money at the formal institutions, reach out in friendship! And, if you're a neighborhood organizer type, what if various neighbors aided their fellow human beings in a *rotational* way??!
Man holding up the line
A few months ago i found myself in a line where a guy was seemingly surprised that his plastic (credit card) wasn't working. He kept trying it, and wouldn't give up. Tension was rising visibly as it appeared that the man was not only growing increasingly frustrated (and might resort to violence?) but also the management began showing up and appearing increasingly agitated (as if they were ready to aggressively escort him from the store).
Well, I was doing okay money-wise so I went up the line and asked him if I could help. No official title or anything, just another guy wanting to be fair with my fellows instead of what seemed to be about to happen. Well, it turned out that the stuff he wanted to buy totalled only $2.50, so i volunteered to buy it for him. Visible relief showed up in everyone.
(Question: what would an anarchist do and why?)
Flailing man on Hawthorne
I heard yelling over on this local road and since I was already heading there, found myself going right up to the guy and asking him what was up. No fear, and he felt that. He had been yelling at others with this: "I OWN YOU!" And they had fallen back. Was he completely irrational? i felt he was flailing from some kind of heavy stress. He was drunk and his mind was set on getting "help" in the only way he seemed to know: wait until the cops showed up and then a night in the can.
Meanwhile, not only did I interact creatively with this stressed-out guy, but another dude showed up; an older guy. He walked by the guy from behind in a kind of silly-seeming way. Asking him later, he said he had expected to get punched. Hell, i guess i half-expected it as well; but i felt like i was "defending" the community--except not in alliance with any formal authority, but in alliance with the idea of re-village-ing.
The cops did show up and that's when I left, but had the local community had in place some kind of way to reach this guy...something like a local Shanti Sena calm space to go to... (yes, I know, i sound very greenhornish idealistic...)
An action
A really fulfilling one at the Alberta Street Fair in July. Walked around with a "FREE HUGS" sign! And got so many hugs that i felt DRUNK with that energy. Someone suggested "we" start a MOVEMENT of such; i can see such being done on a rotational basis, as tho hugging strangers can be liberating, it's also a little exhausting for we not used to having such connections with folks. (Anyway, I walked down the entire way like three times, so maybe it was my feet the most!)
A vision
Imagine x-country travel (human powered?) where "FREE HUG"-ers join with many other Great Spirited folks (folks wanting to share their great informal gifts) went into backwater places and etcetera and shared their humanity. Convergences of different spirited affinity groups not seeking to "speak truth to 'power'" but "speak truth to people"!
Imagine a forest of hotair balloon Old Growth Trees accompanying.
Imagine slower and faster bicyclists riding. The fast bicyclists riding ahead and then returning to meet up with the slower bikers.
Come on over to our blog and share your ideahhhs!
Friday, August 29, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
images to share
An angle of approach to inspiring creative folks' imaginations:
A possible cover for one of my visionary angles of approach:
This early 20th Century (?) picture below show how big Old Growth trees can get. I include them here for those possibly interested in designing a hot air balloon that looks "just like" an Old Growth tree. {imagine: a forest of Old Growth hotair balloons crossing the plains and all places which have long forgotten just how big Old Growth trees can be.}
A fellow visionary allowing himself to exotically art "normalized" ways of interacting. {i took his text and molded it into the kind of regalia i thought he might wear when engaging in da Crucial Artz way}:
Anti-authoritarians created this basic outreach text and drawing. i added the bit of collage later:
A possible cover for one of my visionary angles of approach:
This early 20th Century (?) picture below show how big Old Growth trees can get. I include them here for those possibly interested in designing a hot air balloon that looks "just like" an Old Growth tree. {imagine: a forest of Old Growth hotair balloons crossing the plains and all places which have long forgotten just how big Old Growth trees can be.}
A fellow visionary allowing himself to exotically art "normalized" ways of interacting. {i took his text and molded it into the kind of regalia i thought he might wear when engaging in da Crucial Artz way}:
Anti-authoritarians created this basic outreach text and drawing. i added the bit of collage later:
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Three Visionary Challenges to Challengers
The following all posted recently on these various indymedia sites.
re: Seattle indy media poster, angry rant/spell/letter to prison guards:
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/08/268278.shtml
Be angry, yet exercise [and practice] with your intelligence towards the ends you truly want to have in this world. It is easy to be tooled by always-war-mentality.
The prison guards, like all others who buttress "the Wizards of Oz", know only truth from the narrative that has dominated them from childhood. They do not even know of the idea of solidarity with informal humanity. Their lives have been reduced to become so shallow in consciousness.
Remember the Milgram experiments; they do as they've been programmed, and know no better.
You may reach a few with your anger, yet how many might you/we reach by activating our most inspiring humanity?
Do as Chomsky has suggested for reporters in the documentary "Manufacturing Consent". Get to know the system more and learn its openings. How best to reach fellow human beings --who may *want* to help somehow, yet feel absolutely powerless?
(Like the proverbial hostage, adapting since childhood's compulsory norms, while knowing no better alternative, and begining to identify with the oppressive, severely alienated mindset--i.e. scientific models of prison "management")
We have the intelligence to reach our fellow human beings. The question is, do we learn how and when we can touch each other meaningfully enough?
re: "Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver), Kanada: Sheriff Van and Police Cruise"
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/08/268238.shtml
I agree that meaningful dialogue is needed, but I still see crucial truth in seeking to reach the human beings caught within the internalized values systems rather than merely attack them in these dark age "revenges".
Surely, once we get more used to thinking independently, we can activate our intelligence much more meaningfully than how alienation war has taught us so far.
For instance, take a look at the article "Good Peasant, Bad Peasant". See if you can find it. It was posted in an anarchist dialogue forum. It's a good starting off place for the uninitiated (to that form of confrontation).
Those who still choose the combative methods, I say most of you are choosing a way of so much hellish that I think you will regret such later. But we all do not have "all" the truth, so perhaps property damage ways are one way...to at least "gain" the attention (but whose will you get? It is better than nothing, you may say...) But if only many could depth together, instead of these seemingly isolated, last-ditch ways...
Felt like I had to comment.
re:
"Cannon fodder for the market"
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/08/268295.shtml
Good article, and great to see such depth!
Only, I don't see eye-to-eye with you about this idea you think the u.s. leaders/policy-makers have about *hating* those they move against in their routine diplomatic ways.
If there's any hatred, it's in the lower portions of the hierarchy, methinks. Those more deeply tooled, seeing their friends smashed in information without contexts.
As for those carrying out policy, closer to the top of the hierarchy, they're merely carrying out their methodology of statecraft. "Nothing personal..." as some have said from time to time. In my view such a methodology has been coercively passed "down" to them since they were in their youths, and has now solidified, as in every generation "up in age".
My inclination, in seeing that, is to somehow inspire a plethora of responses with our most creative and inspiring creativity. Along lines such as documented in the film "The Singing Revolution" I suppose, and beyond control by formal politics.
LET'S ACTIVATE OUR MOST INSPIRING HUMANITY!
psst, pass it on.
re: Seattle indy media poster, angry rant/spell/letter to prison guards:
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/08/268278.shtml
Be angry, yet exercise [and practice] with your intelligence towards the ends you truly want to have in this world. It is easy to be tooled by always-war-mentality.
The prison guards, like all others who buttress "the Wizards of Oz", know only truth from the narrative that has dominated them from childhood. They do not even know of the idea of solidarity with informal humanity. Their lives have been reduced to become so shallow in consciousness.
Remember the Milgram experiments; they do as they've been programmed, and know no better.
You may reach a few with your anger, yet how many might you/we reach by activating our most inspiring humanity?
Do as Chomsky has suggested for reporters in the documentary "Manufacturing Consent". Get to know the system more and learn its openings. How best to reach fellow human beings --who may *want* to help somehow, yet feel absolutely powerless?
(Like the proverbial hostage, adapting since childhood's compulsory norms, while knowing no better alternative, and begining to identify with the oppressive, severely alienated mindset--i.e. scientific models of prison "management")
We have the intelligence to reach our fellow human beings. The question is, do we learn how and when we can touch each other meaningfully enough?
re: "Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver), Kanada: Sheriff Van and Police Cruise"
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/08/268238.shtml
I agree that meaningful dialogue is needed, but I still see crucial truth in seeking to reach the human beings caught within the internalized values systems rather than merely attack them in these dark age "revenges".
Surely, once we get more used to thinking independently, we can activate our intelligence much more meaningfully than how alienation war has taught us so far.
For instance, take a look at the article "Good Peasant, Bad Peasant". See if you can find it. It was posted in an anarchist dialogue forum. It's a good starting off place for the uninitiated (to that form of confrontation).
Those who still choose the combative methods, I say most of you are choosing a way of so much hellish that I think you will regret such later. But we all do not have "all" the truth, so perhaps property damage ways are one way...to at least "gain" the attention (but whose will you get? It is better than nothing, you may say...) But if only many could depth together, instead of these seemingly isolated, last-ditch ways...
Felt like I had to comment.
re:
"Cannon fodder for the market"
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/08/268295.shtml
Good article, and great to see such depth!
Only, I don't see eye-to-eye with you about this idea you think the u.s. leaders/policy-makers have about *hating* those they move against in their routine diplomatic ways.
If there's any hatred, it's in the lower portions of the hierarchy, methinks. Those more deeply tooled, seeing their friends smashed in information without contexts.
As for those carrying out policy, closer to the top of the hierarchy, they're merely carrying out their methodology of statecraft. "Nothing personal..." as some have said from time to time. In my view such a methodology has been coercively passed "down" to them since they were in their youths, and has now solidified, as in every generation "up in age".
My inclination, in seeing that, is to somehow inspire a plethora of responses with our most creative and inspiring creativity. Along lines such as documented in the film "The Singing Revolution" I suppose, and beyond control by formal politics.
LET'S ACTIVATE OUR MOST INSPIRING HUMANITY!
psst, pass it on.
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