If you are as yet unaware of Ron Paul's incredible presidential campaign, you can't go wrong watching this 65-minute interview hosted by one of Google's chief executives. This video gets my highest recommendation.
To my mind, Ron Paul is the only politician I have ever heard who spoke absolute truth. Not only doesn't he ever trip my Bullshit Meter, I usually find myself standing and cheering out loud. And a lot of other people feel this way too.
He just might be the last offramp we have on this freeway to Dictatorship.
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Your brief criticism of Gravel and Kucinich as alternative candidates would be interesting. Any thoughts on Nader? My concern with Paul is his post-libertarian freemarket-at-any-cost economic philosophy. He, like the above others, gives a very good general overview of a livable and sustainable future.
I find Gravel and Kucinich unsatisfying, as I don't share their trust in government. Settling for them after hearing Ron Paul speak would be like...I dunno... reaching for a soy burger after having tasted a chuck-steak burger.
Gravel and Kucinich are less appalling than the other candidates. But my money's on Paul, as he's close to my Anarchist heart.
Hey! I have soyburgers most every day; reportedly it takes about 8 weeks to unlearn a taste and acquire a new preference in flavor. I haven't willingly eaten meat for about 35 years. There's a much heavier ecological burden to raising most farm animals than for veggie protein. I wouldn't eat my dogs if it meant my life.
Ron Paul is a Republican, all said and done. Sentiment aside, there's still time for testing the metal of candidates, who must ultimately appeal to a stream, if not mainstream, of voters.
And the issue of trust: you have some excellent video-docs posted.
In god we trust (not)
E Pluribus Unim (not)
Sensory data (not)
Are you a virtual reality?
Why do you think my tagline on IMVU is "There is no spoon"?
This is all a virtual reality. A dream. The question is, will we become lucid dreamers or not?
I vote for lucidity.
Actually, my support of a candidate has fuck-all to do with his or her chances to win. I choose a candidate who espouses my beliefs. No other candidate has come as close to my inherent Anarchistic leanings. I believe the State is the greatest danger Mankind has ever faced.
The way I see it, there are two outcomes.
If Paul loses we are looking at total police state in a couple of years, tops. We're already most of the way there, all we lack is a convenient "excuse" like a new 9/11. It will be the most horrific dictatorship the planet has ever seen, far worse than anything Hitler ever imagined. And, eventually there will be an uprising against it.
A Paul victory might delay that tipping over into total tyranny. But I don't think it can prevent it.
But I have a hard time *choosing* to accelerate the crisis. I'd like us to grow up before history forces us to slide into this Dark Time. So I'll vote for Paul and hope for the best.
The real issue at hand seems to be this: if we are to survive we must begin to act like adults. We must stop creating a super-parent in the form of the State. Our ethics, our contracts, our behaviors must be driven by an internal sense of rightness and a recognition of each person as a sovereign being. You cannot legislate such awareness.
Can we acheive this maturity without a New World Order tyranny? I don't know. My intuition tells me we'll go right to the brink of ruin before we get our shit together.
But I'm an optimist. I truly believe no matter what course we follow, we will survive and learn from our painful lessons.
I am standing in the same road looking at the horizon. I do see the same trend in government control of individuals. It is in the interest of 'strong' persons or groups to extract wealth, comfort and meaning from the weaker members of society. This is the danger of free marketeering without protections, constitutional or otherwise.
We do have a kind of SuperParent in charge for the moment, but consider that in an ideal society their might be honest, loving parent-figures, freely elected without delusional art, overseeing the nurturing of society.
Your recommended Space URL's bring back youthful memories. It took about a million people working toward the goal to accomplish Space occupancy. It showed the collective power of humanity for a (probably) somewhat noble cause. The same applies to problems of all kinds in society- coordination of intellingent and talented folks can achieve great results- for good (great animation applications) or for bad (smart-bombs).
Anarchy is very romantic, and reading the movement in the late 1800's (especially here in Chicago, home of mass-production capitalism [stock-yards] and the first Communist International politcal convention) was very nostalgic- for example, visiting the sculpture finally reerected to commemorate key events, e.g., Haymarket Riots. Successful anarchy undoes systems. In the 1960's I read Jacque Ellul's End of Revolution, or something like that, in which he studied anarchical/revolutionary transistions in history. His conclusion was that as time progressed, such movements lost potency in the improvement in overall conditions (if I remember). When younger, I was more gung-ho for change. but now that I have more memories than opportunities, I look through a different lens. After the politic is unzipped, you must have a next move, and it will not please everyone, but it can have safeguards (a constitution) which respects basic rights for all members of the universe of discourse (e.g., citizens).
I was refreshed by the sun-worship paradigm video which you listed; it informs, but does not negate the derivative ethical arguments of concern for the needy among us.
"We must stop creating a super-parent in the form of the State. Our ethics, our contracts, our behaviors must be driven by an internal sense of rightness and a recognition of each person as a sovereign being. You cannot legislate such awareness."
This evolves with age and experience. You cannot legislate such awareness, but I argue that you can educate that awareness- partly via culture and history, as well as consensus and institutions.
Whittling or whithering away the State is like worshiping the Sun-God: a popular morphology among Republicans, anarchists, libertarians, individualists, cultists, egoists, and all of us in heat. Freud acknowledged its' necessity in the propagation of species.
It is the affirmation of existence in the social universe. As I once postulated in some class paper about freedom: Freedom is the ability to X in the context of Y in the universe of Z.
There's no free lunch.
We are what we are. Personally, I'm wired to say "fuck you" to authority. I prefer to avoid the future of Morlocks and Eloi, the bifurcation of humanity into owners and cattle.
I prefer Rivendell to Mordor. If it is in the nature of Rivendell to fall, or to fade over time, so be it. At least for a time we had freedom.
I should comment on your "In God We Trust (not)" suggestion.
I consider myself very spiritual, but completely nonreligious. Based on my personal experiments I'm quite satisfied that there is a spiritual universe which surrounds and penetrates this physical reality.
But that's just me, your mileage may vary. I don't have a problem with the idea of my inhabiting a spiritual universe while others live in a totally nonspiritual reality. For me it's not an either-or, more like choosing an internet provider. Maybe it's God in that Schroedinger Box. It both exists, and doesn't, depending on the observer.
Uh, that was god, not God. You've given me a lot of red meat to digest (pun intended) in your comments, and some homework, too! You share the spiritual universe with Al Einstein. I have been superficially impressed with the rigour of Digital Philosophy to the extent I can follow the reasoning, which seems similar to the vision of A New Kind of Science, presented by Steve Wolfram. I heard him lecture (lots of visuals) at U Chgo coupla years ago. SRO, but he never gives credit to his predecessors in the digital universe he embraces. Probably a legal concern about getting sued, because he has the money. I hope this is all it is.
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This is for now a fun blog!, but I have a ton of work this weekend so I will pick up next week at paid 'work', naturally. And I will be watching you (but I'm very left-handed).
Cheers.
I bought Wolfram's book the week it came out, and devoured it in a long weekend. Yummy! Yes, he doesn't spend a lot of effort giving credit to others, but WOW what a brainload of ideas!
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