We must rise up...
10. WE WANT LAND, BREAD, HOUSING, EDUCATION, CLOTHING, JUSTICE, PEACE AND PEOPLE'S COMMUNITY CONTROL OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY. ... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among…
I believe, if this trip has for me (as a thinking person) a valuable experience, it lies in the strengthening of the viewpoint of the relativity of all cultivation. - Franz Boas, Baffin Island Letter-Diary , 23 December 1883 The riotous novel Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy described a device called the Total Perspective Vortex. The Vortex grants instant awareness of exactly how insignificant you…
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. - James Baldwin I wrote recently that we must raise a revolution , but that's not quite right. A revolution is under way , and we must figure out what to do. In this post I'll set out a string of brief, skeletal arguments why core aspects of our prevailing social, political, and economic arrangements are…
The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on. - Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed This blog is, in a sense, an admission of defeat. Around the turn of the millennium I became aware that the world wasn't getting more prosperous and free, but sliding into trouble. The realization came on gradually over the years, but that story is…
... every person of worth, when dealing with matters of worth, will be far from exposing them to ill feeling and misunderstanding among people by committing them to writing. - The Seventh Letter , attributed to Plato This blog will be making a simple argument. Our lives and the lives of our loved ones are at risk, and it's our right and responsibility to act to ensure we'll be fine. Today, this…
Long ago, before my age had a -teen attached to it, I was sitting in front of a lumpy black-and-white TV, inside it a grainy smiling face of a man on the shore of a sea. He said Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home, the Earth. For the first time we have the power to decide the fate of our planet, and ourselves. This is a time of great danger, but, our species is…