Hard Wind Going to Blow
It is deeply satisfying to wake up and read articles like this one from Bloomberg business press on how wind power is putting nuclear plants out of business. Last year in the US $25 billion were spent and new wind capacity. This raised the total grid electricity fraction to 3.4% from wind, with a forecast of it raising to 4.2% in 2013. In 2013 there will be no new nuclear reactors connected to the grid and at least one and possibly several reactors will close this year forever.
So using a rough extrapolation, if these rates continue, in about 7 or 8 years the amount of wind generated electricity will exceed the amount of nuclear power in the US. It is important to remember that many nuclear proponents continue to say that the entire class of renewables are not up to the job of powering the country and instead we should be investing in new reactor designs, most of which cant even be in prototype phase until early 2020′s.
And thus it is worth remembering, that highly paid, well educated, well intentioned, nuclear promoters are stunningly wrong yet again.
a Polite Funological debate – can festivals save the world?
At the current rate of traffic to this site, it will break the 1/4 million hits threshold by April Fools. But as satisfying as this is, it is less important to me than what happened the day before yesterday. Which was being politely, but formally debated on another blog about whether festivals can change the world. I am excited about this debate because Rosie is actually part of the Burning Man organization and while she is not speaking for BM inc. in her post, she is certainly an insider, with perspective and experience which many participants can’t have. And i am thrilled about the debate, because i want her to be right and this exchange of perspectives will hopefully help our shared wish for these events to be high in positive impact and world transforming. And of course controversy spikes web traffic, and i love traffic.
Let me try to summarize her points here (but please read her article linked above):
- BM builds community, inspires resilience and resourcefulness.
- BM connects people to feeling empathetically connected to humanity
- BM encourages contribution to crafting a better world
- BM is an antidote to isolation
- BM has sparked many civic and artistic endeavors
Boringly, we don’t disagree on any of these points. As i have written in this blog, i think Burning Man is a tremendously significant event for these and other reasons. Rosie is right to challenge me on the trite phrase “Save the World”. In the ways mentioned above these transformational festivals (like BM) are increasing our chances for survival, empowering and transforming individuals and taking on some political issues. And to be fair, BM actually does this better than any festival i have been to. It is more transformative, it has more active external political initiatives and importantly is memetic in that it replicates regional burns of the same structure (so that everyone does not need to go to Nevada for this experience). So in this sense Rosie is right. Specifically she sez:
And looking at doing the hard and hostile work, let’s again, point to the work of Burners Without Borders: Here is a group of people that formed and built relationships with each other at Burning Man. The individuals that generated this group, likely without knowing it, were in effect training themselves with useful skills by building survival systems in the harsh desert where Burning Man is held. ”Following the 2005 Burning Man event, several participants headed south into the Hurricane Katrina disaster area to help people rebuild their devastated communities” (source). You’re going to have a very tough time convincing me that a festival wasn’t in part responsible for the existence of this humanitarian aid group that is out there in the world doing “the hard work which needs to be done…”
Where i think BM and the other transformational festivals fall short is the notion that these events and the things which they inspire are enough work for us to get where we need to go. I feel that there is a certain type of “lazy activism” in which participants can go to these events and party and perhaps partake in these civic and political parallel projects and think that they have done their share of world fixing. The hype of the Bloom video seems to encourage this “we can do it all if we can make it to these festivals” feeling. Or more simply put, Bloom makes saving the world sound easily accessible. This feels naive to me, i am not sure of Rosie would agree.
Get on the bus: Burners do help improve the world.
We dont really have a disagreement on diversity. Rosie says:
Yes, the majority of music & art festival attendees at this point in time are white…. I had a desire for the event to be more diverse because I believe diversity creates strength and interesting variation in an ecosystem. However, as someone once told me, “You can’t force diversity. You CAN steward it, but it has to be generated by the interest of minority groups/individuals themselves, and then supported by the ecosystem of the event.”
If BM can attract a more ethnically diverse base of participation, that is fantastic. And i also believe that you can’t force diversity. And i am a bit skeptical that this expensive, remote, dominantly white event can morph into something far more inclusive – and i would be happy for Rosie to point out how i was wrong in this, including BM inc.’s plans to deal with this.
And the most dangerous part of the Bloom project (which Rosie does not mention) is the idea that these festivals can play a role in re-indigenization. My intimates who work on cultural appropriation issues are completely unconvinced that this can be pulled off. My view is that i really want to understand how this might work, but i start from a somewhat skeptical place.
Is this what the city of the future looks like?
Rosie says:
They are a useful source of inspiration, of bringing people more alive than they were before the event. This aliveness, this enthusiasm and passion for life is something they can take back to “their regular lives.” I contend that festivals can be an inspiring part of the continuum of one’s life. There is no “regular life” or “default world.” All of your experiences are part of your life and your world.
i totally get her point, and we will have to respectfully disagree. Until participants have significantly transformed their lives (which many have already done, but i don’t think most have) there is a “default world” which they are returning to, which is frequently spirit crushing and strongly discourages the type of radical self expression that BM is so good at promoting onsite.
i cant go back to my straight job dressed (or thinking) like this.
Where we are highly aligned is when it comes to her posts conclusion.
Festivals serve as a tool in helping individuals connect both to a part of themselves that may have been lost since childhood, and also connect to a tribe that they resonate with. Technology combined with your passionate desire and your aligned action will keep you connected to your tribe, and if you want to be a bigger contribution to the world, you can.
Absolutely, my thoughts precisely.
you can take anything i have, forever, without asking
Rabbit makes me rant. This is a good thing actually. Crystal has invited me to talk at his social movements class and when i pressed him for details about what he was interested on me presenting about, he simply replied “i want you to shock them.”
Prof Rabbi and friend
This got me thinking while Rabbit and i were out walking the dog along he scenic Western Drive of Santa Cruz California. I thought back to the message that i want to push, which was first framed by the McDonogh presentation a year ago, that recycling is very nice, but you should be spending at least that much time figuring out how to better share things.
And more powerfully, that the problem with the vast majority of environmental action is that it requires real sacrifice. Recycling takes some time, biking instead of driving is generally slower and less convient than drive a car, growing your food w/o pesticides is far slower than simply buying commercial produce at the local supermarket. But the place where the biggest payoff is, is in figuring out how to share things. We have 17 cars at Twin Oaks our default world counterparts have 77 cars. This is a huge savings, so you can work much less, but more importantly if we cut global manufacturing by 4/5ths, we could dodge climate change and not hit the wall with peak oil so hard and so soon.
So central to this rant is that the hard thing to change is your own mind. You think what you should be doing is recycling or gardening – and those are important, but they are far less important that figuring out that about 95% of your personal material property sits idle 95% of the time. If you are not working on this part of the problem, you are just another well meaning environmentalist who will watch the world burn.
And the very interesting central point here is the only thing you really have to change is your mind and your social relationships to make this be different (at financial advantage to all involved). So why dont we collectively share more? What a good question, i have some snarky replies, but they dont feel like they add much to the discussion right now.
the best paths are oft obscured by laziness
The name of this post comes from an offer i make to my intimates, usually early in our connection. You can take anything i have, forever, without asking. Leave a note if you think i am going to miss it. This is the lazy way i show up for sharing.
Spaceships trump Lifeboats
There is a conversation which Acorn has about membership that Oakers basically don’t ever have. It is the spaceship versus lifeboat conversation.
Lifeboat proponents say that industrial capitalism is destroying the planet and chances for survival are slim. And that Acorn represents a lifeboat for people who are trying to escape this disaster. Correspondingly, your humanitarian nature drives you to try to get as many people into the lifeboat as possible and you don’t judge your fellow survivor based on their abilities or merits, instead you welcome them and try to integrate them the best you can.
The spaceship crowd (which i am a long believer of) says we are looking for the best people to take on this mission we are going on. In fact the success of the mission is dependent in large part on us selecting people who have the complex mix of skills and gifts we need to make this journey work well. Some of them are organizers, some of them are inspiring artists and performers, some of them garden and fix things, still other manage computers, cook and take care of and teach kids.
When i was going thru my Acorn clearnesses, one member said to me “i like you okay, but i think anyone who wants to should be able to live here, regardless of my opinion of them.” This is a classic lifeboat position. At Twin Oaks, we are not having this discussion. We are spaceship believers and we select people largely based on their sociability, their work ethic and their skills.
i know this feeling
When i was talking with GPaul about this division i posited that “In this debate the spaceship crowd wins, right? Because any single member can block someone new from joining, so if the lifeboat clan wants everyone, the spaceship faction simply rejects prospective members they don’t want and they get their way.”
GPaul was quick to correct me; it is not so simple. You can not just run over the will of a group in the community regularly and there are people who the life boaters get excited about when they are in their visitor periods who they really are excited about having as members, even if they dont want to be blocking others out.
Can Festivals Save the World?
Abigail forwarded me this trailer for a web series on transformational festivals called Bloom.
It left her feeling uneasy and self critical. She wants to support festival culture, but is concerned by what she perceives as self congratulatory and over hyped claims of saving the world. And she is right.
I think festivals are hugely important, I have seen them change lots of peoples lives mostly in positive ways. They can be significant models for all manner of new societies we want to create. And you can’t just dance oppression away, you can’t party away economic injustice and you can’t vacation your way to sustainability, especially in the middle of the desert.
Don’t get me wrong. I am excited about Bloom. If the trailer is any indication, these are very thoughtful funologists. They are looking at the need for rituals in current culture, they are challenging the commercialization of daily life, they get that festivals can heal participants and catalyze personal transformations. They understand that these festivals are a chance to model new behaviors and cultural norms. I applaud this approach and their investigation into the power of these events, especially festivals that are cash free internally.
But there are hazards in promising too much while not significantly shifting things and even reinforcing problematic ideologies in the dominant culture, while deluding ourselves that our good time is much more than what it really is. There is a dangerous new age mix in which mostly white and mostly affluent people can think that festival culture is the key to a better world. The message that comes through to people who are watching it casually is “hey we can solve our problems by going to festivals and dancing and making art.” Which is not true, and feels like a dodge of the hard work which needs to be done in more hostile environments.
These events can be escapist experiences disconnected from peoples regular lives. Where people don’t quit their straight jobs or break out of their stuck relationships and instead save up for the year to spend a week in the wilderness having the experiences they wish they could somehow have all year. The Bloom points out the power of co-creation at these events and that important lasting relationships are built. But largely individuals go home alone – we have not yet successfully exported festival cooperation to the daily lives of most participants. Important work undone.-
Also especially around gender roles, beauty standards and sexual violence. The Bloom pitches the idea of “gender alchemy” with some wonderful words about respect, healing and understanding. Some of these transformational festivals are doing amazing things in these areas, and it is still the exception rather than the norm. I don’t want to throw out this important tool, and i think overall with regard to sexism and reinforcing the corrupt values around objectification, these festivals are mostly setting us backwards.
Where it gets really dangerous is the novel notion of re-indigenization. A word i had not even heard before i saw this trailer. The theory is fantastic: “How transformational festivals honor and support a deep connection with the earth. And the way this is catalyzing a cultural re-encounter between neo-tribal festival communities and representatives of indigenous communities in right relationship.” But, we have to wonder, who chooses these indigenous representatives? What about problems of cultural appropriation and on-going genocide of these indigenous people? I have been struggling with these issues for the past year, and i am confident i am working on them harder than most festival goers and have made pathetic progress myself. So the short answer is “No. Tranformative festivals can’t save the world.” At least not the ones of which i am aware. The Bloom is dangerously over-promising. Yet it still makes sense to have these festivals, to work on these issues, to recognize that we do need models and experiments and to change the lives of participants and the dominant culture. They are important tools, but no substitute for less pleasant, more self-critical and self-sacrificing work which needs to be done in less comfortable environments.
Climate Heroes
Kas, Darla, Mac, Hidarius, Adder at Keystone XL protest
It was a state of the art liberal protest. There were no planned arrests at this action, to make it as accessible and low risk as possible. Celebrates had been arrested the week before. There were 34 people who got arrested after this big march of 45K participants.
What made it state of the art were the websites for the planning and the giant TV screens at the base of the Washington Monument.
What made it liberal was the frequent appeals by the speakers to patriotism and American ingenuity. There is nothing particularly American about climate change, this is a global problem.
And while leadership from the US would be great, we could be working on this from a non-nationalistic angle.
But we are not – or at least the Sierra Club and 350.org are not, despite the Sierra Club’s recent historic decision to drop their policy against civil disobedience.
And for this protest, they are using all the tools of a classical domestic political campaign. Senators spoke at the event. The big call was for Obama to keep his promises.
Banana Brigade
There are many different organizing styles. The one i am currently using in my experimenting with creating a new community is to dream up (often with others) interesting new ideas and see who gets excited about them.
The idea is simple
The idea which has been getting a surprising amount of support, as in “tell me when this is happening and i will come up and work with you on it” support, is mass dumpster diving in the Death City area. What we currently have is DC based dumpster divers who leave lots of food behind, because there is a limit both on what they can consume and what they can handle processing in the same night.
Enter the banana brigade. Communards who are interested in helping can join trips up to DC and participate in food processing after late night dumpstering so as to both increase the yield of food captured by dumpstering and increase the amount that is taken from each dumpster, because there are more people eating the food.
It is easy to imagine a group of cooks and food processors who would help cull the bad bananas from the ones which can be used in banana bread. We will start with this monthly in March and see how it goes.
Rebellious Education with Rosa Parks
I don’t like to say “never” because, well, you never know. So I guess I tend to operate in a sort of hopeful fatalism, which is why the powerful introduction to Rosa Park’s new autobiography, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks was such a downer. I was looking up Rosa Parks not because it’s Black History Month, nor because I’d heard of the book, but because I’d overheard my 15-year-old daughter and her 16-year-old friend (both offspring of life-long political activists) say, “Who’s Jessie Jackson?” during a game of Apples to Apples.
Sue Little Flower[/caption]
This is a link to her most recent blog post on Rosa Parks, and why the myth around her is disempowering rather than inspiring. BUT i do have a piece of advice, if you ever get arrested with Sue (which i did a few years back) don't step in front of the magistrate right after her, because the powers that be are going to be in a rip-roaring bad mood having just wrestled with this activist with a very long (and inspiring) arrest record.
Anarchist Studies Grants – Deadline Feb 15th
Lots of people are motivated by deadlines, i certainly am. So when i saw that the deadline for the Institute for Anarchist Studies writing grant was Feb 1st and it was Feb 1st and i had no time to write anything, i did what any self respecting disorganized organizer would do – i emailed asking for more information.
To my joy, the deadline had moved a couple of weeks and it was still possible for me (and perhaps you) to get an application in for a grant for an essay (or translation) on how to improve the world as seen through an anarchist lens. Since Feb 1st they have pulled down the link which tells you that the deadline has been extended and what the application process is. But in the noble anarchist tradition of leaking information, at the bottom of this message is what you need to do to be considered for the small grants of between $250 and $1000.
What is important to me, is what it is we should be writing about. Unsurprisingly, for those who know me, i want to do a piece on sharing systems. Specifically, how sharing systems which have been developed in the commune can be exported to Babylon.
But if you identify as an anarchist who thinks part of the work that you need to do is share powerful ideas with others, this might be your grant.
If i could split in three, i think what i would write about is:
- How to spark a social network to replace Facebook
- Tools for living without money
- Exporting sharing systems from the commune to the mainstream
What should you be writing about?
So this is what you would have gotten if you had asked before Feb 1st for the information about the grant. But it actually appears that the website has expired, rather than that they intentionally stopped sending stuff out.
Hello,
Thanks for contacting us about our grants for writing and translation projects. Due to ongoing issues with our application and Web site, we have extended our winter deadline for proposals. Grant applications are now due by or before midnight EST on February 15, 2013. We apology for any inconvenience or delay. We’re working on a totally new Web site that will be both attractive and functional, offering an easy online application for future grant rounds.
For now, below you’ll find the grant application questions. Please address them succinctly yet fully, and return them to us via email: anarchiststudies@gmail.com.
- Please fill out the questions below, and acknowledge the fine print.
- Please attach a writing sample, no longer than 5 double-spaced pages in length, as a .doc file.
We look forward to receiving your grant application, and will be in touch with all applicants with our decisions by the late March or early April.
Thanks!
David Combs
Administrator
Institute for Anarchist Studies
Tentative Project Title:
Your full name:
Your email address:
Your full address:
Your phone number:
Project completion date:
Note: Your essay must be completed within six months of being awarded a grant.
Project Summary:
Please provide a succinct one- to two-paragraph summary of your essay project, including as applicable your main points, key argument(s), and research or other supporting materials.
Project Approximate Length:
Project Insights:
What insights does your piece offer into social, political, and/or economic structures of domination? What contributions does it make to efforts to abolish or radically transform these structures and create a free, just, and cooperative society?
Project Importance:
Why is your essay project especially important at this particular time? Please provide a one- to two-paragraph summary on how you see your essay project fitting into the current context of anarchist/radical thought and/or organizing.
Project Influences/sources:
If applicable, briefly note any key theoretical influences/sources for this project.
Project Personal Experience:
What experience do you have that is relevant to your project? This can include experience with the methodology you are proposing here, pieces you have written on related themes, educational or organizing/activist experience, research, employment, languages, and so on. If your application is for a translation, include your translation experience. Please explain why you feel that you would be a good candidate to undertake and complete this project.
Language of project:
What language will the work be written in? If it will be in a language other than English, can you provide English translation?
Translation:
If writing a translation, do you have the translation rights? We will not consider applications for translations without the original author’s permission.
The IAS is interested in having the essays it funds be as widely available as possible in forms that are relevant and accessible to radical movements and thinkers. To this end, we attempt to publish as many of the funded essays as we can, but also appreciate efforts by the grantee to disseminate their work.
Project IAS Publishing:
Are you open to having your completed essay project be published in Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, or as part of a small book series by the IAS and AK Press?
Project Publishing:
What other plans do you have to publish or otherwise disseminate your essay beyond possible IAS publishing opportunities?
***
Terms and Conditions
Relationship to IAS:
I am not. I am not an officer, director, member of the grant selection committee, or any other committee of the IAS. I am not related to anyone serving in any of the above capacities.
Project Completion:
Yes, I agree. I will complete the above project within six months of receiving the grant (generally August 30 or January 30 of a given year), and I will send a finished copy of the essay or translation to the IAS by this date.
Copyright:
Yes, I agree. Whether I own the piece’s copyright or not, I grant the IAS permission to publish the completed work in the IAS journal Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, as part of an anthology, or in a small book format.
Publication:
Yes, I agree. If I am awarded a grant and the IAS decides to pursue the publication of my essay in its journal or as part of a book series, I am willing to work with an IAS editor to prepare the essay or translation for publication.
Acknowledge IAS:
Yes, I agree. Whether I own the piece’s copyright or not, I grant the IAS permission to publish the completed work in the IAS journal Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, as part of an anthology, or in a small book format.
Extension:
Yes, I agree. If the project must take more than six months to complete, I will request in writing an extension of the deadline, no less than one month before the original deadline. If I fail to request an extension, or if the IAS does not accept the request, I will return the grant money.
Money Return:
Yes, I agree. I will return the grant money in full if I fail to complete the project in the required time frame.
Publish without funding:
Yes, I agree. If you are not funded, another support we offer is posting info re: projects on our Web site. Would you be ok with this?
A billion users cant be wrong
This Facebook post caught my eye:
And i giggled inside. It is the same silly notion that many Czechs had after the Berlin Wall came down – that democracy and the will of the people would rule the land.
I also thought that it was funny that the poster thought 0.1% of Facebooks 1 billion users would represent much of a ground swell for this company. FB is moved by greater forces.
Facebook has an objective, it is not simple – it has dominating the social network ecosystem, increasing e-commerce potential for them, charging micro fees for services for users and several grades of premium users. It has timing for these services and restrictions planned out to not annoy too many addicts, i mean users, at once.
because i want your money, perhaps?
And we have a mission, which we are largely ignoring, which is to create an open source social networking service, which does what is most useful about FB, but without all the poisonous corporate extras. In a parallel life i am working with some hot group of coders in a crowded duplex in Palo Alto crafting just such a thing now.
These are some of the design features:
- Non profit/volunteer based platform
- no filtering
- all data belongs to users
- Opt in ads where you get (perhaps) half the ad revenue for watching them
- real services – barter facilitation, tripper like services, gifting circle and all manner of non-monetary exchanges.
There is much more to say about what comes after FB and how we promote it. But this is enough for today.
