Whatcha Reading?

[Mark]

Yesterday I noticed in one of his comments on COTO that Waldo is reading, Family of Secrets. I got that book from the library the other day and just started reading it myself.

Come across any good books lately?

I want to read Eva Golinger's recent book, The Empire's Web: Encyclopedia of Interventionism and Subversion, but it was published in Venezuela in Spanish and I don't know if it is out in English yet.

[Mark]

I haven't checked this out but it sounds like it might be interesting:

Email on Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Is the Purpose of Education to Make Money?

HENRY GIROUX, [e-mail], http://www.henryagiroux.com
Giroux's books include the recently-released "Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability?" and "The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex." He just wrote the piece "The Corporate Stranglehold on Education," which states: "In the age of money and profit, academic subjects gain stature almost exclusively through their exchange value on the market. Twice as many students major in business studies than in any other major. The liberal arts increasingly appear to be merely ornamental, a dying vestige of an age not dominated by Gilded Age excess and disposability. Whereas the university was once prized as a place where students learned how to be engaged citizens educated in the knowledge, skills, values, and virtues of democracy, today they are trained to be workers and adept consumers. Educational value is now measured according to cost/benefit formulas, and the only rationality that matters is one of economic exchange." http://counterpunch.org/giroux09082009.html
Giroux holds the Global TV Network chair in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Canada.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, [phone] or David Zupan, [phone]

[pan]

Highly recommend any and all of Paulo Freire's books, especially Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

[Mouse]

I've got some beautiful books about sewing, mouthwatering, the textures; beneath my skin the ancient creatures turn to look and sigh, turning over they ripple the surface.

[Mark]

Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back

I just started the book, but this concept might be an example of the type of thing he envisions:

http://survival.netrootz.com/web_pages/view_web_page.asp?group=871&...

Unfortunately, like so many other ideas, Jeeni's proposal is dependent upon getting the approval of "elected" officials, and big money didn't put them in office just to let them represent their constituents. So I'll be interested in seeing if Rushkoff is aware that our government is a bureaucracy designed to perpetuate oligarchy by any means necessary, and that until and unless we withdraw our support from "Constitutional" government, we won't have much success with alternative strategies.

[Mark]

Excellent history and explanation of how the world became a corporation. Still in the first chapter, but this is better and more inclusive than Gangs of America, Curt.

[curt]

Thanks, Mark, thanks, Bo. I absorbed "Gangs of America" by Ted Nace. As for getting approval of elected officials for anything useful, well, pipe dreams do have their place in today's world.

[Mark]

I wrote to Rushkoff.

Subject: Self-Defeating Strategies

Hi Doug--

It doesn't make sense to me to attempt to develop alternative systems while at the same time voting to perpetuate and legitimize the current system.

When we vote, we are delegating our power and authority to people we cannot hold accountable, and authorizing them to make decisions to which we agree to be bound.

Understanding the system is not sufficient, we need to withdraw our support from it . Remember the South Central Urban Farm in Los Angeles where people had done organic gardening for years, only to have it bulldozed when the City Council allowed a developer to destroy it? Those same people keep registering to vote and voting to authorize the City Council to destroy everything that they do. If you want to build something that will last, the first step is to stop authorizing the corporate bureaucracy to destroy it and to claim that they have the legitimate right to do so because you voted to grant them that power. Power can only be retained at the local level if people stop voting to authorize and legitimize higher levels of power. Illegitimate power can still be exercised by means of force and violence, but it cannot claim legitimacy if people don't vote for it.

--Mark

He wrote back and asked if I was suggesting we not vote at all, and what if there was a Green Party candidate one totally agreed with.

I sent him The Fable of Lanova Messiah and said:

Lanova Messiah in this little fable I wrote a few years ago is a candidate with whom we can all agree. I was once a Democrat. Then I was a Green. Now I'm a Zapatista. We don't support political parties or their candidates. We support only local self-government.
------------

It will be interesting to see if and how he responds. He seems to think that local, alternative lifestyles can coexist with corporations, but corporations are predatory. If we really ever want to end corporate rule, we first have to stop authorizing and legitimizing the government bureaucracy that exists for the purpose of authorizing, legitimizing, and perpetuating corporate power over us.

[pan]

We support only local self-government.

Zappa recommended folks run for local office if they really wanted some power to make a real impact. Not exactly the same as local self-government but close enough to see the overlap in being a Zapatista and a Zappatista. ;-)

[Mark]

And both of 'em beat being a Paulito all to hell. There's a lot of things you can say about Libertarians, but reality-based isn't one of 'em.

[curt]

Frank wanted people to get involved, one way or another. He once considered running for pResident. I'd love to know his thoughts about Libertarians. For them, of course, Frank was just another Communist like me. ;-)

[Mark]

Rushkoff asked a few more questions and I answered them, and then he asked something I couldn't answer. I said I didn't know, ventured a few dumb guesses that showed my ignorance, and he sensibly didn't bother to respond.

His question is important and I'm thinking about it. He wanted to know how big or small the "pods" (self-governing communities) could be.

Well, the Zapatistas already had communities which were actual villages. I'm still reading Rushkoff's book and he does get into the fact that we've been fragmented and isolated by the corporate agenda, and we need to reconnect and form communities.

But how big or small can they be? Darned if I know. I certainly don't know as much about forming communities as he does. The closest thing I have to community is here on RBC.

I think Amy Schrift is a "pod" or community consisting of one person. Amy is pretty much self-sufficient and interacts with other communities on Amy's terms, not on theirs.

I think if Hugo Chavez had his dream, all of Latin America would be a pod or community, formed of smaller pods and communities, all functioning from the bottom up with self-government on a local level. But Venezuela is a petrostate and while it is not ruled by corporations the way that we are, it isn't free of corporations and is dependent upon them to a certain extent.

Anyone have any thoughts on reconnecting, forming communities, pod size limits, etc.?

Rushkoff had asked about how administrators and judges were chosen, and how disputes were resolved. My response was:

Unfortunately, everything has to be done the hard way, by consensus. Tedious, frustrating, etc., but if you want things done right.....

Direct participatory democracy also allows for human error and frailties. What can be done by consensus, can be undone by consensus. In that particular case, i.e., messing up, it is actually more efficient to clean up the mess ourselves than to petition a king or a congress to do it, but in most instances efficiency is sacrificed for self-sufficiency.

Local administrators have to "lead by obeying," so they can be chosen on a short-term rotating system with everyone taking turns, as it is the consensus decisions that have to be followed, not the leaders. And if somebody can't or won't do what needs doing, they can be replaced by consensus.

So they're not administrators in our usual sense of the word. Just as many worker-owned collectives don't have or need a management caste or class. More like bona fide public servants.
--------------------

He agreed with that, but then asked the pod question that stumped me.

You folks are my pod, so I don't have anyplace else to turn for answers. Help!

[pan]

Borrowing from Kurt Vonnegut, I belong to a nation of two with Ms. Medusa. There is great strength in this but others who we interact with on a professional level view us with suspicion and sometimes overt hostility (otherwise known as non-collegiality) due to the strength of our nation and the power of two individuals who have collaborated for over 2 decades focused upon what best serves the student - a motivation rarely shared by our colleagues in Higher Education.