talk me left...lord please, talk me left

more than once in the last couple of weeks i have, "lo and behold", found myself calling myself a libertarian. i just finished watching an interview with this guy named thomas sowell and find myself agreeing with everything that he says (watch it and you'll see why this troubles me). the interviewer is kind of annoying, but sowell is amazing.

i'll just review some of the more interesting aspects of his wikipedia personal history. wikipedia is supposed to be open content so i assume that plagarism isn't an issue here :-).

thomas sewell was born in 1930 in north carolina and his father died before he was born. he moved with his mother's sister to harlem and attended stuyvesant high school, but had to drop out at age 17. he worked in a machine shop and as a delivery man until he was drafted to the marines during the korean war in 1951.

after he was discharged he got his ged and enrolled in howard university (a historically black school) to later transfer to harvard university where he graduated magna cum laude in economics. yada, yada, yada, he graduates from columbia and the university of chicago. now for the last 30 years he has been a senior fellow at the hoover institution at stanford university, a conservative, libertarian-leaning think tank.

oh, and he's black. yeah, that matters to me.

aaanywho, clearly i say all this because i'm enamored with the guy and he happens to be right in line with what i'm feeling at the moment - but...

let's forget for a second that his arguments/examples are brilliantly constructed and presented with wit and personality. based on his life experiences, knowledge, and intellect alone - what possible basis do i have to not take him at his word?

New Architectures

Vijay, part of the fight is learning acceptance, learning submission. I suppose that doesn't feel like fighting and maybe it's not. But it is right and true and beautiful even.

We are used to fighting, and maybe living, meaning just one thing (one thing at a time perhaps), and when suddenly we hit a new mode we are startled. But that is how true change happens, personal and social.

We work real hard on trying to improve and accelerate what already exists and then we are blindsided by the new.

hanging on for dear life

maybe this is just my tendency to drift through life without giving too much of a shit about anything / inevitable shedding of my youthful idealism / my enviable position in this glorious mess talking, but lately i have been losing the willingness to fight my own impulses much less anything external to myself.

i find the anger that i used to feel when i would read about the latest stupid thing some national government did or the inane opinions of some random person on fox news fading. but it's a different kind of apathy than what i used to feel in college. in fact, i'm not sure i would call it apathy because apathy always carries with it hints of depression for me and i feel more invigorated by the sensation than anything.

the more i think about it, i can't honestly say that i've ever felt in control of anything. and i don't say that with dismay, just a matter of fact.

i don't know if what capitalism is doing to our world is a good thing and i don't plan on finding out in my lifetime. but my friend mel once said "if you aren't nervous and in over your head, you're doing something wrong." well, i'm sure as hell nervous and we are definitely in over our heads, but i'm not sure "another way" exists (easy for me to say).

right now i'm just trying to keep my eyes and ears open and hang on for dear life.

Pick a Bigger Weapon

Perhaps this is the biggest problem with capitalism:

Consumers are wildly outgunned.

All the moneyed interests in the world are vested in our increased consumption. There is no power save our own will that weighs in against buying. The only competition is between which thing to buy and never between buying or not buying. We don't stand a chance.

It's this "competition" that gives capitalism it's very real power to arrange and rearrange wealth in a way that creates more wealth, but also in a way that over-exploits resources, ignores human dignity, and diminishes any hope for human equality.

Protests and conscious consumerism are nice but seriously, we need to pick a bigger weapon.