1. Nationalise the banks, forthwith. They will no longer be “for profit” institutions. Since they don’t need fancy investment instrument designs, they don’t need hotdog CEOs etc. Therefore: they keep their jobs with a top salary of $300k p.a. They can’t make a living on that? Fine. Leave. In this model, they’re little more than managers anyway. We don’t need geniuses running banks, we just need people who are honest, ethical, and competent.

2. By nationalising the banks the USgov repudiates the bank debt. Life continues on, the Chinese still own huge amounts of American Paper, and they will get paid. Over Time. Like everyone else. Because this is money eating debt, it has no velocity in the economy and will not result in inflation. Allowing for low interest rates to boot.

3. And the money? Next step: disband the Federal Reserve. The USgov will be responsible for its money supply. My, just like an adult would do.

4. Nationalise USA Health Care. Face facts: This whole nonsense about “your health care decisions should be between you and your doctor” is total freaking bullcrap. You know who makes your health care decisions? The insurance company. I would absorb the health care industry directly (on the one end) and I would get really pretty damn stiff with Americans on the other end. But a lot of that will fall out naturally.

5. Gas will be USD$5 gallon. If gas is cheaper than that due to over production or demand destruction, then the remainder goes directly into alternative energy systems. No ifs and or buts. If it is over $5, then it rises to what ever price that is.

6. Car makers will do chap 11, and restructure under strict supervision. The focus will be: the development of hybrid trucking to last 10 years to be replaced by electric vehicles and electric trains. The largest private vehicle will be the equivalent of a minivan. Gas will be rationed, viz WW2. The auto industry will focus on making superlightweight electric vehicles. Electric Bicycles (viz Stokemonkey or Crystalite systems) will be subsidised and encouraged, as well as enclosed electric tadpole trikes.

7. The USA will abandon Empire. The Pentagon will cut its budget by 50% a year until it is the size of the Chinese rate of spending. American Troops will be brought home, decomissioned, and retrained for the powerdown.

#7 is actually #1, but the banks need attention.

8. Crash Infrastructure improvements geared around livable homes and communities worth caring about. LOTS of insulation. Lots of geothermal. Lots of all that joy. Not so much in the massive giant office box development.

The above should result in a vastly improved economy.

Jeavons is correct if prices are stable or supply meets demand, on demand. When that ceases to happen, conservation is the only path to economic growth: if demand falls below production consistently year over year, then conservation will result in “economic growth”. Such a curve is not sustainble due to granularities in energy requirements – i.e., you can only drive down the energy curve so far before people die of starvation. These inelasticities can be seen as “granularities”: things that don’t divide.

But we are FAR from there (yet) and once we get a new energy / economic regime into common practice, then substitution can come to the fore and the machines can run, albeit fewer of them, and on a tiny fraction of the energy they once used – it will never get to granularity.

What I described above can happen and work. I would expect countries with more centralised govts (China, Russia, etc.) would do the above by decree. Nations filled with citizens may also find the political will to co-operate and bring the system down to reality. (Denmark, EU, etc.) but nations composed of TAXPAYERS, are screwed, as they have replaced their social contract with an economic one: they buy gov’t services as consumers. And consumers want one thing: SOMETHING FOR NOTHING. Hence, countries with taxpayer mentalities will fail.

That’s my opinion and I’m stickin’ to it… for now…

It follows, with a few modifications:

Henry Warwick says:
March 15, 2009 at 10:47 pm

I would like to point out that capitalism has always operated at the expense of the commons. It is why the biosphere is as utterly screwed as it is.

From my research and perspective, contemporary capitalism is no more or less direct in its rapacious greed to ruin the world – to chew rocks and spit nails, computers, automobiles, plastic corn forks, and those stupid little cups you get to hold ketchup. God I hate those things.

Early capitalism took the most immediate and local “Commons”, and the result were the Enclosure Acts forcing land into the hands of the rich and the peasants into cities to work at factories. The Enclosures effectively removed the Commons from existence.

In North America in 1492 Europeans found 24,709,000 km^2 of “Commons”. Instead of peasants feeding and watering their livestock on it, they found several civilisations of Natives who had been using the land for tens of thousands of years. Like the peasants of the UK, they were quickly forced off their land to make way for European farmers, soon followed by Industrial machinery and shopping malls and the “beautiful new Trail Of Tears golf course”. Sometimes I wonder how much of the Enclosure Acts and their techniques were results of the North American colonial experiment.

So, Enclosures and Invasions provided land based capitalism the raw materials. Then, the metals and fossil fuels provided by the theft of the land, in turn provided the energy and resources to create much more complex social and technical organisations like the interweb thingie.

Frankly, I do not see the pollution in, say, China, as Chinese pollution, or, the exploitation of workers in China or Malaysia as Chinese or Malaysian exploitation. I see it as Western and American. This is my reasoning:

I own a factory here in Canada. We make Canadian Widgets for Canadians. Wages in Canada are not cheap and business taxes are tough here, so I relocate the factory to some banana republic, like, Oooh, Alabama where unions are weak. And set up factory there. And so the money flows from Canadian pockets to me and I send off a pile of it to Alabama to keep the Widgets flowing. Then I talk with a Chinese gentleman who tells me I can make Canadian Widgets in China for 1/10 the price, and he’ll help me set it up. Next thing you know, a bunch of Alabamians are unemployed and I have a factory going in China, stinkin’ the place up with pollution making my Canadian Widgets.

So, is it Chinese pollution? If I hadn’t been able to move the factories out of Canada, the pollution never would have left Canada, so I would argue, no, it is Canadian pollution that has been exported to China. In this way, the entire planet is rendered a “Commons” that is then cut up and divided for the sake of capital and profit. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) doesn’t make it “more direct” than before. If you were a peasant in the Lake District in 1710, and some sheriff came by saying “Sorry lad – but you’ll have to give up the farm and move to Liverpool, and if you don’t it’s off to jail with you, and you haven’t but nowt to say about it, so go along quiet like.” that’s pretty direct, IMHO, and there isn’t much more direct than that.

The creation of Immaterial Production was only possible with the energetic and materials production that is presently available. This is prima facie correct. The real problem is the irreversible transition to lower energy states and degraded materials conditions that will avail in the not so distant future. Can such a civilisation exist?

Some argue, no: we are going to go blindly off a cliff like the Reindeer on St. Matthew Island, where when they were introduced in 1944, their numbers increased increased from 29 animals to 6,000 by 1963 but then underwent a die-off the following winter to less than 50 animals from a collapse of the food supply and within a few decades had completely died out.

Most of these theorists (Hardin, Duncan, Bartlett) figure it won’t be a one year collapse, but perhaps a one or two generation (20 – 40 year) collapse beginning with the collapse of oil exports sometime in the 2010s/2020s.

The destruction of the “Commons” for the vanity of the ruling class is also seen as a driving factory in the collapse of Easter Island. The Commons in that case was the forest. They cut down all the trees and within a few generations their population collapsed into constant warfare and cannibalism.

Others, such as myself, see a die off as well, but not over a period of 40 years – more likely 100 – 200 years, depending on how stupid people are.

From my perspective, the supposed qualitative differences between production from land capital and Immaterial Production from digital infrastructure are not of real significance, nor is one more immediate and direct than the other. You still have the freedom to starve.

Freedom, by Art Bears:

After this I saw multitudes
Forced from the land,
Cleared for the wool.
Dispossessed, refugees,
Who were told
To be free -
Free to starve,
Or to Slave;
free to choose
A or B, as we offered.
To labour or die!

I saw cities explode with
This freedom, and
Covered my eyes!

I would submit that present capitalism is faced with several big problems:

1. An imminent and permanent decline in total energy production. Work requires energy. No energy, no work. no work, no profit, no profit – bye bye capitalism… The top of the elite has been well aware of this problem for a number of years, but really starting with Laherrere and Campbell’s article in March 1998 Scientific American on the imminent loss of cheap petroleum resources. Note, Matthew Simmons, a leading figure in Energy depletion analysis, was a key energy advisor to the Cheney Administration.

2. The collapse of many basic materials. Many elements in groups 10, 11, and 12 of the periodic table are especially stressed. GeoDestinies by Walter Youngquist provides more than enough info on this. My understanding is he is going to republish it with updated info soon. It’s not for happy making.

3. The inversion of Jevon’s paradox, where rather than conservation only resulting in increased use of resources and economic growth, economic growth will only be predicated on the conservation of resources at a rate greater than the loss of energy from the system. I think I have a PhD waiting for me in there somewhere…unless….

4. Even though ICT exists at the highest energy and resource level, it will be maintained long beyond its sustainability inflection point as its effects in providing data and information and pacifying billions with entertainment is worth the loss of resources, as it helps inform and temper society as civilisation skitters into what is shaping up to be a trainwreck of a transition to a sustainable society. hmmmm… that sounds more interesting….

You wrote: But they seem to me to be overly opimistic when they suggest that this means that we are finally reaching the point where the “objective conditions” for communism finally exist, or that the property form has become a “fetter” on the technological means of production, a fetter that is ready to be burst asunder.

and I agree with you that their hopes are unfounded. The transition from feudalism to capitalism was only possible when the objective conditions existed such that the reproduction of labour in a (nascent) capitalist system was possible. HOW people worked and survived and how this work was financed (both in terms of dollars and resources) had to come prior to any actual “capitalist” formations. The Romans had factories to make bread. HUGE factories that ran off water wheels. We don’t talk about Rome as some ancient capitalist state. And even if a Roman said “hey – we have factories and we are creating a new class of people enslaved to our machines and we use huge sums of money to finance this factory – let’s call ourselves capitalists!!!” They’d say he was crazy and feed him to the lions.

Same with “communism”. you’re not going to get communism out of computer networks. Networks can be used for progressive ideas, gestures, and programs, (viz Rossiter and Organized Networks) but these machines are made by giant corporations and only exist from the insane destruction of our ecosystem. When we can figure out how to make computers out of sand and sea water (two things I don’t think we’re ever going to run out of) and assembled by people who do so voluntarily for the joy of building them – no – I don’t see this as any kind of a stage for communism. Quite the contrary….

from the LEV list:

> so it is true, there still are people who do genuinely believe in
> society being malleable….
> i’ve always taken that for sentimental gossip…

Gee, you sound like someone who’s too cynical to believe in nihilism…
Pity that.

1. You don’t have to “reform” society – it reforms on a daily basis, it changes all the time. Repetition is a form of change. All you have to do is stand up for something and go for it. But if you twiddle your pomo thumbs you’ll just sit there. Twiddling your pomo thumbs. Also note: 100 years ago cinema was black and white, silent and passive and insanely expensive. Now performance cinema is in colour (often lurid, but that’s another issue) with sound, it’s active, and the means to do it are little more than a keyboard, a laptop, and a projector… Society changes. All the Time.

Also: in the early 1900s there was a strike at a mine in Colorado. People wanted to work only 5 days a week. The governor, who was in the pocket of the mining interests, called out the State National Guard Units and had them move on the camps. they fired into the strikers tents. All the men were at the mine, picketing, so the soldiers shot 24 women and children DEAD.

They died so people in the USA could have a 5 day work week.

There is absolutely nothing sentimental about brutal blind slaughter. People dying in order to change the world is not “sentimental gossip”. The hand wringing attitude that it is such only serves the interests of the likes of the crypto and not so crypto fascists who are presently running things.

2. Performance cinema must stand on its own, claim its own intellectual space, with its own theory and aesthetic. This must be articulated and the articulation must reflect the diversity and complexity of the the source material.
You can either help or hinder. I’d REALLY like it if you could help. I’m running myself broke to put this symposium on – (so far) no company has stepped in to help, no government has squeezed its teat to make this happen. This makes its free and open and very low budget but also of the highest possible integrity and purpose.

3. As performance cinema stands and articulates itself in time, our media culture will be that much more vibrant and interesting, and Bog only knows what will be born from it.

Got a note from Kim Cascone – hope to have lunch with him and his family this coming weekend. It’ll be good to see him.

Completed recording post audio for SEI down at Chris Tann’s digs in S. San Jose. He has a wonderful home theatre set up. Someday I will too…

Elizabeth is in swimming camp this month. She’s a sweetie bump. She showed me how to pronounce Montmartre. It sounded more like MonnnMarrr. God bless the good ship FAIS and all who sail with her.

Spent the morning writing a response to a jackass on the levList. I haven’t sent it in yet – I’m refining it a bit to make sure it is what I want – a delicate balance between positive explanation and toasty flammage. I detest cynics. It’s fundamentally reactionary and self-serving. Yuck.

Frankly, I think Dean could easily win against Bush by simply speaking the truth about what’s really going down in this country, and mobilising people to vote (on the one hand), while demonstrating to the independents that his position is vastly more in line with their actual interests. If the economy continues to tank, it should be fairly easy for Dean or any Democrat to win.

The Democrats that I think are least likely to win are the ones anointed by the DLC: Edwards, Lieberman, Gephardt. Edwards needs a personality transplant, Lieberman’s a fool, and Gephardt is too compromised from his wishy washing in Congress. Of the remaining, Kerry’s not so bad, but could be better, and Dean has his value. I think if Dean was willing to be #2 on a ticket with the likes of Kerry, or even (eeewwwww!) Edwards, I think he could really bring the race into focus for some people and we can actually vote Bush out. With Dean as #2, it’s like Bush41’s choice of SpudBoy for VP, only from a reverse angle: the right wing will tend to leave a democratic president alone if his running mate is even father to the left. That I should even be concerned fills me with despair for this country.

It’s not like the USA had a great start: some landowners didn’t want to share the spoils with King George. Slavery, a lack of franchise for women, the open slaughter of Indians, etc. A real horror story. But the ideals they cooked up back then are high, and it’s to those ideals that this country should endeavour, and not shirk from for the sake of some idiotic notion of security. The USA needs to abandon its empire, and resolve to live as what it is: 6% of the world’s population, no more, no less.

Well, the submissions deadline for the San Francisco Performance Cinema Symposium has finally passed and I am now BURIED in submissions that all arrived in the past 3 or 4 days. Ug. Some of them look Excellent, some look pretty cool, some are dreck. I am very excited by the prospect of this coming off in Spetember. I need to start focussing on the promotion and getting an audience. I’ve asked about a dozen corporations for money, all have either said no or have simply not responded to my request. Life is tough right now for everybody, I suppose.

Today I do more editing of SEI, and then start exporting clips into Florence. Florence is software I designed that was developed by Peter Nyboer. Florence is my mother’s name. I’m dedicating SEI to her memory.

Any time left over, I will work on Dennis Young’s CD covers. I’ll focus more on that towards the end of the week.

Political Statement of the Day:

There’s a piece circulating the web right now – about Bush’s trip to Senegal was completely insulting to the Senegalese and a bit of a disaster on the ground. It pretty much rakes him over the coals. Some of it is a bit over reactive (like whinging about Bush having his own meals – sorry, but poisoning is too easy, and given the violent evil things Bush has done since his usurpation of power, he’d be a fool NOT to bring his own food along…) but some of it is pretty spot on target about how Bush is basically filth. Pure and simple.

while I find such emailings informative, I also find them irritating, because there’s no DATE on the thing, the author’s name was taken off, so there’s no way to verify the authenticity of the claims made. So: a word to the wise on the left – IF you’re going to pass stuff around like that, INCLUDE the SOURCE and THE DATE. Otherwise, you’re just passing a likely story along. And likely stories, while entertaining, are not useful in building an historical case against the Bush legacy.

2004 can’t come soon enough…

I wrote the following letter to a fellow who runs a site on PNAC, the Republican/Fascist conspiracy that is dedicated to a ruinous unipolar geopolitic. My response to his site follows, and it outlines my ideas on the subject.

Interesting site on pnac.

What’s even more interesting is the link below. It was written during the
clinton era pre-9/11. I believe it still holds, as the real game in this
world is economic. I see the mid-east troubles as a side show to the real
issue: The madness of American Unipolarity, and the necessity of a
multipolar future.

The link below discusses issues inside the Chinese Military from the 1990s,
but, again, since the fundamental structures still stand, the problem hasn’t
changed – 9/11 and the idiotic war on terror I see as (murderous, stupid,
and tragic, of course) but basically a sideshow.

the biggest problem with multipolarity is the formation of superstates,
similar to, but not exactly congruent to those predicted by Orwell. Oceania
(NAFTA), EUrasia (esp. when the russians finally join), and EastAsia (esp.
when Japan, vietnam, Philipines etc. and China complete their own
semispheric trade accords. Look for that in the mid – late 20teens)
Look for proxy wars between India (Oceania / Eurasia client) and a Chinese
client.

I also think there is the possibility of the development of an Islamic pole
or pseudoPole. East Asia, it’s own trouble with Islamic fundies aside, would
be more happy with this than Oceania and Eurasia. Follow the guns – I think
you’ll find China pouring a lot of ordnance into Islamic states. The Islamic
Pole or pseudoPole would be enough to temporarily stagger Oceania and
Eurasia with proxy wars, and even strain any alliance they might have
against EastAsia. The goal being to buy time while EastAsia develops into an
equal pole.

The present administration is too stupid and reactionary to plan like this -
they see a unipolar situation and will simple seek to maintain that at all
costs. VERY short sighted, indeed.

The next empire will be the EU when Russia comes on board, and NATO is put
to pasture note – NEVER disbanded, just made irrelevant and more of a joint military
tool for “peace keeping” and other crypto-colonial efforts. I would expect
Russia to join later this decade or early next. With Russia on board, it
will be a unified economy from Portugal to Alaska. A massive consumer state
in the west, and vast resources in the east, including one of the largest
oil and gas reserves on the planet. Oceania won’t be able to compete, and
its power will fade.

If the present hegemons are running the show then, expect a great deal of
misery. If intelligent foresighted people are in power, expect Oceania to
actually prosper: with a reduced military budget, a progressive tax
structure, and a balanced federal budget, there will be plenty of capital
for expansion and innovation. With (as what presently obtains) a bloated
military and deficits, the USgov will suck up all available cash, driving up
real interest rates (even as the fed sinks to zero) and propel the US into a
depression.

that’s how I see it playing out. What do you think?

best,

HW

the link I discussed earlier – a real MUST READ for policy wonks:

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/doctrine/pills2/

Well, I found a bounty of bugs in Florence. I wrote them up and sent them to Peter for fixing. Last night Beth and I went to an Indian Restaurant and had spicy food – something we don’t getto eat with Elizabeth very often. After dinner we went to a cafe for some coffee and cake and then went home and listened to some smooth music on the steree-eree-ereee-ooo. John Coltrane (Giant Steps), The first Enya record (which is actually pretty good), Voices by Roger Eno, Music has the Right to Children by Boards of Canada, and a home-made compilation CD of various tunes, ranging from Dead Can Dance to Hawaiian slack key geeeetar music.

This morning, Beth and I went to breakfast at All You Knead, where I had my usual eggs ‘n’ Bacon, and Beth her usual Crepe… today, I work with Florence as best I can, and rehearse as much as possible. I’m thinking of bringing the CS2x with me on the plane, so I can rehearse right up to leaving and then upon arrival in VT. I can always ship it back by UPS.

Political statement for the day: Fuck the TSA and their tin horn fascism, those half witted lackey pinheaded freaks from hell.

Elizabeth is out with her godmother, Bree, today. Bree is a professional cat sitter / dog walker with her own business, Claws and Paws. She’s great with furry beasties. And E loves going with her to feed the little critturs. Otherwise:

Feeling over worked and bleak.

Came across this in my lyrics collection.

It made me laugh, because it was written by the Pheromones back in 1989. So I thought it might be of some interest.
Goes to show just how little the world has changed… The tune is a modified Irish Reel – sing songy, kind of surgy, and very silly – the arrangement being a guitar, squeezebox and vocals.

Dance with the Young Republicans
by Al and Jimmy Pheromone

Let me tell you all a story about a modern master race
That eats industrial food and raise their kids on atomic waste
They’re as tough as they come and when they’re young
They play with guns and bombs
Disemboweling bad guys with the endorsements of their moms.
In high school they play football to the atonement of their minds
- to the sound of cracking ribs and the splintering of spines.
In college they pay time for their tops to be refined -
Then gathering in hordes to hear the wisdom of Holy George!

And we’ll lift our heads high
And Dance with the Young Republicans
We’ll tighten our neckties
And Dance with the Young Republicans

They’re not great businessmen suited in starchy etiquette
Just passion minded youngsters who look great in leatherette
And sport the latest colour, as long as it isn’t red
They look so natural in khaki pants and a brown shirt instead.
Well I guess the social thinking of the army has a bond -
You’ve got to admit there’s something about a man in uniform.
The best part of this trend is you don’t have to spend
A part of your lives having to serve
When you’re in the fashion reserve!

And we’ll lift our heads high
And Dance with the Young Republicans
We’ll tighten our neckties
And Dance with the Young Republicans

She can drink and smoke and vote and has a place out with the boys
Her goal is to control the things the privileged class enjoys.
And motherhood will follow a career with equal pay,
She doesn’t think her drinking buddies would take it all away.
But the rights that she’s embraced were won by people she’d despise
And opposed by those who top the list of men she’d idolise.
And if she had nothing to lose, I guess I’d understand
She’s just a political reactionary of THE FATHERLAND!

And we’ll lift our heads high
And Dance with the Young Republicans
We’ll tighten our neckties
And Dance with the Young Republicans

And we’ll lift our heads high
And Dance with the Young Republicans
We’ll tighten our neckties
And Dance with the Young Republicans

YO!

Today I send out the acceptance notices to people in the SF-PCS. Today, Elizabeth is going to start a three day day-camp at the YMCA. Yesterday I developed a database to track everyone in the SF-PCS. I also sent off a new design for Dennis Young’s CD. He didn’t like it and I think we’re leaning toward the first design. I’ll send him one more later this week, and then we’ll decide.

Yesterday the Pentagon had the stupid idea of selling futures on terrorist attacks. The Onion couldn’t have invented something so utterly amoral and insane as that. Once it came to light, and everyone laughed nervously and then shouted at them in utter rage, they quickly withdrew the concept. Frikkin morons.