http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29436.htm
Occupy Wall Street: My One Demand
By Jinger Dixon
October 18, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- I was recently asked what I thought the “one demand” should be for the OWS protest. That’s a tough question. I’ve seen many lists of the things people are suggesting. Most seem well intended. However, no one demand alone even begins to scratch the surface of what‘s wrong here. In fact, in a way, it points out how far we really are, from seeing where we really are. To sum it all up in one demand seemed impossible, so I decided to try. After much thought, I constructed the following analogy to describe my take on this whole One Demand issue.
Take a map and draw a circle, then say, everyone outside the circle is to have their labor and resources exploited for the benefit of those inside the circle. If you live outside the circle you say, “this system is completely fucked up.” If you live inside the circle you say, “this is capitalism and it’s the best system on earth you should try it it’s awesome. Sure, people outside are suffering, but who gives a fuck about them?” Now as the circle shrinks, as it is designed to do, concentrating accumulated wealth, people begin finding themselves suddenly outside of the circle. They jump up and down and cry foul, but the ones still in the circle say, “tough shit, you were too slow, shoulda run faster to stay inside the circle“. But then, they soon realize that they too are too slow to keep up with the rapidly shrinking circle, and quickly they find themselves left out, so they cry foul. “The system is broken!!!” they decry! But is it? Isn’t this the way the system has always functioned? Why is it now broken just because they, we, no longer reside within the bounds of its benefits? We stand outside the ever shrinking circle, yelling fixes, throwing band-aids, making demands that the ever shrinking circle expand! at least big enough to include us so that we can go back to not giving a fuck about the people outside, but alas, it will not. The circle does not expand, it does not know how. It only knows how to contract, concentrate, condense, like a dark star collapsing in on itself. There is no “demand” that will drag the borders of the circle back around us. And even if you could, would you? Would you go back to fucking the rest of the world to have your cable TV and your steel belted radials? I hope not. I hope the world is ready to say no more. No more. Therefore, since it is my sincere belief that the circle is/was and always will be fucked up, I say, surround them and demand that they collapse in on themselves and disappear into their own black hole.
That is my One Demand.
And from the comments, most excellent:
They drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took them in.
Paraphrased from "Outwitted" by Edwin Markham
For whatever it's worth in the emotional state many find themselves in at this time.
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Monday, 17 October 2011
The Heavens Proclaim
Mortal soul 4 -- The heavens proclaim
Four centuries ago, Francis Bacon said that what a person would like to be true, he preferentially believes. Is there a way to truth that escapes the constraints of personal preference? Can we know the world as it is and not as we wish it to be? Perhaps not. Certainly there is no such thing as Truth with a capital T, final and absolute. But Bacon was instrumental in inventing a way to reliable truth with a lower case t -- tentative, partial, evolving truth. It is called the scientific way of knowing, and it follows simple rules:
1. Rely on reproducible quantitative observations that can be shared by believer and skeptic alike.
2. Do not assume more when less will do.
3. Do not invoke the supernatural when a natural explanation will suffice.
4. Be willing to say "I don't know."
5. And, especially, be ready to admit "I was wrong."
I can't offer an ironclad proof that the scientific way of knowing is more reliable than tradition, prophets, or holy books. I can only refer you the modern world -- technology, medicine, voyages to other worlds. The proof of the pudding...
The 13.7-billion-year story of creation as we currently understand it leaves me more breathless with awe than any of the anthropomorophic fairy tales I learned as a child. It is the God of this grander creation -- who is not a person, who is not this and is not that, whose name we cannot speak and whose nature we do not know -- that we glimpse in the poetic language of the mystics, such as these words of Teilhard de Chardin: "Radiant Word, blazing Power, you who mold the manifold so as to breath your life into it; I pray you, lay on us your hands -- powerful, considerate, omnipresent, those hands which do not (like our human hands) touch now here, now there, but which plunge into the depths and the totality, present and past, of things so as to reach us simultaneously through all that is most immense and most inward within us and around us." Who will deny the depth and richness of a universe that is most immense and most inward within us and around us?
What do the heavens proclaim? We are an accidental and perhaps commonplace part of a universe that is vast beyond our comprehension, certainly now and perhaps forever. The ancients had it backwards: Our story is part of the universe's story, rather than the other way around. It is a measure of our coming of age as a species that we are able to accept this natural revelation, and gaze courageously into the cosmos of the myriad galaxies rather than remaining fixated on our own navels. Finding ourselves in a universe without a center, we are challenged to make our own center, by loving the place we are in and every creature in it.
Hat tip to Runnin 'Cause I Can't Fly.
Four centuries ago, Francis Bacon said that what a person would like to be true, he preferentially believes. Is there a way to truth that escapes the constraints of personal preference? Can we know the world as it is and not as we wish it to be? Perhaps not. Certainly there is no such thing as Truth with a capital T, final and absolute. But Bacon was instrumental in inventing a way to reliable truth with a lower case t -- tentative, partial, evolving truth. It is called the scientific way of knowing, and it follows simple rules:
1. Rely on reproducible quantitative observations that can be shared by believer and skeptic alike.
2. Do not assume more when less will do.
3. Do not invoke the supernatural when a natural explanation will suffice.
4. Be willing to say "I don't know."
5. And, especially, be ready to admit "I was wrong."
I can't offer an ironclad proof that the scientific way of knowing is more reliable than tradition, prophets, or holy books. I can only refer you the modern world -- technology, medicine, voyages to other worlds. The proof of the pudding...
The 13.7-billion-year story of creation as we currently understand it leaves me more breathless with awe than any of the anthropomorophic fairy tales I learned as a child. It is the God of this grander creation -- who is not a person, who is not this and is not that, whose name we cannot speak and whose nature we do not know -- that we glimpse in the poetic language of the mystics, such as these words of Teilhard de Chardin: "Radiant Word, blazing Power, you who mold the manifold so as to breath your life into it; I pray you, lay on us your hands -- powerful, considerate, omnipresent, those hands which do not (like our human hands) touch now here, now there, but which plunge into the depths and the totality, present and past, of things so as to reach us simultaneously through all that is most immense and most inward within us and around us." Who will deny the depth and richness of a universe that is most immense and most inward within us and around us?
What do the heavens proclaim? We are an accidental and perhaps commonplace part of a universe that is vast beyond our comprehension, certainly now and perhaps forever. The ancients had it backwards: Our story is part of the universe's story, rather than the other way around. It is a measure of our coming of age as a species that we are able to accept this natural revelation, and gaze courageously into the cosmos of the myriad galaxies rather than remaining fixated on our own navels. Finding ourselves in a universe without a center, we are challenged to make our own center, by loving the place we are in and every creature in it.
Hat tip to Runnin 'Cause I Can't Fly.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Monday, 10 October 2011
BLACK SUNDAY (9 October 2011)
This is quoted from TB, by Nunique.
I will never be able to look at this date in any other way
This morning I woke up knowing of possibly 13 riders that had died on our roads yesterday, this morning while following up on 3 of the unconfirmed accidents I was told that the death toll for bikers on our roads yesterday is standing on
16
WTF This is just way to many I mean seriously in the year that I've been doing the Fallen Wall - the worst I have come across has been 9 in a weekend not in one day. These are all as a result of motorcycle accident, I can't tell you who was at fault but gathered from discussions I've had with people that are more clued up than me at least 80% of them are as a result of rider negligence.
GUYS PLEASE THIS IS A PLEAD FROM A WIFE, A MOTHER, A DAUGHTER, AN AUNT, A FRIEND.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE THINK BEFORE GETTING ON YOUR BIKE WE ARE CURRENTLY OUR OWN WORST ENEMY AND IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE IF WE DO NOT START THINKING ABOUT THE HURT WE WILL CAUSE BY BEING SELFISH.
So many people I've spoken to who have lost family and friends as a result of biking accidents say even though they hate to admit but that the riders were speeding or drinking before the accident happened.
THINK ABOUT YOUR FAMILY!!!
STAY ALIVE!!!
______________________________________
Respect again to Nunique Of Fallenbikers.co.za.
I will never be able to look at this date in any other way
This morning I woke up knowing of possibly 13 riders that had died on our roads yesterday, this morning while following up on 3 of the unconfirmed accidents I was told that the death toll for bikers on our roads yesterday is standing on
16
WTF This is just way to many I mean seriously in the year that I've been doing the Fallen Wall - the worst I have come across has been 9 in a weekend not in one day. These are all as a result of motorcycle accident, I can't tell you who was at fault but gathered from discussions I've had with people that are more clued up than me at least 80% of them are as a result of rider negligence.
GUYS PLEASE THIS IS A PLEAD FROM A WIFE, A MOTHER, A DAUGHTER, AN AUNT, A FRIEND.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE THINK BEFORE GETTING ON YOUR BIKE WE ARE CURRENTLY OUR OWN WORST ENEMY AND IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE IF WE DO NOT START THINKING ABOUT THE HURT WE WILL CAUSE BY BEING SELFISH.
So many people I've spoken to who have lost family and friends as a result of biking accidents say even though they hate to admit but that the riders were speeding or drinking before the accident happened.
THINK ABOUT YOUR FAMILY!!!
STAY ALIVE!!!
______________________________________
Respect again to Nunique Of Fallenbikers.co.za.
Friday, 7 October 2011
More backlash
I was right about the previous post, the ANC didn't even see this coming.
Koos Kombuis summed it up perfectly:
"They have treated the question of the Dalai Lama’s visa application as a trifle, something unimportant, a little administrative matter, an irritation that would go away if they ignored it for long enough."
He adds:
" ...the old system of apartheid.
Like the tornados that recently ripped through parts of Gauteng and the Free State, the winds of change have irrevocably destroyed that old system. The same winds will destroy the present system. When those winds have done their job, I wish to stand up and be counted; secondly as an Afrikaner, but first and foremost as a South African. In fact, I would like to live in a country where race and culture is less important than the common principles of loyalty, honesty and hard work."
Mail and Guardian has also been vocal, and now i'd like to remind the reader about how much trouble they used to be in for saying the same thing against the nats.
"There was also the absurd notion that South Africa's own challenges -- of unemployment, poverty, criminal violence, a dysfunctional education system -- somehow precluded its citizens from expressing solidarity with oppressed people around the world. This is disingenuous -- as is the oft trotted out line that only the ANC, as elected by the majority, is in touch with and can represent the will of South Africans. It is a claim used to attack Tutu, the Constitutional Court and any other dissenting voice that threatens the ANC's hegemony. It turns South Africans into democratic appendages whose only role is to mark an X on a piece of paper every five years.
All this would appear to be what the antidemocratic forces within the ruling ANC want to achieve in South Africa, in which case we can truly understand why it has such close ties with China."
And in reading other news, the anc spokeperson is attacking Max du Preez for using a word: "maaifoedies" which was not a very nice word, when it was used by slaves in the 1700's. It's ok for the same spokesperson to sing "kill people" ... but no nasty words which we've never heard before.
The idiocy as well as the insensitivity shown by these "maaifoedies" is alarming, truly frightening. It's psychopathically disconnected from reality, the same mindset of killers towards their prey.
Koos Kombuis summed it up perfectly:
"They have treated the question of the Dalai Lama’s visa application as a trifle, something unimportant, a little administrative matter, an irritation that would go away if they ignored it for long enough."
He adds:
" ...the old system of apartheid.
Like the tornados that recently ripped through parts of Gauteng and the Free State, the winds of change have irrevocably destroyed that old system. The same winds will destroy the present system. When those winds have done their job, I wish to stand up and be counted; secondly as an Afrikaner, but first and foremost as a South African. In fact, I would like to live in a country where race and culture is less important than the common principles of loyalty, honesty and hard work."
Mail and Guardian has also been vocal, and now i'd like to remind the reader about how much trouble they used to be in for saying the same thing against the nats.
"There was also the absurd notion that South Africa's own challenges -- of unemployment, poverty, criminal violence, a dysfunctional education system -- somehow precluded its citizens from expressing solidarity with oppressed people around the world. This is disingenuous -- as is the oft trotted out line that only the ANC, as elected by the majority, is in touch with and can represent the will of South Africans. It is a claim used to attack Tutu, the Constitutional Court and any other dissenting voice that threatens the ANC's hegemony. It turns South Africans into democratic appendages whose only role is to mark an X on a piece of paper every five years.
All this would appear to be what the antidemocratic forces within the ruling ANC want to achieve in South Africa, in which case we can truly understand why it has such close ties with China."
And in reading other news, the anc spokeperson is attacking Max du Preez for using a word: "maaifoedies" which was not a very nice word, when it was used by slaves in the 1700's. It's ok for the same spokesperson to sing "kill people" ... but no nasty words which we've never heard before.
The idiocy as well as the insensitivity shown by these "maaifoedies" is alarming, truly frightening. It's psychopathically disconnected from reality, the same mindset of killers towards their prey.
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Decisive moment
For the last 17 years we've seen horror after horror. What was advertised and sold to us, and we bought euphorically with everything we owned, has turned into a lemon. This rainbow nation that is being plundered and raped as we stare helplessly.
I'm ambivalent towards the Dalai Lama, i don't really bother much about what he does. But he is a nobel laureate, the head of a major religion, and a symbol for peace, akin to madiba. Clearly not the sort of person our government would like to associate with. They prefer arms dealers and dictators.
Tutu was a caricature from when i was a kid in cape town, but as i've grown up and watched this man, he i have really developed respect for. Utterly moral, unafraid to speak his mind, both to the nats and the anc, also a religious leader and a nobel laureate. Great men both, of our time.
The anc has been it's usual stupid self, and the glaring discrepancy of they say versus what they do has become blinding. The "official" govt response was limp as wet tissue paper, and lies and distortions all.
I quote:
Mthembu added: “As a result of the ANC reputation, record on human rights, democratic principles and South Africa's progressive Constitution, South Africa is today recognised by international organisations, such as the United Nations and the African Union as a critical role player in international peace and as a protector of human rights.
Comment:
We're at 6 on the human rights watch list, our UN voting has been an insult to victims, our constitution is being trampled on, and the au internationally is also a waste of time.
But my favourite quotes are from the good bishop:
“I sat in the audience and listened to this president paying tribute to all the people who had helped to bring about democracy. This president didn’t thank a single religious leader.”
Tutu said religious leaders had encouraged up to 30 000 people at a time to march against, and bring an end to, apartheid. “Let the ANC know; they cannot airbrush us out.”
Tutu warned the ANC that Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, both toppled from their top jobs, had previously held a large majority.
“Watch out. I am warning you. Watch out. Please watch out.”
“Tibet is being oppressed. Our government, representing me, says it will not support Tibetans who are being oppressed viciously by the Chinese. Hey, Mr Zuma, you and your government don’t represent me. You represent your own interests.
“I am warning you out of love. I am warning you like I warned the Nationalists. I am warning you that one day we will start praying for the defeat of the ANC government.
“You are disgraceful.
“I am warning you. We will pray as we prayed for the downfall of the apartheid government. You have got a huge majority; that’s nothing.
“Watch out ANC government; watch out,” Tutu concluded.
I conclude that this is the turning moment. The major factors in the fall of apartheid were the white lefts, churches, sanctions, and the armed struggle. We were winning militarily, it was the others we were losing. The anc has become worse than the nats, not only because we expected it back then, but because even the nats could be made to listen, these anc people are too stupid to see their coming demise. China won't save them, neither will destroying the constitution. From this moment on, nothing will.
I'll leave you with this image, of a man outraged. It would be almost comical if you did not understand the background to it, but no, you can see the hurt in the man's eye's, and for an 80 something retired priest, well he is usually much more dignified.
EDIT:
Dailymaverick says it better than i could, but we share the same view.
What is the difference between Sharpeville and Tianenmen square? Nothing at all. The new nats are making deals with the other nats, or worse than. They're all as bad as each other.
I'm ambivalent towards the Dalai Lama, i don't really bother much about what he does. But he is a nobel laureate, the head of a major religion, and a symbol for peace, akin to madiba. Clearly not the sort of person our government would like to associate with. They prefer arms dealers and dictators.
Tutu was a caricature from when i was a kid in cape town, but as i've grown up and watched this man, he i have really developed respect for. Utterly moral, unafraid to speak his mind, both to the nats and the anc, also a religious leader and a nobel laureate. Great men both, of our time.
The anc has been it's usual stupid self, and the glaring discrepancy of they say versus what they do has become blinding. The "official" govt response was limp as wet tissue paper, and lies and distortions all.
I quote:
Mthembu added: “As a result of the ANC reputation, record on human rights, democratic principles and South Africa's progressive Constitution, South Africa is today recognised by international organisations, such as the United Nations and the African Union as a critical role player in international peace and as a protector of human rights.
Comment:
We're at 6 on the human rights watch list, our UN voting has been an insult to victims, our constitution is being trampled on, and the au internationally is also a waste of time.
But my favourite quotes are from the good bishop:
“I sat in the audience and listened to this president paying tribute to all the people who had helped to bring about democracy. This president didn’t thank a single religious leader.”
Tutu said religious leaders had encouraged up to 30 000 people at a time to march against, and bring an end to, apartheid. “Let the ANC know; they cannot airbrush us out.”
Tutu warned the ANC that Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, both toppled from their top jobs, had previously held a large majority.
“Watch out. I am warning you. Watch out. Please watch out.”
“Tibet is being oppressed. Our government, representing me, says it will not support Tibetans who are being oppressed viciously by the Chinese. Hey, Mr Zuma, you and your government don’t represent me. You represent your own interests.
“I am warning you out of love. I am warning you like I warned the Nationalists. I am warning you that one day we will start praying for the defeat of the ANC government.
“You are disgraceful.
“I am warning you. We will pray as we prayed for the downfall of the apartheid government. You have got a huge majority; that’s nothing.
“Watch out ANC government; watch out,” Tutu concluded.
I conclude that this is the turning moment. The major factors in the fall of apartheid were the white lefts, churches, sanctions, and the armed struggle. We were winning militarily, it was the others we were losing. The anc has become worse than the nats, not only because we expected it back then, but because even the nats could be made to listen, these anc people are too stupid to see their coming demise. China won't save them, neither will destroying the constitution. From this moment on, nothing will.
I'll leave you with this image, of a man outraged. It would be almost comical if you did not understand the background to it, but no, you can see the hurt in the man's eye's, and for an 80 something retired priest, well he is usually much more dignified.
EDIT:
Dailymaverick says it better than i could, but we share the same view.
What is the difference between Sharpeville and Tianenmen square? Nothing at all. The new nats are making deals with the other nats, or worse than. They're all as bad as each other.
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Ride-Report-of-an-accident
Skinny's story.
Skinny is one of the coolest people i know. It was a while ago that she had an accident, while on a group ride out Eastern Tranvaal. She tells her story, not only of the crash, but also the year since ... and i have to warn you, it's NOT easy to read.
Personally, i'm more scared of THIS than of dying ... when it takes great courage to just get up in the morning. Funny though, i came within a hair's breadth of getting t-boned last night, and i was travelling less than 30km/h at the time. Coming off the highway, stop at robot, robot green, check right (they always bleed through there) pull off. While i HAD checked that no cars were pulling out, i hadn't checked far enough to see mad bitch come careening around the corner, through a solid red light. I had cars both sides behind me, and if i tried to stop i'd stop directly in her path. I had already committed to the corner, so i went. Straight for the kerb. The first time she saw me was when i was already out her way, like a shot across the bows, directly in front of her moving car. She was looking right into the corner she so desperately wanted to take, when i was coming from her left. She slowed ... gaped in shock, and then clearly decided to run away as quickly as possible. Once i had passed in front of her, just a half turn parallel to the curb and an emergency stop, easy stuff that. I sat in shock and disbelief for a few seconds, but needed to move, traffic doesn't even stop for the dead in jhb, never mind the shellshocked.
I saw her hitting me .. t-boning me from the right ... through sheer ... stupidity. Didn't see the robot, didn't look at me and the cars bearing down on her. She wasn't even on a cell phone. Just braindead. Keep it safe guys, and stay calm, that's the secret. Meanwhile, give Skinny's website a visit, and if you can, please support her.
tankgirls.co.za
Skinny is one of the coolest people i know. It was a while ago that she had an accident, while on a group ride out Eastern Tranvaal. She tells her story, not only of the crash, but also the year since ... and i have to warn you, it's NOT easy to read.
Personally, i'm more scared of THIS than of dying ... when it takes great courage to just get up in the morning. Funny though, i came within a hair's breadth of getting t-boned last night, and i was travelling less than 30km/h at the time. Coming off the highway, stop at robot, robot green, check right (they always bleed through there) pull off. While i HAD checked that no cars were pulling out, i hadn't checked far enough to see mad bitch come careening around the corner, through a solid red light. I had cars both sides behind me, and if i tried to stop i'd stop directly in her path. I had already committed to the corner, so i went. Straight for the kerb. The first time she saw me was when i was already out her way, like a shot across the bows, directly in front of her moving car. She was looking right into the corner she so desperately wanted to take, when i was coming from her left. She slowed ... gaped in shock, and then clearly decided to run away as quickly as possible. Once i had passed in front of her, just a half turn parallel to the curb and an emergency stop, easy stuff that. I sat in shock and disbelief for a few seconds, but needed to move, traffic doesn't even stop for the dead in jhb, never mind the shellshocked.
I saw her hitting me .. t-boning me from the right ... through sheer ... stupidity. Didn't see the robot, didn't look at me and the cars bearing down on her. She wasn't even on a cell phone. Just braindead. Keep it safe guys, and stay calm, that's the secret. Meanwhile, give Skinny's website a visit, and if you can, please support her.
tankgirls.co.za
Monday, 3 October 2011
Motorcycle training
Synchronicity: By Mr Dave Abrams of IOL.
The following Sunday the main group - nearly 60 of them - gathered at Killarney to take their riding to the next level, with high-speed braking and cornering exercises. When chief instructor Tony Sparg had them stop from 80km/h using only the rear brake and then check out the resulting stopping distance there were some raised eyebrows.
100% - brilliant. The oddest thing though, i did "my" training yesterday too. I had a total of 3 bikes, including me, and a biker in a cage (he had his son). A very good session we had, changing the course slightly to make it more challenging. I have the right equipment now, could use more tennis balls, lol, but any parking lot can become marked out within minutes to any number of bizarre shapes.
My good friend G made me look really bad, but with skills like his i'm not too ashamed! But, he practices, all the time, on a bloody great big GS1200, and it shows, his lean angle, confidence and control all worked together to make him a pleasure to watch. I kept up, just, and it took all i had to focus and get it right, and even then i looked sloppy!
We'll do it again though, soon, and then i'll have to have a word with the weather man first!!
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