Comments on: Bill Ayers on his life now

By: DJ

DJ — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:01:48 +0000

Sadly I make a personal connection with Ten Bears’s comments. Our team nearly stopped the war in Sri Lanka. Nearly. We laid the groundwork for the 2001 Cease-Fire Agreement (CFA). Then we stopped. The leaders surely get it, we thought. They will do the right thing. We all went home, back to our lives here or there, and let events take their course. (I underwent two years of miserable medical treatments, so at some level I have an excuse… except there is no excuse.)

And events did take their course. The leaders gradually returned to a war footing, and two years ago the fighting resumed. Because in the post-modern world, war increases power, and leaders of all stripes want power. In the absence of pressure from committed people, that’s what they do: they go to war. And the committed people had all gone back to their lives.

We came so close… then we dropped the ball.

By: Ten Bears

Ten Bears — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:34:13 +0000

Sad, but the world is now on a course that must be run to its inevitable conclusion, at which point all this will be merely academic. I agree, as I often have, with Dr Ayers that we didn’t do enough. We dropped the ball, my generation didâ€¦ we stopped The War! Our War. Viet Nam.

But we didnâ€™t stop War.

We forced Nixon to accountability. Whoopee! Nixon quit, The War is Over! Letâ€™s finish our law degrees, cut our hair, and buy beemers and half-million dollar houses on the high desert!

We stopped The War. Our War. Viet Nam. But we didnâ€™t stop War. We finished our law degrees and bought overpriced McMansions, and left the machinations in place, notably Bush/Carlyle, Cheney/Haliburton and Rumsfield/etal, that led to the Authoritarian State - the Fascist State - we are about to, if not have, become.

Far better to stock up o our post-apocalyptic supplies…

By: DJ

DJ — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:17:10 +0000

Interesting. I have argued that both sides (now all three sides) in the Sri Lanka conflict are terrorists. The root of that war is not capitalism so much as failed democracy– top-heavy centralized government that failed to meet the needs of its minorities. I think the system that has “shot its wad,” as you so aptly put it, is nationalism. The era of the nation state is over. It has failed. Instead, we will see more fragmentation and transcendence as national borders become unimportant. As to capitalism, it will continue on as it always has: individuals and groups trading with each other. It cannot be stamped out, it can only be harnessed, for good or ill.

What comes after nationalism? There are several possibilities, neo-feudalism among them. My hope is that, using spiritual political principles present in most religions, the New Order will embrace a grassroots democracy that genuinely allows groups self-determination and political representation. These principles would include, for example, the Principle of Subsidiarity espoused by the Catholic Church: decisions should be made at the lowest possible level. Radical Catholicism, Engaged Buddhism, and others are at the cutting edge of a new political consciousness. Unfortunately, few people are aware of them, suggesting that the “other guys” (those with more sinister motives) are well ahead.