A long hiatus coming to a close

In 1989, at the age of 29, my life collapsed. My marriage, which I put all of my being (including parts of my psyche I discovered just for the purpose) into making work, failed. And my career as an activist was at what seemed like a dead end. I didn't want to be just a fundraiser forever, and I didn't have the energy to continue to find new ways of simultaneously being politically useful and being paid for it.

So I preserved what little ego I had left by finding something to be good at. At first, that was getting substantially better at correspondence chess and fantasy baseball. Then it was holding a job. Then, after an interruption, it was having a career. Then it was making a lot of money (none of which i still have). Then it was was holding a socially useful job. That's steady progress and takes me up to where I am now.

Along the way, I got temporarily involved in politics again, and did some pretty remarkable things from 1991-94. But I also botched some things because I still felt too worn out to have the follow-through I needed. So for a dozen years, I've been barely involved in politics at all, only paying as much attention as I do because of the alarming decay of our formal and informal democratic institutions in recent years.

Now, I think I'm about ready to face the world as a more-or-less healthy adult, again. One of the things that means is doing what needs to be done and finding a way of making it work for myself. And what needs to be done is getting the word out that

1. We all own this fucking country, but if we forget that or take it for granted, then the people who already own most of the money will also own us.
2. We do own the country, but we don't own each other. That means our government has no business saying it'll put us in jail if we do things to ourselves that other people don't like.
3. What we earn is ours, but none of us could earn much of anything if somebody hadn't come along and chased off all the local wolves, bears, and humans from what is now our homes, mines, farms, offices, and factories. And then put up PRIVATE PROPERTY signs and shot anyone who interfered. That's where property comes from. So it makes sense for government to tweak the rules to that some of what gets produced goes to the people who didn't inherit the confiscated land.
4. Even if you were 100% sure you'd get away with it, you probably wouldn't mug and cripple a stranger for a little extra money. But when we don't pay attention, our government and the corporations we invest in do that for us. That's because we still notice and judge them on the money, even when we're too lazy to see where it's coming from. Besides, once they see we're not paying enough attention to demand ethical behavior, they'll skim more and more off the top for themselves. We need to pay attention.

I don't yet know how I'll make my living, but I do know that I need to rededicate myself to doing what needs to be done.

•  I commend your initial statement of

  values.  Which may or may not lead you somewhere in the short term, but your use of this medium apparently begs for a reaction of sorts to the messages you offer.

  I concur with the overt nature of your points being that "for the people, by the people" had been sidelined in the current political, social and economic climate.  Likely as the "me, me, me" values of the past couple decades or so have combined with a governmentally institutionalized message of fearing the unknown about vaguely identifiable enemies.

  But, I'm slightly confused on your point 3: are you getting at equitable and fair spreading of goods and services to help support those who are not fortunate to obtain essential needs and basic opportunities?

  by wader on Sun Jan 22, 2006 at 07:19:13 PM PDT

  •  Thanks.

    Yes, point 3 is a response to ecvonomic Libertarianism. More and more otherwise sensible people seem to believe that property rights are naturally absolute. They aren't and never were.

    by Dvd Avins on Sun Jan 22, 2006 at 07:37:10 PM PDT

•  Thanks

  I found your post encouraging and inspiring. We need all the help we can get.

  by copithorne on Sun Jan 22, 2006 at 09:14:13 PM PDT