Interesting.

But how do you make people care?

I did inhale.

That essay was based on how to change the behavior of those who don't give the larger situation much thought. Note I didn't say, 'not care,' because everyone cares about something. Otherwise they are brain dead. That fact is that a lot, if not most people care about their own well being and in this reality, that means having sufficient wealth, but it is that particular God, i.e. money, that is being destroyed. Look around you, at the masses of middle class society. Can the economy by which their lives are defined survive a melt down of the monetary system? No. We are not going to suddenly go back to trading in pieces of gold and silver. There is no turning back the clock. For one thing, there isn't enough such precious metals and people would tend to hoard them and only spend them when all else has been tried. We cannot sustain the complex technological infrastructure without a system of open currency. We won't be able to sustain the current situation for resource reasons, but it seems likely the currency bubble will burst before we hit that wall and in fact the money melt down will alleviate some of those issues.

I don't know how all the details of this would work, obviously, but time tends to answer those questions. Consider a society that could appreciate the public/private dichotomy as two sides of the same coin and not feel obligated to chose sides and fight it out. That way, we could better define what are private issues and what are public ones. Since a effective monetary system is a public utility, consider the potential implications of running it as one. For one thing, the banking system would have much more of a public aspect, possibly similar to the court system. Money is already taxed by inflating it, what if banking profits were considered public funds?

There is a theological aspect to our political problems as well. Monotheism assumes the absolute as apex, yet logically it is basis. So if there is a spiritual absolute, it would be the essence out of which we rise, not an ideal form from which we fell. This assumption of 'the source' as something 'up there' was the basis for the whole 'divine right of kings,' etc. The notion that the people at the top of the social order are therefore closest to 'God' has been a very strong political motivator throughout history. Just look at the current prez. Suffice to say, I could go on in this vein for a while, such as the validity of taoist dualism, compared to monistic thought processes, but this is an economic and political forum, so it might be off topic, but I do think there are quite a few issues that can be opened for review when the established order bites the dust, but they can wait. Now I'm focused on just pushing the point of money as public utility.

Change happens from the bottom up, even when it's just the foundation crumbling.

Back then we assumed change would be for the better. Now we know it can be for the worse.

And probably will be for the worse, as long as the decisions about change are made by oligarchs in the context of a thoroughly corrupt system. Think about how great numbers of average people have changed in the last ten years, from the adoption of cell phones, to the use of the internet for everything from political discussion to retail shopping to online bill paying. Not change-averse, I think. In fact, very open to investigating change that will benefit them and then adopting it.

Think about how the changes made by the oligarchs have affected everyday people from the looting of pensions to the denial of medical insurance claims to the bankruptcy bill to the attempt to do away with Social Security. The "people resist change" meme is the way the elites dismiss the legitimate objections of the people.

These are not changes, they are distractions. They are just shiny, flashy distractions...

These are semantics. Just distracting semantics.

Seriously, if you limit "change" to mean mass ground-up personal transformations that revolutionize society (ignoring attitude and behavior modifications towards race, homosexuality, savings vs. spending, job longevity, the sort of individual changes people can make in their own lives), you're right.

It is the relationship between top down order and bottom up growth. Your life is a function of bottom up growth, yet you perceive it from the vantage point of making sense of it from the top down.
The ecosystem is bottom up growth, while the organism is a function of top down order, otherwise uncontrolled growth is cancerous. That's why there are many, competing and cooperating organisms within the larger ecosystem.
When any particular organism cannot adapt to and control its environment, it dies. When the top down order is hard, crusty and sclerotic, it is close to the end. Spring to winter is evolution. Winter to spring is revolution.

All your static conceptual hierarchies are belong to us.

the static hierarchies are the top down order. Science and math get hung up on static structure as well. Consider;

Three dimensions are nothing more then the coordinate system of the point the three lines cross. While it is as necessary to have some frame of reference to define space as it is necessary to have a starting date for a calendar, it is still an arbitrary point of reference. The fact is that any number of such points and frames can be used to define the same space. Competing frames of reference and the systems of organization they represent are the cause of conflict. You might say Arabs and Israelis use different coordinate systems to define the same space. This is largely the basis of Chaos Theory, where the rules may be determined, but the outcome cannot be predicted because intersecting processes yield unpredictable results, even, as experiments with cellular automata have shown, where it is feedback within the same initial structure. While any given map of space may be three dimensional, the reality is infinitely dimensional.

Is time a dimension, or process? Consider; If two atoms collide, it creates an event in time. While the atoms proceed through this event and on to others, the event goes the other way. First it is in the future, then in the past. This relationship prevails at every level of complexity. The rotation of the earth, relative to the radiation of the sun, goes from past events to future ones, while the units of time/days go from being in the future to being in the past. To the hands of the clock, the face goes counterclockwise.

So which is the real direction? If time is a fundamental dimension, then physical reality proceeds along it, from past events to future ones. On the other hand, if time is a consequence of motion, then physical reality is simply energy in space and the events created go from being in the future to being in the past. Just as the sun appears to go from east to west, when the reality is the earth rotates west to east.

With reality as energy just moving around, previous information is constantly being recycled by and giving structure to the present, as the energy by which it is recorded continues on its path. Rather then the straight line of a dimension, time is a loop, where the new is being woven out of strands pulled from the past.

Time as consequence of motion means it has more in common with temperature, then space, which certainly is not intuitive, but it is logical, since they are both descriptions of and methods for measuring motion.

Using time as a dimension is like dissecting an organism. It lays everything out there for you to look at and poke and examine, but it’s rather lifeless. If there is no dimension of time and reality really is just that ethereal energy radiating and clumping in space, with history and all the intellectual structure we attach to it as nothing more then the metaphorical tail of a comet, is it any wonder that the more we poke at it, the more illusionary it all seems?

This model defines life as well. The elemental awareness is attached to the energy and moves forward in time, but our intellectual comprehension is information that is constantly receding into the past. Ultimately we are cells of a larger organism that is constantly moving on to the next generation and shedding the old like dead skin. It is our individual lives that start in the future and end up in the past.

the onslaught of change drives people to distract themselves - a classic avoidance mechanism.

They're just us.

My own long-known avoidance mechanisms, ranked from crude to sophisticated, along with their counter-strategies: play a computer game ("select all - DELETE") - watch TV ("turn it off") - distract myself with technology telling myself it's enhancing my creativity/productivity even when it kills my creativity/productivity ("force self to go back to pencil and paper") - log on the Agonist ("???").

:)

It takes a shock to get people to change. As Naomi Kelin has documented, the Right realized this big-time and learned to take advantage of shocks to the system to advance its agenda. The next systemic shock is going to be an economic one (wringing out excesses, principally debt), intensified by the consequences of global warming. Progressives had better be ready to present compelling solutions, because you can be sure that the Right will be there with its bogus solutions that favor the ruling elite (wealthy and powerful) and promote authoritarian government in order to advance the corporatist state.

Conservatism is the backbone of society.

It's just not the brains

and the further it gets from the brain, the closer it gets to the ass.

That so many cancerous aspects of society have hitched their wagon to Bush isn't necessarily a bad thing.

they crawled out from under their rocks and now the light is upon them - the racists, the imperialists, the "screw the poors", the religious wackadoodles amongst others. This is not a bad thing if the opportunity is handled correctly.

an asset and learn some history.

Marginal tax rates were over 90% in the 50s. Medicare parts A and B were competing Dem and GOP models that were fully expected to lead to universal health care in this country. OSHA came into existence in 1970.

Unlike the 60s and 70s, the "resistance" in this country is not uniform in age. In fact there's a whole lot of people leading the fight now who are in their 50s and 60s.

So try doing something yourself instead of whining that your parents didn't bring you enough Christmas presents.

I know all those things yet still largely agree with him :P.

I do think he's exaggerated the lack of participation of the boomers in recent protests, but I completely concur with his assessment of "self-referential bs." There are so many movies, so much media, so much attention placed on the 60s and the boomers in general. As he said, that was 40 years ago. And whatever changes were fought for by "the resistance" then have been lost. Things have only gotten worse since the time period you refer to.

If I read you right, you're comparing the social/economic situation of the 50s/60s/70s to today's and saying that things were better back then--so get off the boomers' backs. But the boomers were still young back then, still subject to the prevailing order that their parents had created coming out of WWII (and we are still subject to that order, albeit with many modifications so it doesn't look quite the same). They didn't really ascend to peak power until the late 80s, when the oldest of them entered their 40s. The 80s, 90s, and today are the true legacy of the boomers. Most of what matters, imho, is how the system evolves and not just how good it was at the start.

First of all, when I was your age, the media, movies et al. were dominated by the Greatest Generation. Nothing special or new there.

And no, things weren't better in the 50s/60s/70s than now (except maybe musically). Things were a lot worse, particularly for women, gays, minorities and the poor. Which means almost everybody.

The boomers in the 60s and 70s were extraordinarily passionate, committed, and ultimately stupid (as most 20 somethings end up being, however bright they may be), since they provided the spectacle that led to the conservative domination of the rest of the century.

What is absolutely constant and predictable, is the tendency of those less than 50 to blame the next older generation for all their travails. They have no connection (except maybe a few grandparents who have finally outgrown their own anger, and now look back fondly on what they used to resent) to the prior generation, so they have no idea what their struggles were.

Consider, please, that boomers are a topic only among people of a younger generation, or pandering to that younger generation.

That quintissential boomer, Dennis Hopper, is not marketing financial products to boomers. You are his target.

(And the bikes in Easy Rider were through Peter Fonda. All Hopper contributed were paranoid rages.)

... tellin' like it is ... its a strong suit with you. After all this time seeing what actually was the culture revolution hijacked for various purposes I'll Just sit back for sec and smile, if you don't mind.

I'll add my strong objection to the comment above that, "Conservatism is the backbone of society," as well. Poppycock. This country crawled to the top on progressive principals.

And no, no one gets to claim that pragmatism, hard work, indomitable spirit, or getting up in the morning are exclusively conservative traits. Stodgy, chauvinistic, linear ... those would work.

The idealism of the sixties and early seventies, as well as the reaction to it, were both manifested largely by the boomer generation. It was a generational Doppler effect. You had the high pitched whine of our approach, the dull rumble of us stampeding by and now the low pitched moan as we recede into the past. We had individualism preached to us, as an antidote to that Godless communism and we took it to heart. Whether, if it feels good, do it, or I got mine, screw you, we are the 'me generation.'
Reminds me of a poster someone recently sent me, of a snowflake. It said, 'You are unique. Just like everyone else.'

The Soviets spent seventy years learning that destroying the individual didn't make a stronger society and we are in the process of learning the opposite lesson. That a better individual doesn't come at the expense of society.
There are two sides to every coin, but you can only see one at a time.

'The more you know, the more you know you don't know.'

I don't mean to sound harsh, but is that what you think it was all about?

The sixties/seventies idealism came about because people had to make choices. One could side with the bigots, or instead feel empathy and a connection with those struggling peacefully for the same rights others had. Questions were raised that compelled answers. Many wanted a better world than the one they saw. The choices one made starkly defined a person, especially a young person.

The stale, stodgy, chauvinism of the era forced more choices that saw millions side with women and the ERA, for instance. The war, yet another. There was no middle ground. Pick a side. Side with the establishment that cracked heads in Chicago, shot students down at Kent State, persecuted pot smokers, sent thousands of young people off to die for no apparent reason, or ... it wasn't about being a 'me' generation at all.

It was about democracy. We had freedom preached to us, not individualism. Freedom to choose. Freedom to say no. Freedom to not join the 'squares' in their &$cked up thinking, filth belching smoke stacks and poison spewing pipes. Such freedom will make an individual. But it was preached to us from bull horns and microphones at rallies and gatherings of all kinds, in small groups of friends, not from the establishment.

That fight defines the current struggles we have today. Its not over, not by a long shot. Sure, some left, tempted by the siren song of Reagan's Greed Generation Sonata and mortgage payments, or, found they weren't all that sincere about it after all. But that doesn't change the impact or the inevitability of irresistible force meeting immovable object.

By the way you describe it, "the high pitched whine of our approach, the dull rumble of us stampeding by and now the low pitched moan as we recede into the past," it would appear you were/are watching from the sidelines. Perhaps not. Many did. That's the way it goes.

The upheaval and idealism of the 60' and 70's is with us still. Forty years later we have a black man and a woman with a real chance at being President. That didn't come about by people thinking only of themselves. I teach my children the same thing. I'm sure others do too.

I was born in '60. If you want to know how far behind the curve that was, I was the first year that had to register for the draft in '79, as they did 18 and 19 year olds. I actually went to an anti-draft rally in Washington. There were maybe forty protesters and several long haired hippie types with fancy cameras, taking pictures of everyone. I bet those pictures are still in some file in Washington. I also hitchhiked across the country when I was 17, but that is another story.

When you are young, growing up is like grass pushing through the concrete. Then, one day, you wake up and you're the concrete and there is this damn grass trying to push you out of the way.

...commercials as a victory requires a good bit of irony. But I'll take what I can get. (Actually pales compared to Queen being used at NFL games, or CCR being everywhere...)

I have been out walking the streets and protesting since before the beginning of the war. The US government could care less when I do it. My years are numbered, I am not suitable for military service. A young person, however, is much desired; especially a young person who is eligible for military service and who has a long working life ahead of himself or herself. Young consumers are the future of the economy and the wealth of corporations. The government expects a lifetime of tax payments from young people where people like me will be consuming social security and medicare. If young people become active then the government will have to take notice. Only the young people can refuse military service. Only the young people can pose a significant threat to social and economic stability. This business of war will not end unless and until young people refuse to volunteer for military service forcing a draft and when they are drafted refuse, en-mass, to go. Cindy Sheehan had a voice because she was the mom of a dead soldier but most of us have no voice and we are simply ignored.

Good ideas there. And in case nobody's got around to it yet - a belated welcome to posting at the Agonist, Jonathryn.