Guest Post: Credentials

/// I love James Wesley Nichols' post! Check it out, check his blog out, comment! ///

I read a lot of books and articles, critiques of society and alternatives, activist and radical literature. As a writer, sometimes I'm intimidated by the level of scholarship I'm met with.

Anybody with even a perfunctory knowledge of the goings on of today's world knows that as a species humanity faces a number of challenges to its survival. Given the urgency of the situation and the necessity of immediate action, the idea that academic credentials or the lack of them should hold anyone back from participating is laughable, so the intimidation factor goes out the window.

Instead what we have to do is take a good look at ourselves and see what we have to offer. I may not be an expert in foreign policy or economics, but I'm a fairly decent writer and I can use that to transfer whatever I learn to others who have even less information than me.  If my writing proved to be useless, I could always just carry sandbags or dig trenches.

But if the goal is to raise consciousness, both in oneself and others, then writing and all forms of art and communication become absolutely essential. It doesn't matter if I don't have a PhD in anything; I can hyperlink to someone who does.

Guest Post: Becoming Radical

/// James Wesley Nichols is back with some great stuff. I'm totally on board! ///

From the time I was in high school I'd pay attention to the news and criticize the government, television, business and society in general. I was probably a lot harder to be friends with than I am even now. Mom always warned me not to be radical. For some reason "radical" has become a dirty word, I guess. But back then I mostly aligned myself with the Democrats, who only seemed slightly left of the status quo. Now it has become increasingly clear that the Democratic Party in practice actually lies far to the right of average working voters* like me.

Mom said I shouldn't be "radical," but I disagree. Radical change is what we need.

Here's how dictionary.com defines "radical:"

RAD·I·CAL

 [rad-i-kuhl]  Show IPA

adjective

1.

of or going to the root or origin; fundamental: a radical difference.

2.

thoroughgoing or extreme, especially as regards change from accepted or traditional forms: a radical change in the policy of a company.

3.

favoring drastic political, economic, or social reforms: radical ideas; radical and anarchistic ideologues.

4.

forming a basis or foundation.

5.

existing inherently in a thing or person: radical defects of character.

Since radicalism is change at the root, then as radicals we are devoted to changing ourselves and our society at the fundamental level. That means we need to become conscious of and understand society and its infrastructures, identify and imagine new institutions and social structures and begin organizing and making our dreams real. To change things from the ground up. It's a life-long process.

Anyone can learn, anyone can change, anyone can imagine and dream of a better world or even a better personal life, and those things are radical when they are acted upon.

* I'm actually not a voter. But more on that later. In the meantime, enjoy this Howard Zinn quote: "If the gods had intended people to vote, they would have given us candidates."

Guest Post: Human Exceptionalism

/// This is a guest post by my sweet, smart husband, James Wesley Nichols. ///

I don't believe in American Exceptionalism.

It's not a doctrine or even a phrase that finds wide mainstream use anymore, having mostly fallen out of favor in the 1960s. But it could definitely be argued to be a thread in the fabric of our culture and is obviously apparent in the foreign policies of our government.

I don't buy it.

What I do believe in though is human exceptionalism.

Not in any religious sense or the sense of a human right to dominate nature, but rather in the sense that humans are the primary actors on the world stage, and as such have the ultimate responsibility for our own fate.

In spite of the political and media controversy over anthropogenic global warming (AGW), there is a broad consensus (roughly 97-98%) among climate scientists that average temperatures have risen significantly over the past several decades and that the cause is manmade carbon emissions.

This is where we come in. An interesting correlation has been shown between brain size and intelligence. Perhaps more specifically, brain mass in comparison to the size of the body is a good indicator of the intelligence of a species. Compared with birds and reptiles, and nearly every other species on earth (except dolphins), humans have the largest brains and most intelligence. [1]

But isn't our intelligence what got us into this mess in the first place?

The odds seem to be against us. Intelligence - our ideas and innovations - created capitalism and industrialism and the ecological catastrophes Earth is now suffering. Maybe our intelligence will be the death of us.

But if we're to have any hope at all for the survival of our species, we have to believe in our own exceptionalism, in our abilities to innovate and cooperate to find a new way. Maybe humanity's defining trait, the thing that makes us most different from all the other animal species on the planet isn't our intelligence at all. Maybe what makes us most human is our ability to seemingly do the impossible. Maybe what makes us most human is our knack for doing superhumanthings. 

 [1] Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden, Random House, 1977, 33-40.

Anti-Corporate Anyday

via

You know how all these pretty blogs have a day of the week dedicated to sharing lovely, expensive things they want to buy? I thought it might be nice to take a break from all those distracting superficialities and turn the brights on the corruption of it all. What do you say?

I heard an ad on the radio that really upset me. It was a Wal-Mart ad. I don't know about you, but I never hear Wal-Mart ads, except for maybe a short sponsor spot on public radio. This W-M ad offered to beat local sales. Bring in a coupon from any local store and W-M will beat their prices!

My family lives in a part of town that a generation ago was comprised entirely of mom and pops. I mean, this area was jam-packed with small town staples like the hardware store, diners, post office, cotton gin, feed & seed, local grocer, etc. Now there's Bi-Lo, a recently closed K-Mart, BP, Big Lots, O'Reilly Auto Parts, Hardees, Wendy's and so on.

Most of the local places are long gone and the ones that remain don't have a chance if a big box store comes in and promises to beat their prices. The Quick Stop Garden Spot workers have grandkids. They can't mark their stuff down any more. Their only defense against corporate bullies is all of us loyal customers. And we are all poor anyway.

But I guess as long as the Waltons want more money, what's to stop them from getting it? After all, profit is the highest value of our society.

Wages

Guest Post by James of The Gilded Moth. Also known as husband and daddy around our house. 

Wages have been flat for most of the 2000s, yet the cost of living has steadily increased. In the meantime, corporate profits are soaring. We've got fat-cat CEOs taking home hundreds of millions in bonuses. The income gap is worse than ever.

Is it any wonder that so many of us say "tax the motherf***ers!"

We've gotta make a living somehow. I can't believe how many lower income people I know who fail to grasp the simplicity of this concept. As a child, I was raised to believe that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" was an actual way of life. And it used to be, for previous generations. Baby boomers who didn't go to college could go to work at manufacturing jobs right after high school, get married, have kids, own cars and houses and earn high enough wages to take vacations and pursue their interests. But the picture simply doesn't look like that for a working man or woman in 2012.

I'm just an average Joe. I'm married and I have two kids, and I work hard to support them. My wife also works and commutes 30 miles twice a week to attend classes at USC Upstate in pursuit of a Graphic Design degree. Like everyone else, we have bills to pay. Too many bills for what we earn. Once we've paid for the rent, utilities, phone, car insurance, gasoline, car payment, internet and food, there is nothing left over. In fact, we don't earn enough to get by even on that. (Cancel the internet you say? All of our bills are paid online, and the time and effort that saves us is well worth the $55 each month, especially considering it's our only way to get news since we don't pay for the luxury of cable TV.)

From January to mid April I work a second job doing tax returns. Working two jobs leaves me scant time for my family, friends or hobbies. Time spent at home is merely rest from fatigue. Where's the life? Where's the liberty? Where's the pursuit of happiness?

It's in an offshore account somewhere, and it belongs to someone else, someone more elite. That dream does not belong to American workers anymore.

Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, a CEO, a movie star, a professional athlete or a stock broker. Most of us are made to work regular jobs, and that's OK. Not everyone needs vast wealth or power for happiness.

But when all your time is spent just trying to scrape by, when all your effort goes into paying the bills and just surviving, paycheck to paycheck, forget the pursuit of happiness, where's the life and liberty in that? What is American about it?

Politics!

So my blog fits fairly comfortably in a little blog niche. We girls blog about our outfits and our kids (human or feline) and how much we love vintage and a variety of nerdy and/or craft related things. I love these blogs so much and I really hope that this post doesn't get me knocked right out of the loop...

Because in our niche? We avoid politics like the plague.

I mentioned on here recently that I have been interested in some things and I'm ready now to explain myself. Here's what I am interested in: Occupy Wall Street, a people powered movement to end the monied corruption of our democracy.

After spending a good deal of time looking into the movement and what it is all about and the goals and strategies, I find that I really do identify with it. (If you are interested in learning about it, try this site, read this article, check out this blog.)

However, I differ in one area: VOTING

Part of #OWS --as I understand it-- is that the system is so messed up, needs to be completely restructured, overhauled, that participation is moot. In fact, you are actually contributing to the problem if you vote. But I disagree.

The way I see it, there are two parties, right? One that accomplishes very little and one that actively tries to destroy everything good. So, even if you are voting for the lesser of two evils, as they say, at least one evil is much, much lesser than the other. You know?