is society headed for BREAKDOWN or BREAKTHROUGH? chaos or coherence? utopia... or oblivion?

until the future arrives, the outcome of history is uncertain; do you want to take an active part in deciding this outcome, or leave it up to the experts who sit at the controls? pessimism is ubiquitous in our culture (especially - this is the big drag here - the alternative segment thereof), but i believe that optimism is still possible and i intend to cling to it until i breathe my last.

the popularity of doom can be traced to our culture's existentialism, which is only natural in a nation so young and so powerful. i worry that doom is a self-fulfilling prophecy based upon our belief in it; whether it's fundamentalists engineering armageddon through their republican minions or the masses of youth who've given up on a political process so obviously dependent upon dollars rather than dreams, too many of us have given up on the future and are tending our own gardens, waiting for the end.

but we can change what we believe. if society is alive, it is evolving, just like any living thing. and evolution tends to favor survival, because evolution is how nature IMPROVES UPON extant systems. it would follow that any "doom" that we may fear must needs be ACTIVELY ENGINEERED. by whom? in whose interest is armageddon? why would we elect leaders who promote its cause?

i am exactly in the center.

i abhor oppression, poverty and official lies. i am old enough to remember when everyone abroad really appreciated american efforts in international affairs.

i want prosperity. i can't believe the richest country in history doesn't have health care for kids or bullet trains. i know that kids my generation and younger cannot depend on a government handout , nor can we depend on corporate employment as the world is willing to work cheaper than we are, and that we must therefore find our own economic solutions as the government abandons us. i would appreciate a government who helps us start our own projects while it still can, allowing us to borrow money to start businesses and get more education than our peers anywhere else in the world if we so choose.

i want an educational system that doesn't completely destroy the kids, and for god's sake i want leadership that won't ship them off to war unless they've exhausted every diplomatic option for peace. i want history books and newspapers and radio disc jockeys to tell the truth. i think it's terrible that there are vicious and racist elements in our society and i would like that to change. I believe America is amazing and no other country could have produced rock and roll AND hip-hop AND jazz, and that we need to spread goodwill around the world rather than bombing for "de-mock-racy". I believe America ought to laugh and trade more and fight and bluster less. i don't want the earth to burn to a crisp before i have grandkids. i want an "intelligence" community that isn't totally stupid. i want renewable energy and plenty of forests. I want my food to be natural and my medicine to be properly tested. Et cetera.

i hate to think of any of these viewpoints as "left-wing" or "liberal". they seem pretty common sense & in the center to me. i can't imagine anyone holding forth against any of them without guaranteeing their defeat and their subsequent ridicule by others in the room. but assuming Bush's re-election is a reality - which i have not yet necessarily accepted - it sure seems that the party in power has obstructed each and every one of these values. i demand a new center to emerge that speaks for these values and leaves the fake fights started by the GOP to the Coulters and O'Reillys of the world. do we need a new party to do this or can the Democrats figure it out?

the ability of the Republicans to define their opposition is so important, it's inspiring. take some time to appreciate the importance of having an adversary to fight against. make an excel spreadsheet of all the adversaries that YOU face, and campaign relentlessly to defeat them!

no matter what you're trying to do, you've got adversaries. there are credit card companies that are just waiting to see you fail to cover your bills one month and fall into their clutches. there are pharmaceutical companies trying to convince you that you aren't good enough without their stupid pills. there are bad habits and idiotic social rituals and terrible celebrity role models and their pathetic movies and television shows that our culture is marketing to kids who will wind up mirroring what they're taught on the tube. there are politicians who apparently acquired their ideology by playing RISK and MONOPOLY and PAYDAY and TRIVIAL PURSUIT - they don't have a CLUE!

so i hold to my statement that i am in the center because of what i believe. and if what i believe represents a "center", there are politicians-lobbies-spies -foreign countries-billionaires-the media-fundamentalists who are doing their best to deny it. if you frame it you can fight it, easily. the democrats can't simply "reposition" themselves. they have to figure out a new label and infuse it with new meaning. and they must distill what the other side has come to represent as well, explaining to Americans what they're voting for when they succumb to the Red Plague.

as for me, i choose my label and wear it proudly - AUTONOMY. that's what i believe. i believe that i represent myself. that statement affects the politics, economics, religion, and productive and cultural impact of my existence. nobody else can do the job of representing me. representation is a product of one's original and unique effort, whether you're making art or conducting a spin campaign for a political candidate.

i direct my deliberate effort towards the creation of cultural artifacts that have miraculously found an audience among others who are fed up with being spoonfed their culture. i focus on reaching the people who are looking for something that stands out from the background noise of media, something that stands out as honest and humble and true - a collection of websites that communicate a vision of who i am. i do this with a religious fervor because i need to believe in a higher power, and society as a whole is what i believe in. if there is a God i believe every single one of us represents it. i can't get enough of the culture of my peers and allies, and i can't stop broadcasting myself.

i believe if enough people start broadcasting, complete social transformation is inevitable. the generations wash across the planet like waves, each related to the last but completely new and absolutely temporary. when we inherit the earth we will change it forever and for the better. we just need to inherit it FAST and make ALL THE RIGHT MOVES, which is why we are studying and thinking and working so hard to put it all together in this period of time. it takes patience to build a spacecraft. it also takes a really good plan.

i wish we could unleash an ocean of stickers saying all kinds of different things and thereby overwhelm corporate media with our voices. publishing stickers is a blast, and i want to spread the technology so that all you people can do what i have done and more!

TWO WORLDS THERE ARE... one on top of the other. one the world of facts, the world everyone sees, the world where you're just a set of adjectives to describe you, a member of a demographic, the world where a computer is just a thing on a desk with attributes and atoms...

the other the world of ideas, where objects and people are charged with POTENTIAL, where that same computer COULD be the vector for a populist revolution to sweep the planet.

• We all think that, on the whole, "ideas" are "good". We're surrounded with the triumphs of the idea-oriented world - every technology we use began as an "idea". Therefore, are more ideas better? Or is it better to FOCUS on ideas, having them SERIALLY so that you can concentrate on them one at a time?
• Ideas obviously have their own pace, although the more people thinking about them full-time (or - more importantly - on their OWN time), and the more society rewards people who have them, the faster they tend to land.

Here is how I distinguish between FACTS and IDEAS:

As long as something is NOT known, it remains an IDEA - that is it's still CONCEPTUAL, and therefore generates DEBATE. As soon as enough research is conducted to convert the hypothesis into fact, and that fact is undisputed, it is NO LONGER an IDEA except inasmuch as it is taught to new people.

Emotionally, an IDEA thrills the intellect like no fact ever could. Ideas suggest alternative realities. Facts ground us in the present reality. Because of this emotional response, I feel that IDEAS NEVER LIE, and that FACTS LIE ALL THE TIME. Ideas PRESENTED as Facts, additionally, are ALWAYS LIES - the "idea" that there is only one way to Paradise is fair game, ok, but call it a FACT and i am going to look at you funny. This also means that IDEAS DON'T MIND BEING WRONG - they are going for something ELSE, something that triggers PASSION. We take facts in unemotionally; ideas, however, challenge our emotions as well as our intellect so that we consider them before believing in them and that we have a "gut feel" for them to draw us forth into action.

The speed of light was once an interesting idea to scientists who had never before THOUGHT of light as having a "speed". Because scientists know that light travels at approximately 186,000 miles/second, it's no longer an IDEA in the scientific world - more like a "given". But if a reputable physicist were to DISPUTE the speed of light, creating some CHAOS around what until now has been thought of as a STATIC FACT in such a way as to actually create some CONTROVERSY, THAT becomes what I term an idea.

The speed of light IS an idea to every ten-year-old who learns that light has a speed in the first place. As we go through our learning process, we are continually enlightened by new ideas that replace concepts we've taken for granted. A teacher of facts must take care to make sure that the facts are communicated within the context of IDEAS to her/his scholars. If they are presented as mere facts, the class will be bored and learn little.

Ideas exist in an ecosystem that parallels nature. As in nature, the greedy have gained the upper hand and are doing their best to homogenize the ecosystem. Capitalism harnesses the new ideas that benefit those at the top of the System, and renders alternative ideas impotent through a virtual monopoly on the means of expression and dissemination of both facts and ideas. Facts are reported as "news", ideas reported as "opinion"; Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are two walls of the same box.

Facts can be brought up - or even made up - to buttress almost any idea, but ideas - especially bad ones - can be held by people DESPITE the true facts. Therefore, ideas exist in an irreal realm parallel to the imagination - a "cognitive space" separate from physical space within which our minds operate on concepts, rotate them around and finally allow them to settle. Ideas that remain unchallenged grow roots and become indistinguishable from physical reality. Most people consider McDonalds to be a source of food until this conception is challenged.

"Good versus evil" is relative; it presents an ambiguous paradigm for moral judgement, and yet it is the only framework offered by the monotheistic religions of the West.

Anyone can have an opinion about virtually anything. Institutions encourage us to consider the opinions they sell as "facts" and that we "believe" rather than question the morality they pitch. Friction between alternative belief structures is healthy in a polite society, and sometimes interactions that shoot off sparks conclude in consensus or a change of attitudes. But often these debates end up in stalemate with the opponents baiting each other and skipping reason altogether.

The solution for bad ideas is NOT censorship. It's BETTER IDEAS, more ideas. Democracy DEPENDS on a marketplace of political ideas. But America has been transformed by its media into one MANIPULABLE MASS. One of Hitler's first moves was to destroy the free press. Capitalism adapts this strategy through BUYING the free press - which, as it turns out, is not at all "free" but costs money to own and operate.

The press is unconditionally for sale through advertising, and is oriented towards reporting EVENTS as opposed to outlining PROCESSES. Therefore, we never read about the construction of the lifestyle of the oppressed; we read about military adventures and sports injuries. After enough events have happened, spaced far apart in geography, perhaps the media starts to realize that a TREND has been taking place.

If a process is carried out without events to mark it, history can be altered dramatically under our very noses. Clandestine process generation geared to shape history are quite fascinating, but rarely beneficient to the People. The only forces to enact such agitation have a vested interest in a conditioned, sheeplike society. Buildings explode, anger is channelled into nationalism, nations invade and people die - all to create a spectacle that distracts us from the matter of our species' survival and our government's responsibility for it.

The conditioning acts in the interest of capitalists who seek to keep us dissatisfied enough with our lives to keep us consuming as quickly as possible. We are surrounded with reminders to consume, but where is the ad budget encouraging us to MAKE SOMETHING OF OUR LIVES?

It is domain of HUMANS ALONE to communicate ideas to each other. Humanity is still subject to the laws of evolution. Somehow these new ideas must give us a new model for social decisionmaking that can break through the false representation of the current political system. If our leadership is pursuing bad ideas that are deeply rooted in their cognitive worlds, is there any way to challenge those ideas? Holding a sign in a protest, while important as a networking opportunity, seems impotent in this age of ad agencies, spin doctors and lobbies.

Alternative modes of idea dissemination may be able to alter the way our generation thinks about politics and society. At the least, a proliferation of political communication will encourage greater participation and debate. It's imperative that progressive minds begin taking such cultural strategies seriously before all of our energy is wasted creating spectacles for the mainstream media to dissect.