![\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/Picture-47.jpg?resize=232%2C240&ssl=1\" "\\"The")
<\/a>It’s interesting to actually have the conversation with people about what is wrong and what we can do about it, rather than complaining, or having the meeting on the Internet where we can’t actually see and hear each other. It reminds me how alienated we are from one another, on the particular theme of working together for a goal.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I feel like nobody has even heard of it. A lot of times I have to hold the hands of my own staff and encourage them to call up the people they work with and talk to them; to confer on issues that would make their jobs easier. I know that part of my karma in this lifetime involves teaching people how to cooperate for a purpose they agree on. [If you want to get in on that karma and\/or the closely realted piece about creative adventure, contact me, I am easy to find.]<\/p>\n
And this, in turn, reminds me that one of the themes of this phase of world history, at least here in the capitalist Western world, is about conditioning people that life is all about “every man for himself.” There is no notion of the common good, something that used to be an idea we could talk about. Now if you propose however meekly that there might be a common good, you’re accused of being a socialist. This is the capitalist equivalent of being made to carry the Little Red Book and a picture of Chairman Mao everywhere you go. It is religion disguised as corporatist government.<\/p>\n
This is not good for people who want to be people rather than ‘consumers’. I can explain this with the parable of the laundromat. I think we need more, better laundromats that are designed to be social places. But think of how horrendous this would be for capitalism. It costs a lot to create a new washing machine (and sometimes even a single component for a washing machine), and you have to sell a lot to make a profit. Therefore, you have to convince everyone they have to have their own washer and dryer, and preferably one upstairs and one downstairs, rather than be communal about it and share. Now multiply this by every industry you can name and imagine it taking over society. (We are educated constantly, through advertising that costs more and occupies more time than any education ever received by a human being, including the most scholarly Jesuit monk ever).<\/p>\n
The effect of this campaign is is 1) more privatization, 2) less socialization and therefore 3) less human contact and finally 4) more profit for large industrial companies. Let’s take the opposite of this, Planet Waves, a self-sustaining, open conversation without advertising sponsorship. If I wanted to clean up financially I would 1) convince you I have something that you do not, 2) isolate my readers from one another and 3) create an atmosphere that breeds fear so that would drive the need for the product. I would drive as much traffic to the site as possible and start reaching out to Miracle Whip, Fiji Water and Kashi for sponsorship; who would of course advertise on the unspoken grounds that the content be acceptable to them.<\/p>\n
With this simple couple of metaphors you have an image of what is happening in the world; why so much turns to bullshit so fast; where the bandwidth of your mind goes. How many thousand ads to you see every day? Before<\/em> the Internet it was about 4,000.<\/p>\n We want to do something, I know. From my humble perch, I hear about everything everyone wants to do, and why they don’t do it. I understand that people are scared right now; mainly, I hear from a lot of people who are so scared they’re afraid to even state their opinion, many who are afraid to make a decision, and many others who are so frightened that they are paralyzed. Mostly the people I hear from seem to be convinced they are paralyzed rather than actually being bound in a wheelchair. It’s a game; and we cannot expect anyone to take responsibility for the world until we feel good about taking responsibility for our own lives.<\/p>\n That is the first step, and usually it’s the step we delay. Hey, it’s convenient — till it’s not.<\/p>\n Dear Friend and Reader: Friday evening. I’ve just returned from my gig for the Yes Men, doing the Q & A session after the screening of The Yes Men Fix the World tonight in Hudson, New York. Basically, it’s a little teach-in, awareness-raising session after the film is over. When the boys get there they … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Eric](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.planetwavesweekly.com\/resources\/images\/sign_white.jpg?resize=185%2C45&ssl=1\" "\\"Planet")
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