2002.1114.1300

let them all kill each other. (part one)

this is the appropriate attitude for feudalists like myself. if you are somewhat anti-imperialist, then you must agree with me. the problem is that i kinda like the idea of an american empire. don't you? i mean if you believe in global justice and human rights for everyone, and you believe like mlk an injustice anywhere and all that, you're a globalist. only bourgie folks have the luxury, and face it, you're bourgie. yes you are, you buy clothes that you hope will express your personality, therefore you are bourgie, and likely to become a pompous ass. i readily admit to being a pompous ass, and what blogger is not? but i'm not so bourgie as you. i don't even wash my car.

i'm a recovering organic. an organic is basically a person like harrison ford in 'the mosquito coast'. somebody who is painfully conscious of their usage of consumer products. an organic is an acquirer of skills as opposed to brickabrak. macguyver is the patron saint of organics. we hate designer labels, we'd rather learn guitar than pretend to like r.e.m., we despise people who are incredibly demanding of waiters and can't boil water. organic women, despite their similarity to janeane garofalo would never be a *fan*. i am not so organic as i used to be. why? in a word, wal-mart. but that's another story.

the point is that if you are a distributed fuedalist in anticipation of dyson's utopia, or at the very least, fascinated by stephenson's concepts of philes, then you understand the value of a healthy skeptical distance between yourself and your more brutal global neighbors. on the other hand, if you nourish hopes for esparanto, java and the global village, then you want an american empire and robocop. and of course, you probably think gw is doing a good job. on my side of the fence, where there is still room for lapsed organics, you hope for the prospects of a *good* al-quaida at best, like medecines san frontiers, a kind of decentralized backpacking civil troupe, and you scour the web for 100 people who can stand you.

now the conflict is that organics have no refrigerator pals. sure we have vpns and anonymous peer networks, but we don't have people whom we let walk in the front door and grab a beer out of our fridge. well we do, but that was back in college and now they live in des moines, oahu and the 19th arrondisment of paris. not likely to have a pta meeting with those folks. so this is where wal-mart comes in. but that's another story.