Oh, the stories you'll have to tell all your friends.

Have you ever seen a webpage, thread, or post about how some such thing is a "conspiracy?" I'm not saying that there aren't kernels of truth in statements such as those, but I don't know that it's helpful to state such things in such a fantastical, dramatic way. First of all, it sounds like you are selling something. If people are presented with facts and reassured against paralyzing emotions, they will draw their own conclusions and then *really* own those beliefs.

OTOH, something like this I feel can paralyze people who read it and don't know what to make of it or how to react. I noticed this with "Farenheit 911". Perfectly reasonable people would enter into this state where they were suspended between believing that Bush was part of this giant conspiracy to "get us", or Michael Moore was a completely full of shit con man. I'm sure they are back to 8 to 5 wage slavery marking time until they are dead.

We are socialized to internalize the belief that the "people on top" are better than us. Better looking, more popular, stronger, faster, and that all important human characteristic of smarter! Something like this piece doesn't really challenge that notion. It just adds "more evil" to the list of things they do better than us. Personally, I think it is hogwash.

To read some of the things people say (even Anarchists and other radicals), you would think that "the powers that be" were so brilliant, so deceptive, so ultimately in control that little to nothing could be done about it. If that were the case, then the fact that such a message even appears on "their" internet means they must have crafted that, too! OMG, I should turn off my computer right now and go fill out an application to be a security guard at my local Bank of America before the Thought Police find out!

I don't buy it. These people are not better and certainly not smarter than other people. I once heard Einstein made a crack about compounding interest being the most powerful force in the universe. These people had a little bit more than the rest of us a long time ago and over time and generations it has snowballed. The Fed, the Treasury, the OMB, they can't figure out this financial mess even with the power to make money out of thin air and regulate what people do under penalty of the law. Can you imagine these people trying to feed three kids between a disability check, AFDC, food stamps, and a late child support payment? But we scapegoat the "welfare mother" and we act like these others are some kind of gods walking amongst us.

They're the same jerks as the rest of us. I bet Ben Bernanke gives out some of those blankets with the sleeves for Xmas.

Invite some friends on your next trip.

So, the fine folks over at ourproject.org have approved a new project tentatively titled the OpenSociety Project. ourproject.org is a wiki farm that provides wiki space to projects which share information using some kind of open/free sharing license, and I recommend checking them out for your next information-sharing project, software-related or otherwise.

The purpose of the OpenSociety Project (weblink to be added soon) is to present the various ideas for the future of human society whether conceptual, experimental, struggling, or wherever in a format that encourages collaboration and derivative works.

Imagine the ideas of Noam Chomsky nestled between a Rainbow gathering you once attended and an ex-pat commune making a go in Costa Rica. Imagine creating and editing a page with your own ideas that could link to Kropotkin Farming Collectives and the Venus Project. Imagine people freely sharing ideas and then taking action thereby inspiring you to take further action yourself. Imagine the democracy of the future beginning now, and the days of chasing votes and referendums becoming a thing of the past.

I hope I have inspired you to check out ourproject.org and to stay tuned for more about the OpenSociety Project as I am able to play around with the wiki and have something worth looking at =-)