Ahead of our times, but so are others: A continuing conversation Dan Gougherty and I have been conducting in real life and on our radio show and blog, Left Turn on Bird Street, since a few days after the Nov. 2 election has been about the red-rlue state division the election results revealed. Red states being those that went Republican and the blues being those that went Democrat.
Our first thought was to encourage the blue states legislators to band together in a voting block. The blue block would agree to systematically vote against (or at least not for) for any proposed legislation that might benefit red states. And, flip side to that, pledging to vote for any legislation that would damage (or at least not benefit) the red states, unless of course the legislation would damaged the blue states.
Following on that, we next realized the blue states also happened to control many of the major trading ports of the US: entirely so on the west coast; substantially so on the great lakes and east coast; but none to speak of on the gulf and south Atlantic coast.
We could get very obstreperous and close all the blue ports off to products slated for transshipment to red states without payment of an excise tax, or fee. That would put a squeeze on the reds, and maybe even generate a cash flow stream for the blues.
Then a few days after that some scholarly person posted a notice on the internet pointing out the the red-blue issue was much more complicated. It really boiled done to blue regions. Sometimes just to blue counties, or blue voting precincts.
The reds, it turned out, were even more pervasive, while the blues were even were scattered.
That gave us pause to think. What to do?
At the same time and out of a continuing discussion Dan and I had going on a somewhat different topic there seemed to be a convergence taking place.
We were also discussing how the internet had changed the notion of how business communities are located and structured. No more Wall Street; less hierarchy; substantial decentralization. Between the internet, FedEx and the phone company, we could live and operate almost anywhere, provided we had a product (in our case information or opinion) to sell and deliver over the ‘net.
We then went into wool-spinning stage. We could pick a place pleasant to live, not just in the US, really, and locate there. We didn’t have to live in an expensive city. We could live in a small town someplace and operate there. Then it occurred to us, we didn’t even have to live near each other. We could locate separately, anywhere, so long as the information could be created and moved via the wire. We could live in less expensive places, or more expensive places, tailored to our needs. We could band together into a semi-commune, if we chose to. We were modeling our thinking – or at least I was mine – on what has been going on in Argentina.
This had limitations and problems, of course, but we were at least beginning to see a way of getting out from under the thumb of the man.
As we pondered this, another group of people – we don’t now them, they apparently are centered around Seattle – looked at the same two maps and came up with a similar conclusion and plan, but with slightly different angers and skewings.
We were intrigued.
Their opinions and motives and rationales were identical to ours. Their answer was the opposite and more long range. Rather than move out of the cities to do this (and Dan and I never dismissed the idea of perpetrating our idea within a city environment, since I at least, had seen it done successfully in an informal way inside cities in the past.)
The difference was: our thinking was merely to escape the problems that BushCo was creating. The folks aat urbananarchists were looking to change the social and power structure of the US.
Either way works for us, or at least me, anyway.
The point is, we’re looking at a movement operating right now in what we look at things differently, as a result work and live different consequently, with no actual revolution still revolutionize the way things are.
Dan and I will discuss another aspect of our "leave the cities" revolution plan that we think could be pulled off politically -- but we'll save that for another blog post.
Our first thought was to encourage the blue states legislators to band together in a voting block. The blue block would agree to systematically vote against (or at least not for) for any proposed legislation that might benefit red states. And, flip side to that, pledging to vote for any legislation that would damage (or at least not benefit) the red states, unless of course the legislation would damaged the blue states.
Following on that, we next realized the blue states also happened to control many of the major trading ports of the US: entirely so on the west coast; substantially so on the great lakes and east coast; but none to speak of on the gulf and south Atlantic coast.
We could get very obstreperous and close all the blue ports off to products slated for transshipment to red states without payment of an excise tax, or fee. That would put a squeeze on the reds, and maybe even generate a cash flow stream for the blues.
Then a few days after that some scholarly person posted a notice on the internet pointing out the the red-blue issue was much more complicated. It really boiled done to blue regions. Sometimes just to blue counties, or blue voting precincts.
The reds, it turned out, were even more pervasive, while the blues were even were scattered.
That gave us pause to think. What to do?
At the same time and out of a continuing discussion Dan and I had going on a somewhat different topic there seemed to be a convergence taking place.
We were also discussing how the internet had changed the notion of how business communities are located and structured. No more Wall Street; less hierarchy; substantial decentralization. Between the internet, FedEx and the phone company, we could live and operate almost anywhere, provided we had a product (in our case information or opinion) to sell and deliver over the ‘net.
We then went into wool-spinning stage. We could pick a place pleasant to live, not just in the US, really, and locate there. We didn’t have to live in an expensive city. We could live in a small town someplace and operate there. Then it occurred to us, we didn’t even have to live near each other. We could locate separately, anywhere, so long as the information could be created and moved via the wire. We could live in less expensive places, or more expensive places, tailored to our needs. We could band together into a semi-commune, if we chose to. We were modeling our thinking – or at least I was mine – on what has been going on in Argentina.
This had limitations and problems, of course, but we were at least beginning to see a way of getting out from under the thumb of the man.
As we pondered this, another group of people – we don’t now them, they apparently are centered around Seattle – looked at the same two maps and came up with a similar conclusion and plan, but with slightly different angers and skewings.
We were intrigued.
Their opinions and motives and rationales were identical to ours. Their answer was the opposite and more long range. Rather than move out of the cities to do this (and Dan and I never dismissed the idea of perpetrating our idea within a city environment, since I at least, had seen it done successfully in an informal way inside cities in the past.)
The difference was: our thinking was merely to escape the problems that BushCo was creating. The folks aat urbananarchists were looking to change the social and power structure of the US.
Either way works for us, or at least me, anyway.
The point is, we’re looking at a movement operating right now in what we look at things differently, as a result work and live different consequently, with no actual revolution still revolutionize the way things are.
Dan and I will discuss another aspect of our "leave the cities" revolution plan that we think could be pulled off politically -- but we'll save that for another blog post.
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