See P! 3.0

The cure for despair is not hope. It's discovering what we want to do about something we care about. - Margaret Wheatley

P! 3.0

From its launch in 2004 as an experimental group blog, P! and I have evolved steadily. We've survived two very difficult periods of illness (the second left me near death and homeless for a year), the trashing and subsequent hacking of P!'s first iteration during the Blogger/Google buyout and transition, and my own anti-social behavior and periodic temptation to pack just it in.

Along the way, some incredible folks have blogged here with me. To be totally honest, my illnesses and narcissistic quirks drove some of them away and strained my relationships with others. That saddens me immeasurably. They contributed significantly here and taught me much. They cared. This blog would be cyberdust but for the commitment of Morgaine Swann, The Continental Op, Scrutiny Hooligan, CJ Minster, Mike Sky, and Sine.Qua.Non.

P! 3.0 is the product of (1) what these folks and others have taught me, (2) the personal problems I've encountered and survived, (3) my increasing frustration with the ubiquitous, destructive illness I call "Americanism", and (4) my commitment to truth, reality, and effective, non-violent solutions to the seemingly insurmountable challenges we all face. As others have cared for and about me, I care for and about you.

Post-Politics in Depth

P!'s predecessor, the archived and hacked ddjangoWIrE, was decidedly a leftist political blog, joining the chorus of protest against the criminal Doubleduh-Chainy Gang in 2002. But in addition to cataloging their crimes, I also wrote copiously about the complicity and poverty of the American Left, the myth of democracy, and our cultural and political ignorance and ineffectiveness. I haven't made a lot of friends. Speaking truth to power is one thing, shouting it at the deaf is another. ddjangoWIrE was P! 1.0.

P! 2.0 was an interesting, but failed, attempt to create a model cybercommunity, as well as to generate some interest and action in building a consensus-based alliance of "leftists" in a viable third political party. Futile, to say the least. I realized that liberalism in its most virulent form, with its worship of individual rights and total abandonment of a sense of responsibility to community, had metastasized and eaten the body. The ascendant libertarian movement is proof of that. No rules, no social contract, no democracy, Nobama, no hope.

The transition to P! 3.0 is a recognition that politics as we know it offer no solution. We have rushed into a post-political, post-capitalist, and post-societal era. The long campaign we have just suffered was a facade, an hypnotic distraction, a necessary exercise in crowd control. "Hope" is denial. The men behind the curtain have begun to pull it back. They are the face and the corpus of unmitigated and irresistible power.

I have written recently that we are witnessing an ecological black hole, a pluperfect storm. Here are only a few of the inexorable forces involved: ecological (not just environmental) collapse; concentration of ruling power; triumph of global militarization; rise of regionalism and abandonment of sovereignty; descent into extremism, coupled with contention for depleted resources; and the emergence of scientific- and techno-fascism, characterized by the embrace of transhumanism, eugenics, eco-manipulation, and anti-spirituality.

An Asylum for Broken Rabble

In his 2007 book, The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity, James Lovelock predicted the near-term occurrence of climatic events that will reduce the surviving human race into "bands of broken rabble led by brutal warlords". Regardless of the accuracy of his environmental vision, the convergence of the forces I've described seem very likely to produce just that result. To dismiss such thinking as pessimism is dangerous, at best. In a recent, brief post at Culture 11, Daniel Larison, of The American Conservative/Eunomia, pointed out that . . .

After the recent calamitous weeks of financial turmoil, five years of war in Iraq and a world haunted by the specter of catastrophic terrorism, it may seem bizarre to say that the greatest problem that we face as a people is the problem of excessive optimism. Yet it has been optimism, which includes the belief that growth and progress are essentially limitless, that every problem has a solution and that the structures of our existence can be bent and changed according to our desires, that lies at the heart of our greatest difficulties. And it is optimism that prevents us from coping with the consequences of unrealistic expectations . . .

Humanity has indeed gone through cataclysmic events and periods, but not at such a scale. Although it is true that whole civilizations have been decimated or even totally wiped out, mankind has not had the means to make itself extinct. It does now. There is evidence that motive is appearing in many sectors, too. And where opportunity does not immediately present itself, it is manufactured.

While many espouse some level of direct resistance, including violence, I reject that. It may be heroic, but it will also likely be fatal. The solution, at least in part, I believe, will be in the creation of close communities and localized economies of local, small, sustainable scale. How to do that, however, remains to be discovered. I'll try to do my meager part here at P!

So what does P! 3.0 have to offer? Information, commentary, and resources. Although some of it is still in progress ("under construction", if you will), P! 3.0 is more than a blog:

• The sidebar includes links and feeds concentrating on community, communitarianism, and survival; technology, futurism, and transhumanism; resources for mental, emotional, and spiritual health, as well as poverty and homelessness; freethought and secularism; and reliable, alternative news and analysis. Look around.
• As I monitor these subjects in my own reader, I post the most relevant and important articles at a separate site, accessible by clicking the "ddjango @ google" link or the "minifeed" with the same name (just below the "Hot Blogs" section). You can subscribe to that site, as well as P! itself, in your own feed reader, very easily.
• Over the past few years, I've written several essays. I've been able to salvage some from ddjangoWIrE and the first instance of P! and I'm working on posting them on their own site, "Essays from P!".
• I've just begun an on-line "P! Library" which offers the ability to preview relevant books.
• Finally, I've set up the "P! aStore" through Amazon, which features literature, music, and tools consistent with P!'s values and goals. (You can still visit Amazon directly, if you wish.)

You can help, by visiting often, using the resources, patronizing Amazon through the site links, and participating. You can also donate at the "ChipIn" site, keeping P! ad (and influence) free.

Thank you. Be at peace.

Categories: P!3.0


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