Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/Neutopia/THE JUDGE

Text File | 1994-09-30 | 17KB | 310 lines

          Friday, 8 July 1994 12:14:16 PM
          alt.save.the.earth Item
  From:           [e-mail] (Doctress Neutopia),internet
  Subject:        THE JUDGE
  To:             alt.prose,internet
                  alt.romance
                  alt.save.the.earth
                  alt.paranormal,internet
                            THE JUDGE


Open Letter


Dear Geertjan,

     It is strange how some people I correspond with begin to mean
something to me in my everyday thoughts.  Our correspondence has
done something like that to me.  I guess it is a result of the
things we talk about:  the revolution, the lovolutionary character,
the human bond.  As of this moment, I must conclude that our bond
is that of two like-minded individuals who are seeking truth and
justice in a world founded on injustice and lies.  You said that
bonding doesn't necessarily have to be about love, but need.  Now,
the question is how do *we* need each other?  You are thousands of
miles away in South Africa.  I have never seen you or heard your
voice;  you are years younger than me.  How could we possibly need
each other?

     Obviously we don't need each other for our basic daily needs.
So then, could it be that we need the psychological emotions and
information that we receive through our letter exchange? Maybe I
need your advice and your criticism helping me to focus on the
positive energy and not succumb to cynicism and despair.   Maybe I
need to know that there are other people in the globe who feel as
alienated from Western Culture as I do.  Maybe that is all we can
give each other since we live on different continents.  Maybe all
we can do is to exchange letters to help each other cope with
living in a society which we know is slowing killing us.

     I have been thinking about your idea that the best thing for
me to do with my life now would be to join a liberal cause, play
their game of social reform and charity, and wait until the system
falls apart to then be ready to take over a position to provide us
with an alternative vision.

     The problem I have with that is that I have to play their
reformist game for God knows how long.  This means that I would not
be taking the initiative and creating my own organization
(religion) which I think could give us an alternative solution to
the problem.  The point is that I have tried to work with liberal
groups in the past for one cause or another like the anti-apartheid
group or the anti-nuclear group or the group for sustainable
economics, but their visions are so specialized and focused that
they are not able to see the depth of the social problems.  They
don't want to go to the root causes and then to fix them with
radical solutions.  Racism, classism, sexism, and ageism are
spiritual diseases and they will only be solved by spiritual means
which is why I have focused so much of my studies on the matter of
the heart and soul.

     In _Power and Innocence_ Rollo May writes, "The breakdown of
communication is a spiritual one."  He says that words get their
communicative power for the fact that they participate in symbols.
This creates a Gestalt, a symbol gets a numinous quality which
carries across to one some meaning from the emotions of another
(75).  Nelson Mandela became a powerful speaker who people listened
to because he was a symbol of the liberation movement.  Through the
power of the symbol, Mandela was able to change the way people
thought and to make them conscious of the injustice of apartheid.

     Let me say a few more words about following the liberal
agenda.  This summer I had a man (the Sheik) interested in forming
a personal relationship with me.  As a liberal working on an
advanced degree in accounting, he could see the vast inequality
with the world's wealth and understood that what was happening in
the United States was that there was becoming two classes of
people, the very rich who rule the networks of the global
corporation, and the poor.  The Sheik gave his money to liberal
organizations.  He wanted to make enough money in his life to be
able to have time to be able to enjoy life:  support a family,
sail, take trips.  He would listen to my ideas and seemed to
appreciate what I had to say.

     I realized that we were not compatible because of our
different perspectives on life when we took a walk through a graveyard
one afternoon.  We rested on a tree stump and before us was a
large grave stone which read JUDGE on it.  There was a small
American flag beside it as so many of the other stones had beside
them to mark that they had been US war veterans.  I playfully took
the flag from the holder and dramatically ripped the flag from the
stick and began using it as a primitive drawing tool. I began to
sketch out something that looked like an Outerspace Creature from
a UFO.

     The Sheik got very upset with me and demanded that I put the
flag back in its proper place beside the grave.  With a stern and,
I must say, inhuman expression, he said that I was violating the
rules by destroying the flag.  I said that it was the wish of the
dead that war, nationalism, and the plutocracy be stopped.  To this
we should tear down all flags and bury them in the middle of the
grave yard.  The Sheik said that I would be breaking the law and
that for him that was unacceptable behavior.  He thought the laws
of the United States were just and that it was the people's fault
that they were not working.  I said that I believed that the laws
of the land were not fair since the only way to have freedom in
America was if you had money to pay for it.  The law protected the
rich property owners and the United States did not stand for human
rights. Through boycotting and civil disobedience to the laws were
some of the ways I thought that we could work to change the
injustice.

     But the Sheik thought it was always wrong to break the law and
if the law was unjust the people must work through the system in
order to change it.  For him, working through the system was the
only way to effect change.  He thought any other way would lead to
social anarchy.  "What about the tactics of Martin Luther King or
Mahatma Gandhi?" I asked.  "They broke the law in order to follow
the Cosmic Law of human justice."  The Sheik thought that was the
same thing that the right wing had done in the Iran-Contra deals
when Oliver North broke the laws because he thought he must support
the war in Central America in order to protect American interests.

     I tried to explain to him that what the left-wing was doing
was *not* the same thing as that of the right-wing since they were
struggling for completely different worldviews which were in
opposition to one other.  The right-wing were into greed, nuclear
family values, and supported Corporate America.  The left-wing was
into (whether they know it or not) creating a new world based on
universal health care, Neutopian actucation (the enactment of
education), and rebuilding the cities into arcologies.

     The Sheik became very militaristic in his demands that I put
the flag back.  Even after I told him that I needed the stick in
order to draw out a blueprint for Neutopia, he said he would not
walk back to the house with me if I didn't follow his orders.  So
right there at the Judge's grave, I had to make up my mind as to
whether or not to go on with his wish;  after all, he as going to
be an accountant and he *did* find me, a poor artist, attractive;
and we had "grinded pelvis" together.  So I told him that I would
follow his orders if he would listen to my speech about why I had
this burning desire to burn every nation-state flag that I saw.
There wasn't much lively energy from him at the time, so my speech
basically consisted of me throwing the flag over my head.  He then
retrieved it and put it back on the stick and struck it into the
ground beside the JUDGE.

     We walked back to his apartment as he talked about world
politics and the poverty stricken nations.  We smoked some pot
together (really, I am trying to quit) and then kissed and hugged
each other.  But the passion did not last long.  I knew in my soul
I was not a liberal---I didn't believe in the United States
government or global capitalism.  I kicked myself for again getting
into bed with a man who I could not love because he would not join
me in my lovolutionary crusade of building Neutopia.

     The next day we went to see Dr. Helen Caldicott speak at Smith
College on nuclear waste dumps.  Her vision of the future was a
very grave one of families having to support children with severe
genetic mutations (like no arms and legs) and a world where clean
water, air, and soil were hard to find.  She informed us that the
food in Europe is contaminated with the poisons which resulted from
the Chernobyl nuclear power accident.  Oh no, I thought to myself.
I bet I had eaten contaminated food when I was in the Soviet Union
in 1989 when I took a trip there with my parents!  Those poor
Europeans!  What are we to do?

     Helen asked the audience what we could do to change the
situation.  She believed we needed another American Revolution.
She asked us how many of us were dedicated to ending nuclear power
this year.  Out of a couple of hundred people only about ten hands
went up.  My hand was one of those hands while the Sheik's had
remain low.  He had his excuse for not wanting to work to stop
nuclear power.  After all, he was a graduate student in accounting
with much school work to do.  He didn't have time to work on an
anti-nuclear campaign while trying to finish up his degree.
Without that degree, he thought he would not be able to buy the
American standard of living, what Oliver North was fighting to
protect.

     The last time I talked with the Sheik was over the telephone.
He called me to invite me over to spend some time with him.  He
said that there was going to be a championship hockey game on TV
that night and he wanted me to watch the game with him.  He said
that we could talk about ideas during the commercials.  So I told
him that I wasn't interested in hockey games and that my time was
too valuable to spend it in that way.  After all, I had pledge to
stop nuclear power and there was no time to waste.

     Geertjan, I hope that you can see what *kind* of man that I
need.  He is not a liberal, but a rebel.  Rollo May writes, "For
the rebel function is necessary as the life-blood of culture, as
the very roots of civilization" (220).  May makes a distinction
between the rebel and the revolutionary which I feel is somewhat
unnecessary.  He says that the chief goal of the rebel is not to
overthrow the government which, of course, she or he could also
support, but what is more important is her or his commitment to the
vision.  He writes,

     We also not the startling regularity through history with
     which society martyrs the rebel in one generation and
     worships him [sic] in the next.  Socrates, Jesus, William
     Blake, Buddha, Krisha--the list is an endless as it is rich.
     If we look more closely at the first two, we shall see how the
     rebel typically challenges the citizenry with his [sic]
     vision"   (224).

The vision brings us out of the vicious circle of bloody
revolutionary after bloody revolution.  May continues,

     The slave who kills his master is an example of the
     revolutionary.  He can then only take his master's place and
     be killed in turn by later revolutionaries.  But he rebel is
     the one who realizes that the master is as much imprisoned, if
     not as painfully, as he is by the institution of slavery; he
     rebels against the system which permits slaves and masters.
     His rebellion, if successful, saves the master also from the
     indignity of owning slaves" (222).

     In today's world, the slave owners are the owners of Corporate
America.  Everyone who works for them are their slaves.  In the
recent issue of _Newsweek_ (July 11, 1984) Bill Gates, who they
call the "Tech King" is described as a competitive, controlling,
money-hungry plutocrat who wants to rule the world through his
computer empire and his Microserfs.  His vision is to "lure
millions of people into Microsoft's lane of the coming Information
Highway:  home banking, home shopping, entertainment and electronic
mail." Michael Meyer for _Newsweek_ writes, "The future,
increasingly, is Hollywood:  "edutainment," home videos, home
everything."  "Edutainment," a word they coined combining the words
education and entertainment,  all geared to brainwashing the minds
of the youth with the principles of the Tech King:  competition,
materialism, and monotheism.  The plutocratic vision is to make the
Internet, not into an world community of love and knowledge, but to
use it to sell Microserf products and to seduce us with their
"edutainment."

     Now, do you think Bill Gates and his cult is concerned with
the billion or so people throughout the world who don't have any
homes?  Do you think in his "master plan" he is planning out a way
to create a world without poverty, a world based of compassionate
justice?  I don't think so.

     While I was visiting my parents in North Carolina last week
there was a front page article printed in the Greensboro News and
Record (June 30, 1994) about the Grandover Resort, being developed
by the Koury Corporation, which they describe as the "nation's
first fully computer-integrated and automated community."
Grandover will be composed of "two championship golf courses, 14
championship tennis courts, golf and tennis clubs, a health club,
a 900-room conference center and hotel, retail villages and
restaurants."  There will also be 2,000 single-family homes--
generally selling for  $300,000 and up.  Easy to use touch screens
will allow residents to be able to access "a variety of
entertainment, communications and building automations." It sounds
like paradise for the rich, right?  To keep out all those poor,
begging intruders, the computer will control sophisticated security
systems (programmed to kill any foreign intruders).  So the feudal
kings are beginning to rebuild their castle fortresses while  half
the world is starving to death.  Bill Gates and his Microserfs do
not have the saving vision for the saving vision must be a plan to
save everyone.

     I see a different kind of global culture, Neutopia, being
built from the fruits of advanced technology and the wisdom of
ecology.  Through virtual reality, a new kind of community is
evolving. New kinds of human relationships are coming together as
people begin to bond to common interests, through email,
listserves, Usenet newsgroups, etc.  As you have said in a previous
letter, I am not a prototype for feeling alienation from Western
civilization.  There are people all over the world who feel the
same alienation, isolation, and loneliness as I do.  Those of us
who are online now have a way to reach each other.  We now can band
together in virtual space.  But is this the community that we need?
Can we live happy lives in a virtual world where we don't need to
physically touch the people who we love?  When we, peace comrades,
are so spread out all over the capitalist world, is virtual space
the only thing that we can hope for?  All I can say to this is that
it is difficult to live strictly in one's dream world and
imagination.  It is difficult to have virtual lovers in only the
mind and not in the flesh.

     Geertjan, I don't really know what the answer is.  I don't
feel like a free person, but a slave, powerless to change my
polluted environment, powerless to move beyond the single-family
house, powerless to follow my dreams and make them real. I have no
desire to follow the liberal cause, but to start an organization of
Neutopian thinkers who can also see their unique way the Solar
Jerusalem.  I don't have all the pieces to the puzzle of life.  How
to start a mass movement so that we will have the energy and
enthusiasm to begin to build arcologies is still a mystery to me.
This is the saving vision I see for the world, but how to get
there?  Without true love in my life, I feel that I am blind.




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From: [e-mail] (Doctress Neutopia)
Newsgroups: alt.prose,alt.romance,alt.save.the.earth,alt.paranormal
Subject: THE JUDGE
Date: 8 Jul 1994 02:14:16 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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