January 31, 2010 archive

  On January 29, 1911, a small band of 18 revolutionaries marched into Mexicali and seized the town, practically without firing a shot. Thus began one of the most unusual and controversial episodes in Mexican history.

 These revolutionaries were not the typical warlords that Mexico was used to seeing. These revolutionaries had American volunteers, but not the sort of filibusters that Baja California was already very familiar with. In fact, this revolutionary movement had little in common with anything Mexico had experienced before or since.

 These revolutionaries weren’t interested in just overthrowing the corrupt and repressive government, they wanted to overthrow society as well.

One thing I am always impressed about on Docudharma is how we not only talk about how to change the political system that currently exists but how to upend it using disruptive politics, technologies and techniques.

We talk about restoring the centrality of community to our lives.  It is this concept of community which, many of us feel, will provide a needed bulwark against the depredation of corporate feudalists and looters.

The social aspect of community, and what Americans are lacking in that regard, is well established and has been for a long time.

It’s not my favorite genre of music, but the best example of exactly what I think of as wrong in terms of American community or lack thereof goes like this:

And, if you think about it this way, the fact that our culture is sick and overrun with parasitism begins to make sense if you think about it in an organic way.

For decades, we have had a monoculture of American expectations .. what Americans are supposed to do, how Americans are supposed to live.

But one thing you learn about in Biology 101, is that monocultures die out.  Why do they die out?  Because they are far more vulnerable to predation by parasites.  Any given parasite can more easily infect and destroy a population if that population is the same than if there are many different and varied populations.