Here's a link I'll probably be plugging more and more in the coming days: politicalmonkey.blogspot.com, former colleague of mine. He's off to the races as well:

I've spent the last 15 months talking about how unemployment among 18-29 year olds is double the national average, and how we were getting screwed by Bush. But I was doing it from a kind of ivory tower, a safe place where I could talk about policy and politics from the perch of a cushy job. That's not the case any longer and its strange to be on the other side of this equation now - experiencing it even as I talk about it.

I think this will make for some good blogging.

Solid, man. Solid. That's what we've got to be. Prioritization and planning, that's the word of the day. And cleaning my room. Austerity is coming along just fine -- I'm about to go to Trader Joes, pick up some staples plus some pure cranberry juice and goldenseal and whole oats. Getting cleaned out, then maybe even start lifting some weights in the backyard, some recreational bike riding.

Got to map out all the projects, figure what comes first; what's infrastructure, what's the bread, what's the butter. Briefly, I'm looking at three or four things going forward: some political/technology consulting, some long-form writing, starting up a big new art project with a bunch of peoples from New York, and preparing for an epic summer road trip. Inside all that there's a lot to be figured out. Synergies abound. I should get some big paper and just draw it.

Anyway, I'm a bit of a jumble. I'm considering myself on semi-vacation for the next few weeks. That will mean re-organizing and re-designing this website for starters, so there might be some downtime. Hopefully not. We'll see.

We need more life about each other. Light creates understanding. Understanding creates love. Love creates patience, and Patience creates unity.

-- Malcom X

Or did I just blow your fucking mind? It's not what most people expect to hear from brother Malcom, but there it is. That man was deep. What a blogger he would have been.

I've got my work cut out for me. This one's optimistic, but the situation right now isn't good. It's not the end of the world, but there's certainly a bit more of a shadow over my vision. Tough living, these days.

In a quest for inspiration, I look back at some of the performance work I did hack right after 9/11, the spirit that was expressed then. In something I wrote between 9/11 and 9/13, I informed my audience that reality was in their hands to create as artists:

Change your reality, shave your head, move, eat a new food; or find a new fantasy, believe in love, in opportunity, in your fellow human. Either way you change your experience. Change your experience, change a lot of experiences, reclaim the dignity of a lot of experiences, and you can change a lot of reality. Then you too can move the heavens and the earth.

--And I'm Not Fucking Around

That's right, man! Justify your existence! A month later trying to put my theory into practice I presented a character based on the homeless man who fix bycicles, including mine, in the East Villiage, as well as my own naiscent philosophy of change and politics.

Yeah well, you know, it's like... if you could figure out how things are changing though, like the code to change, like the rhythm, yeah the, the wavelength - there's a, there's a wave of change, and you could hop up on that shit. You could surf that change, you know, bust some serious Big Kahuna Che Guevara moves.

Man you could get it together, the change, like all the spare change lying around, get it together and it's a real thing. Change, man. Real change. Real-World change. Real-world "change the world" Change.

-- The Best I Can

Viva Che! That one was scored to Radiohead's Optimistic, quite a stirring tune if I don't say so myself. I had it played live on acoustic guitar and told jokes with my musician as part of the performance.

Anyway, the point is that at the end of the day, these are things I still really believe in. I believe in the social revolution, and I believe that the political process is a part of it. They can be complimentary elements rather than antagonists. I believe that by changing enough hearts, we can simply prevail by our energy, without having to destroy other lives.

The question is, how do we do it?

Newly unemployed, I ponder the possibilities for future work. Free of obligations for the moment my imagination is in high gear for what might be done with the summer. After visiting with Luke and Mark it would appear the Great Summer Road Trip is on. That entails having a savings, which means holding on to as many of the assets I currently have banked as possible.

But there's the question of how I'll live in the meantime. Not just what I'll do, but how I'll maintain on my college (and post-college credit card) debt. I also have a dead screen on my powerbook, which presents a kind of a problem, or at least a kind of a cost.

Consulting is a no-brainer, but I'd really rather not have to file a complex tax form for 2004. If I could put any consulting revenue off (and I could) to 2005, that would make this years taxes EZ to file, and I'd probably get some of the $5k in fed+state withholding back even.

There's also the issue of unemployment insuarance, and whether I want to make a run at that. What if I get a temp job or some consulting for a little while. Can I still fall back on it if the other work dries up? Have to investigate all the options.

Oooh, or maybe I could message. Proj proj proj... that would probably get me into shape pretty quick if nothing else. I could also make tech house calls like I did in college. That's usually under the table. Crappy seasonal employment (working at the mall!) is always an option, as would be temping. I think the best would be consulting that paid out starting in 2005, and maybe some bartending or something to save me from dipping into savings in the short term.

Those things tend to be very connected to social networks though, and I don't have the ins or the (professional) experience. Still, Nascera says I should use my looks while I've got 'em. Anyone know any bartending shifts I can pick up, preferably at a place where I can meet some women and where they'll keep me off the books?

My life is taking a turn. What it all means practically will emerge and be dutifully explored in short order, but for now I want to explain how it feels. Ready for an extended Led Zeppelin allegory?

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913):
Levee Lev"ee, v. t.
   To keep within a channel by means of levees; as, to levee a
   river. [U. S.]

Yeah. Here we go.

If it keeps on raining, the levee's gonna break

I'm unemployed. "Involuntary Termination: Reducting in force/Layoff." It was bound to happen sooner or later, and to be honest it's not all that bad. I'm relishing the freedom, looking foward to having my life back, and working on unpacking the learning on bureaucratic maneuvering I should absorb out of all of this. Time to revisit the Art of War, as Peter always told me to do.

I'm a hired gun again, with which I'm pretty comfortable. Still, the whole way it went down was unpleasant and draining. This one's optimistic, but forsooth I need a little time and mouthwash before I can really dig into anything with a fair mind.

When The Levee Breaks I'll have no place to stay

Something new will come along shortly, I'm sure, but for now it's austerity time: three meals at home, sit down with Excel and make a budget, start looking for cheap ways to stay entertained and engaged, start looking for gigs. Lucky(?) for all y'all that probably means a lot more blogging (here and elsewhere), and lucky(?) for some other people out there I'm free to ramble around like a busy bee, cross polinating and making honey as I may.

Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home

It came down to a relationship analogy. I wanted to be in love or I wanted to break up, so we broke up. Maybe there will be some consulting. That's cool. I enjoy dating, and conversation is one of my favorite ways to pass the time. But I'm not going to be in a relationship I don't believe in, and especially not one where I feel I'm in some sense being abused.

That being said, I didn't handle any of it especially well. Others fucked up royally, but I blew it as well; lots to learn about how to try to make change from within an organization going forward. I feel especially bad as I may have cost some other people their jobs as well, though this remains to be seen. Hopefully everyone will come out a winner.

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move

Crises precipitate change. Crisis is opportunity. Mamma, you got to move. There are a lot of things I care about in this world, a lot of things I'd like to get done. I was doing some of them this past year, but a lot of the time I felt like I was fighting with one hand behind my back, in an ill-fitting suit (even though I didn't have to wear one); working against the current or something. I was cozy up next to some powerful folks for a while, and I made a lot of new connections, allies, friends even... but the way it was going wasn't really how I wanted to flow. It wasn't entirely True, which gets my dander up. Idealist and optimise me, always asking, "why not the best?"

It's messier this way, sure, but maybe it's the only way things could happen. For me, that seems to be the case. Again, my biggest regret has to do with other people who might have caught some mean wake off this move, or that the organization might capsize. The latter is unlikely -- too much value there to squander -- but I worry that my own exit has made it difficult or impossible for other people to reconcile their situations.

All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin' about me baby and my happy home

There are tradeoffs in life; choices, decisions, two roads diverged in a yellow wood. But I've read Faust. I don't want to make that bargan. Faust got fucked, you know? His compromise was perminant, and you can't sell your soul for tomorrow's good time and expect it all to work out. Ask a crackhead, or Kenneth Lay for that matter. It's not how I operate.

In the end the repulsive force was getting stronger and the attractive force was getting weaker. We broke up, me and Music For America. We're still going to be friends, but I'm out again, looking for the right fit.

So in the mean time I get control over my life and my words back. Expect a flood of repressed confessional content. Expect plans and proclimations. Expect reorganization, ground-breaking, unfettered imagination. Expect more of the best. I'm going to be happy.

For now I'm off to welcome my main man Mark back to these United States from a lengthy stay in Chile. More later. Stand strong.

Their campaign is called "God is Still Speaking" and CBS and NBC have refused to air it because it's all about the UCC's opennes to people of all races and sexual orientations.

"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other
minority groups by other individuals and organizations," reads an explanation from CBS, "and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and
UPN] networks."

So CBS openly admits that the President's agenda now determines what is acceptable for broadcast on their stations. Have they no shame?

I'm Metafiltered, termed "itinerant bohemia actuator, actor and web designer/activist," by a former co-worker of mine from back in the days of NYU reslife. As the kids say, w00t.

London Free Press: Bush will skip Parliament during visit

American officials involved in planning the trip were worried about a cranky audience on Parliament Hill, sources said.

"We didn't see the need and, frankly, we didn't want to be booed. There are other, better venues," said one U.S. official.

"Other, better venues" seems to mean a "gala dinner" with "hundreds of prominent Canadians."

Wonder if they have to sign loyalty oaths.

I'm leaving New York tomorrow afternoon. Tonight I'm going to see The Motercycle Diaries with Frank and then hitting the Grassroots Tavern for a final round with my friends. It's been an interesting couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to getting back here in a more situated way, starting things up. It's no time for a quarter-life crisis, but that seems to be where I'm headed.

I'm tentatively planning on closing things out in San Francisco and then heading back to Oregon for a month of rent-free living: space and time to rest, reflect, and ruminate. I'll write in my paper journal, join the Y for a month, take a trip up to Portland to see all those good folks, and hopefully come out of it all with more of a plan for myself. The number of people who have given me "life advice" in the past week tells me I need one. Not that I'm not appreciative of people's words of wisdom, faith and guidance; I just don't have enough vision for myself to effectively process it at the moment.

Oh yeah. I'll write more about this upcoming. You can be sure of that.

I've been reading Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley by John Gaventa. It's an in-depth investigation into the oppression of coal-mining folk, a real hard look at how people get screwed over. I'm digesting it along with The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi. Both were gifts from Luke, and I'm working on some new writing partly inspired by these works, and by Dewey's "The Public and it's Problems". And by Kierkegaard's diaries. And my own experience this past year or so. Woof.

But all that BS aside, here's something that's so goddamn useful you can't even fucking believe it -- Gaventa's breakdown of the three dimensions of power and how they act in an oppressive or oppositional context between two actors:

(Larger Readable Image or PDF version)

This diagram was set up to explain how a dominant power maintains its power, but you can relatively easily reverse-engineer the situation to figure out what to do if you're the one being fucked with. For instance, let's take a walk through this looking at the two-party system of American self-governance at the national level.

As it stands, Democrats are completely out of power in all three dimensions. These dimensions are explained in the 1, 2 and 3 boxes across the top row:

1. Prevalence of Republicans through superior bargaining resources: Pretty obvious. They control the White House and Congress. They have secretaries of state who will mess with the number and quality of voting machines in minority districts for partisan gain. They're working on the Supreme Court. Nuff said.
2. Construction of barriers against participation of Democrats (through non-decisions, invoking of mobilization of bias): this has some more wonky language here. Basically it means creating impediments to participation by convincing people it's not worth it, or by mobilizing their biases to misdirect or disenfranchise them. Runs from "soft" voter suppression (misinformation, cynicism, "let them decide" attitude) to the phenomena of people voting against their own interests for "moral" reasons.
3. Influencing or shaping the consciousness of Democrats about inequalities (through myths, information control, ideologies, etc): they're kicking ass at message, they have a better media machine, they have dominated the conventional wisdom and framed the debate.

So the Democrats are taking a pounding. Their task is to proceed along the bottom row from right to left: formulating issues and strategies, mobilizing on those issues to act upon the barriers, and then moving into open political conflict with competing resources over clearly defined issues. The challenges they must overcome are on the 4, 5, 6 line.

This is where it gets interesting. In this past election, the Dems defeat was not due to a lack of resources (4). Historically, they are are outspent and out-organized by Republicans to a significant degree, but not so in this election. A case can, and should, be made that their defeat was partially based on the failure to succeed at point 7 just below point 4. The conflict (the election) was not fought over clearly defined issues, and not entirely with competing resources. Specifically, Kerry voted for the war before he voted against it, and there are a number of corporate interests who finance both parties.

However, I see the real meat of the Democrats defeat in the 5 and 6 zone. "Non-participation of Democrats due to barriers and due to anticipated defeat." While voter turnout was up, it wasn't as high as some hoped. It's widely understood that Kerry failed to generate widespread and/or sustained enthusiasm with the base, and many Democrats began privately anticipating defeat several years in advance. Also, while it's unclear whether vote suppression was the decisive factor in the election, it was clearly a contributing factor in at least two key states.

Which brings us finally to box 6, which is where the Democrats take a pants-down spanking. "Susceptibility to myths, ideologies, legitimations, sense of powerlessness, uncritical or multiple consciousness about issues and actions..." Oh man. We all know that one. It is from this abject loss of control over the third dimension of power that all the other failures spring.

So, Democrats, liberals, progressives; whatever you call yourselves, you're down there in the corner with a lot of work to do.

In case you were wondering, I'm right there with you. I'll have more on this in the coming days and weeks, but I think it's helpful just to realize where we are.

P.S. It's also worth noting that the three dimensions of power have many other applications, and this diagram of challenge and response can be applied to any A vs. B conflict. People vs. Corporations. US vs. Terrorist Networks. Any zero-sum conflict (e.g. one in which a negotiated compromise is off the table) between two parties (where a balance of power cannot be created) will play out along these lines. For instance, if you look at US vs. Terrorist Networks, it seems clear that while the US retains the upper hand in the first order of power, it has clearly lost the advantage in the second and third orders, and given that the chances that the Terrorist Networks will be defeated through a lack of resources seems slim. Ooof.

I could go on like this, but it's Saturday. Have a good one.