DID THE UNABOMBER TING-A-LING WHEN I WAS OUT (OF MY MIND)?
by Richard Oxman

-You must imagine for yourself what the condition of society is under these circumstances. It is nowhere; there is no society. Any appearance of social convenience that may be found is a mere temporary and temporizing expedient by which men cheat themselves to believe they are not savages.- — Frederick Law Olmsted on S. Francisco

-There's gonna be lots of Mau Mau in the homes of American cities –violence way above and beyond what's going on right now– and neither the police nor the military will be able to rescue the privileged. Look at members of your own family –their conflicting attitudes– if you want to be brought up to speed about the possibilities of societal Hope, avoidance of ecocide.- — A (Great Great) relative of Olmsted's in S.F. the other day

Jump down to the (p)lucky 13th paragraph if you don't really like to read (holding onto flowers).

The last time I wrote (-Activist To Do List-), I posted the article on my website quickly so that people I had met at a Derrick Jensen talk on the 29th of March would have something very relevant waiting for them-something to digest immediately. A number of people had come up to me following my contribution during the event's Q&A, expressing much interest in following through with doing something new about the horror Derrick had delineated, delineates incessantly. And I had suggested they start with a review of my site.

Where are they?

Again, I'm all alone by the telephone. In a scenario that's much worse than anything Irving Berlin could ever have imagined.

Unlike my very disappointing performance at a recent Ward Churchill Q&A in San Jose (A), I had found my way with Derrick's audience-so that the stirrings of connection seemed viable, the beginnings of necessary bonding for bringing down/slowing down Our -Civilized- Momentum appeared-to appear. I fantasized that-finally-I might be able to muster together the beginnings of a Core Group for Causing Trouble, forcing change.

So near yet so far. So far there's no ring, no ting-a-ling. Only ping pong, back and forth, among the Self-Conscious Socially Conscious. The Bored and Boring who claim they're trying to bore a whole lot into Injustice Mountain. Claimants to a Peaceful World.

That without having to give up much. Without having to renounce any Ground of Being. Sans the use of any shiv to cut out the heart from so-called -privileges- of Western Civ.

It can't be done. We're done

Those of you who don't know the thrust of Lewis Mumford (B), the gist of joking, dead-serious Derrick are missing something very special. Those who do and chose to do zero about someone like me making overtures in the name of action in solidarity are not very special. In fact, the latter fall into the general category of General Liability. Typical.

And those who reject Derrick's work outright, –say, the upcoming Endgame (C)– the plea for one and all to stop Our -Civilized- Momentum dead in its tracks/prepare for its demise-by any means necessary are much too much-common.

That's why there's No Hope (D).

I've been at this quite awhile, trying to drum up some kind of meaningful (PHYSICAL) movement in solidarity. But before push even comes to shove, my lovely co-activists/concerned citizens disappear. And one doesn't hear even a murmur of genuine dissent, let alone resistance, from The Very Tiny Group of The Very Informed. Not unless you want to count the silly sound and fury of The Politically Correct, Safe Voices of Futility. (E)

Hi, I'm Paragraph Thirteen-and I'm here to introduce Reasons Why We Should (Whoa! There's the phone; you read on and I'll be right back, ok?)-:

1) Little humility.
2) Little knowledge.
3) Less trustworthiness.
4) Much habit. As in habitual behavior, being On Automatic.
5) Insufficient recognition, spotlight, career advancement; take your pick.
6) Insufficient funds.
7) Overly depleted; absent even if present.
8) Overextended, no follow-through.
9) Through; psychologically defeated.
10) Spiritually untreated.

I'm back. The call was from some Theodore doing a survey for some corporation. (F)
Not being a candidate for hands-on dam detonation myself, I'm tempted to offer up a hand job to someone else-to get on with the dirty work. But the prospect of providing blowjobs for blowing up Overblown Civilization gives me Premature Aging when I gauge The Movement, and note that all the tremulous rebels are jerking off somewhere.

To paraphrase and twist Wallace Stevens, one must have a mind of frozen thoughts to contemplate -winning- in what is already worse than a Nuked Winter Society. One must be out of one's mind. The Unabomber's out to lunch, and he's not coming back to work.

Contrary to what a lot of people think, socially-conscious contact these days, for the most part, transmits disease. An infection called Delusion.

Perhaps we all should reconcile the meaning of this macabre mental masturbation of The Movement with the bowels of our beings. Put our heads between our legs and kiss our collective asses goodbye, embracing the most appropriate Chakra for the moment, if we like.

There's zero like doing what must be done-alone. Like dying.
Footnote Letters:

A) Very curious howWard did not make it clearer that old paradigms for protest were dead-in-the-water, and that urgency of action respecting ecocide was a priority. The evening wound up being a routine gathering, not at all tailored to help first-timers or know-it-alls to direct their energies, address their doubts. My own pathetically failed contribution during Q&A must have been infected by the atmosphere, rife with -rushing- and personal gushing. But my guess is that –at my best– a spot-on-target blah blah wouldn't have made the slightest difference. One lingering question, however, has to do with how Churchill's feeling these days.

B) Mumford's Megamachine is beautifully visualized by Gray Brachin in -Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin- as a pyramid -whose base consists of mechanization, metallurgy, militarism, and moneymaking-and whose apex is mining.- I say -beautiful- in the sense that the description penetrates to the soul, crying out for acknowledgement of what we have wrought, what we still support with our privileged life. There is no possibility of -advancement- without our dealing with the degradation of mining through direct action. And that is something that is on too few tables for discussion. Activists are preoccupied with various -occupations- in a way which precludes addressing the underlying causes for them; that'd be the bases for Modern Civilization.

C) Please see me about details respecting Derrick's body of work; in some cases I can forward copies of his books for free. -Endgame- (Parts I and II) will begin to hit the stands in June, as I understand it. As per Seven Stories Press. I'll be interviewing him in April, thank goodness. A prayer for his good health, please.

D) Anyone who harbors -hope- in the (Mainstream) mundane vein is ignorant. Stupid, possibly. The challenge now is to entertain where one is at/can be at-if there's -no hope- within The Alternative Community.

E) For Christ's Sake! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease tell me what good all the redundant articles are doing these days. Once again, there is no time to lay sterile seeds in the ground; to emulate the pace of the Sixties or Thirties-or to apply templates from the 19th century. Watching Larry David's wife (I'm sorry that I've forgotten her name) last night on Nightline blow an opportunity to reach millions of viewers-by harping on the ills of Hummers (as if we don't know about that felt-difficulty) in the Hollywood Hills-recalled the recent Churchill waste-of-time I referred to above; there's no time to go about socially-conscious matters routinely-sans innovative forms of communication.

(F) Actually, if Kaczynski were released I really don’t think he’d be embracing anything corporate.

Richard Oxman, info@parisgraves.com, is all alone by the telephone in Los Gatos, CA.