trying to understand anarchy

Anarchy, like solipsism, is not something you can organize like minded people around.

Solipsism is the position that yours is the only conscious mind and that all others are somehow robotic projections. Anarchy, with it's fundamental ideas of total individual responsibility and no organized government, also refutes, by definition, the idea of an organization. Yet we have a group in Santa Cruz that is actively trying to put that square peg in the proverbial round hole.

In a recent news article about an anarchist info meeting, one member was quoted as saying: "Collectively, we have power to design how our lives look." Collectively, to me, means some organization and governance. You can't have it both ways. A true anarchist isn't going to respect a group vote that he doesn't agree with.

But, even if we could wiggle past these deep inconsistencies, could anything even resembling anarchy actually work in the real world?

Without a government and all that entails, we would have no common money--only barter--, no schools, no roads and no police or military. While no police or military rings nicely with anarchists, think about no one to stop someone from robbing you or some teen from driving drunk at 100 miles per hour. Any country could attack us with impunity.

Like most of us, I kind of like anarchy applied to myself, but I'm not comfortable with it for every questionable character I pass on the street.

How about assigning our taxes?

My long distance provider, CREDO, has customers vote each year on which environmental and social organizations the company profits are donated to. We can vote by organization, by percent.

Wouldn't it be a great idea if we could do the same with our taxes? There could be an additional page at the end of our tax form, listing the various things our government spends money on, and each of us could assign our money by percentage.

I could see a list that includes: transportation, education, infrastructure, public safety, consumer protection, environmental protection, parks, forests and beaches, and war.

When faced with the choices, seeing things like the gulf oil spill, the Wall Street meltdown and our seemingly endless involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, where might each of us put our check marks?

I suspect that many of us, myself included, would opt for spending the money to make things better at home: create jobs, clean up our water supplies, fix our roads, educate our kids and keep up our national parks.

When forced to think about it, we see that there is only so much money and that something is going to get short changed. We'd have to vote our priorities.

Then, how many people would vote to send the lion's share of our national wealth to the middle east to try to, well, what exactly are we trying to do?

I'm guessing that the military's share would be much smaller.

Israel/Palestine and a thought-provoking short film

The Israel/Palestine issue has polarized our communities, and the emotions run high and usually in black and white. I saw a short film recently that shed some light on the people behind the headlines.

On the Road To Tel Aviv opens with a bunch of ordinary folks on a bus. A suicide bomber boards and blows the bus up. Next, a playful scene with a young couple in bed. She has to get back to the university, and her boyfriend is driving her to the bus.

She boards a small shuttle bus, and as the boyfriend starts to leave, he sees a young Muslim woman in thick layers of clothes and carrying a big carpet bag get on the bus. He's concerned and tries go get the girl to disembark. At the same time, a middle aged mother with two daughters catches what's going on, and she panics. Soon everyone gets off the bus except the Muslim woman, who is sitting, silently staring straight ahead.

An argument ensues, and the middle aged woman becomes hysterical, demanding the driver search the Muslim. He refuses, and one of the passengers is a soldier with a rifle. There is a scuffle over the rifle, and finally the driver says he isn't searching anyone, and he is an Arab and has been driving for 30 years, has a family and doesn't want to die either. He assures everyone that there is no terrorist on board, and slowly, reluctantly, they all board again.

As the bus is about to leave, a pregnant woman wants on the full bus, so the girlfriend gives up her seat and walks away with the boyfriend. The bus pulls away, and the film ends with the young couple walking up to a regular city bus.

We expect something to blow up, but it doesn't. Maybe one of the busses will, maybe not. Maybe the mother was just hysterical, maybe just reacting to the recent bombings. Maybe the young Muslim woman was an innocent girl feeling intimidated, or perhaps she had explosives in her bag. We don't know what's behind the exterior of these people, and the point is that neither do each other.

How do ordinary people go about the ordinary things of daily life with all the fear, uncertainty and inability to trust the person sitting next to them? Do we become hysterical or stoic, brash or frightened?

The film gave the audience a taste of the range of feelings of these people, and the uncertainty, but it couldn't bring it all the way home to a country where no one thinks twice about getting on a bus.

There is no black and white here. There are many shades of grey, and it is very complicated.

The campaigns from hell

I'm tempted not to vote. Admittedly, mud slinging political campaigns are nothing new, but, and maybe I'm just getting more sensitive to it, it seems that it has become nastier and more continual. I don't know what annoys me the most, the primary campaign for the Republican nomination for Governor or out local Democratic campaign for assembly.

The Republican contest seems to be about who is not far right enough. Any detour from the unthinking Fox News position is seen as degenerate, and the two front runners slam each other hourly.

At our local assembly race, it seems the only things these people haven't accused each other of is poisoning pigeons in the park and having sex with small animals.

The rest of the races and issues are just as bad, and quite frankly, I'm sick of the whole lot of them. No real problems are going to be fixed because they aren't even being discussed. Perhaps it is because these candidates haven't a clue about the nature of the real problems or their possible solutions.

Protesters and the need for personal meaning

The confrontation between Israel and the activists attempting to bring supplies to Gaza is, at least, a complex mix of international diplomacy, national security and public relations. It certainly isn't a black and white, simplistic issue, in spite of the sign-carrying protesters that have sprung up almost everywhere.

I'm not against activists gathering with marches and signs. It works well to stop pesticide spraying near the local school, getting your local polluted stream cleaned up, getting the state to provide funds for education or fire protection and even, although much less effective, to protest a nine-year-long war, where the decision makers are thousands of miles away.

People who are passionate about the Israel/Palestine issue, people who probably have never been there nor personally know anyone living in those areas, and yet turn out for every protest march, are a different group, and I have to reconsider their motivations.

One idea I've come up with, and it may only be one of several factors, is that everyone has a need to find meaning in his or her life. Some find it in religion, their careers or their families. I suspect that some people, lacking other sources of meaning, find it by becoming passionate protesters, whether their moral and ethical high has much to do with the realities of the situation or not.