060405

 

San Antonio, TX

Saturday June 4, 2005

     6:28pm  I crashed out hard this morning. I woke up at three today. I've been downloading warez for days now. I'm getting kind of paranoid that maybe I shouldn't be downloading so many things at the same time. They're all hitting good speeds. I'm just going to keep going. Screw it. I'm fearless. My sister just brought me to Walmart. I'm going to catch the bus to Medical Center. I'm going to go downtown. I didn't get downtown yesterday, so I'm going to go downtown today. I have a dollar for busfare from my sister. I have to go to the Walgreen's and get another dogface picture printed out. I lost one of them. This stick is just awesome. I love it. I got some weed and I got a whole pack of cigarettes from Alma last night. Everything is going my way.

     6:34pm  I got on the 606 at Walmart.

                   Page 326 Myths and Inventions

MYTHS AND INVENTIONS

                   No one today, from the experts in the White House or the Kremlin to the proverbial man in the street, can be sure how the new world system will shake out—what new kinds of institutions will arise to provide regional or global order. But it is possible to dispel several popular myths.

                   The first of these is the myth propagated by such films as Rollerball and Network, in which a steely-eyed villain announces that the world is, or will be, divided up and run by a group of transnational corporations. In its most common form this myth pictures a single worldwide Energy Corporation, a single Food Corporation, a single Housing Corporation, a single Recreation Corporation, and so forth. In a variant, each of these is seen as a department of an even larger mega-corporation.

                   This simplistic image is based on straight-line extrapolations from Second Wave trends: specialization, maximization, and centralization.

                   Not only does this view fail to take into account the fantastic diversity of of real life conditions, the^ clash of cultures, religions, and traditions in the world, the speed of change, and the historic thrust now carrying the high-technology nations toward de-massification; not only does it naively presuppose that such needs as energy, housing, or food can be neatly compartmentalized; it ignores the fundamental changes now revolutionizing the structure and purpose of the corporation itself. It is based, in short, on an obsolete, Second Wave image of what a corporation is and how it is structured.

                   The other, closely related fantasy pictures a planet run by a single, centralized World Government. This is usually imagined as an extension of some existing institution or government—a "United States of the World," a "Planetary Proletarian State," or simply the United Nations writ large. Again the thinking is based on simplistic extensions of Second Wave principles.

                   What appears to be emerging is neither a corporation-dominated future nor a global government but a far more complex system similar to the matrix organizations we saw springing up in certain advanced industries. Rather than one or a few pyramidal global bureaucracies, we are weaving nets or matrices that mesh different kinds of organizations with common interests.

                   We may, for example, see the emergence over the next decade of an Oceans Matrix, composed not solely of nation-states but of regions, cities, corporations, environmental organizations, scientific groups, and others with an interest in the sea. As changes occur new groupings would emerge and plug into the matrix, while others would drop out. Similar organizational structures may well emerge—are, in some sense, already emerging—to deal with other issues: a Space Matrix, a Food Matrix, a Transport Matrix, an Energy Matrix, and the like, all flowing into and out of one another, overlapping and forming a messily open, rather than a neatly closed, system.

                   In short, we are moving toward a world system composed of units densely interrelated like the neurons in a brain rather than organized like the departments of a bureaucracy.

                   As this happens, we can expect a tremendous struggle to break out within the United Nations over whether that organization shall remain a "trade association of nation-states" or whether other types of units— regions, perhaps religions, even corporations or ethnic groups—should be represented in it.

                   As nations are torn apart and restructured, as JTNCs and other new factors move onto the global scene, as instabilities and the threats of war erupt, we shall be called upon to invent wholly new political forms or "containers" to bring a semblance of order to the world—a world in which the nation-state has become, for many purposes, a dangerous anachronism."

                   I'm just going to suggest the whole book to read. If I sit here and make notes of all the good parts, I'll end up copying out the whole entire book. Everybody and their grandma needs to read this book. It blows my mind. I wish I had The New Powershift on paper so I could read it while I'm traveling. I have it on the computer, but not the patience to read it on the computer.

                   Page 328, Gandhi with Satellites. Damn good chapter. The first part is really good.

GANDHI WITH SATELLITES

                   "Convulsive shudders" . . . "unexpected uprising'* . . . "wild swings" ... The headline writers search frantically for terms to describe what they perceive as mounting world disorder. The Islamic uprising hi Iran stuns them. The sudden reversal of Maoist policies in China, the collapse of the dollar, the new militancy of the poor countries, outbreaks of rebellion in El Salvador or Afghanistan are all seen as startling, random, unconnected events. The world, we are told, is careening toward chaos.

                   Yet much that appears anarchic is not. The eruption of a new civilization on the earth could not but shatter old relationships, overthrow regimes, and send the financial system spiraling. What seems like chaos is actually a massive realignment of power to accommodate the new civilization.

                   We will look back on today as the twilight of Second Wave civilization, and be saddened by what we see. For as it came to a close, industrial civilization left behind a world hi which one quarter of the species lived in relative affluence, three quarters in relative poverty—and 800,000,000 hi what the World Bank terms "absolute" poverty. Fully 700,000,000 people were underfed and 550,000,000 illiterate. An estimated 1,200,000,000 human beings remained without access to public health facilities or even safe, drinkable water, as the industrial age ended.

                   It left behind a world hi which some 20 to 30 industrialized nations depended on the hidden subsidies of cheap energy and cheap raw materials for much of then* economic success. It left a global infrastructure-—the International Monetary Fund, GATT, the World Bank, and COMECON—which regulated trade and finance for the benefit of the Second Wave powers. It left many of the poor countries with one-crop economies twisted to serve the needs of the rich.

                   The rapid emergence of the Third Wave not only foreshadows the end of the Second Wave imperium, it also explodes all our conventional ideas about ending poverty on the planet.

THE SECOND WAVE STRATEGY

                   Ever since the late 1940's a single dominant strategy has governed most efforts to reduce the gap between the world's rich and poor. I call this the Second Wave strategy.

                   This approach starts with the premise that Second Wave societies are the apex of evolutionary progress and that, to solve their problems, all societies must replay the industrial revolution essentially as it happened in the West, the Soviet Union, or Japan. Progress consists of moving millions of people out of agriculture into mass production. It requires urbanization, standardization, and all the rest of the Second Wave package. Development, in brief, involves the faithful imitation of an already successful model.

                   Scores of governments in country after country have, in fact, tried to carry out this game plan. A few, like South Korea or Taiwan, where special conditions prevail, appear to be succeeding in establishing a Second Wave society. But most such efforts have met with disaster.

                   These failures in one impoverished country after another have been blamed on a mind-bending multiplicity of reasons. Neo-colonialism. Bad planning. Corruption. Backward religions. Tribalism. Transnational corporations. The CIA. Going too slowly. Going too fast. Yet, whatever the reasons, the grim fact remains that industrialization according to the Second Wave model has flopped far more frequently than it has succeeded.

     7:04pm  I just got off on the 91. I forgot to tell you when I got to University Hospital I saw Stephanieann. She's so pretty. I had said hi to her and she asked me if I still had her number. I'm going to give her a call one of these days. Maybe tomorrow, maybe tonight. I don't know.

     7:35pm  I'm downtown.

     7:48pm  I ran into Sean, the guy from Alaska(4-23-05, 5th paragraph). We're going to go smoke some marijuana.

                   Sean: "Some good upper quality commercial grade marijuana. Still Mexican Sativa but with a decent flavor and aroma."

     8:34pm  Sean and I found a little corner to sit and smoke some weed at. He's telling me about Bob Dobbs. Look up Bob Dobbs and The Church of the Sub Genius.

     8:51pm  Sean and I walked over to my statue 

on The Riverwalk. You know, the one of San Antonio that looks just like me. We sat down close by and smoked some weed. We came back up to street level. I lost my marijuana strobe. I need to get a new one.

     10:19pm  Tommy wants me to meet him in Travis Park on Monday at three.

     10:26pm  Oh yeah, I ran into Tommy(5-7-05, 12:52pm). He told me, "I'm always looking for you in the park. You're like my favorite person." He told me to meet him Monday in the park. He asked me, "What do you need? Beer? Cigarettes? Weed? Money?" I told him, "Well, since you are offering, nobody is paying me to do this. A little cash would help me out on my travel soon." He told me to meet him Monday and he would hook me up for the cause.

     10:39pm  I jumped on the 88 lineup. It only goes as far as Bandera and Hillcrest.

     10:55pm  I just got dropped off on Bandera and Hillcrest.

                     I'm not really trying to bring world peace. I am willing it into existence.

     11:10pm  I was speed-walking and I thought, "Hey, I could probably hit Planet K on Evers before midnight." I am estimating 11:30 at least. Maybe I can go tell some stories.

                     I'm already over by Evers and Bandera. I'm speed-walking. I love this stick.

     11:20pm  Walking in front of Pat Neff Middle School. My older sister Diana went here.

     11:28pm  I'm going to go hit up The Sahara. The restaurant connected to the Mediterranean store on Evers. They've always hooked me up.

     11:29pm  The guy inside told me, "We're closed, sorry. Come in the morning and we'll hook you up."

     11:30pm  Planet K. Just like I said. I called that. I walked fast.

     11:32pm  I woke up my mom when I called her from Planet K, so I guess I'm walking all the way home. I'm hungry though. I want to get a taco from somewhere.

     11:48pm  I tried to tell my story to one guy at PK. He listened to the first part but wouldn't listen after that. Then I tried telling this one girl in a car that just pulled up and she said, "Yeah, sure!" I told her, "Can I wait until your friend comes out so she can hear too?" She said, "Yeah, she'd probably enjoy this." Her friend came outside and she told me she had to go. I told her I would tell her next time I saw her.

                     I'm going to walk Evers to Huebner. I'll be close to that taqueria that's been open this late before. The one my mom took me too a while back(1-27-05, 8:18pm). Maybe they'll be open because it's Saturday night. They'll hook me up. I'm hungry.

     12:15pm  I walked to Huebner already. Bandera is only a couple blocks away to the left.

                     Damnit, the taqueria wasn't open.

     12:49pm  I walked Bandera and I'm coming up on Guilbeau already. Wow. I'm playing around with the idea of going to hit Taco Cabana up for food. Ahh, I think I can make it all the way home. Then I thought, "I'm going to be real hungry on the way home." It doesn't hurt to ask.

     12:52pm  Screw Taco Cabana. They noticeably ignored me. I stood up there for about two or three minutes. Nobody told me anything. I guess they saw me and my stick and forgot about me. Screw that place. At least they saw me. I'm going to go see if I can get a free hotdog at the Citgo next door.

     1:11pm  Oh yeah, I'm at my mom's house already. It was awesome at the Citgo. They didn't hook me up at the Taco Cabana. They all ignored me. I went to the Citgo, but they didn't have any hotdogs inside. I refilled my water and went outside to smoke a cigarette. All of a sudden this guy recognized me. I didn't even get his name. He asked me, "Are you still walking the town? I see you everywhere." I asked him, "Have I ever told you my story? What I'm doing?" He went, "Yeah, you've told me your story." I said, "I was just checking." He pointed to my shirt and said, "You're going to make it happen." Then I asked him, "Hey, will you give me a ride up the street?" He gave me a ride to my mom's house. When he dropped me off he said, "Now you can say a Marine gave you a ride." Him and his friend were ignorant as hell though. They wouldn't let me finish. They all asked me, "Do you get any pussy?" I told them about Kati in Arcata and they asked me, "Did she let you stick it in her ass? I love girls who let me stick it in their ass." I told him, "Nah, man. There's shit in there."

                     It's so cool that I didn't have to walk. I was hungry.

Next day..