My brother came home, and I started to lag so I decided I’d update this instead of dying on RO.

I am starting to get addicted to RO again… as in playing RO alone… and grinding in Anubis isn’t as boring now. But, my week “off” is over and I need to get back into gear school-wise. Only 2 more weeks + finals, then Kev and I will be full-time back on RO (maybe.. Kev will prob still work though).

I was prepping for a day of making+leveling new characters, and ran into Kohi!

I first made an archer, named Pop`n Music (Pop’n Music was taken, but only if you have OCD like me you will notice)  who will eventually be an agi gypsy once she trans’ (eventually is the keyword…)

Kevin was hanging out on my high priest, while I leveled.  He was playing with the “I am t-pain” iphone app… oh autotune…

Kevin sang “I’m on a boat” and… I have never heard a nerdy white guy say mother f***er sooooo many times…….it was hilarious but at the same time I wanted to wash his mouth out with soap He emailed it to me, and I would share! except he told me not to. Ah Kevin is so cute haha.

After maybe half an hour, I changed to a dancer.

Kevin was playing with an Ocarina app too and made me guess what songs he played.  They were easy though because they were all from Ocarina of Time.

After Kev went to bed, I made a few other new characters like another Sage, who will eventually be a FS Scholar (which Kev is excited to play).  For now she’s a hindsight sage though – because they are fun 8D. I’m also happy no one had the name “Design” :B.

Also, after Gravity deleted my merchant 2 times since their server move… I finally made a new merchant for the alt account.  I pray and hope they have that bug fixed now.

Currently I’m leveling the SinX, and I will probably only get her to 7x during this event.. but we’ll see.

I also found HE BMs hiding on my H.Wiz! 8D yay.

Kevin Nealon comes in to promote his new book, “Yes, You’re Pregnant, But What About Me?”. They play a phony phone call that Kevin made. Great stories about how he got into Comedy! They also talk about Kevin attending Jennifer Aniston’s 40th birthday party. Order Sirius-XM and get the Howard Stern Show!

Part 1-5 in Order!

The past few days have been pretty busy around here.  It all started on Wednesday, when I put my oven to the test.  Three pecan pies, a pumpkin pie, a chocolate sheet cake and a maple pumpkin cheesecake (made by Joe) later, it was still heating happily.  And the smoke detector hadn’t gone off once.  Success!

On Thanksgiving, we loaded up the car and drove carefully out to Mom and Dad’s house, where we spent the day doing what we do on every holiday:  eating too much and drinking just enough.  It was lovely.

As wonderful as Thanksgiving was, Friday was the day we had all been waiting for.  Or maybe I was the only one who had been waiting so eagerly.

When I got my inspection done in July, one of the many things the nice man suggested I do was put new insulation in my attic.  Once I got up there and took a look myself, I saw why.

If you can look past the 60 years of attic dust, you can see the ceiling.  That’s right, in some places the insulation was just missing.

So on Friday, Kevin and Pat came over to remedy this problem.

They transformed this…

…into a fluffy pink winter wonderland.

Here are some pictures of the process.

Vendredi 27 février 2009

La nuit était chaude pour un mois de février. Mais mon sac est trop lourd, je n’ai plus la force d’avancer et encore moins de chercher le bus. Je décide donc de lever le bras droit et un taxi arriva. Tant pis pour l’argent, mais là, c’est à un cas de force majeur.

21h30 heure locale, soit une heure aprés mon arrivée à l’aéroport : j’arrive à l’auberge. De l’autre coté de la porte d’entrèe, des marches rouges s’élévent rendant l’aboutissement de cette journée encore plus longues, l’arrivée finale se fera au deuxième étage. Difficilement, je les gravis. à l’accueil, on me remet la clé de ma première chambre. J’entrouve la porte, une chemine bleue est suspendu au barreau d’un des six lits. Je partage ma chambre avec 2 hommes. La curiosité me poussent malgré la fatigue, à sortir pour voir à quoi ressemble San Diego un vendredi soir… Je me suis tous de suite sentie à l’aise dans cette ville. L’ambiance est appaissante, tout en étant festive. Je déambule sur la 5eme avenue au rythme d’American Boys (une chanson très tendance en ce moment).
22H30 : Ok, c’est bon je vais me coucher. Devant la porte de l’auberge, je rencontre un français qui m’embarque avec son groupe pour faire la tournée des bars. Je dois profiter de chaque instant. Je dormirai plus tard. Le groupe se compose de trois ou quatre français, une suisse, un danois, un allemand, et un couple d’anglais. Nous rentrons dans le premier pub. Je danse sur la piste endiablée un “jump around” avec un groupe composé de 8 personnes que je ne connais pas. à noter que le groupe de musicien a un look très kitch, crête et pantalon en velours rouge. Nous changeons de bar. Cela fait deux heures que mon errance a commencé. Le groupe se dissout au fur et à mesure et je me retrouve seule avec Kevin, un breton, nous parlons de litterature et de voyage tout en déambulant dans la nuit chaude les rues San Diego. Kevin m’embarque pour voir le van de son cousin, que l’on a par ailleurs jamais retrouvé. Il est 2h du matin, nous rentrons à l’auberge, installont dans la piéce commune de l’auberge. La piéce sombre accueillait déjà une partir du groupe, qui s’étaient disloqués pendant la soirée. Kevin me parle de son père décédé, j’ai l’impression de l’avoir déjà rencontré. Il décida de rester éveillé jusqu’à 4h30, pour rejoindre l’aéroport pour s’envoler vers New York. Je savais que c’était la dernière fois que nos routes se croiseront. Je lui souhaite une bonne nuit, et lui fait un signe de soutien de la main.
3h30 (samedi 28 mars) : je vais me coucher. Il y a neuf heures de décallage entre la Californie et la France. Il est donc théoriquement midi trente. J’entre dans ma chambre. Mes partenaires ronflent et je m’endors au rythme des firemans qui me font penser que je suis bel et bien aux Etats-unis.

Samedi 28 février 2009 :
Réveil à 10H00 : douche froide, je n’ai pas réussi à régler l’eau et café au lait. La connection à Internet fonctionne bien.
Les missions de ce matin sont :
- acheter de la glue pour réparer le casque audio que Kevin m’a cassé la veille.
- acheter un canenas.
- acheter une puce pour mon téléphone portable et contacter Ryan et Dennis.

Finalement, j’ai dût racheter un portable, je n’ai rien compris à ce que le vendeur m’a dit. Pour le coup, je pense que je m’être fait arnaquer. Je n’arrive pas à joindre Ryan et j’ai laissé un message incompréhensible sur le répondeur de Dennis. Arriverais-je à les voir ? j’en doute…

12h : je rentre à l’auberge et je m’inscris pour une excursion à Tijuana, au Mexique. Départ à 3:30pm. 17$ la soirée, transport, dégustation locale et diner compris. 14h  : j’arrive enfin à joindre Ryan via facebook puis par sms. Ils m’attendent et sont impatient.Je ressors, me balade le long de la marina. Il fait beau et l’odeur de l’océanme fait un bien fou. Je retourne à l’auberge, mange un jambon beurre que
j’ai ramené de Paris et part ensuite au point de rendez-vous pour le Mexique. Le groupe se compose de 11 personnes et l’accompagnatrice. Je retrouve la suisse et le danois de la veille. Nous prenons le train depuis la cinquieme avenue. Le voyage aura duré 40 minutes.

There can’t be anything better than shopping at the mall at 7 AM. Okay, there can be, but let’s ignore that. Especially shopping with your BFF and other close friend (though they didn’t get there at 7. Like Tina could get up that early during break). And spending $40 dollars in like the first hour and a half. It doesn’t get better than that.

That’s exactly what I did on Black Friday. It was fun. And painful. My feet hurt a ton, but it was worth it. You can only last so long without seeing your friends. It was hilarious since we were constantly losing Hoang and Kevin (Tina’s brother). Hoang practically dragged us from store to store  especially shoe stores- including the Fuzzy Panda. Which brings me back to this one time in P.E. Hoang mentioned wanting to go to the Fuzzy Panda. Tina, I don’t know if she does it on purpose or she just has really bad hearing, thought Hoang said Fuzzy Panties. I wasn’t really paying attention until Tina said that, and we started laughing like crazy. I’m pretty sure Lena thought we were losing our minds. Hoang looked ready to hit Tina. Yeahh, we (meaning Tina and me mostly) are immature. 

I didn’t really buy anything. Except for this tres adorable bag with lots of French sayings on it from Forever 21. One of them, my sister said means give me your heart. It was only $1.50, so I bought it. My sister bought 3 jackets which involved me giving her $40 since she miscalculated how much money she had.  Dudee, at the mall, we saw Quiwen, Isai, and Kerrington. I bet you if we stayed longer, we would’ve seen tons more people.

This topic is important to me because I see it everyday in my reality. There are a lot of different things going on within relationships between myself and family. I’m learning more and more that it all has to do with the thoughts created by my mind.

I started noticing that the things my family feared were the same things that I feared. The most common fear is attached to money. Most of my family has the same fear/belief system. It appears that most of them don’t realize it though. I see the same thing within my mind.

I have been thinking that even if a family member is a negative influence, they are family and should be held on to as such. This may or may not be the case. In this process of learning I have figured out that I cannot change another person. I cannot change another persons reactions, but I can change mine. The element I just mentioned is crucial to how I handle so called relationship problems.

For example, I’ve noticed that anything I don’t like about something my family member does, is actually something that I don’t like about myself. It’s almost as if my mind purposely creates situations in which I see things so that I may correct them. If I see something in my reality that I don’t like, its because I’m thinking about something that I don’t like.

The only way that I have found to handle any family problem, is to have forgiveness. I ask myself what I would I want someone to do to me if I was unconsciously causing hurt. If something I said hurt someones feelings, it’s like I myself am hurt. In order for me to be hurt I have to consider the opposite of love as real. I love my family, so if my sibling appears to do something that hurts me, the only thing I can do is forgive. First I forgive myself for believing that what was said was really them, and then I forgive them for not knowing what they are doing.

I have a family member who I feel for some reason is only nice to me when they want something. This family members life is run by the concept of fear and scarcity. They always come up to me like I can read their mind or something. It seems they try and assume that I know what they mean when they don’t speak and just stare at me. I had to ask myself why am I seeing this? What is there to learn from this? At some point in my life I must have done this to someone right? They are always afraid. I realized that I don’t like that about myself. I don’t like to be afraid and in a scarcity mindset. So this family member tends to annoy me a lot because that is a belief about myself that I am annoyed about.

I control my reactions, which means if I get frustrated and annoyed it’s because I’m choosing to. But why would I consciously choose to feel bad? It must be because I believe that a lie about myself is true. Looking at the situation negatively makes the person serve no purpose in my life unless….Unless of course I act out of forgiveness. I forgive the lie I see and see the truth. The truth is I have inner conflict within my mind, or else I wouldn’t see conflict in my reality.

I have a sibling who is frequently upset, always creating a reality in which they feel that they do everything. They complain a lot and it’s really annoying to me at times. I had to ask myself, why am I seeing this? I’m seeing this because it’s a part of me that I don’t like. I don’t like my complaining self, I don’t like my controlling self, I don’t like my superficial self. I see all these things, but these things are not them and they are not me. These things are beliefs in lies. The only way to remove it is to heal our minds.

This may mean that as I heal my mind I enter into a new dynamic of reality in which I don’t see these things. If the people can’t support the change, then I will see new people in my reality.

Things that I complain about in my life – “I’m bossed around, punked by elders.” This is not what it seems. What it really means is that I feel like my life is out of my control. My mind is telling me that I’m not being my own boss, I’m giving my power away. Wake up and take it back. So it’s an internal belief that isn’t true.

I feel like sometimes some of the relationships are not healthy for me because they support my old way of thinking. But then I must forgive the fact that I think the old way of thinking is real.

The most prominent attempt to control me is through guilt. One family member especially tries to impose guilt mentally through reactions and sighs and anything else they can think of. It seems really childish to me, and yet if I’m seeing it I must be doing it. I must be thinking it. Lately I’ve been ignoring it, it must be apart of myself that I don’t like. I mean who likes to feel guilty. I’ve felt guilty about school, about money, about work, and then I see it in a family relationship. It seems to me I must forgive myself of believing in this lie.

Check this out…

I’m not much a planner but someone close to me is a planner. I get annoyed when bombarded to plan because I like to go with the flow. But maybe deep down inside I want to become a better planner. I think this is more reality than the illusion that would say I don’t like planning.

I’ve decided to compile a list of things that I think I don’t like about other people, to confirm what I don’t like about myself. If I don’t like something about myself then it must not be true. It must be a lie I’m believing in.

I’ll make a post with the things listed so be sure to read it. I’ll call it “What I don’t like about people.”

Then I will explain why it really is my mind telling me what to correct about myself.

Don’t get caught in this marketing scam which will result in a $10.00 – $20.00 recurring charge on your credit card each month.

The US Senate Commerce committee recently launched an investigation into the practices employed by Marketing companies Vertrue, Affinion, and Webloyalty and by retailers Priceline, Classmates.com, FTD, Shutterfly, and Orbitz. This was reported by CNET News in their post called “E-tailers snagged in marketing ‘scam’ blame customers” which I urge you all to read.

Folks purchasing products from Classmates.com, FTD and Orbiz would receive a Pop-Up window with a big “YES” button and an offer for a coupon, when really they are signing up for the Loyalty program offered by the marketing companies which results in a $10.00 – $20.00 charge on their credit cards each month.

Most retailers say that they do not share Credit Card numbers with marketing companies and these retailers claim to be innocent, stating that the terms are clearly stated, however the real terms are in small print behind the accept button.

Most Web Retailers are honest and secure, but be very careful when purchasing on the web and be very suspicious if you receive a Pop-Up offer after you have entered your credit card number or made your purchase.

케빈 다녀왔음~~!
Title: Kevin is back~~!
judul: Kevin kembali !

Hey Everyone! We are back from China!!
hay semuanya! kami telah kembali dari Cina !!

It was a great trip for us and we had an awesome time!
ini perjalanan yang menyenangkan dan waktu yang luar biasa buat kami !

We got to see our Chinese fans again and we got to perform Man Man Ha Ni~
kami sudah bertemu dengan para fans di Cina dan udah perform Man Man Ha Ni

Also! I got to celebrate my b-day with my members~
juga! aku merayakan hari ulang tahunku bersama para member

I was really shocked because they did a surprise party for me!!!
aku sangat shock karena mereka membuat pesta kejutan untukku!!!

It was so much fun and I would like to thank everyone who said congrats~! ^^
sangat menyenangkan dan aku ingin berterimakasih untuk semua yang udah memberi ucapan selamat! ^^

We are going higher and higher on the charts!!!
kami berada diposisi yang semakin tinggi dan tinggi pada charts!!!

We are so happy and with the help of Kiss Me I think we could make it to #1~
kami sangat senang dan dengan pertolongan Kiss Me aku rasa kita bisa jadi nomor 1

I love you guys so much!!!! ^^

————————————————

kita doakan deh ukiss bisa jadi nomor 1 ! OK? kiss me . . AJA AJA FIGHTING!

Voordat ik aan deze reis begon, wist ik dat ik met twintig andere studenten zou gaan. Allemaal verschillende types, met ieder hun eigen eigenschappen en kenmerken. Na een week met hen te hebben doorgebracht, leek het me wel wat om een paar van hen aan je voor te stellen. Deze negende blog gaat dus niet over prachtig Beijing, maar over een aantal mensen die het avontuur met me meebeleefden.

Maggie
Reisleidster Anne beschrijft Maggie doorgaands als een vogeltje dat net uit haar ei gekropen is. Geregeld gonsde het door de bus: “Oooohh, maar mevrouw, hoe moet dat dan? En wanneer gaan we dat doen dan?” Deze manier van praten schijnt ze al haar hele leven te vertonen. De eerste dagen kropen de kriebels me over de rug, maar na een tijdje konden we er allemaal, Maggie incluis, hartelijk om lachen.

Marloes
Onze celebrity! Marloes is een echte Hollandse dame, nog nét geen ‘Zeeuws meisje’. Het feit dat haar haren superblond zijn, zorgde ervoor dat menig Chinees prompt stopte met lopen en verbaasd stond te kijken. Dit duurde een aantal seconden, waarna de desbetreffende Chinees haar gebaarde of ze alsjeblieft met hen op de foto wilde. Aangezien ´NEEN´ niet in Marloes haar woordenboek staat, ging ze er elke keer weer stralend voor staan. Ons in een deuk van het lachen achterlatend.

Marloes in haar element!

Peter&Lana
Deze twee personen in één stukje samengevat, omdat het familie is. Lana is mijn zusje, Peter mijn neef. Deze twee lijken qua karakter akelig veel op elkaar. Hun manier van denken staat lijnrecht tegenover die van mij. Wanneer ik liep te stressen voor het ontbijt of weer eens de halve inhoud van mijn koffer kwijt was, riepen deze twee ellendelingen in koor: “Komt goeeehoeed, RUSTIG blijven!” Waarna ze eerst elkaar aankeken en daarna mij, om vervolgens in lachen uit te barsten.

Kevin&Vincent
Deze twee heren worden ook samengevat in één stukje. Niet omdat ze familie van elkaar zijn, maar omdat ze superverliefd, dolgelukkig en heel erg verloofd zijn. Jawel, ons happy couple! Kevin (17) en Vincent (28) kunnen nu al niet met of zonder elkaar. Ze kibbelden de hele week als een bejaard echtpaar, maar houden ontzettend veel van elkaar. We kunnen niet wachten tot de bruiloft, die naar alle waarschijnlijkheid volgend jaar voorjaar zal plaatsvinden.

Dit zijn maar een paar beschrijvingen van een stel ontzettend leuke, komische mensen. Want dat zijn het echt. Ook zij lieten me af en toe dingen zien waar ik in het begin overheen keek. Zo riep Maggie bijvoorbeeld: “Oh kijk daaaaaar! Wat zijn die jongetjes dik zeeeeg!”
Als ze het niet –op haar eigen, kenmerkende manier- had geroepen, dan had ik het misschien wel gemist en was een complete blog in rook opgegaan…

Waaa! Kakabangag dito sa school. Hinihila ako ng antok. No presence of mind. Sa tagalog, walang utak/isip. Tama ba? Grabeee, namimiss ko na pagtulog. Lantang gulay kaming lahat. . . bigyan ba naman ng 3 – day preparation para sa paggawa ng dalawang sayaw? ? ? HELLO? Ok ka lang? At di yan tulad ng sale sa SM na buong araw one-to-sawa, hanggang magsara. No, no, no. Less than 12 hours ang time allotment. Duh, may klase kaya. So after class lang. Ee madami pang seremonyas, ends up, mga 5pm na ang labas from school. Then, biyahe. So anong oras na diba? Years ang traffic. Shits diba. Buti sana kung yun lang yung assignment. EE NAPAKADAMI PANG NAKAPILA sa listahan. Nagpapatong-patong ang trabaho. At >UGH!< San pa namin isisingit yung mga yun? Tas magagalit sila pag di namin nagagawa. HOW IRRATIONAL! Mudmod ko sa kanila yung mga yan ee. Ibabara ko sa mga bibig nilang madakdak yung pages ng draft ng short story ko. I have enough for everyone. Pila kayo, by twos lang. Dalawa lang ang kamay ko.

Nakakalula talaga.

BDAY PALA ni KEVIN ngayon ;DD

Sayang di ako masaya nitong araw na toh. Hindi ko nga feel yung bday mo. . . Nalaman ko lang ung date nung recess na.

even your smile couldn’t take the pressure away. that’s how sad I am.

Mutualism: An interview with Kevin Carson

http://isocracy.org/node/25

Kevin Carson, an American political theorist and a contemporary leader
in discussions concerning mutualism and author of three extremely
important books on co-operation, mutualism and capitalism (Studies in
Mutualist Political Economy, Organization Theory: A Libertarian
Perspective, and The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand). Describing
his politics as being “the outer fringes of both free market
libertarianism and socialism”, he certainly will find a welcoming
audience among our group – which is why he’s been asked several
difficult questions.

The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand is available in html format and
Studies in Mutualist Political Economy and Organization Theory: A
Libertarian Perspective are both available as PDF files.

Firstly, thank you Kevin for agreeing to this interview with The
Isocracy Network.

Thanks for inviting me.

Could you begin by giving a description of mutualism from the initial
definition offered by the anarchist Proudhon to contemporary examples
and your own involvement in this sort of analysis of political economy?

Well, first of all, it’s important to distinguish between mutualism as a
general form of praxis, and mutualism as a theory. Mutualist practices
(friendly societies and lodges, guilds, arrangements for mutual aid,
etc.) are probably old as the human race. Proudhon, Owen, Warren, et al
simply created a theoretical framework that emphasized such forms of
organization as a building block of society. It’s a bit like the
centipede trying to figure out how it’s been walking all this time, or
the man who was astonished to learn he’d been speaking in prose all
along and didn’t even know it.

For that matter, there have been important anarchist thinkers like
Kropotkin who emphasized mutual aid and other mutual organizations,
without in any strict sense being mutualists. Cooperatives and mutuals
have been central to the counterinstitution-building of much of the
decentralist Left in the U.S. since the 1960s, but their thought is not
explicitly mutualist either.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that most of the important examples of
mutualist practice (the cooperative movement, the local currency and
alternative credit movements, etc.) are not explicitly or
self-consciously mutualist in ideology.

Having read Proudhon for some years, his thought is so complex and at
times even seemingly self-contradictory, that I still hesitate to
summarize it. But I’d venture to say, as an approximation, that his
programme centered on 1) abolishing artificial property rights in land
and artificial scarcity of credit, so that the working class could
secure cheap access to the prerequisites of production; and 2)
organizing the economy around associations of producers. Of course
Proudhon was an important founding thinker for anarchism as a whole as
well as for mutualism; so these ideas, in modified form, have heavily
influenced later collectivist, communist and syndicalist variants of
anarchism.

Mutualist praxis was central to the Owenite movement in the UK (e.g.
Owenite craft unions organized cooperative production and distribution
by strikers in their own shops), as well as such things as the Rochedale
cooperatives, the Chartists, and land colonization movements. Owenism,
by way of Christian socialism and guild socialism, probably had a
significant (if indirect) influence on distributism.

In the U.S. mutualism’s primary founder was the Owenite Josiah Warren.
Warrenism, cross-pollinated with J.K. Ingalls’ occupancy-and-use view of
land ownership and William Greene’s mutual banking theories, together
led to the plumbline individualism of Benjamin Tucker. Tucker focused
almost entirely on the abolition of artificial property rights and
privilege in land and credit, assuming that when the legal props to rent
and interest were removed and cheap land and credit were universally
available, the forms of organization would take care of themselves. He
displayed almost no interest whatever in cooperatives, associations for
mutual aid, etc., as such.

Dyer Lum, John Beverley Robinson, and Clarence Swartz, all heavily
influenced by Tucker, supplemented his focus on eliminating monopolies
with some positive speculation on cooperative forms of organization; in
so doing, they represented a partial fusion of Tucker’s version of
individualism with the older cooperativist tradition of Proudhon and
Owen. Lum, in particular, was also friendly to the radical labor
movement and had fairly close ties to the I.W.W.

Would a highly successful large worker’s cooperatives, like the John
Lewis Partnership in the UK, and the Mondragón Corporation in Spain
[centered in Basque Country] serve as evidence that mutualist economics
can and does work in the large scale? Are credit unions evidence that
mutualist economics can replace capitalist banking?

Although I’m quite friendly to both Mondragon and credit unions, and
consider their influence to be decidedly positive, I believe their form
is still distorted considerably by the capitalist milieu within which
they exist. I like Mondragon’s federated system of cooperative
producers, distributors and banks within a single umbrella organization.
But it’s much too centralized a system in my opinion, with worker
representation only effected at the level of the board of directors for
the system as a whole; below the level of the Mondragon system as a
whole, it’s a fairly top-down system of conventional management, with no
significant self-management at the level of individual departments or
factories.

I would greatly prefer local markets with lots of stand-alone
cooperative manufacturing shops on the Emilia-Romagna model, integrated
with cooperative banks in some sort of barter or local currency network
of the sort promoted by Tom Greco.

Most credit unions, unfortunately, have adopted the culture of the
conventional banking industry, and have almost no ideological affinity
for the larger cooperative or counter-economy movement. Of course they
are still greatly preferable to capitalist banks; being controlled by
many small, local depositors, they are far less prone to the excesses of
the capitalist banking system that we’ve seen in recent years.

Proudhon, although arguing that he opposed the idea of individuals
deriving an income through rent and investments, said that he never
wished “to forbid or suppress, by sovereign decree” such activities. A
contemporary mainstream economist may argue that Proudhon’s position
here would be particularly utopian in those markets that have high
barriers to entry or other monopolistic features, that a worker’s
cooperative versus an entrenched capitalist enterprise in such a market
would require a miracle on the scale of David vs Goliath for success.

That sounds a bit like Tucker’s pessimistic view of things in his later
years, when he seemed resigned to the idea that the large industrial
trusts had grown to the point that their market power would persist even
after the Four Monopolies were removed.

I think such a view neglects the extent to which capital-intensiveness
is a source of high overhead cost and inefficiency, and is only made
artificially profitable by the state’s subsidies and protections. In
fact production as such has become far less capital-intensive over the
past three decades, with the old mass-production core outsourcing
increasing shares of total production to flexible manufacturing networks
and job-shops, and some of them retaining little more than control over
marketing and “intellectual property.” The development of cheap,
small-scale CNC tools in the 1970s meant that the capital outlays
required for manufacturing imploded by one or two orders of
magnitude. That was the beginning of a long shift from older
mass-production industry to Emilia-Romagna, the Toyota supplier network,
the job-shops of Shenzhen and Shanghai, etc.

The process continues even further in the same direction with the
desktop manufacturing revolution of recent years: cheap, homebrew CNC
machines scalable to the small shop and garage.

When physical capital costs are so low, most of the financial role of
the old industrial core is becoming redundant. And with small-scale
production driven by local orders on a lean, demand-pull, JIT basis,
marketing is similarly redundant.

“Intellectual property” is the main surviving buttress to the old
corporate walls, and it’s becoming increasingly unenforceable.

A follower of Henry George would argue in the realm of natural resources
it would be impossible for success and that land-rents should be
socialised. How would you respond to these claims?

I’m quite friendly to George, and think the lines between individualism
and Georgism are a lot less harsh than (say) Tucker would have believed.
But I believe a great deal of rent could be eliminated simply by
removing subsidies to economic centralization and positive externalties
created by taxpayers–not to mention by removing state enforcement of
title to vacant and unimproved land. If as much urban infrastructure as
possible were funded by user fees, and cities broken up into lots of
mixed-use neighborhoods in which residential areas had their own
miniature “downtown” cores, differential rent would be far less
significant. I think a majority of George’s aims could be achieved by
Tucker’s means, or even by a throughgoing application of Rothbard’s means.

With examples of worker’s self-management in the former Yugoslavia, and
modelling by economists such as Jaroslav Vanek and Benjamin Ward, it has
been shown in some cases (especially in critical infrastructure) it is
advantageous for labor-managed firms, in their objective of increasing
income per worker, to either lay-off workers or – like a monopolistic
capitalist firm – to reduce productivity and thus derive monopoly
profits. How would a contemporary version of mutualism prevent these
problems?

It’s been a long time since I read Vanek’s work on worker-managed
economies, but my immediate reaction is that there’s probably no
fool-proof set of governance rules. When the firm is controlled by
capital-owners, they’ll behave in such a way as to maximize returns on
capital; when it’s controlled by managers, as in most large Western
corporations, they’ll maximize benefits to management at the expense of
both labor and capital. At least in a worker-managed firm, the decisions
will reflect the interests of a bare majority, which can’t be said of
the other two mechanisms. Beyond that, I think the answer to the kind of
behavior you describe lies in exit as much as in voice: the lower the
capitalization requirements and the lower the barrier to entry for most
forms of production, and the lower the cost threshold for comfortable
subsistence, the less catastrophic changes in employment will be. I’d
like to see an economy where a much larger share of total consumption
needs are met through production for subsistence or barter in the
household/informal sector, and the average time spent in wage employment
is much less than at present.

That would mean a significantly larger share of the population would be
self-employed than at present, a very large share would work hours that
we would regard as “part-time,” household arrangements for pooling wages
and hoarding labor-time would be much more resilient, and even
wage-earners would tend to accept as normal prolonged periods of
unemployment during which they lived off subsistence resources while
waiting for a job to their liking.

Pro-capitalist neoliberals, such as George Reismann, Roderick T. Long
have criticised your advocacy of mutualism. Reisman and Long both argue
that you do not support John Locke’s ownership of landed property that
has been mixed with labour or, to use the peculiarly U.S. vernacular,
“homesteading”. It seems that both this critics have fundamentally
misunderstood Locke’s concept of land ownership, which recognises a
public cost for exclusion and use in addition to the right of added
value. How do you respond to these criticisms?

To be frank, I can’t say with any degree of confidence what Reisman
understands about anything. But I think Long acknowledged Locke’s
Proviso and explicitly characterized his own position as “non-Proviso
Lockeanism.” I’m not a Georgist myself, although I’d be well-disposed to
a local property rules system based on some form of common ownership and
community collection of rent. In any case, justifiably or not, when
answering Lockean critics I tend to tacitly work from the premise that
“Lockean” means “non-Proviso Lockean.” And for the most part, I think a
radical and consistent application of non-Proviso Lockean rules would go
most of the way toward achieving the aims of the Tucker-Ingalls land theory.

… all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds,
belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous
band of nature: … Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that
nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and
joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his
property… For this labour being the unquestionable property of the
labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to,
at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.
John Locke: Of Civil Government – Second Treatise

For that matter, over time I’ve come to see the bounderies between the
Tucker-Ingalls and non-Proviso Lockean systems as less distinct, and to
perceive some practical problems with the Tucker system (at least the
more radical variant–he seems to promote different versions of the
system at different times). At times Tucker himself seemed to concede
the existence of house-rent, but to argue that the nullification of
titles to vacant land would (through market competition) cause the
land-rent component of rent to disappear and overall rent to fall to the
value of rent on buildings. Now, to me, that seems to imply that Tucker
wasn’t necessarily (at least at times) dead-set against absentee
ownership in principle. That variant of his land theory, at least, seems
to imply that the important thing was to eliminate large-scale absentee
title to vacant and unimproved land.

In any case, I tend to think that doing so would go a long way to
eliminating landlord rent through market competition.

Another critic, Walter Block argues that you are actually some sort of
Marxist because you use the labour theory of value for deriving a theory
of exploitation. It would seem that (a) Block is unaware that Adam Smith
and David Ricardo also used the labour theory of value and (b) using it
to calculate a rate of exploitation is hardly the same as using it as an
anchor to exchange values.

I think the Austrians also, for the most part, exaggerate the extent to
which marginalism/subjectivism is a radical departure from classical
labor and cost theories. It’s closer to the truth to say that
marginalism provides a mechanism for explaining the tendency that
Ricardo et al described. The marginalist/subjectivist claim that
“utility determines value” is true in a technical sense, if you add the
qualification “at any point in time given the snapshot of supply and
demand in the spot market.” But it’s not true in the ordinary way we use
those words. If you allow changes in supply over time to enter the
picture, then supply alters until the utility of the marginal unit
reflects the cost of producing it–i.e., exactly what Ricardo said.

It makes far more sense to treat marginalism as a complement or
fulfillment to classical political economy, rather than as supplanting it.

Politically, where do you think mutualists should align themselves.
Should they spend their efforts in building cooperative organisations,
like Proudhon’s advocacy of dual power? Or is there some mileage to be
made in being involved in existing political organisations, such as the
Labour Party – Cooperative Party groups in the U.K.? What about in the
United States; is the Libertarian Party salvageable?

I think by far the most important, and the most interest, of our tasks
is actually building the kind of society we want, and doing so so far as
possible without regard to the state. But there’s something to be said
for putting external pressure on the state, and participating in
political coalitions to remove as much state interference with our
activities as possible. Of course the primary emphasis of such
coalition-building should be forming pressure groups, rather than
attempting to become part of a governing coalition.

A lot of this parallels Daniel DeLeon’s disputes with the anarchists in
the I.W.W. DeLeon argued that “building the structure of the new society
in the shell of the old” (i.e. building industrial unions to serve as
organs of self-management) would not be enough by itself. So long as the
capitalists controlled the state and its armed force, and the
significant minority of people whose class interest was tied up with it,
there was the danger of the “Iron Heel” being brought to bear against
counter-organizations. On the other hand, political victory alone wasn’t
sufficient; he gave the example of threats by Jay Gould to organize a
national capital strike and lockout if the socialists ever captured the
national government. Workers, DeLeon argued, should be focused on
building counter-institutions, but also be prepared to seize the
commanding heights of the state long enough to dismantle them and
prevent them from being used against themselves.

What we need is a primary focus on institution building, without
entirely neglecting the need for a political movement to run
interference for the counter-institutions.

What’s more, there’s the very real danger an authoritarian state might
make a concerted effort to stamp out the counter-economy through (for
example) the kinds of totalitarian surveillance Richard Stallman
described in “The Right to Read,” intensified licensing and zoning to
suppress low-capital producers, etc. It’s a waste of effort and probably
corrupting to seriously run our people for Congress or the White House.
But it’s perfectly sensible to carry out propaganda against legislation
like the DMCA, to support lobbying campaigns organized by groups like
the Electronic Frontier Foundation and NORML, etc.

Proudhon argued that through a society of contracts between individuals,
a federal structure could arise. This of course must presume that
individuals have the capacity to engage in uncoerced contractual
arrangements. What other political requirements do you think have a
particular priority in breaking down authoritarian elements in statist rule?

Well, it could be that the authoritarian elements of statist rule will
persist on paper right up to the point at which they become irrelevant.
But in my opinion it’s at least worth a shot to pressure the state from
outside, and form ad hoc alliances to pressure the state, in order to
minimize its interference and fend off attempts at intensified
interference. That includes local efforts against licensing and zoning
that impede household microenterprise and micromanufacturing, local
pressure to defend peaceful squatters and vagrants, pressure against the
regulatory suppression of self-organized mutual-aid efforts, pressure at
the national level against further expanding “intellectual property”
law, and so forth.

Kevin, thank you for your time and views

Tip: SMYGO: News &
Views for Anarchists & Activists

woa ade gw ultah sekarang.! senang’n~~

oh iya nww sesuai sama janji gw, akhir’n gw kasih liad fanart gw .. present for kevin ..

TT__TT
sorry if this is not good .. yeah I think its not good

DONT TAKE OUT THIS FANART

WITHOUT MY PERMISSION~~~!!!!!!!

[kevin's pict as tagged]

Photographers: Kerin Jellias / Jul Louis

Model: Kerin Ken Jellias / Sightseeing / Jul Louis

Place: Phú Mỹ Hưng town, distric 7, HCM city.

Time: 05:30 to 08:00 AM – 29/11/2009

<< Click on anyphoto to view fullsize >>

]]> http://eddieleevideo.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/valenkevin-pre-wedding-video/ Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:00:29 +0000 Eddie Lee http://eddieleevideo.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/valenkevin-pre-wedding-video/

Couple :Valen&Kevin
Photographer : Jenny Sun, Joshua Koh(2nd shooter)
Location : Some where in KL