Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
An argument can easily and convincingly be made for the need of the federal government to take stock of its regulatory holdings. No system is perfect; the federal regulatory framework is no exception.
Lifelong friendships often start with a simple conversation with a stranger. BenchesCollective, a grassroots community organization, wants to spark those conversations by inspiring and teaching people how to create outdoor living rooms.
Defeats are supposed to teach people how to do better; in theory. In practice, it often happens that defeats teach people how to become masters in blame-shifting.
Shortly after the Speaker of the House gaveled the 115th Congress to order, two pivotal regulatory reform proposals were introduced, placed on the fast track and favorably voted upon by a substantial majority of the members present.
In the individualistic society which is promoted by global capitalism, it’s a radical act to choose to live collectively. Sharing, be it space, food, or resources, has not been strongly promoted by those who want us to consume as much as possible…
To the question, “What is wrong with the economy?” Trump answers: we have made bad deals…
What I mostly want to do on this site over the next few months is resume exploring the alternative world of my Peasant’s Republic of Wessex. But there’s a case for taking a step back, putting that exercise into a wider context, and laying out something of a programme for the year – especially in the light of some comments I’ve recently received. So that’s what I’m going to do here.
Into the Ruins is a rare breed of magazine. Unlike most other science fiction periodicals, its attitude toward the future charts a refreshing middle ground between mindless cheeriness and unremitting apocalypticism.
Never assume the next 4 years are lost to us. They may well be the making of us, and the turning point we so desperately need. This is our time. Let’s get to it, and create something appropriate to the scale of the challenge.
One of the oddest features of contemporary industrial society, it seems to me, is the profound ambivalence it displays toward the future. It’s hard to think of any society in human history that has made so much noise about the future, or used images and ideas of the future so relentlessly as rhetorical ammunition in its political and cultural controversies.
When a local organizer for a new adult education project in Austin, Texas, asked me to teach a course on politics in January, it was tempting to focus on the potentially disastrous short-term consequences of the election. Instead, I decided to frame the course around the disastrous long-term forces that shape the contemporary United States, no matter who is in office.
To me, that’s the big question when it comes to film. Is such a thing possible, or does making a film – even one about Berry – not have a net effect of legitimizing film even more, spurring the making and watching of even more films (eco-type films in this case), rather than inspiring viewers and filmmakers themselves to “turn the television [and camera] off and go outside”?
