Intentional Community Thought Exercise II

One plan for building a cooperative neighborhood would be a roughly square block larger than average with private houses around the perimeter and a commons in the center. If the member residents can agree to make their yards as small as possible, thereby reserving more space for the commons, considerable gains can be realized. A park for the children, bigger and better than any individual backyard can be. Communal garden space, even greenhouses or space for some livestock would be possible. Residents could share the cost of a pool or public clubhouse nicer than any individual household could afford. Childcare, a communal kitchen and dining area could save a lot of money for members not having to procure those services from outside, for-profit firms. Workshops, wind or solar energy production and distribution, compost, bio-gas digesters, there are a lot of possibilities. Ironically, once upon a time working together was a no brainer. Affluence drove us apart after the Second World War; polarization and inequality could bring us back together.

I readily admit that many communities still possess public spaces: libraries, parks, town squares, and so on. The Progressive movement, such as it is and that outside of the supposedly neo-libertarian far left, should absolutely work to defend these institutions. Schools as well, education is the absolute core of the public sphere in America and undermining it for purposes of privatization has to be the biggest coup by the fascist idiocracy and their authoritarian masters. At this point is there any way back for parents who want their children to actually be educated? The [every] child left behind act has set us back so far that generations of Americans will probably be crippled intellectually. Recently this picture has been making the rounds:


Some measure of public attitudes can be gauged by how often something like this lands in your news feed or inbox. The problems with public education in this country are legion. To take just a few: each school district is decentralized and atomized, making it easy prey to ALEC and their evil demands; as we saw from [E]CLB when authoritarian republicans sneak into office at the top they can wreak havoc on even somewhat successful school districts; and the steady demonization of teachers (especially their unions) have led to parents internalizing the propaganda and allying with the privatizers.

Then there are the often long-forgotten Progressive victories. It is all too appropriate on Labor Day to share this one:



Hooray for ingratitude:



This is the crux of why I am giving up on any hope of large-scale organizing for the betterment of all. When "we" win, the idiocracy benefits, when "they" win only the elite win at our expense. Call it the free rider problem on a national scale and spilling out from the shop floor into the political and social spheres. Maybe I am vindictive and bitter, maybe I have a low opinion of most of humanity and very little expectation of change but I see no evidence that the divisions in our society can ever be healed. Those gaping divisions between members of the idiocracy and normal people who are influenced by them prevent any kind of solidarity in the non-elite. In short, I give up.

"But wait," you might be thinking, "are you saying that you want insulated, suburban cubical mice to start milking their own cows?" In a nutshell, yes, but only the people that can realize why it is important that we become more self-sufficient and mutually supporting. There have to be some Americans out there who reject the meaning of life as buying stuff we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.