Now, Voyageur

[Craig Clark]

David Casseres wrote:
 > And today, the vast majority of us are employees of capitalist
 > corporate enterprises, just like those trappers.  Contrary to the
 > propaganda we are all raised on, that *doesn't* make us a nation
 > of capitalists.  It makes us (duh!) a nation of employees!

I added:
 > ...or a nation of exploited members of the working class...

And Henry M pointed out
 > Excellent point Craig, but not an Amerikan (excuse sixties spelling) 
 > interpretation (but you knew that already). There is no exploited 
 > American working class; only individual failures fighting against 
 > each other. Doesn't take a village to do that.
This sounds like an excellent take on one of the major themes of both 
_The Crying of Lot 49_ and _Vinelands_, as I recall: the difficulty of 
mobilising resistance to oppression in a social order which is highly 
anomic and atomised. Perhaps the real reason why the US of A is the 
highly successful capitalist society that it is lies in the effective 
way that class solidarity has been fractured by Those in Power.
 
 > Reminds me of how the irony of the phrase "pull onself up by the 
 > bootstraps" is lost on the majority of the people who use the phrase. 
 > The next time that you have your boots on (no, not your boots, Craig -
 > it's just ranting time) try to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. 
 > No, not the boots. No, not your feet/legs. Nope! If you need to be 
 > pulled up, better wait for the unseen hand or a few neighbors from 
 > the "village." (a-and how about The Village in The Prisoner? Just 
 > wait right there. Deputy Dan...)
That's right, rub it in that I've never seen _The Prisoner_ (though I 
did visit Portmeiron as a small child)... While I agree with much of 
what Henry says, from the POV of a Third World development 
professional I have to say that development initiatives only really 
work when people are able to bootstrap themselves. A case in point is 
the work which the so-called African Independent Churches are doing. 
These are small neighbourhood communities (whose theology fuses 
American Pentecostalism with traditional African animist beliefs) 
which represent organisations of the poor by the poor, yet they are 
able often to use their meagre resources very effectively for the 
benefit of the group (and of individuals within the group).

In development it seems that the only time you hear the phrase about 
"pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps" is when you are seeking 
assistance for a viable development project. The rest of the time 
it's "We have the money, we have the expertise, and therefore we know 
that your rural village needs a Coca-Cola dispenser more than a 
source of potable water."

Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"