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The color of television tuned to a dead channel
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A Declaration of Interpendence, by Phoenix Quinn



Tell me, how does your light shine
In the halls of Shambala



Taking stock
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Smells like...


The just-concluded election cycle for President of the eUSA has revealed and reflects some interesting developments and -- possibly -- augurs some change in the political balance of power within the country, at the same time that things seem to be moving in new direction internationally.

It's been fun to watch, even if I have had quite mixed feelings about, well, about everything.

Let's take a little philosophical and olfactory inventory...




First, a little smelly...

The Ten Demands of the Council for the Eruption of the Marvelous, recently published by the "Long Live the Republic!" Branch of the Institute for Contemporary Vandalism, were not addressed in a direct way by any of the candidates during the presidential election debates. This is disappointing. There was some glimmer of hope in this direction to be found in Civil Anarchy's initial interesting discourse about the role of e-socialism in e-America. But that was soon drowned out by a histrionic anti-Glovism, which is the new packaging that has been rolled out to market The Threat to Our Way of Life.




Second, interesting scents...

On a more postive note, the Easter Rising observations made by the Council for the Eruption of the Marvelous regarding the advance of the cybernetic e-military-welfare state and the corresponding intensification of the alienation of the freedom-loving players did seem to have had some resonance. In particular, the disambiguation of The Threat, as a counterpoint to its rebranding, has moved to a healthy new level. Here I refer to the rather interesting alliance of Glovites, Bastards, the-party-formerly-known-as-Jude's, and the various players in and around the milieu of the Old Threat, who all came together around the willingness of the new jesus (metaphorically speaking) to speak truth to power.



Third, there's something in the wind...

As the Old Man of the Mountains, or somebody very much like him, was fond of saying: "There is great chaos under Heaven; the situation is excellent!" At least one element of this delightful uncertainty was the willingness of the iNCi-doodles to put forward and vote for their own protest candidate. While this threw a spanner into the works of the Glovish Uprising and had the net effect of throwing the election to the status quo candidate, this, and the first appearance of an explicitly grrrl-power alternative PotUS campaign, were signs and signals that Freedom Arises Chaotically, as was explained in the Manifesto of the e-Global Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement (eGASM):

"But with the development and unfolding of the gaming community, the free players not only increase in number; they become concentrated in greater masses, their strength grows, and they feel that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the free players are more and more equalised, in proportion as the Deal obliterates all distinctions of labor and pre-conceived notions of politics."

In other words, change is messy and never quite what we expected. Get used to it.



Saw it coming
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The foreshadowing of the themes for the election cycle were clear to see during the previous eUSA Congressional elections, especially in the attempts to falsely portray citizen Elizabeth Jones as an "Enemy of the State" akin to the justly infamous Ajay/Pizza/Lee/Gipper entity.

As our reporter Rant Casey established a long time ago in his interview with Miss Jones, she may be persnickety, but she is a lady and not, in fact, a tramp.




Some predictions
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* The realignment of international alliances will lead towards an attempt to create a single super-state, along the lines promoted by citizen Addy Lawrence, with the USA and Poland at its core. This will be promoted, as usual, as an attempt to "win the game". It will have the unintended consequence of causing an unprecedented eGASM on an world scale. As a result, the false dignity of "citizen" will lose its luster as players flock to a Declaration of their Humanity instead.

* Today's Power will follow the strategy of denying itself, presenting its organized apparatuses as elements of a chaotic network in an attempt to prevent and co-opt the eGASM.

* Phoenix Quinn will continue to pontificate on various things, but it is unlikely that this will have much effect on anything.




An Alternative Ending
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The inevitable eGASM can be construed and described using a wide variety of imagery and allegory. The anarcho-syndicalist discourse is just a way of describing such a timeline using language that appeals to lefties and hipsters.

An alternative storyline that I also like is to conceive of it as the organic coming-into-being of "The Kingdom of e-Shambhala". This mythical and mystical kingdom has no psychogeographical boundaries. Instead, it exists in one's heart, one's mind, and one's practice. It's residents e-reside in many places, speak many languages and belong to a wide variety of parties and militias. Maybe they share a badge on thier avatar or something, or use a set of common catch-phrases.

You can tell who belongs to the Kingdom of eShambhala by how they act, how they speak, and what they do:

* They are generous in spirit, including the kind of generosity where a zen master will whack a student on the head to keep him alert and concentrating.

* They hold to and act on high ethical standards.

* They find a healthy, human balance between liveliness and patience.

* They are persistent, both in dull times and in hectic times, like a good doctor, in working to heal the wounds, save the patient and improve the overall health of the community.

* They are contemplative and don't just blather on and on. In my town, we call this "the blitherer's disease". I am not entirely clear on the distinction between blither and blather. But I think they mean the same thing.

All of which leads them -- at least on occasion -- to be wise, which means cultivating the capacity to spontaneously say and do the right thing at the right time, both in relative and absolute terms.



XXX, PQ






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