The Riot for Austerity Meets the Emperor of Ice Cream

"Let be be finale of seem
The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream."
-Wallace Stevens

Miranda has graciously put together a yahoogroup for us to discuss our rioting for austerity project - she and I are having trouble keeping up with all the comments on all the different posts, so we're trying to bring the discussion together. You can subscribe by sending an email to this address 90PercentReduction-subscribe@yahoogroups.com (I'm supposed to be able to set up a link, but so far no luck - but if you go over to Miranda's blog at www.simplereduce.wordpress.com, you can do it there in a 1 click - have you noticed that Miranda is much cooler than I am? I have.)

You can still post comments on the blogs, or link in through the webring Miranda has put together, but the nice thing about a yahoogroups is that it allows us to have threaded discussions. I really hope you'll join. And don't forget, if you have a blog or website where you are discussing this, link it through Miranda!

I thought it might be worth pointing out why it is we're doing all this one more time. I think it is easy to get caught up in the logistics, and the worries - the "I can'ts" or "it is too hard." And what we are doing is, in one sense, very difficult. As someone says in some now-forgotten baseball movie I once saw, "Of course its hard. That's what makes it great. If it was easy, everyone would do it." I don't know if this being hard makes it great, but I think it is truly possible that by making it clear that this can be done, we might actually get to everyone doing it. And that would probably make us better than we are.

So here are 5 reasons to participate in the 90% reduction challenge.

1. Because we need to make be be the finale of seem. Instead of seeming to act, instead of talking about things like raising mileage standards on new cars, we need to deal with the reality that most of the cars have to come off the road. Instead of talking about biofuels as though they are meaningful substitute for oil, we need to start talking about feeding people in an increasingly hungry world. Much of what is happening now seems to be action, but isn't. The lie that we can keep things basically the same, only with windmills needs to be killed and buried, and the truth brought forth, with all its horny feet.

2. Because what we are doing is simply rational preparation for what is to come. Dave Pollard's analysis of the economic impact of further rises in gas prices is really important http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2007/05/23.html#a1873- the fact that we've absorbed 3.50 gallon gas is no indication that we can continue to absorb price rises. I think Pollard's conclusion is an important one, and should remind all of us that we *will* be making massive cuts in our energy usage sooner or later. But sooner is better for the earth and better for us - voluntary cuts are a lot less painful than mandated ones.

3. Because with great power comes great responsibility. We're rich. If you use a computer and can read this blog, the odds are excellent you are among the richest 10-15% of the people on the whole earth. Yes, I know you don't always feel rich, but you are. So making major, voluntary cuts is not impoverishing yourself - it is balancing the scales a little, making things a little more just.

4. Because in order to keep up our lifestyle, we're doing things like this: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,484661,00.html, and that's just plain wrong. Does anyone think that the damned war wasn't about the oil anymore? The less of it you buy, the less incentive you give the bastards who orchestrated this to keep killing them.

5. Oh, and it helps stop global warming too ;-).

Remember folks, the emperors are posturing scum who don't believe that other people matter as much as money and oil. I'm pinning my hopes on be, and the Emperor of Ice Cream!

Sharon