Posted by Ormond Otvos on January 22, 19100 at 19:53:59:
Spoke with Bill at the Black Oak reading on Shattuck
in Berkeley. My question was about the Luddism of the
Berkeley intellectual community: the seemingly thoughtles
way they presume that everyone else in America has access
to the same rich intellectual field that they do. I have
recently returned to Berkeley from far fields, in which I have
toiled pretty much solitarily for thirty years, and I'm here
to tell you that there is a lot more that the average person
here could do with their rich store of technical and social
expertise.
Although Berkeley is a model for communalism and citizen
involvement, it is largely unknown to the wider world, both
in the United States and further. Why did it take the WTO to
make the media sit up and take stock of the roilings of the
undercurrents? Where were the retired radicals, and gourmet
organizers? It sure is comfy here, I must admit, and seductive
in the way that citizenship in Rome must have been during the
decline. My feelings in this subject are just forming, but they
tend toward the critical. BMW's and Bronco's aren't thrilling
me, and neither are fume-spouting '67 Chevies masquerading as
recycling.
What's going on? I would have expected a book as good as
"Saying No to Power" to be available full-text, or at least
the significant excerpts, on the Web, so it could be discussed,
but it is not. I am sure I will hear good reasons for that, but
I'll weigh them against the purpotrted worldwide social value
of Bill's massive and educational lifestory being widely known,
with no other admission fee than public access to the Internet.
I'd cite John Taylor Gatto, or David Horowitz. I'd cite John Horowitz If people are really moving onto the Web for their sources of Que pasa? Enlighten me.
and his steady, day by day axe job on the liberal tradition on
deep opinion, the one they keep private, then there needs to
be source material. A person could make up their mind about the
present situation from just reading "Saying No to Power!" but
they can't buy it from Amazon.com, because it is listed as coming
out in November of last year.