This will likely be the last post I write before I venture into the great unknown tomorrow. As always, I may or may not feel compelled to write using the old fashioned method while I am away.

I will have one passenger. This has the potential to make the ride itself interesting. (Not that long car rides aren't inherently interesting enough for me already, but it never hurts to have a bit of company.)

I find myself filled with excitement and anticipation.

This week, I think I've eaten more donuts than I consumed the entire year prior. The dumpsters I've found nearby manage to provide an odd combination of complete junk food and organic specialty stuff targeted at the yuppie market.

I'm quite confident that under present conditions, I could feed myself easily on an hour of two of dumpstering every few nights, assuming I don't filter at all on the basis of nutritional quality. (Indeed, that's pretty much what I've been doing for nearly the past 2 weeks.) So maybe now it's time to increase the challenge, and in the process, better my health. The idea is simple: Don't eat anything that I wouldn't buy due to its poison content, even if it's available freely. I won't buy partially hydrogenated ingredients in the grocery store, so why should I devalue my health just because no money is involved? With that extra hurdle, would I still be able to survive on dumpstered food?

If so, then we all live happily ever after. Yadda yadda.

If not, then I need to decide which is more important: Spending less money, or having better health? This could end up being quite a quandry, especially if I were to cling adamently to extreme idealism in its most RMS-esque form. But I am not that much of an idealist. I am, despite many aspirations to the contrary, more of a pragmatist. Thus, I would likely stoop to supporting evil corporate chain stores if it meant the difference between having my health and maintaining some notion of moral purity.

That I am even now contemplating such a question indicates the degree to which my sensitivities have shifted. I think this is for the better.

It is entirely possible that if I commit to it, I might be able to find a way to live mostly in keeping with my ideals, with minimal compromises on rare occassions. I'm still finding the way that works for me. That process, by the way, never ends. So long as there is life, the search continues.

I have decided that, for the most part, I am done doing business with the big box grocery retailers. When I want to buy food, I go to Vitaman Cottage -- the same place I often dumpster. Unlike some of the more well known health food venues, they have good organic food at reasonable prices; and though it is a chain, it's a relatively small one. A co-op might be even better. Maybe I'll have to remember to visit the Boulder co-op more often when I go there. It's the closest one I know of.

Anyway, the point is that this is not a black/white eithor/or situation. There are many shades of grey, as well as all other colors of the rainbow. One need not say, "I can't be 100% liberated, so what's the point of even trying at all? Let's just give up and go back to Wal Mart." There's a whole world of alternatives to operate in.

...

I know I wasn't the only one to read in the news today about some plans to DDOS the republican site during the convention. It wouldn't even merit mention here, except for the fact that the so-called "hacker" behind it goes by the alias CrimethInc, which also happens to be the name of... well, you know... the (ex)-worker's collective / publisher / worldwide conspiracy... "thing".

My first reaction upon reading it was to suspect that this doesn't sound like their style. Indeed, nothing can be found about it on the CrimethInc site. However, because of the way CrimethInc operates, I doubt we'll be seeing anything along the lines of "we don't support the actions of this individual" on their site either.

CrimethInc is not a trademark. It is not protected as intellectual property. In fact, all members of CrimethInc (i.e. anyone) are actively encouraged not only to plagiarize, but to put the "official" CrimethInc label on their own creations. So in a way, this individual who calls himself "CrimethInc", whether or not he has any connection whatsoever to those who run the crimethinc.com website or distribute its literature and propaganda, is adhering to the spirit and the letter of the anti-law set forth in the canonical texts.

How can he be condemned? After all, he too is adding to the "diversity of tactics" in play.

That said, I doubts this approach is going to be very effective. Even if he does manage to bring down the GOP website, at what cost will it come in terms of negative publicity directed at all opponents of the republican party?

Then again, the same could be said, and has been said, about some of the planned meatspace demonstrations. I admire the protesters for their courage and creativity. It is quite likely that when the inevitable clashes with the police come, the entire lot of them will be portrayed in the mainstream media as a bunch of rampaging hooligans, regardless of what reality happens to be.

I have read the arguments both for and against a strict adherence to the principles of non-violence. In the past, I've been inclined to believe that following in the footsteps of leaders such as Ghandi and Martin Luther King is the only "right" way to protest injustice. More recently, as I have read some of the CrimethInc and other literature, my mind has been opened to the possibility that in some cases, mere pacifism is insufficient. When the U.S. military is wreaking havoc and carnage around the world, and the government declares war on its poor, perhaps it is not enough to stand around holding signs and chanting slogans. When the only so-called "alternative" at the ballot box to the warmongering tyrant is a directionless oaf who refuses to advocate a better alternative, is vigilante activism the only viable resort left to people of conscience and conviction?

My answer is painfully lacking: I don't know anymore. I know that I don't like the slippery slope where the path of the warrior leads, but I also know that as long as people like Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft exist, the rest of us would be in even worse shape were it not for those who are willing to FIGHT for freedom. I have heard it said that even in Martin Luther King's case, though he himself always advocated non-violence, if there had not been a threat from other more militant "black power" factions, the government would have less willing to hear his arguments and make concessions.

So... where does this leave us? The arguments of the militants have now become pervasive enough that even an organization such as United for Peace and Justice endorses the "diversity of tactics" line. Meanwhile, the Republican elites salivate at the idea of chaos erputing in the streets, as they will then be able to paint the entire left with the broad bruch of "unruly lunatics." Deny permits, set up "free speech zones", pay off a few undercover agents to incite a wave of violence, tell the police to come down extra hard on anyone who even looks like they might be a protestor, and viola!

And oh yeah, remember all those "hackers"? They're terrorists too.

As the storm continues to brew around New York, we may be closer to a civil war than some would want to consider. That would not be a pretty picture at all.

This is why I need to get out of here. Away from all this crap. Away from the news. Into the company of allies and other good spirits. If luck has its way, that's where I'll be going tomorrow.

How did I end up typing so long? I need to get going! Looks like the rain outside contiues to pour, though perhaps not as heavily as it did earlier. I think I'll endure the wetness, bike to my bed, and look for what gifts the dumpsters might have in store for me on the way.

In my wake, I leave you all.... a silly poll.