Hi, I'm baaack!  Yes, after many long years, I've returned to writing about
politics and such.  For those who never heard of me before, I published a
'zine' back in the mid-1990s called Serf's Up!:  Common Sense for the
Common Peasant.  Writing many articles under the pseudonym of Joseph
A. Serf, and my own, I slung real ink at everybody.  It was often reviewed in
the publication, Factsheet Five, where it's founder, Seth Friedman wrote what
I would love to be my epitaph, "His pen is sharp, and filled with poisoned ink."

Serf's Up! (SU!) was my response when Loompanics Unlimited rejected my
manuscript, Beyond Barter:  A Guide To Alternative Currency and Banking
Systems.  Since they weren't going to publish it, and nobody else would even
dare consider it, SU! became my vehicle.  Beyond Barter was serialized in a
condensed fashion, with a chapter featured in each issue.  Along with this, I
published interviews with a wide range of writers, thinkers, and artists, such
as Kurt Saxon, Radio Werewolf, Ashley Parker Owens, and Brenda Lowe Tatlebaum. 

Each issue also contained two essays under my alter-ego, and Joseph A.
Serfs took no prisoners and showed no favoritism as he, I, smashed away at
every institution of society.  Together, 'we' promoted Peasant Anarchy as a
means to achieve individual freedom.  Deeply rooted in philosophy of Ayn
Rand, the political theories of Lysander Spooner, and the economics of
Frederick A. Hayek (author of The Road To Serfdom, from which the name
was inspired), it's concepts were simple. 

The key to individual freedom is self-sufficiency, and the best means of com-
batting tyranny is through economic rejection.  Turning one's back to the
'keeping-up-with-the-Jones' mentality.  Simplifying one's life.  Getting, and
staying, out of debt.  Finding that personal balance between survival and
comfort.  But more importantly, realizing that the idea of just dropping out
completely and banditting up into the hills by yourself was not the answer.
Your best bet for success was relocating to a small community, where your
talents and ingenuity would be appreciated and engaging fully in the local
economy.  This has the double-whammy effect of defunding a distant, central
controlling authority while reinforcing local control.

Much of Beyond Barter was an outline for how to encourage economic actii-
vity with out involving the conventional banking system.  I even showed how
to utilize alternative currencies ranging from old, silver and gold coins, to
a credit-based currency which could be used locally to keep an economy
floating.  These ideas had been tried in many places successfully during
times of hardship and worked well.  They can be used under any circum-
stance, be it a poor rural community or a depressed urban neighborhood
with equal success.

So that was the past.  What has prompted me to return is two-fold.  First, I
have become involved in a writing challenge known as April Fools, where
one declares a goal of writing x# of words during the month and attempts to
meet that objective.  I have often embraced writing challenges before, such
as when I was prompted after an exchange at a newsgroup to write my on-
line novella, When Autumn Leaves Fall.  By the way, the plot of which is all
about a peasant anarchist who saves his community during an economic
collapse. 

The second reason for returning is the aftermath of the terrorist attack on
9/11.  Another theme of SU! was the potential for a collapse of civilization.
After that day, it became even clearer how under threat our entire way of
life is.  As one British sociologist put it, "We are always one event away from
canabalism."  The primary focus of this blog-version of SU! will be to point
out how we got to where we are, the challenges we face now, and on the
possible outcomes.  The consequences of what we do today are extremely
important.  In the next six years, we will have two presidential and four
congressional campaign cycles.  Our political leadership will face the most
dangerous external threat since Fascism, and the looming fiscal disaster
created from the institutions initiated in The New Deal and The Great
Society, America's brushes with Socialism. 

We stand on the brink of the abyss and there are only three possible results.
Either we go nowhere, we fall and are destroyed, or we devise a means to
achieve and cross the divide safely.  I tend to be an optimist, even though I
can see how close we are to failure.  There's no doubt in my mind that we
have the means to succeed.  But the question is, will our society act with a
sound, rational solution?  Or will we bungle it like so many other civilizations
before ours?  Exploring and addressing these issues is my purpose.  This is
my personal contribution for our species to win The Next Struggle.