Summary Of My Struggle Against The Industrial Powers

I just want to summarize where we are, me and the industrial powers. It's been a tough month or more, and yet the struggle goes on.

How did I get in this position?

I went nosing around the industrial section of my town. One thing, I've never really liked that part of town. It's unsightly. It's unsanitary. And it's full of industry, noise, pollution, and it seems to be uncontrollable. You have a million different big fences. You have buildings with garages big enough for trucks. They have lights burning throughout the night, and enough steam coming out of their vents to spawn a cloudy day.

With all my nosing around, I started responding to what I saw, because I didn't like it. That put us at odds, me and the industrial powers, the powers that be who dwell in that district.

The industrialists have not taken kindly to what they see as an intrusion on my part, coming into their industrial zone, the section of town in which they feel that they can exercise their will without undue oversight.

What they call intrusion I would call necessary oversight. And they probably wouldn't mind it so much if they were used to oversight, but as it is they've had free reign for too long.

If the government or governing authorities were to demonstrate some responsibility and oversight over the industrial powers, and do it in a consistent way over the years, everything would be in place and the industrial powers would know that as the normal way things are.

But lacking that, they get set in their ways, with no oversight, and so when someone calls them on their offenses they react poorly. Especially if they perceive that the person -- in this case an individual who is not part of the governing authorities -- could be easily put off.

When there is such an individual, in this case me, they believe they can wield their power against him with impunity. I don't really have connections with governing authorities who would help me or be a natural ally in any sense of the word. Basically, that leaves me at the tender mercies of the industrial powers, which can obviously be a bad position to be in.

I've seen some of the results of their tender mercies, such as when they were doing heavy duty surveillance of my house, and of course my comings and goings. Acting against me with impunity, they assumed, I would be a pushover. I guess they wee more or less right, because when push came to shove I was pushed, but somehow I was not entirely pushed over.

I owe some of my resilience to my natural resiliency, and I also had some unwitting help from unexpected quarters. Not to recapitulate entirely, one of my allies was Paul Krugman. (And it seems like I had another high level ally, but who it was now I'm forgetting.) As to my resiliency, I just don't like to buckle. I don't like giving in. I wouldn't apologize. And they didn't make me.

So where we stand now... I'm still standing. The industrial powers are still standing. The best you can say is we're in a standoff.