The Industrial Powers Push Back

You've probably heard the news, the industrial powers are pushing back against the residential industrial movement. We're now either in a serious jam or on the verge of a huge breakthrough. This thing, like a teeter totter, a door, or a toaster, could go both ways.

I myself am on pins and needles as I shift uncomfortably in my chair and chart our next move. It's really something to have this much responsibility, so many lives depending on me, and so much potential neighborhood cleanup if we don't prevail. I've mentioned just a few of the neighbors, the ones nearest me -- the Bisoms, the Butlers, and the Spooners, but there are countless other ones across town, the state, and country. It'd be a mess to go back to normal.

We're putting down roots and raising up industries right and left, that's the thing. Right now there's so much run off, so many billows of smoke, and the miscellaneous clanking of hammers randomly hitting metal, I don't know how we'd turn the thing around. But that's the issue.

Of course at first the major industrial powers didn't think anything would come of it, so they winked and grinned, slapping one another's backs. The first signs of actual construction brought forth little more than a demeaning snicker from them. When we started sharing copies of conveyor belt designs and schematics, they thought we were being cute. The first few smokestacks that went up, they were laying odds on whether they'd topple today or tomorrow.

But then ... guess what! ... residential manufacturers started putting out actual tires, disposable diapers, paint cans and paint, and about any item you can think of -- the Spooners are still working on their first vat -- and suddenly the snickers turned to sneers. "The quality won't be any good," they sneered. But as we speak, the rubber's still hitting the road, the paint's still sticking to the wall, and the diapers when used by twins are easily doing double duty. As for the vat, preliminary tests show the seams are pulling away less frequently.

Some of the neighborhood electrical generating plants have crossed an important threshold, their grids up and functioning at three times the reliability of Iraqi plants. They're learning new things everyday, like where to stand when they flip switches. On site electrocutions are way down.

So what are the major industrial powers doing? They're appealing to the state, of course. And they're trying every legal trick in the book, with a lot of well-dressed attorneys in their sway, to shut us down. Zoning, zoning, zoning, that's their mantra.

My own sense is this residential movement is too big to stop. Like I said the other day, we've tasted it and we now know our power. If they try to jail us, we'll start our own residential jails and jail them. If they come at us with their lawyers (too much) we'll raise up our own residential lawyers. And if the state doesn't back down, we'll form our own residential states. I'm finding the clear answer to every situation is this: Whatever they've got, we can form our own residential version of it!

Vats For Industry (And Mega Ovens)

Here's one for the books, a tough one for me to believe...

I was out nosing around the many residential industrial sections of my town, which are spreading like wildfire ever since I announced the doctrine of "Every Man An Industrial Power."

I mentioned the Butler family up the block and their industry, a disposable diaper plant. That's great for many reasons, one being that there's a constant demand for diapers. It's great because they'll be able to have an immediate cash flow.

I admire the Butlers, but I have to really admire (or pity) the Spooner family over to the east, a couple blocks away. I'll admire them if it pays off, but I'll pity them if they find themselves financially high and dry, which could very well happen.

The Spooners, knowing that industry uses a lot of vats, for the mixing of chemicals (some of them) or for the transport of other mixtures within the factory, have taken it upon themselves to manufacture vats. To me this is an iffy prospect, for a number of reasons: 1) Most manufacturers probably also have vat manufacturers they already purchase from; 2) Once you have a quantity of vats, since they last forever, you don't need to buy them all the time. 3) It takes a lot of time and effort to make a really good vat.

But you have to say, God bless them! Because if the residential industrial movement is going to be a great success, someone out there is going to need a supplier of vats. And, really, if we believe in the residential aspects of the movement, maybe other residential manufacturers will prefer getting their vats from neighbors.

But I'm me ... a worry wart. I know at this stage I'd much rather be selling diapers than vats. But I just have to believe these people know what they're doing.

(I was just daydreaming, envisioning ... wouldn't it be a great thing to manufacture mega ovens, like for pizzerias that are enormous? Like a walk-in oven, where guys in fireproof suits are in there turning pizzas. That'd be a good one for someone like Spooner to make, someone who isn't overly worried about a financial risk in the short term.)

Moving Slowly Among The Industries

I've been moving around with some intention these days, silently, slowly.

I picked up the habit back when I was nosing around the industrial sections of various towns and cities. Maybe it's from some superstition that the video cameras won't see me if I use a lot of stealth. Certainly the guards, who are more interested in where their next doughnut is coming from, and who are used to people showing up with a lot of authority, tend to miss someone who's silent as a cat.

But in those days -- which aren't necessarily over, but they're over for now -- I had something to lose, being an outsider looking in, and being an antagonist to the whole industrial enterprise. They could've nailed me to the wall at any second. As it was, I was beset upon by a number of first responders from their response squads, including a number of underlings and even fewer supervisors out near my pussy willow trees. You might remember, they were firing fireballs over my house...

These days -- thanks in part to Paul Krugman, but probably more now to the passing of time -- they're leaving me alone. But I still walk slowly and with deliberation. (Oh yeah, when I was sneaking out with my bike and computer in Grandma's clothing, a couple months ago, I needed to walk like a still vapor.) But these days, I don't have to move around like that, yet I still do more or less.

Instead, these days, with more and more residential industrial facilities in the neighborhood, I'm an honored guest, with some real privileges of movement. They look at me as a kind of oracle, since I was right there putting forth the teachings of residential industrialism from the first. I stumbled on to it, meaning it originally as only a logical retort to industry as society had been practicing it, i.e., scattered industry and a narrower opportunity for people to take part in it.

The logical exercise, however, gave way to literalism -- as doctrines tend to do, with the average man barely able to exalt himself above fundamentalism, given his lack of time and inclination for study and a more serious consideration of mysteries of every stripe. So with literalism, we quickly went from the logical question, "If everyone can't have his own industry, why should anyone have one?" to a literal response of, "I want my own industry and I want it now."

So, like I said, I've been moving slowly, deliberately, with there being no hurry.

I'm able to wander at will through my neighborhood, the neighbors scattered the various directions from my home: South, West, and East. In my wanderings, I admire the many different industries that are very new, including tire factories, electrical generating plants, etc.

There's a brand new disposable diaper factory just up the street, south of the Butlers' house, in what used to be an empty lot. They're working with the folks over by the school who've been manufacturing plastic and some other folks just beyond them who are making the soft absorbency stuff. It's all being trucked in those few blocks, where Joe Butler and his kids are assembling it all into finished diapers. Mrs. Butler, having a newborn, surely enjoys getting them at cost!

In my slow moving forays through the neighborhood, I'm amazed at the majesty of the newest smokestacks.

Industrialists Drool When They're Happy

Industrialists drool when they're happy, or content, or in touch with their inner contentment. Because there's a difference between the contentment everyone else feels -- Miller Time -- and being in touch with your inner contentment. One is the fruit and the other is the root with the fruit before it's obvious.

I've already drooled three times this morning, which is rather strange, because I can go months without drooling once. What I write is all true. I guess I'm so stoved up -- no one's friend, afraid of my own smokestack's tower -- that the drool strings never loosen. I might drool in my sleep. Who am I kidding? My pillow's never wet in the morning.

What I've been decrying these many months, the ways of the industrial powers, really is something I hate. Probably because of the level they've reached. Not out of jealousy, really, but because I know they're against the rest of us, and what they've come to in life is so selfish it's dangerous. Yet they're able to drool out of that special contentment place, because they're one with it. How to be one with it without ruining it would have to be the question.

My own forays into industrialism -- the residential industrial movement, every man his own tire factory, or every man his own electrical generating plant -- have led me into some of this contentment, but I know it could go too far. (I'm up against a brick wall in some of my understandings here. Because I don't want there to be a big gulf between treating everything in the best way and having our industrial cake too.)

What I started with in the ideas for the residential industrial movement wasn't really meant to lead to tire factories on every block and all the rest, but to make the point that industrialism is ruining everything ... and to point out the absurdity of it all ... by giving the opposite absurdity that if these other guys get to have their own industry and ruin everything, why shouldn't the rest of us be able to get in on that. It's the old ethical teaching about 'What if everyone did what you're doing right now?' That makes you stop and think!

So ... why should the monster truck tire factory be able to spew black filth day after day while the rest of us sit here suffering? What if we all spewed black filth? It's a great question, and one that was answered with the absurdity of the residential industrial movement. Which now is a literal thing, with my neighbors and others around the world very proactively establishing factories, plants, and all the things of industry.

What a thing! Like Frankenstein's monster, my very own! And it won't be a week before there's a million industries meant to supply these, all kinds of kits, furnishings, etc. Meaning, very soon, every man will be getting a 600 page catalog full of gigantic desks and glass-paneled bookcases. And easy chairs. I could have my very own easy chair factory. Where I'd be sitting in our top of the line chair, looking out over my smokestacks, drooling.

Surfers probably drool, because they're on top of the world and the world's moving with them. That's the way it is for us industrialists. The world's moving with us, and will continue to move with us as long as it can.

My Genius Industrial Neighbor

The neighborhood is shaping up nicely as far as residential industry goes.

The whole thing is catching on and most blocks are getting in on it. We don't care about zoning laws and no one seems to care, because they can't arrest us all! Even if they did, they know we'd just come up with our own residential jails, because we're living by the principle, "If one person [entity] is entitled to something, then we all are." I can see that residential jails would be very easy to run. Give each male prisoner a copy of Penthouse and each woman a copy of Woman's Day and they'll all be happy.

If anyone's behind in this whole industrial switchover, it's me. But because I don't know the first thing about anything, the technology stuff is a little tough for me. That's why running a jail would be right up my alley; there's very little to know. Just read them their rights, keep the right magazines, as I said, and muck out their cells every few weeks. Other than that, I can't think of a thing. Keep them stocked with chalk so they can mark the days on the wall...

But I have neighbors who must've spent their lives reading and figuring things out scientifically. It's amazing, because I always figured everyone else was stupider than me. I always think I would come out on top whatever the competition, the "Survivor" show, "Jeopardy," or "The Dating Game." But maybe not. And it could be that I just have too much reserve, whereas the other guy tends to be more of an animal. So I will be thinking of security and future viability and the other guy, not valuing his life as much, simply goes for it in the moment.

That still makes me sort of superior to the rest, because it's my genes -- if I had ever found a woman and been able to have children -- that would survive through the ages. Of course caution is a very good thing for the longevity of a species. If a species stays in its cave door and happens to have a high powered rifle and an infinite supply of ammunition, it can survive quite a while. So I don't feel so bad about myself.

But my neighbors -- intelligence brutes, I might call them -- have the edge for the moment, not thinking about their long term survival. So they're able to come up with all sorts of creative, unbelievable, scientific breakthroughs that I -- I'm ashamed to say -- haven't even got the vocabulary to describe. About the best I can do is to say it's a miracle. They've been praying, I guess, praying really hard, and so these wonderful things are happening; they're getting the resources from on high, and it's paying off dearly, so much so that, when it comes to industry, they're leaving me in the dust. Temporarily, I might add.

The guy to my south has an amazing electrical generating plant up and running. He has an ingenious system of harnessing every resource, from wind to fire to water to pedaling, and he's doing everything he can to make electricity without having to plug anything in to an electrical socket. And that's an important step, a hurdle I haven't been able to manage even theoretically. I'm scratching my head: How can you make electricity without plugging something in? It's an age-old question, "Which came first, electricity or the electrical socket?"

But my genius neighbor is definitely up and running. Another coal truck just pulled into his driveway, meaning the fires will be rising up again within the hour. There's soot everywhere and it's hard to see when he gets cranking, but if that's what it takes... And for wind power, he's got wires strung to the highest branches of his trees.

I'm even thinking he might get a wood chipper -- to grind up old trees for the reserves of wind they no doubt have. It'd be a fairly clean source of power, extracting the old wind, then burning the wood for more power, then selling the bark to dog food companies.

It's looking like I was right all along: Industry should not be left to the entrenched industrial powers. The rest of us have every right to get in on the act, and to profit.

All The Industrial Acts Of God

With all the black smoke pouring out of my neighbor's residential tire factory, I've taken some time to think.

One, I don't especially like black smoke from industry. That was one of my biggest complaints about the monster truck tire factory on the other side of town. They have a smokestack that you can barely see, because it's always engulfed in its own output. The wind currents right through there are weird. The factory does a lot of sucking and blowing, both. So they're trying to send forth their waste smoke, yet it's consistently pulled back down and swirled around before finally saying goodbye and wafting off.

I don't care for all the smoke, but our city leaders ignorantly think more black equals more green. There's many trade-offs in this arrangement, of course. We can have all the money in the world, but if we're flat on our back in a respiratory unit -- and that's the lucky ones -- then what are we going to do with it? Plus, the neighboring communities tend to hate us, except for the ones who have lots of workers over here, and they too are captured by the almighty paycheck.

Yet I'm torn by the smoky output of my neighbor, because a lot of this residential industry push -- every man having his own industries in his own yard -- was my own idea. My own initiative. But the idea was out there for anyone to snag on to, so I shouldn't be taking all the credit. Credit? There could be other crusaders out there, fans of clean air, let's say, or opponents of industry in all its forms, who would give me the blame!

It's at that point that I would have to reassert myself. And say, I can't be blamed for all the unintended consequences of my actions. That'd be ridiculous, because then nothing would ever get done. We know that when you toss even a pebble into a pond you get tiny ripples that wash toward the shore. And at some micro level, the tiniest ripple, when it reaches the shore has some consequence. It might be the erosion of a few tiny nuggets of soil. Trivial, perhaps, but perhaps it's not so trivial to the little village of ants who've settled that shoreline. To them, they might question their faith: "Why would a good God allow this to happen?"

Then start multiplying the consequences as the rocks get bigger and pretty soon you've got people splashing around in the water. Entire villages and shorelines are being decimated. Ants, mice, and other lifeforms are suddenly out on their own and become sea urchins, with nowhere to go. Did God allow that? Did God cause that?

We've all seen the language in insurance policies, that the insurance companies are off the hook if they can demonstrate that the damage was "an act of God." And that's good, in my opinion, because anytime God causes damage, it was meant to be. Maybe we could've behaved ourselves a little more, so there's a positive push for the future. Like, let's say hurricanes are more or less a natural phenomenon in a given area. Those folks will want to behave themselves a little more so they won't get one. Because how do you think it got to be a natural phenomenon there? Bad ancestors. And you don't want something worse, like hurricanes with flooding.

If I put my garbage in the garbage can, then the wind comes along and blows it over and the garbage blows all over my neighbor's yard, that's an act of God. I couldn't foresee it and I couldn't stop it. But we could nudge this a little bit. Let's say I purposely plant a thousand acres of trees. Since we know wind comes from trees, there could be some personal liability on my part if everyone's garbage blew away. The key thing, of course, is not to plant more trees than you're going to feel comfortable paying for later.

So our industrial push goes on. The neighbor is in the right. Just because his tire factory puts forth a lot of black smoke, it's not really his fault that the black smoke doesn't stay on his property. It goes up and the wind blows it away. So that has to be one of two things: 1) Either an act of God; or, 2) The fault of some guy in the neighborhood who planted trees a long time ago.

The Black Smoke Of Industry

I've complained pretty loudly in the past about the black smoke of my town's monster truck tire factory. It rolls out with force, seeming to build on itself. You frequently can see devil heads in the smoke formations, so it's something of a nasty sight.

Now I'm to blame, indirectly, for some black smoke right here in the neighborhood. It was boiling up, or billowing up, today, across the road, above the trees of the guy who lives there. It wasn't pleasant to see, but he had a good explanation for it, so I guess we'll have to let it pass.

Some of my neighbors are among my most faithful readers, and that's true about this guy. He's got his own trucking company, although truthfully he might be basically retired from it by now and someone else would be managing the affairs. But it looks like he keeps an eye on things, and probably a hand in the business. Which has to do with his interest in tires.

I was explaining to him in person one day about my idea that every man ought to be entitled to have his own industry if he wanted it. And because of the trucking company, the fact that he already owns a trucking company, he was very open to the idea. Up until a couple weeks ago, he had a normal lot and spent a lot of time grooming it. But then he decided to work up his own tire factory.

So that's cool. There's already a tire factory on our block! At least it's in the beginning stages, which, according to him requires some experimentation with rubber, looking for the right ratio of natural rubber, synthetic fibers, and various space-age polymers. I'd be the last person to know that much about making tires, although I said the other day that if I were doing it I'd definitely dissect an existing tire. Why reinvent the wheel?

But this guy went about it differently, grinding up some old truck tires from his plant in a meat grinder, then he's trying to reconstitute it all, recycling them, boiling and burning them down. That accounts for some of the smoke. Then there's other bits that are resistant to grinding, some of the parts with big road blisters and pavement cysts. You can't grind that, he says, you can only burn it.

So I looked out yesterday, and where there's normally a fairly clear sky, there were these big black plumes, complete with devil faces, coming from right there. Quite a few thoughts went through my head as to what it could be. I was about to blame it on the industrial powers, when I suddenly realized: It was my enterprising neighbor from across the road doing his part to secure industrial rights for the average man.

I went over and he explained about the cysts, blisters, and rubber tumors, which all sounded quite logical, in particular with his ability to speak a lot of scientific lingo accompanied by the appropriate gestures. Honestly, I don't like black smoke that much -- it's hard to breathe when it's around. But if it means realizing the ideals I've come to believe -- the opening up of industry for everyone -- then it's worth suffering for a while.

Industry Runs On Electricity

My big dream as a kid was to live in an all-electric home. We toured one over on the east side of town, and of course we loved the whole idea that it was all-electric.

That's been over 40 years ago, and you know what? I'll bet it's still there. I don't go up that road very often. Plus, there's been a lot of other houses built in that area over the decades, so I don't know if I'd recognize the all-electric model home now. But if I go out there and there's one that's dark during storms, that might be it.

What exactly they meant by saying "all-electric," I really don't know or remember. Most of the stuff in newer homes from then till now depends on electricity. I guess it means when you get down to the heating system, or where the washer and dryer are, that's electric too. Maybe the garage door opener.

Our own place was made before there was widespread electricity. Then they had to retrofit it to put in outlets. But they weren't dreaming very far ahead, because, like other old houses I've seen, they put in maybe one (or two at the most) outlets in a room.

Today I'm thinking of the industries I want to build on our place. And that reminds me, we're going to need a lot more outlets. I can't be running an endless accumulation of extension cords down to the house. Because I've already got more things plugged in to the wall than I can identify or safely use. And I'm spending 50 bucks a year as it is just painting over the brown spot that keeps coming from who knows where!

Industry runs on electricity. I say that like I know, but really I'm guessing. Does industry run on electricity? It probably does. I know they have some water pumping stations and a few solar panels. But getting down to it, right at the heart of the thing, somebody's plugging something in. And since industry is huge, they're probably using three pronged cords. So I'll need a few of those too.

One of my industries that -- actually a utility, which I learned from playing Monopoly -- is going to be an electrical generating unit. I just need to think of some good way to generate it, and learn how to do it. It could be something as basic as rubbing two cheese graters together. The way I understand it, any old thing, rubbing it together, keeping up a lot of repetitive movements, if you have the right cord and the right mixture of water and battery acid, you can make electricity.

The key thing, of course, is not to sit there rubbing it together, but to find some natural means of letting it rub itself. Like streaming water passing over and moving the mechanism back and forth. You attach some electrodes to the underside of it, then bring the wires up over the fan belt and plug them all in in a very particular way and you're well on your way to making electricity. If you add hops you get beer. It multitasks.

I have some reading up to do to figure out how to generate electricity, I admit it. But I'm mentally fortified for this reason: People were making electricity years ago. I've seen old books, like from the 1800s, on electricity, magnets, etc. And since we've made a lot of progress, and man has so much more intelligence now than he had then, it ought to come naturally to me. If I can just somehow patch into my native intelligence, garnered through our collective progress since the 1800s, this ought to be a piece of cake.

Pushing Back Against The Industrial Powers

As plans continue, all apace, for every man to have his own major slice of the industrial pie -- potentially a tire factory in every yard, an electrical plant on every block -- we're hearing about the inevitable push-back.

We all know there's nothing free in life, except the occasional free lunch, and when it comes to standing up to the industrial powers, that statement is twice as true. Thanks to the entrenched nature of their business, having been able to secure the whole pie, keep the whole pie, and eat the whole pie, all these years, the industrial powers aren't ready to give it up now. Their push-back is in the works.

One of the most glaring hypocritical aspects of it, of course, comes in their sudden insistence on tighter regulations. That's what I've noticed right away, with most of it being expected. If my own interests were suddenly threatened, say I'd been given massive leeway over many years and expected it to continue unimpeded, I know I'd fight back too. But I believe I'd try to keep it real.

Now that every man can have the industry of his choosing right in his yard, the potential for it being real, we're finding out what is supposedly in the heart of the industrial powers, their "great concern" for safety, standards, and "society's overall interests." Any man looking on with a jaded eye at their sudden conversion in favor of regulations would have to say, "Cry me a river!" Because, as far as I'm concerned, for one, they're a little late to that party to get their name on the dance card!

No, it's definitely push-back pure and simple. And if I may be permitted, I might say it's all a piece with their marketing schemes to this point, which has always been essentially, 'Throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.' So we've had every product from the car to the toaster, and that includes a lot of things in between, including all the variations on the chamois cloth. In short, the market's been glutted with a million and one products, and you can't tell me they've put a lot of thought into it! Or that they've had regulations seriously at the heart of their concerns!

But when they push-back against us -- every man -- what we need to do is push-back against them. And let them know, Our day has come! Saying, "You've had the field for these many years. And as far as responsibility went in your industrial pursuits, it's been a massive fail. Now it's our turn!"

No observer with his eyes open will fail to see what's going on here. And it'd be equally hard to ignore what's at stake in this struggle. It's a matter of billions and billions of dollars, perhaps more, and of course they're not going to go down easily. But we're not going to waver either. Somebody's going down.

So where do things stand as far as our prospects for having unfettered industry in our own backyard? Ultimately only time will tell. But I believe I can see ahead far enough already to know that our success is assured. It's not too early to see our success in sight, although it is equally accurate to say, and with this we will conclude, that, yes, ultimately only time will tell.

How The Industrials Bulldoze Their Way Through

When you or I try to get something done, of course it can't be done. The road is closed, the way is blocked.

You call City Hall and you can never talk to the mayor, just the underling at the front desk. But that's OK, because that's the way it should be. Keep a buffer zone. Plus, he's busy carving out a happy life for himself just beyond the veil.

Personally, I've never tried to call the mayor. But I know certain things about it, such as it can't be done. And even if you do manage to get him on the phone, it would be for about 15 seconds, till he figured out what was going on, then the phone would go dead. Really, the only way to get a mayor's undivided attention is to be a masseuse.

I've been in offices before so I know how it goes. The staff has a very 'entrenched' attitude. The desk lady has seen and heard it all. They've got down the division of labor nicely. You can't tell when their shifts begin or end, you can't tell when they're on break and when they're not, and it's all very mysterious. Yet if a total stranger showed up in my room, he'd know instantly whether I'd overslept five minutes!

One time I knew a civic agitator, a mildly crazy guy -- everything seemed to be there, just not bolted down -- and this guy the authorities couldn't stand. He went to the city and county meetings for his various causes, and right there that was his big mistake. His presence kept up pressure on everyone, but they had several built-in safety valves for this kind of problem, due to there being more of them than him (1), and (2) they had all the perks of being entrenched.

Yet the industrials don't have those same problems.

How is that? I guess it's because they take the same attitude, which is, "I've been here forever, I'm indispensable, nothing's going to get done if I am not served." Add to that their vast quantities of money used to lubricate their path and you've got some very effective obstinacy. And I could add to that even this, that they're patient enough (even detached enough) to stand back and wait, while their underlings do the hours and hours of dirty work in their stead.

What does this teach us, if we want every man to have his own industrial section in his own yard or garage? You need to have an attitude. The kind of attitude sketched out above. If you want to build a tire factory on your place, start with the presumption that you've been here forever, that you're indispensable, and all the rest. When it comes to paperwork, postpone it as long as possible. Don't fear complications. Actually, complications can be your friend, because that's what you're also up against.

We're not going to succeed in having our own industrial sections ... if ... we don't learn to bulldoze our way through, then do it!

Planning My Industrial Section

Since we now believe every man is entitled to his own industrial section -- it's only fair -- it can't happen too soon that we get it going. The time to make money is now, before every man gets his.

Before I get into it, I want to put an idea out there, more or less as a reminder to myself. I have a great idea, to be the manufacturer of vending machines for cars. Big huge vending machines where you could look at cars, then put your debit card in, or cash, and you'd drive one away. Other people have had the same idea, I know, but the biggest hang up has always been the immense amount of paperwork you need to do when you buy a car. I plan to boilerplate all that and have it on my computer, which I can then use to make quick printouts. The rest you can fill in yourself.

But if you look at the rough draft plan I have, you'll see I don't have a place for these. That might take the spot there at the north, at the bottom of the page, where I have sketched in a "Proposed Generic Industry Facility." My original thought was we would just have it set up for quick stuff, like maybe sponges one day, paperclips another, disposable diapers another, and so forth. I'd tell my workers just to get together before work and be creative, decide what you feel like making today, majority rules.

There's a couple of buildings already on the property, which I've sketched in with darker lines. These are my house and garage. Everything else has to be built around them. Because the garage can't be moved, I split my tire factory into two plants. It'll be good having the garage in the middle because I can try out the tires on my car to make sure they fit.

Probably my favorite proposal is my electricity generating plant. There's already three trees in that sector of the half acre, the two pussy willow trees and the maple. Then there's the well. So we'd immediately be set up, thanks to these, for both wind and hydro generating capabilities. There's a lot of movement in trees that we really need to harness.

I thought maybe I'd just put the whole lot into industry, but I've saved out some space for green space, calling it "The Great Lawn," with a fountain and our signage. Then there's the shrub or scrub trees off to the east. I don't mind these trees; they've always been pleasant around me and I don't have any complaints against them.

Up in the top section, at the very south of my lot, I sketched in some "Personal Space" and a place for both shipping and receiving docks. Neighbors can come and bring me goods and buy my products, and while they're browsing, I will be watching them from the personal space. I plan on guarding it.

An Industry In Every Garage

I had a real brainy idea yesterday, making an excellent point in the process: If every man can't have his own industry, why should anyone get one? The brainy idea was that, indeed, every man should have his own industry if he wants.

The way this would work, now that I've thought of it, meaning it's a little different from yesterday's description, is that every man could have the industry of his choosing in his yard or garage or wherever. Yesterday I was suggesting that maybe every man would want his own electrical generating plant, his own tire making plant, etc. Which, after further reflection, sounds ridiculous, because there wouldn't be enough room in the many individual yards for an industry of every sort. Plus, there would be no market, say, for tires, if every man had his own tire factory.

So the way my plan works today makes a little more sense. Like I said, I spent some time in further reflection, and it was after this that I refined the idea. Still, of course there's nothing about the plan that would prohibit anyone from having his own tire factory -- and a dozen of them on the block if that's what the residents of that block wanted.

But in the interest of spreading the resources around a little more, it might be good to have only one tire factory per block, then the other manufacturing concerns that would produce the goods needed for that block or section of town. So there could be a tire plant, a guy who makes chrome bumpers, another guy to make stethoscopes for doctors, another guy to make disposable diapers, etc.

I was out in the garage today looking around, wondering where I would put the various implements required either to make tires or generate electricity. Speaking for myself, I don't know much about either of those things, the processes it'd take to make one. But if I had to guess which one would be easiest to get into, it'd have to be tires. Because I could always dissect an existing tire and see how it's made, but I'd get shocked if I tried to dissect electricity, of course.

What is electricity? I'm really not sure. Sparks. It seems like it involves sparks. Plus the movement of sparks over wires. I think it's a bunch of molecules that are excited and are looking for a hot date with a cool appliance so they can release their pent up energy. How you make it precisely, that's something I don't know yet. I know I've heard of it being made by wind, coal, and water, so there must be more than one recipe, meaning it's probably quite easy once you've whipped up a batch or two. Maybe if you put a wire in your hand and sloshed some water around in the sink, you could come up with a jar full at least. Like Ben Franklin. But I'll worry about that if the whole tire factory thing doesn't pan out.

I'm really on to a great idea. But look at the irony. This whole thing started with me hating all industry and the industrial powers. I still hate them. But the irony is that I would like to multiply industry now, so that every man would have his hand in the business. That's a great idea. Because the more of us doing it, the lower the prices would be, for one. Think about it. If we had a tire factory literally on every block, no one would have to pay big bucks for a tire, because there'd be a glut anyway.

It's all very brilliant. And I'm proud that I refined my idea as I did ... after further reflection. I just concentrated very very hard, and that's what came out. An industry in every garage!

Why Can't We All Have Our Own Industrial Section?

Here's an ethical dilemma for you, say you're a supporter of the industrial powers:

Why can't we all possess our own industrial section? See how ridiculous that would be? Let's say every man wanted to own his own electric generating plant, or every man wanted to have a factory making cars, or every man wanted to have his own monster truck tire factory!

Obviously we would be overrun with industries, if every man had his own anything like that. Then the government would most certainly step in and say, 'We have to have some limits on industry, because, quite frankly, there's nowhere left in the world with all these blasted factories and generating plants!' My point would be exactly! If all of us can't have them, why should anyone be allowed to have them?

I'm a big pusher of the idea of fairness, of equality, and of "what's good for the goose." If it's good for the goose, in other words, it's good for the gander. So that cinches it.

There's nothing equal about saying this one rich guy, like Warren Buffet, can own his own electricity company, but we can't all have one. There's me and Grandma, that'd be two electricity companies right here on our little half acre. There's the neighbors to the east. And I know they have anywhere between four and 10 people who live there, so that would be four, maybe eight, maybe 10 electricity companies on their land. And so forth, as far as the eye can see, electricity plants, each churning out its own sparks, night and day.

Or let's take tires. There's companies like Firestone and Goodyear. But why should the privilege be limited to them alone? Why can't we all have our own tire factory? Again, that would make two tire factories on our half acre, then four to 10 for the neighbors to the east, then one for every other person in town, the county, the state, and the country! What are there? Something like 220 million people in the country? And in this little picture of mine, that'd be around 220 million different tire factories and 220 million different electricity generating plants. After all, fair is fair!

You say it's unrealistic? Well, many years ago it was very realistic. Once upon a time, every man could be a cobbler, a tinkerer, and a craftsman. There wasn't just one little section in town as the exclusive domain of some rich industrialist or faceless corporation. You not only knew who your neighbors were, but you went over and personally bought shoes from them, then stayed around while they bought shoes from you. And the same with everything else.

We could get back to that again if we see it as a fairer system. I'll sell you five tires, then you'll come to my place and you'll sell me five tires. Or we could just trade even up if that's what we chose to do. It's simple.

My point is not that we're all going to have our own industrial section. My point is a question, Why should these industrialists, these certain ones, get their own industrial section, while the rest of us are left sitting high and dry? We're suffering at their hands while they exploit us. But turnabout is fair play. How about we all manufactured tires? That'd take away some of their security, wouldn't it? That'd be one way of cutting some of these clowns down to size.

This is really something to think about. If we can't all have our own industrial section, why are we allowing anyone to have one?

An Uneasy Truce With The Industrialists

I'm doing my best to keep my truce with the industrial powers going, but it's an uneasy truce to say the least.

I've been getting away from it all, taking it easy, traveling the countryside trying to put this whole matter out of my mind. That's great when I'm seeing rustic barns, idyllic fields, old wagon wheels, and goats standing around innocently. It's then I can really revel in the pre-industrial age, thinking back to a bygone era, a time gone by.

But being in unfamiliar places -- surroundings that are different from my normal place -- means everything I see is new, unusual, and fresh. So occasionally, despite my best efforts not to see anything industrial, there something will be! A factory, a big manufacturing complex of some sort, or a bunch of utility grids and frameworks. That's what happened yesterday.

I literally saw an old farmer on a buggy with two horses pulling him. I was thinking, That's so rare you don't even see it on Road Bingo games. But there it was. I quick got my phone out of my pocket, did all the button punching it takes to get the camera up and ready to go, when he crossed over the interstate and out of sight, so I didn't get a picture. But it was a two horsepower rig. If he would've only had one I would've gotten the shot! Still, it did my poor, bedraggled heart good to see another guy like me who eschews the modern ways. I do drive a car, of course, so this guy shamed me to a certain extent.

That guy passed out of sight and I kept going. I entered a large city and passed through without seeing anything rustic. Drat. Instead, I saw about a million cars, each one going faster than the last. By the time I hit the city limits on the way out, they had sped up quite a bit, on average. I had my foot on the gas too, trying to keep up, cursing my luck.

Then I went on a back road, yet still a double highway, so it was relatively a back road, and slowed down to enter a different mid-size town, when what do I see over to my right? A big old industrial section that was completely new to me. But because of my truce -- and this is what makes it uneasy -- I only looked about half the time. The other half I watched the road ahead of me, hoping to see something rustic to balance it out.

In the time I was glancing over at this industrial section, I was memorizing the facets of it, including a bunch of rusty stairways, ladders, and external crawl spaces. I saw more stainless steel pipes and spigots than any industrial section could reasonably be using. Who turns them on and off? I felt some restlessness in my stomach as I imagined a careless worker failing to turn off the right spigot. There he'd be, eating a vending machine sandwich in the factory dining hall while oil and crap would be draining all down the side of the pipe, leaking into the water system.

I looked a little bit, not going for my camera because of my truce, but making a mental note of where all this stuff was in case my truce ever comes to an end. In that event, and barring any prevention of me by the industrial powers, I will definitely be out there nosing around, looking for evidence.