Posted by Lilly from D006218.N1.Vanderbilt.Edu (129.59.6.218) on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 at 12:29PM :
In Reply to: It's Just A Matter of Time posted by pancho from pool0187.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.210.187) on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 at 8:11AM :
: We all know we're fucking up the planet but good. The corporations that now ARE the government of the United States are in it for that famous bottom line and for the short haul. Long term damage is on no one's radar screen.
xxx It's all about quarterly returns to those who want money.
: We don't need to pollute the air, foul the waters and dig up the terrain in order to live a good life, but we do. So, what kind of a life is a good one?
xxx A quiet, contemplative one. :) A life lived according to the Aristotelian mean.
: Marx didn't have much of a solution...but he, Veblen and others sure did identify the problem. Universities and the media are just about bought and sold so you'll hear lots of talking heads telling you things are fine," best of all possible worlds" and all of that. Believe it...what's it to me... or you, really. The point of having "experts" is to convince us that things have to be this way, and, that it's the best way for things to be. Well...what have you to say in opposition?
xxx In Brussels, I got to see the bar that Marx & Engels met at while they were writing/planning the "Communist Manifesto." It's now called "The Maison du Cygne" ("the house of the swan") on the Grand Place/Grote Markt & is a restaurant. It was sort of a tangible reminder of history, & gave me hope... Ideals may not work in this world, but they give inspiration, & that's all that's needed for happiness, I think.
: We have to find something else to base our lives on, something else to motivate us or secure us, besides unbridled greed...and the short term benefits that come from it.
xxx The natural world can give plenty of motivation. It's so beautiful, & it gives short term benefits, as well - true pleasure to the senses, pleasure that our senses were meant to perceive, were molded to embrace. As nice as the sights were in old Europe, they could all be summed up as a reflection of man's love/hate relationship w/ nature... the sort of denial that man is mortal & struggle to forget that which reminds him of his mortality. Death should be embraced by our society, of course not in an unhealthy way... I think that speaking about death, not sex, is the ultimate taboo here in the States. I was reminded of this when I saw the film "The World According to Garp."
: And the fact there is NO point increasingly to most people's lives...to such an extent that we've unleashed the pharmaceutical companies and given them the National Corner to stand on and push their wares...should begin to show us soon that "it" isn't working. Except we're too high...or low...or limp...or dry, to see it or care much. And now that we're all on the look-out for falling Arabs...who has the time?
xxx The pharmaceutical companies are all over the med center here... feeding everyone free lunches & dinners, sending some doctors on nice vacations, handing out candy, CDs, & anything you can slap a brand name on... it's disgusting, really. They have all that money & yet there are poor people all over the place in this country who can't afford medications (for genuine ailments/diseases). I tried to talk to some people here about it once, but they didn't think it was so abnormal that it needed to be stopped.
-- Lilly
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