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30 October 2004

 

Something to think about
Because geography has divided the industrial capitalist centers from the subjugated peripheries, we can easily delude ourselves that our bustling, SUV-infested highways, our shopping malls crammed with luxury commodities, and our shiny grocery warehouses bursting with food are natural features of a superior social system. We do not see the exhausted legions of foreigners - many living in pre-industrial, pre-capitalist societies - or their exhausted lands, which make this licentiousness possible.
-- Stan Goff
www.fromthewilderness.com

posted by Lorenzo 2:12 PM

29 October 2004

 

A thought about public discourse
"Without exhaustive debate, even heated debate, of ideas and programs, free government would weaken and wither. But if we allow ourselves to be persuaded that every individual or party that takes issue with our own convictions is necessarily wicked or treasonous, then, indeed, we are approaching the end of freedom's road."
-- Dwight David Eisenhower

posted by Lorenzo 3:17 PM

22 October 2004

 

Who are these people who are voting for Bush?

I continue to be amazed when I hear people say they are going to vote for Bush. Most often they say this because they have a deeper allegiance to some religious institution than they do to their own inner voice. Sadly, far too many people take this easy way out and just blindly follow the orders of their masters.

If someone is voting for Bush on purely ideological reasons, however, they are also making a strong statement about themselves and how they see the world.

Unless they can convince me otherwise, I assume that people who vote for Bush are:

Homophobic . . . Bush wants to limit freedom to be who you were born to be.
Belligerent . . . Official policy is to attack as soon as you think there could be a threat some day.
Patriarchal . . . Bush wants to eliminate a woman's right to decide what is best for her and her body.
Apocalyptic . . . Bush adheres to the "true believer" philosophy that eagerly looks forward to the day of Armageddon so that Jesus can come again.
Untruthful . . . Bush intentionally lied about WMD, terrorist connections, and the overall state of Saddam's threat in order to whip up a war fervor in the U.S.
Elitist . . . Bush's tax policies heavily favor the ultra-wealthy, who he calls "my base."
Moronic . . . re ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself)

So if you want me to think of you as a homophobic, belligerent, patriarchal, apocalyptic, untruthful, elitist, moron, then go ahead and vote for Bush. . . . just don't expect me to invite you over for dinner any time soon.

posted by Lorenzo 4:16 PM

18 October 2004

 

Thought for the day
[If we] scrutinize Homo sapiens from that lofty perch -- what we behold is not very pretty. We see a violent species multiplying at a carcinogenic rate, laying waste to its mother planet while it wars against itself, spending more money on weapons of war than on education, hoarding wealth in the hands of a few while multitudes struggle with inadequate food, sanitation, health care, and education, permitting millions of children annually do die of curable disease or suffer permanent brain damage as a result of malnutrition when their lives could be saved for less money than a suburban matron spends getting a CAT scan for her dog -- a species, in short, so blind in foresight and so indifferent to the commonweal as to make the word human a hollow joke. Put yourself in alien shoes and ask whether such a species deserves to survive. If we’re intelligent, why aren’t we taking better care of ourselves and our planet?
-- Timothy Ferris, The Mind’s Sky, 1992

posted by Lorenzo 1:10 PM

13 October 2004

 

Thought for the day
The people in control of the world, from the highest (the national military or elected dictators) clear down to the lowest (the martinet who controls the issuance of local business permits) all maintain their power by enforcing their opinions and prejudices as law.
-- Sasha Shulgin, TIHKAL

posted by Lorenzo 10:02 AM

11 October 2004

 

The lessons of history, have they been learned?
Hitler's Germany arose when the perfect combination of anger, bellicosity, fear and hatred coalesced to make the masses receptive to the "allure of fascism." . . . Flash forward to the year 2004, and the machinations of George W. Bush, and it is not difficult to perceive how this same allure is now engulfing America.
-- David R. Hoffman

posted by Lorenzo 1:52 PM

06 October 2004

 

The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble. Finally the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail: How can we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.
-- E.L. Doctorow

posted by Lorenzo 5:56 PM

01 October 2004

 

Thought for the day
From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
-- Kafka

posted by Lorenzo 2:49 PM