Black friday (2 Viewers)

[CarversDog]

Good start, my friend, good start. I would tie in the demise of the ownership society in America .... wihout reviving the debate in this thread, of course; another topic altogether. No small notation that the attacks in Mumbai were on a major financial center. I could go on for several graphs here but I think (hopefully) you get what I'm saying.

 

[Father Luke]

I'm not sure where I would go with it, frankly. But it is an important letter.

 

[mjp]

Is it?

I would be wary of it unless it could be authenticated. It seems intentionally written to appeal to people in the U.S. who are predisposed to disliking the Bush cabal, like a juicy piece of propaganda. And some of the language doesn't ring true to an Arabic speaker...like starting a paragraph with "Anyway."

I wouldn't look for reinforcement of my ideas from someone like that even if it is genuine. It would kind of make me question whether what I believed was right if Saddam Hussein agreed with me. He wasn't the coolest guy at the party, if you get my drift.

Nothing is going to change what happened in Iraq. American people are not suddenly going to "wake up" and set things right. It can't be set right. It is what it is. Besides, American people - in the wide generalized sense - don't give a shit about Iraq, Mumbai, Bhopal, Rwanda, Appalachia or Detroit. They just don't, as sad and distasteful as that may sound. The best we can do is back out of Iraq slowly, smiling, nodding and waving and hope they don't kill too many of us when we turn to shut the door behind us.

In 30 years they will put W on a stamp and school kids will learn he was a great guy. That's how we do it. Look at what they teach kids in school today about Nixon. Nothing about felonies, just that he went to China and kissed some hands and shook some babies.

 

[vodka]

The best we can do is back out of Iraq slowly, smiling, nodding and waving and hope they don't kill too many of us when we turn to shut the door behind us.

agreed.

 

[chronic]

In 30 years they will put W on a stamp and school kids will learn he was a great guy. That's how we do it. Look at what they teach kids in school today about Nixon. Nothing about felonies, just that he went to China and kissed some hands and shook some babies.

You're right of course, but with Bush there won't be a single accomplishment that benefited the country that anyone will be able to point to. Not one.

 

[Father Luke]

Is it?

I would be wary of it unless it could be authenticated.

Well, that's just it, isn't it? I checked, and checked.
I can't find anything other than a sudden wide
interest in a letter that has, assertively, been
squelched.

Besides, American people - in the wide generalized sense - don't give a shit about Iraq, Mumbai, Bhopal, Rwanda, Appalachia or Detroit.

That doesn't mean that I don't, or don't care to.

Still, it is an interesting letter. Because of it's
lack of authenticity, I've been stewing over it.
And it pisses me off I can't recall who first alerted
me to it.

 

[jordan]

You're right of course, but with Bush there won't be a single accomplishment that benefited the country that anyone will be able to point to. Not one.

what about the do-not-call list?

 

[vodka]

they'll simply change up the history books to make it sound as though he did something positive in Iraq.

 

[procrastinator]

Look, we're all materialistic. If you say your not, your a liar. We all want security. Materialism ( in my opinion) doesn't go back decades but back to when we lived in caves. We were always jealous of what the other one had. Your cave was bigger than mine and I wanted it. You had two coconuts to eat and I had one, and I wanted it. You had two pineapples to eat and I had one, and I wanted it. You don't think when Buk was sleeping on a park bench he would have preffered his own house and car? You bet he did. The problem is when people own five houses and five cars. Then your just a prick.

 

[Father Luke]

what about the do-not-call list?

Interestingly enough, jordan? What you may know,
and what a lot of people don't, is that the
National Do-Not-Call list excludes politicians.

That's why during an election you get so many calls
from politicians. They aren't included.

Politicians can call anyone on the
do not call list that they want to call ;)

Nice, huh?

 

[james]

Look, we're all materialistic. If you say your not, your a liar. We all want security. Materialism ( in my opinion) doesn't go back decades but back to when we lived in caves. We were always jealous of what the other one had. Your cave was bigger than mine and I wanted it. You had two coconuts to eat and I had one, and I wanted it. You had two pineapples to eat and I had one, and I wanted it. You don't think when Buk was sleeping on a park bench he would have preffered his own house and car? You bet he did. The problem is when people own five houses and five cars. Then your just a prick.

materialism probably was around to some extent way back when, but the accumulation of "stuff" didn't really kick in until about 10,000 years ago when we started domesticating plants and animals and became more sedentary so we could tend to said crops and animals. before that, we were more nomadic hunter/gatherers, moving around every few months, and accumulating stuff would only slow you down. their egalitarian lifestyle was slowly transformed into the materialistic, stratified world we live in today. yay agriculture!

 

[procrastinator]

As Buk would say "learn to love your walls".

 

[jordan]

Interestingly enough, jordan? What you may know,
and what a lot of people don't, is that the
National Do-Not-Call list excludes politicians.

That's why during an election you get so many calls
from politicians. They aren't included.

Politicians can call anyone on the
do not call list that they want to call ;)

Nice, huh?

"what's that, sarah palin? robocalls are annoying and politicians shouldn't use them? wait a sec, my phone is ringing."

"hello?"
"now is the time that america needs a strong leader. someone like JOHN MCCAIN."

i was grasping at straws with the DNC list... but it really is the only thing bush did in 8 years that made my life even marginally better by the slightest bit.

 

[falcune]

You're right of course, but with Bush there won't be a single accomplishment that benefited the country that anyone will be able to point to. Not one.

Africa benefited in a huge way but that's about it.

 

[CarversDog]

I dunno. Now that the campaigning is over I sorta miss my robo-calls from Joe Biden and John McCain and all my state representatives. Fickle bastards.

 

[mjp]

Besides, American people - in the wide generalized sense - don't give a shit about Iraq, Mumbai, Bhopal, Rwanda, Appalachia or Detroit.

That doesn't mean that I don't, or don't care to.

I wasn't insinuating that you don't care, or that there aren't a lot of people care a whole lot. I just think, cynically or realistically, that it doesn't matter if you care. When most of the world doesn't care it becomes almost impossible to make any widespread changes in places like that. Ask the people who were marched into Nazi death camps while a good number of people all over the world knew full well what was happening in them. People in America certainly knew. In fact the Warner brothers wanted to make a film called Concentration Camp in 1940 (I believe that's the date - but well before America became involved in the war) but the board that enforced the film code told them there's no way they would let any anti-German sentiment like that onto the movie screens of America. They didn't want to stir things up.

As for the letter, I think those sites that present things as conspiracies are instantly and rightly dismissed by 99.9% of the world, so if the letter is legit, kooks publicizing it first will effectively strip any shred of legitimacy from it. If it is real, maybe it was released to conspiracy theorists on purpose. That's kind of a classic disinformation tactic; feeding truth to kooks in order to get the majority of people to dismiss it as the rambling of the lunatic fringe. But it smells like a hoax to me.

 

[Father Luke]

When most of the world doesn't care it becomes almost impossible to make any widespread changes

The only problem with that is that I care no matter what the world does, or doesn't do. And One person can change the world.

That's kind of a classic disinformation tactic; feeding truth to kooks in order to get the majority of people to dismiss it as the rambling of the lunatic fringe. But it smells like a hoax to me.

The authenticity of the letter is certainly in question, at least in my mind, but the content still provides for discussion.

Kind of like we have here. ;)

 

[APRM]

Is buying books, art, musical equipment or paint and canvas blind consumerism if those things make you feel better? Or is it only things that run on electricity? I don't get the difference. And I don't think the 90" plasma TV - or the person who buys it - is inherently bad.

I think it all is relative to what the person is buying the thing for. Art is far different then a plasma TV, though of course you can watch art in the form of television shows on a plasma TV. The correlation between commercialism, and consumerism is more so what I'm speaking about. Many people are unhappy, and then they see a TV add, that TV add adds to their unhappiness because it suggests "you shouldn't be happy unless you own our product." In sum, the part of the system I don't like is the part that suggests we are fat, ugly, helpless losers who should be miserable, unless of course we have this product... And the people who buy into that.

Yeah, I've heard upper middle class types shit on people for wasting their money on X, when X is something they think is tacky, or comes from a big box store they hold in disdain, but if it's something sleek and classy, well, that's different, right?

My take is that most people feel a need to acquire (or "consume") things in order to feel happy. Maybe consumerism is this impulse taken to unhealthy extremes, where people buy goods and services not because they genuinely want them, but because they feel pressured to do so. Keeping up with the Joneses.

If I remember right it was Erich Fromm who suggested there are two ways of living in the world - there's "being" and "having". Maybe consumerism is the latter taken too far, so that your sense of identity and self worth comes from what you own, rather than the kind of person you are.

Good post.

I know I'm going to be called an elitist for even saying this but it's been proven time and time again that indulging in the arts (music, literature, art and architecture, dance, etc.) expands the human intellect and creates a craving for more, creates a hunger for intellectual nourishment that might otherwise be absent without such stimulation.

I don't really want to get into the American media and it's six owners... Part of the issue we are seeing is derived directly from the lack of information out there for intellectual growth, and the stigma that major media is creating towards those who go look for it themselves.

 

[mjp]

In sum, the part of the system I don't like is the part that suggests we are fat, ugly, helpless losers who should be miserable, unless of course we have this product... And the people who buy into that.

And what kind of people are those? Who are these people who are unable to see through the lie of advertising the way that you are? And how did you become so much more enlightened than they are?

 

[vodka]

that's a link too if you're the type of person who likes it when people tell you where things come from.

 

[esart]

I don't think I am so much disgusted with advertisers as I am with the masses that put their things that they have above the good that they do. And I don't know if I can blame advertising completely for that either. It is a person's upbringing, and their choices, a lot of time it can be their religion and their politics. It's all so enmeshed together, it's really hard to tell how people got so far removed to what should be more important than things.

In my angy feminist days, I remember being so intensely angry with a billboard ad of a woman's ass with an egg on it reading, "Anything goes with eggs." So there is an aspect of advertising that pisses me off in forming the "ideals" in the minds of society, but sometimes commercials boarder on brilliance and cutting edge art - so I really don't know how I feel about it.

Again, I have said nothing.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

I don't think ... And I don't know if I can blame ... I really don't know how I feel about it.
Again, I have said nothing.

You said plenty.:) I hate that 'eggs go with everything' ad. I know.

 

[falcune]

I'd like to see this ad.

Sorry.