[aclug-L] Re: Richard Reid

[Lars von dem Ast <prenzl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tom Hull wrote:

>My apologies for continuing this thread, especially to Scott Rarden,
>whose very different response is equally valid. But Michael Moore's
>rant touched a nerve with me: namely that the only response that he
>could come up with to Lars' (I thought) modest and touching comment
>was to descend into name-calling and wild hyperbole. On the other
>hand, Lars' analysis misses or obscures some important points. I've
>spent a good deal of time in the last 16 months researching a book
>on some of these matters. (Time, I suppose, that might have been
>happier and more productively spent writing free software.) So if
>you have any interest (and if you don't, stop reading here; you've
>been warned), I'd like to try to work my way through this thicket.
>Because in the long run, if we cannot reason together, it will just
>come down to a matter of power, which leaves all sides bruised or
>worse.
>  
>
....

What most Americans do not realize is that the empire game has refined 
itself, just like upgraded software, over time. We are very much an 
empire and we have the most refined system the world has ever seen. But 
even the Romans realized that conquering armies cannot do much good 
after the fight is over unless resources smoothly flow back to 
headquarters. Pilate was eventually relieved due to his mishandling of 
some minor uprising, i.e., even back then the name of the game was 
getting resources flowing home. Pilate was supposed to be crafty enough 
to NOT need military force to quell trouble.

By the time the British Empire ended (1960's?), imperialism was a highly 
refined, all but invisible game. In the 19th century the Brits did some 
rather dastardly things. Does anyone know what the Opium War was about? 
Britian grew massive quantities of opium in India and Afghanistan, and 
literally forced its other eastern colonies to consume it! I shit you 
not! In Thailand, the shipment would arrive and the king was expected to 
pay for it. And when the next shipment arrived, to pay for it too! He 
had little choice but to actively push the drug on his own people! The 
Chinese dared stand up to this extortion and got their butts kicked, the 
Chinese Emperor once and for all stripped of power.

Empires are run differently now. Today the U.S. has some 4% of the 
world's population, but consumes 25% of its resources. We've effectively 
rebuilt the world to inundate us with "stuff." This grand capitalism of 
ours is in reality nothing but a pyramid scheme. For example, the 
Indonesians threw out the Dutch right after WWII and a populist, 
patriot-led government began. Soon the CIA threw them out and installed 
Suarto, who like Marcos next door, played the game just like we wanted: 
He traded his country's abundant natural wealth for military hardware 
from us, and salted billions away in Switzerland--all while brutally 
suppressing any form of democracy or labor rights. In this climate, 
Western investment flooded in and manufacturing grew. Great, you might 
think. Today, methamphetamine use is rampant. Workers do 36-hour shifts, 
get "great pay" for it, too. Sounds good....

Unfortunately, $1.00/day is just enough to wreck their traditional 
self-sufficient subsitence economy. The vast majority of 3rd worlders 
lived in close harmony with the land as subsistence farmers. And 
whatever they had leftover, they took to the market to sell or barter 
for a very limited amount of finished goods. Okay, in waltzes a new 
factory. It pays "great" ($1.00/day). The workers "raid" the local 
economy with their relatively big money, living like kings. But then 
inflation sets in and the finished goods come in too. (Remember "free 
trade?") Soon that $1.00/day is not so big, and soon enough it's just 
like Charles Dickens's England, i.e., an Industrial Revolution hell. And 
those peaceful, bucolic sorts out in the countryside have long since 
been forced to play the factory job game too, because their buying power 
was blown away long ago by the "big" factory wages. They're forced to 
migrate to the city and fight/beg for jobs and be totally dependent on 
factory jobs and finished import goods.

Maybe 36-hour meth-fueled shifts are not so bad. Maybe there's still a 
farm economy for those still on the farms. But wait, it gets better! 
Suoarto (Marcos, etc.) consolodate and convert the farmland to big 
plantations (for their rich buddies) and produce export cash crops to 
sell on the international market, that is, again, to us real cheap. And 
all but ruined Kansas wheat farmers see their wheat exported to places 
like, ta da! Indonesia! (This really hit Mexico hard when NAFTA all but 
crashed the Mexican ag market. Huge protests in M.City just recently.)

All the while the TV is blaring American homogenizing mind-rot 
world-wide, creating urban work clones stripped of any need of their 
traditional culture or beliefs. The Hollywood machine pumps out the 
materialism and pseudo-individualism (work hard! get rich! buy pretty 
car!) as a substitute for family, tribe, and village. Work, watch, 
consume. Repeat....until you drop. This whole scene is repeated 
throughout the hellish 3rd world. And the cheap resources and goods 
flood into the 1st world--to show up on your Walmart shelves. 30 years 
ago the amount of "stuff" on store shelves was 10% of what it is today. 
Are you happier? I'm old enough to have seen this huge per capita 
increase in materialism--and also seen how real quality of life has 
plummeted...Are you beginning to see why lots and lots of people don't 
like us?

To me, the modern American way is the way of death. And the global free 
market is the biggest evil since Lucifer himself. It's the way of 
Saruman in Tolkien's LOTR, verbatim. We totally define life in terms of 
the material. We have no concept of life other than the material. We 
work, we watch (TV), we consume. Repeat. We modern, American-led humans 
grow like a cancer on the planet population- and 
resource-consumption-wise. We sense modern life's pointlessness, and 
with the right dosages of Jesus, Prozac, and 24/7 media, we put off the 
"meaning of life" question. We wallow around in some saccharin nostagia. 
We download lifestyle and image upgrades constantly from Hollywood. We 
need the next thing. Always the next better thing. If you don't believe 
me, just turn the TV off, entirely. After a while you'll get edgy, 
nervous, just like a drug addict. Go a few days, weeks, months without 
media. I bet you can't.

I used to think my faceless German peasant ancestors were nobodies and I 
was so cool to live today and program a computer, etc. Now I know I'm 
the nobody!

Sorry for the full-frontal assault. I knew all this stuff for a long 
time. But then I read Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael" and he blew my head off. 
I blame him.

Lb


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