blah blah blah blah blah
Today I am utterly cynical about the whole presidential election, Republicans, Democrats, national conventions, Barack Obama, John McCain, country first, change, hope, dreams, (see post title) ....
Disgusted. Completely and utterly disgusted and cynical. It's all at best half truths, and half truths are about the most disgusting, vomitrocious, horrifying nasty miasmatic thing in the fucking universe. Infinitely worse than outright lies. And I'm not talking about aleph nought. I'm talking about aleph one. (hope that's sufficiently esoteric)
Today 30,000 children will die from the ongoing lack of clean potable water and 2 bowls of rice per day.
Meanwhile, I am ... stones overweight, and today, what with a combination of the electricity I'm currently using (refrigerator, washer, dryer, microwave, laptop, lights, dsl) and the petrol I used (that's gasoline for the Americans in the crowd) (drove 40+ miles round trip to the airport) and the food I consumed (probably ... 3,000 calories), I probably consumed enough to feed multiple families in the third world. And produced enough green house gas to hasten the complete desruction of the planet in my own children's lifetimes.
I'm not buying any of it. I don't see a way to ... stay here in the U.S. *and* turn off the overconsumption. It just doesn't seem possible. And don't even get me started on the children our armed forces, along with the munitions we've produced, have killed today, or yesterday, or the day before.
The worst bit of it is, I don't see any reasonable or legitimate way to get *out* of the west altogether. And I'm not even convinced doing so would ultimately help things. Feel a bit like a rat trapped on the wheel, just running along mindlessly, with no way off. There it is.
I hope bloody John McCain wins the election, takes us into more bloody wars, finishes destroying the vaunted "economy", and helps hasten the end of American Empire much faster than could have possibly been anticipated. How's that for "hope"?
8 comments:
we are helpless beings, we humans, aren;'t we darling. I think this becomes more evident when we are grieving a loved one. love you Bens
i know ben, it sucks. i'm there with you a lot. but how lucky are you to have someone like meg in your life? i'm not trying to get you to look at any hippy-dippy-bright-side-crap, just wanted to point that out. you've got meg and your kids. hold tightly to them in moments like that. i don't have kids myself, but i'm lucky to have friends with kids that i adore. my young friend genny - she's got a spot on her neck that anytime i put my nose there she cackles with laughter. it brightens the most hopeless of days. and my young friend peter - whenever his parents show up at a peace vigil with him i just take him and start tossing him in the air. the smile and laughter that comes out of that 9 month old is addicting. i wish i could just sit with peter and genny making them laugh all day. those are the moments that i hold tightly too in moments of despair. they don't always help in the long run, but the short run it does. anyhow, i'll shut up. i guess my point is that in the darkness you are loved. i read that everytime i read one of meg's comments to you. please don't ever forget that, okay? and if you find it slipping and you need a distanced party to remind you - send me an email, and i'll remind you. okay? you are in my prayers.
Yeah, I'm right there with you B. We're as tied into the 'cycle of wealth' as others are in the 'cycle of poverty'.
to be frank, I think you are doing it. You're just not doing it all, and you're not doing your bit all at once.
xx s.
Ben
Do you think the answer is trying to escape western culture or do you see this culture of consumption welling up from your very own heart? In other words, does changing the circumstances around you aleviate your proclivities toward attitudes and actions you despise even in yourself?
Seren,
Thank you!
Mike,
Yes, and no, of course.
By which I mean to say an alcoholic isn't going to solve his drinking problem by merely never going to bars. And part of the solution for many alcoholics is never going to bars.
It's reasonable to expect that if you hang around with a group of people a *lot*, some of their attitudes and ideas and ways-of-being are going to rub off on you. And I think Brian McLaren nailed it when he said that Americans are the most excellent consumers in written history. So if I want to become a less excellent consumer, then ... well, as I said.
=)
Have you seen The Mosquito Coast, with Harrison Ford?
A must-view in the next week.
Do you really think consumerism/the west/the American Empire is the problem? Which year in human history do you think was *better* than 2008 for the world's citizens? Where in the world now is free of ... suffering?
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