Discuss: Elegy for a Toxic Logic

Great thoughts. I predict 10 years hence, the dubbyah’s will be spinning this as well, and we will have forgotten that capitalism and cronyism were supposed to be dead and discredited.

wasn’t it russell baker who wrote something like—when something has been declared to be dead, done, finished, it starts to resurrect? it is going to take laborious self-examination, work, and ethical reinvention in our society to keep the stake in the heart of this vampire (capitalism and cronyism.)

A PIECE OF ICE

IS ABOUT MELTING

BEFORE YOU KNOW IT

ABOUT LOST STRENGTH

WHITE STEAM AND A BRIEF

MEMORY OF HURRY.

EDWARD MYCUE

Meat production has also dropped dramatically, sparing many millions of animals the agony of being raised in torturous conditions merely to be consumed. See: http://tinyurl.com/6zgsad

For the Earth and for many of its inhabitants the economic downturn is a very good thing.

Was this nonsense written in a swoon right after the Obama election? “Everything changes” is an absurd statement, perhaps good propaganda for Buddhist guru-followers, but imbecilic. What changed in the US power structure? Did all the guns and bombs get laid down? Is economic inequality lower? Are the jobs and decent housing and medical care flowing now like wine? If this is a crisis that brings “opportunity,” why are the same Clintonians and neoliberals and neoconservatives guarded by an expanding police and judiciary enjoying a banner weekend while the merest protest merits 22 years?  The supersystem is concentrating, Ms. Solnit, and the time is now to admit that. The dying kangaroos in Australia, impelled to return to their fire-ravaged territory only to die from burns, are testimony.

sir /mam
Asbestos sheet effect in human being

I agree with the fact that this is the moment and we have leaders who have the potential to change, but sadly they are already desperately trying to revive the beast with such efforts as with the stimulus package.  It seems that Obama is trying to make America into that same “Great Nation” that everyone thought it was back in the day.  In my opinion, people will not change or cry out for change until they feel the sting of the need for it.  Personally, I’m somewhat disappointed with these first steps.  Perhaps part of the strategy of politics and I need to be patient, but trying to go back to the world as it was is, I hope, not the goal.

I’m reading Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, by Lester R. Brown.  He’s president of the Earth Policy Institute in D.C. and he puts forth viable solutions to these ideas, naming the technologies that we have in place already.  It not only talks about the problems as stated in this article, it brings forward possibilities on how we can bring about changes.

Find it and read it, then pass it on to someone else!

There is no guarantee that this moment of opportunity will be taken to its full advantage - opportunity in the economic crisis and opportunity due to the change in Washington. President Obama is but one human being and I believe his vision is more expansive than he has articulated publicly so far. Maybe I’m wrong and ultimately his goal is to revamp the old way of doing things but with a slightly “greener” face. I don’t think so, though. And for me, I have to see where we are now as more than just the sum total of economic and political stuff in the US. There is such a thing as timing in the Universe, as Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry have talked about particularly in their book The Universe Story. We are part of a much larger picture (or hologram if you will). I, too, am impatient and I tell myself every day that what is happening could very well cause the shift or transformation I’ve been working for and praying for and visualizing for many years now. Again, I could be wrong. But for now I’ve decided to let my optimism out while maintaining a good dose of realism. Many of us predicted the downfall of an economy proped up by cheap, though ecologically devastating, energy, giving everything away to the rich and powerful, letting corporations run things, an economy dependent on unsustainable and ultimately unhealthy in every way consumerism. And now it appears this prediction has come to pass. And we saw it, envisioned in, and even hoped for it. Not to prove that we were right but to finally get to that place where changing it might actually be possible. Well, here we are . . .