(Untitled)

[maddict]

So I've been reading a lot of The Economist lately. I'm bored in Clarksville, so I've been renewing my roots with old periodicals. In the midst of all these crises, I've been relying on my usual sources (Democracy Now!, Indymedia, Amnesty International, Environmental News Network). Financial markets, food prices, exchange rates, natural

Comments

[indubitablydyl]

My time with Scott and Mike had similar results for me. Their fervent faith in their own abilities as "elite" enabling them to rise above whatever difficulties may arise and in the Market/Science, which, with enough demand, will produce whatever solutions the world needs (millions of people who die in the process are merely side effects) is comforting and terrifying

[indubitablydyl]

I kind of wonder when you think America was going "forwards." It seems like, starting from the revolution, you had selective democracy/slavery etc., then a civil war, then industrialism/nationalistic Western expansion, then another war, then wanton hedonism followed by economic decimation, then another war, then a period defined by social naivette, witch hunts, and conformity, a period of social turmoil, another war and Watergate, the 80s + 90s (decent years by many standards, but arguably contributing to the materialism, consumerism, and complacence we're paying for now and for years to come), then Bush and more war. It's almost as if, by some standards, America started with an ideal and has been sinking ever since

[maddict]

Just based on the kind of laws we've been able to get passed, the climate in Washington is becoming more and more regressive as we sink deeper into the black hole of the War on Terror. We could be taking progressive action to meet the challenges of the day, echoing the Endangered Species Act or the Green Revolution or any of the other examples of government, industry, and science working together to improve society on a truly historic scale. But instead, we're turning into a paranoid theocracy. I'm not optimistic, to say the very least, that a Democratic White House can change that. There's only so much you can do in eight years