: hj: Thanks rob, for the article. You're quite right : to assume that I wouldn't have read it from the link : because I shy away from what to me is a technological : minefield. Have you read the material yourself, and : if so, what's your reaction? Why is there so little : reaction from you on this whole situation?
rob: well, i find Roy's comments quite resonant. i saw her on PBS on "NOW - with Bill Moyers" when he did a special on how New Orleans is below sea level and vulnerable of becoming completely submerged if a category four or five hurricane ever makes a direct hit. the show had three segments and the Roy interview was one of them. initially i was initially taken by her beauty and her talk about the role of an artist but my interest blossomed when she discussed the destructive aspects of the commercialization of the world and of the politics of power. here is no hands-off arm chair thinker who says lets sit on the sidelines and merely reflect. how refreshing! i have always been at odds about what to do in terms of the commercialization of life. on the one hand it is a terribly shallow way to live on this Earth -- and on the other it is sickness. the media and corporations (and the politicians who maintain the corporate landscape) have so much power -- so much in fact that the most "american" thing one can do is quickly called anti-American by most everyone. it is nice to hear what i see being articulated by another. afterall -- my interest is the well being of people -- not a particular group. : [hj:] When I : grew up, the most significant question in my life was: : Why did the professional class in Germany fail to : react to the threat of Hitler? The answer is, as we : see now in America, that intellectuals are very : fearful animals. They don't want to speak out when : such an act exposes them to attack and scorn. And yet, : lets not ignore the fact that a lot of brave souls did : speak up under Hitler, and there are a few brave souls, : frightfully few, iside that obscene beltway, who are : driven into moral questioning. But mostly you see the : hand of the power that has a moral stranglehold on the : throat of (our) conscience. The power of the media to : drown out serious questions. Or in Eisenhauer's (sic) : words "the military industrial complex." Here, Holy : Willie Inc. seems to be exercising a similar function. rob: there does seem to be something of a tendency to interpret K to have suggested any act or expression of political dissent is a distraction from root of the problem. yet, with Roy -- particularly the interview i heard and saw on television before reading -- i find the articulated dissent from the destructive economic / political forces which are presently "developing" the world to both point to and address the root of the problem -- provided one is willing to look and see how oneself fits into the picture. what do you think K moved from directly criticizing our economics and politics to simply awakening the individual to his total slavery to conditioned thinking? what i do note about K is that he never suggested that the economic and political actualities the world over did not cry out for intelligent dissent. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.391 / Virus Database: 222 - Release Date: 9/19/02 ------------------------------------------- Introducing NetZero Long Distance Unlimited Long Distance only $29.95/ month! Sign Up Today! www.netzerolongdistance.com - >>> email 'unsubscribe listening-l' or 'subscribe listening-l' or 'info listening-l' >>> to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in the body of the message
