Mark Jones wrote:
>
> >
> It would be more useful to address the issue I am raising, rather than going
> into denial,
Mark, If I were chained to a tree, it would do me no good to give my
attention to the fact that a flood was approaching. My main concern
would be to unchain myself, and then and only then would it be
worthwhile to consider whether or not a flood was approaching.
My understanding of capitalism is that it _must_ grow, regardless of
consequences, and that it simply is not worth considering possibilities
for constraining growth under capitalism, however desirable or even
absolutely necessary that may be.
Capitalism's only redeeming feature is that it offers the possibility
(however remote) -- not certainty, not even probability, simply the
_possibility_ -- of socialism. And socialism, and only socialism, would
create the _possibility_ -- not certainty, not even probability -- of
addressing, _in practice_, the issues you raise.
Until you can link those issues to concrete possibilities of political
organization for socialism, addressing those issues constitutes a naive
utopianism, a refusal to face the very facts that you wish us to
address. To focus on them now would be as absurd as it would have been
in (say) 1750, to devote all physical research to the development of
petrochemicals. You want to deflect us from doing anything about the
concerns that you incessantly raise. YOu want us, instead, to wring our
hands and scream.
Carrol
