Money Masters

[Arraya]

[quote=Russell]Arraya,

Although I have done it myself, I don’t like the use of the analogy to slavery in this context.Your answer is a partial explanation of why. Also, the use reeks of a victim mentality and entitlement that has no shame in the face of real suffering and no pride in the face of our overwhelmingly favorable odds of increasing our individual lot or just enjoying our relative wealth by getting off our backsides.These values are much more destructive than taxes. Besides that we can always choose to be high minded ascetics, or take some other non-materialistic path, in order abolish this burden of debt.Poor me, poor me in America.

[/quote]

You OBVIOUSLY have misunderstood my point and you OBVIOUSLY are complaining about the collective toxic media-generated mentality that has helped bring us and the planet to the brink of complete ruin. I’m not talking about the size of everybody’s bank accounts and how much we are taxed. I’m talking about having a RATIONAL and SUSTAINABLE lifestyle and social order which CAN”T include our monetary system. Here is the REALITY, Rus. We have authorities, who’s decision’s affect our lives, that are completely insane or are purposely driving us towards COMPLETE economic and societal collapse and totalitarian dictatorship; it is as simple as that. That is OBVIOUSLY were this is headed. We have a POLITICAL crisis not an economic one. Denial makes victims, facing reality makes the people of the future.

What does keep the American people from looking around them and seeing the obvious? That the earth is a finite thing being used up at exponential rates? Answer: The Spectacle. American capitalism’s “media hologram.” We no longer have a country, but the artificial spectacle of one. We have a global corporation masquerading electronically, digitally, financially, and legally and every other way as a nation called the “United States of America.” The corporation now animates most of us from within through management of the need hierarchy of goods and information. We no longer have citizens. We have consumers, “purchase decision makers” whose most influential act in life consists of choosing a mortgage banker and an NFL team. And a car. The majority of modernized technical humans, Digitus Cathodus Americanus, cannot perceive the hologram because their self-identities were generated by it. It’s “reality” to them — the only one they will know until the hologram collapses with their electrical industrial civilization.

By design or not, the hologram’s primary effect has been to induce the illusion of a national “value system” through hypnotic repetition of images. Thus profit-seeking enterprises are legitimized as the animating spirit of our identities as individuals and as a nation. The end result of course is the mass replication of millions of uniform “market segmented consumer identities.” Individuality is circumscribed by brand identification. The overall aggregate of brand identification groups is interpreted to be an inherently superior race or nation (worth fighting for to expand the resource base and markets.) We no longer have lives, just lifestyles that are defined and expressed through ever expanding (and more profitable) consumption.

Net result: The legions of humanity toil to generate the trucks and tofu, munitions, missiles, newspapers, petrochemicals and pizza and millions of tons of ground up cattle sold to fire the furnace of an economic engine that has taken on a life of its own. One that must grow exponentially, devouring everything just to survive. Just to keep from collapsing. And people are taught that it is called “human progress.”

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/04/back_to_the_anc.html

[NotCranky]

[quote=arraya][quote=Russell]Arraya,

Although I have done it myself, I don’t like the use of the analogy to slavery in this context.Your answer is a partial explanation of why. Also, the use reeks of a victim mentality and entitlement that has no shame in the face of real suffering and no pride in the face of our overwhelmingly favorable odds of increasing our individual lot or just enjoying our relative wealth by getting off our backsides.These values are much more destructive than taxes. Besides that we can always choose to be high minded ascetics, or take some other non-materialistic path, in order abolish this burden of debt.Poor me, poor me in America.

[/quote]

You OBVIOUSLY have misunderstood my point and you OBVIOUSLY are complaining about the collective toxic media-generated mentality that has helped bring us and the planet to the brink of complete ruin. I’m not talking about the size of everybody’s bank accounts and how much we are taxed. I’m talking about having a RATIONAL and SUSTAINABLE lifestyle and social order which CAN”T include our monetary system. Here is the REALITY, Rus. We have authorities, who’s decision’s affect our lives, that are completely insane or are purposely driving us towards COMPLETE economic and societal collapse and totalitarian dictatorship; it is as simple as that. That is OBVIOUSLY were this is headed. We have a POLITICAL crisis not an economic one. Denial makes victims, facing reality makes the people of the future.

What does keep the American people from looking around them and seeing the obvious? That the earth is a finite thing being used up at exponential rates? Answer: The Spectacle. American capitalism’s “media hologram.” We no longer have a country, but the artificial spectacle of one. We have a global corporation masquerading electronically, digitally, financially, and legally and every other way as a nation called the “United States of America.” The corporation now animates most of us from within through management of the need hierarchy of goods and information. We no longer have citizens. We have consumers, “purchase decision makers” whose most influential act in life consists of choosing a mortgage banker and an NFL team. And a car. The majority of modernized technical humans, Digitus Cathodus Americanus, cannot perceive the hologram because their self-identities were generated by it. It’s “reality” to them — the only one they will know until the hologram collapses with their electrical industrial civilization.

By design or not, the hologram’s primary effect has been to induce the illusion of a national “value system” through hypnotic repetition of images. Thus profit-seeking enterprises are legitimized as the animating spirit of our identities as individuals and as a nation. The end result of course is the mass replication of millions of uniform “market segmented consumer identities.” Individuality is circumscribed by brand identification. The overall aggregate of brand identification groups is interpreted to be an inherently superior race or nation (worth fighting for to expand the resource base and markets.) We no longer have lives, just lifestyles that are defined and expressed through ever expanding (and more profitable) consumption.

Net result: The legions of humanity toil to generate the trucks and tofu, munitions, missiles, newspapers, petrochemicals and pizza and millions of tons of ground up cattle sold to fire the furnace of an economic engine that has taken on a life of its own. One that must grow exponentially, devouring everything just to survive. Just to keep from collapsing. And people are taught that it is called “human progress.”

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/04/back_to_the_anc.html

[/quote]
I was just glad that you agreed that we have personal responsibility in this “debt slavery” attitude. Everything after the first sentence of my post was just a rant… not a challenge at all.

[NotCranky]

[quote=arraya][quote=Russell]Arraya,

Although I have done it myself, I don’t like the use of the analogy to slavery in this context.Your answer is a partial explanation of why. Also, the use reeks of a victim mentality and entitlement that has no shame in the face of real suffering and no pride in the face of our overwhelmingly favorable odds of increasing our individual lot or just enjoying our relative wealth by getting off our backsides.These values are much more destructive than taxes. Besides that we can always choose to be high minded ascetics, or take some other non-materialistic path, in order abolish this burden of debt.Poor me, poor me in America.

[/quote]

You OBVIOUSLY have misunderstood my point and you OBVIOUSLY are complaining about the collective toxic media-generated mentality that has helped bring us and the planet to the brink of complete ruin. I’m not talking about the size of everybody’s bank accounts and how much we are taxed. I’m talking about having a RATIONAL and SUSTAINABLE lifestyle and social order which CAN”T include our monetary system. Here is the REALITY, Rus. We have authorities, who’s decision’s affect our lives, that are completely insane or are purposely driving us towards COMPLETE economic and societal collapse and totalitarian dictatorship; it is as simple as that. That is OBVIOUSLY were this is headed. We have a POLITICAL crisis not an economic one. Denial makes victims, facing reality makes the people of the future.

What does keep the American people from looking around them and seeing the obvious? That the earth is a finite thing being used up at exponential rates? Answer: The Spectacle. American capitalism’s “media hologram.” We no longer have a country, but the artificial spectacle of one. We have a global corporation masquerading electronically, digitally, financially, and legally and every other way as a nation called the “United States of America.” The corporation now animates most of us from within through management of the need hierarchy of goods and information. We no longer have citizens. We have consumers, “purchase decision makers” whose most influential act in life consists of choosing a mortgage banker and an NFL team. And a car. The majority of modernized technical humans, Digitus Cathodus Americanus, cannot perceive the hologram because their self-identities were generated by it. It’s “reality” to them — the only one they will know until the hologram collapses with their electrical industrial civilization.

By design or not, the hologram’s primary effect has been to induce the illusion of a national “value system” through hypnotic repetition of images. Thus profit-seeking enterprises are legitimized as the animating spirit of our identities as individuals and as a nation. The end result of course is the mass replication of millions of uniform “market segmented consumer identities.” Individuality is circumscribed by brand identification. The overall aggregate of brand identification groups is interpreted to be an inherently superior race or nation (worth fighting for to expand the resource base and markets.) We no longer have lives, just lifestyles that are defined and expressed through ever expanding (and more profitable) consumption.

Net result: The legions of humanity toil to generate the trucks and tofu, munitions, missiles, newspapers, petrochemicals and pizza and millions of tons of ground up cattle sold to fire the furnace of an economic engine that has taken on a life of its own. One that must grow exponentially, devouring everything just to survive. Just to keep from collapsing. And people are taught that it is called “human progress.”

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/04/back_to_the_anc.html

[/quote]
I was just glad that you agreed that we have personal responsibility in this “debt slavery” attitude. Everything after the first sentence of my post was just a rant… not a challenge at all.

[NotCranky]

[quote=arraya][quote=Russell]Arraya,

Although I have done it myself, I don’t like the use of the analogy to slavery in this context.Your answer is a partial explanation of why. Also, the use reeks of a victim mentality and entitlement that has no shame in the face of real suffering and no pride in the face of our overwhelmingly favorable odds of increasing our individual lot or just enjoying our relative wealth by getting off our backsides.These values are much more destructive than taxes. Besides that we can always choose to be high minded ascetics, or take some other non-materialistic path, in order abolish this burden of debt.Poor me, poor me in America.

[/quote]

You OBVIOUSLY have misunderstood my point and you OBVIOUSLY are complaining about the collective toxic media-generated mentality that has helped bring us and the planet to the brink of complete ruin. I’m not talking about the size of everybody’s bank accounts and how much we are taxed. I’m talking about having a RATIONAL and SUSTAINABLE lifestyle and social order which CAN”T include our monetary system. Here is the REALITY, Rus. We have authorities, who’s decision’s affect our lives, that are completely insane or are purposely driving us towards COMPLETE economic and societal collapse and totalitarian dictatorship; it is as simple as that. That is OBVIOUSLY were this is headed. We have a POLITICAL crisis not an economic one. Denial makes victims, facing reality makes the people of the future.

What does keep the American people from looking around them and seeing the obvious? That the earth is a finite thing being used up at exponential rates? Answer: The Spectacle. American capitalism’s “media hologram.” We no longer have a country, but the artificial spectacle of one. We have a global corporation masquerading electronically, digitally, financially, and legally and every other way as a nation called the “United States of America.” The corporation now animates most of us from within through management of the need hierarchy of goods and information. We no longer have citizens. We have consumers, “purchase decision makers” whose most influential act in life consists of choosing a mortgage banker and an NFL team. And a car. The majority of modernized technical humans, Digitus Cathodus Americanus, cannot perceive the hologram because their self-identities were generated by it. It’s “reality” to them — the only one they will know until the hologram collapses with their electrical industrial civilization.

By design or not, the hologram’s primary effect has been to induce the illusion of a national “value system” through hypnotic repetition of images. Thus profit-seeking enterprises are legitimized as the animating spirit of our identities as individuals and as a nation. The end result of course is the mass replication of millions of uniform “market segmented consumer identities.” Individuality is circumscribed by brand identification. The overall aggregate of brand identification groups is interpreted to be an inherently superior race or nation (worth fighting for to expand the resource base and markets.) We no longer have lives, just lifestyles that are defined and expressed through ever expanding (and more profitable) consumption.

Net result: The legions of humanity toil to generate the trucks and tofu, munitions, missiles, newspapers, petrochemicals and pizza and millions of tons of ground up cattle sold to fire the furnace of an economic engine that has taken on a life of its own. One that must grow exponentially, devouring everything just to survive. Just to keep from collapsing. And people are taught that it is called “human progress.”

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/04/back_to_the_anc.html

[/quote]
I was just glad that you agreed that we have personal responsibility in this “debt slavery” attitude. Everything after the first sentence of my post was just a rant… not a challenge at all.

[NotCranky]

[quote=arraya][quote=Russell]Arraya,

Although I have done it myself, I don’t like the use of the analogy to slavery in this context.Your answer is a partial explanation of why. Also, the use reeks of a victim mentality and entitlement that has no shame in the face of real suffering and no pride in the face of our overwhelmingly favorable odds of increasing our individual lot or just enjoying our relative wealth by getting off our backsides.These values are much more destructive than taxes. Besides that we can always choose to be high minded ascetics, or take some other non-materialistic path, in order abolish this burden of debt.Poor me, poor me in America.

[/quote]

You OBVIOUSLY have misunderstood my point and you OBVIOUSLY are complaining about the collective toxic media-generated mentality that has helped bring us and the planet to the brink of complete ruin. I’m not talking about the size of everybody’s bank accounts and how much we are taxed. I’m talking about having a RATIONAL and SUSTAINABLE lifestyle and social order which CAN”T include our monetary system. Here is the REALITY, Rus. We have authorities, who’s decision’s affect our lives, that are completely insane or are purposely driving us towards COMPLETE economic and societal collapse and totalitarian dictatorship; it is as simple as that. That is OBVIOUSLY were this is headed. We have a POLITICAL crisis not an economic one. Denial makes victims, facing reality makes the people of the future.

What does keep the American people from looking around them and seeing the obvious? That the earth is a finite thing being used up at exponential rates? Answer: The Spectacle. American capitalism’s “media hologram.” We no longer have a country, but the artificial spectacle of one. We have a global corporation masquerading electronically, digitally, financially, and legally and every other way as a nation called the “United States of America.” The corporation now animates most of us from within through management of the need hierarchy of goods and information. We no longer have citizens. We have consumers, “purchase decision makers” whose most influential act in life consists of choosing a mortgage banker and an NFL team. And a car. The majority of modernized technical humans, Digitus Cathodus Americanus, cannot perceive the hologram because their self-identities were generated by it. It’s “reality” to them — the only one they will know until the hologram collapses with their electrical industrial civilization.

By design or not, the hologram’s primary effect has been to induce the illusion of a national “value system” through hypnotic repetition of images. Thus profit-seeking enterprises are legitimized as the animating spirit of our identities as individuals and as a nation. The end result of course is the mass replication of millions of uniform “market segmented consumer identities.” Individuality is circumscribed by brand identification. The overall aggregate of brand identification groups is interpreted to be an inherently superior race or nation (worth fighting for to expand the resource base and markets.) We no longer have lives, just lifestyles that are defined and expressed through ever expanding (and more profitable) consumption.

Net result: The legions of humanity toil to generate the trucks and tofu, munitions, missiles, newspapers, petrochemicals and pizza and millions of tons of ground up cattle sold to fire the furnace of an economic engine that has taken on a life of its own. One that must grow exponentially, devouring everything just to survive. Just to keep from collapsing. And people are taught that it is called “human progress.”

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/04/back_to_the_anc.html

[/quote]
I was just glad that you agreed that we have personal responsibility in this “debt slavery” attitude. Everything after the first sentence of my post was just a rant… not a challenge at all.

[NotCranky]

[quote=arraya][quote=Russell]Arraya,

Although I have done it myself, I don’t like the use of the analogy to slavery in this context.Your answer is a partial explanation of why. Also, the use reeks of a victim mentality and entitlement that has no shame in the face of real suffering and no pride in the face of our overwhelmingly favorable odds of increasing our individual lot or just enjoying our relative wealth by getting off our backsides.These values are much more destructive than taxes. Besides that we can always choose to be high minded ascetics, or take some other non-materialistic path, in order abolish this burden of debt.Poor me, poor me in America.

[/quote]

You OBVIOUSLY have misunderstood my point and you OBVIOUSLY are complaining about the collective toxic media-generated mentality that has helped bring us and the planet to the brink of complete ruin. I’m not talking about the size of everybody’s bank accounts and how much we are taxed. I’m talking about having a RATIONAL and SUSTAINABLE lifestyle and social order which CAN”T include our monetary system. Here is the REALITY, Rus. We have authorities, who’s decision’s affect our lives, that are completely insane or are purposely driving us towards COMPLETE economic and societal collapse and totalitarian dictatorship; it is as simple as that. That is OBVIOUSLY were this is headed. We have a POLITICAL crisis not an economic one. Denial makes victims, facing reality makes the people of the future.

What does keep the American people from looking around them and seeing the obvious? That the earth is a finite thing being used up at exponential rates? Answer: The Spectacle. American capitalism’s “media hologram.” We no longer have a country, but the artificial spectacle of one. We have a global corporation masquerading electronically, digitally, financially, and legally and every other way as a nation called the “United States of America.” The corporation now animates most of us from within through management of the need hierarchy of goods and information. We no longer have citizens. We have consumers, “purchase decision makers” whose most influential act in life consists of choosing a mortgage banker and an NFL team. And a car. The majority of modernized technical humans, Digitus Cathodus Americanus, cannot perceive the hologram because their self-identities were generated by it. It’s “reality” to them — the only one they will know until the hologram collapses with their electrical industrial civilization.

By design or not, the hologram’s primary effect has been to induce the illusion of a national “value system” through hypnotic repetition of images. Thus profit-seeking enterprises are legitimized as the animating spirit of our identities as individuals and as a nation. The end result of course is the mass replication of millions of uniform “market segmented consumer identities.” Individuality is circumscribed by brand identification. The overall aggregate of brand identification groups is interpreted to be an inherently superior race or nation (worth fighting for to expand the resource base and markets.) We no longer have lives, just lifestyles that are defined and expressed through ever expanding (and more profitable) consumption.

Net result: The legions of humanity toil to generate the trucks and tofu, munitions, missiles, newspapers, petrochemicals and pizza and millions of tons of ground up cattle sold to fire the furnace of an economic engine that has taken on a life of its own. One that must grow exponentially, devouring everything just to survive. Just to keep from collapsing. And people are taught that it is called “human progress.”

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/04/back_to_the_anc.html

[/quote]
I was just glad that you agreed that we have personal responsibility in this “debt slavery” attitude. Everything after the first sentence of my post was just a rant… not a challenge at all.

[Author]

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