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Politics : Libertarian Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (5551)	10/28/2003 7:59:09 PM
From: LPS5	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13056

Message 19443785

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (5551)	12/2/2003 5:32:18 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13056

<<< ... They call the torture system by many names, "opportunity" or "success" or "the American dream." Key components are called "individualism" and "competition." It's implemented through social isolation, brilliantly executed commercial advertising, and games and classrooms and workplaces that punish honesty and reward calculating selfishness. Yes, there are many messages about love and cooperation, about feelings being more important than money, but here, conveniently, the propaganda is badly done, stilted and preachy, and Americans cynically rebel. All this together means that the ideal American lacks any healthy social relation, that our only relations with other living beings are domination or submission or zero-sum competition, that our only way to sense any meaning in our lives is to grasp greedily for scarce fabrications: money, toys, tokens of status, shallow pleasures, coolness, respectability, fame, victory -- or to associate ourselves with some symbol that has these attributes. That's why Americans cheer their local sports teams, and worship their omnipotent sky father deity, and display their national logo. That's why they will convince themselves of the nobility and goodness of their bombing of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea, France, California… That's why they lack class consciousness, why the poorer classes sympathize with the rich and not with their own interests. That's why they are devastated by defeat or failure. Because Americans lack any emotional grounding in anything real, they must be "winners" or associate with a winner or they will be empty, annihilated. And their definition of "winner" requires a loser. Nothing I've described here is unique to America ... >>> web.pitas.com