Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Some Fear Carbohydrates; Some Fear Capitalism


Perhaps the world can be divided into two camps: 1) those who fear carbohydrates; 2) those who fear capitalism.

Those who fear carbohydrates tend to buy into mass media scares, fad diets, and technological solutions to problems humans solved long ago. They think the fix to global warming is nuclear power, the fix to justifiable terrorist attacks, or what Chalmers Johnson refers to as "blowback," is a higher level of military attack on poor countries.

They think to solve poverty you must starve the poor and refuse them adequate healthcare in order to inspire winning competitive attitudes on the market. Often these are the same people that advocate for abstinence rather than safer sex and salvation in heaven rather than on earth. These people believe that to be in harmony with nature we must work against it, modify it, fix it. They believe that though "God" created the earth, that it can be improved upon by human ingenuity.

These people believe that to be "in the trenches" means to serve as middle management or at the executive level of a company rather than on the floor of a factory or in the pits of a mine. Despite having one and a half bathrooms per person, or more, they view themselves as part of the struggling lower middle class.

They believe the solution to racism is for black people to get over their bad attitudes and they believe the solution to works rights is the free market. These are the dangerous people, uneducated by our public schools, unfamiliar with global communities, unaware of the violence within the United States, unable to hear the pleading voices of soldiers begging the United States to leave Iraq, unable to hear the pleading voices of Iraqis begging the United States to leave.

They will dictate the vote on both sides of the aisle. They will stand in alliance with the minority of people who believe that the electoral system in the United States is fair. They will drive us towards our destruction.

I prefer people who like carbohydrates and hate capitalism.

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