Hello friends.
Boy was the barcrawl fun. I'm going to just leave it at that because I didn't take any pictures. The People's Barcrawl was a resounding success. Thanks so much to Spencer, Dan and Eddie especially.
The predominant thing I wanted to post is this disturbing article I read in the Guardian today: Fascist America, in 10 easy steps. People love to throw around words like 'fascism', and maybe it is a mite alarmist - but I challenge you to read it and tell me what you think. Here's a snippet:
'Of course, the United States is not vulnerable to the violent, total closing-down of the system that followed Mussolini's march on Rome or Hitler's roundup of political prisoners. Our democratic habits are too resilient, and our military and judiciary too independent, for any kind of scenario like that.
Rather, as other critics are noting, our experiment in democracy could be closed down by a process of erosion.'
Finally, who wants to do Critical Mass with me this friday? I'll do it alone if I have to.
It is what it is
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Sick, sad world
Spewed out by Will at 09:52
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4 comments:
i'll read it later, but lastnight i got the chills when i put on spike tv and noticed that ultimate fighting is getting as big as fake pro-wrestling. i think these ultimate fighters are the gladiators of our time, and seeing thousands of bloodthirsty screaming fans made me think that all of those comparisons between the US and the roman empire are sounding less and less unreasonable.
Hey,
Three things:
1) Your title of Sick, Sad World reminded me of that tv show that Daria used to watch. Ahh, the olden days of MTV. "Undressed" where have you gone?
2) Check out this band called "The Twilight Sad" from Scotland. I think you'll like 'em, even though their name is ridiculously emo sounding. They're not. The singer has this sweet, thick North Kilttown accent.
3) I'm hoping Des Moines has a critical mass. Bike To Work week happens in 2 weeks, so that's sweet. You dudes should come out here for RAGRBRAI -- it's this weeklong bike ride from NW Iowa across the state.
finally read the article. i'd say the comparisons are not so great... really reaching. But I agree with the erosion thesis. That's how we've arrived at the state of affairs today, and that's how we'll fall. No revolution, no Coup. Just a tighter and tighter grip until we're defacto totalitarian.
Where specifically do you think it's such a huge reach? The only thing I can think of is the 'silencing the press' part, and I tend to think that is a general dumbing down of our news based on the media catering to what people want to hear. This makes more tabloids, the tabloids are the only things making profit, and thus there is no market for hard-hitting news. It doesn't help that media consolidation leads to news coming from less sources, and sources generally without foreign bureaus - de facto all the news coming from very few people.
Casting dissent as treason is just rhetorical hyperbole - for now. I find it a very scary possible reality that we'll slide further into a police state, and the architects of that state will be the neocon agenda. The only thing is they don't really have an agenda, they just blame everyone else in the world while plundering ('privatizing') our tax dollars.
They have no philosophy and that's what's the scariest thing of all.
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