bird cage blues

On Utopia.

There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. The innovator has the enmity of all who profit by the preservation of the old system and only lukewarm defenders by those who would gain by the new system. (Machiavelli, 1513)

And though the philosopher may live remote from business, the genius of philosophy, if carefully cultivated by several, must gradually diffuse itself throughout the whole society, and bestow a similar correctness on every art and calling. (David Hume, 1737)

All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.
(Albert Einstein, 1954)

Once again, the wheels in my head are spinning out of control. When trying to find Reason and Morality in the political structure around me, I'm led only to the conclusion that such things have been abandoned, as they neither generate mass consumption nor do they bind the individual to a lifelong dependency to society at large.

Wouldn't it be nice to wake up, eat a meal consisting of food produced directly by us and the direct community in which we dwell, practice hygeine in a manner that didn't require the purchase of FDA-approved goods manufactured and shipped in from God-knows-where, put on warm clothes designed, hemmed and stitched by ourselves and our children and go about our business doing only what is necessary to live well today?

Some may consider these ideas narrow-minded and impractical, and I would accuse those people of being Lazy Asses. There is no substitute for imagination, no matter how easy or how popular new & shiny and regardless of monetary benefits. Those who stand in the way of the progression of the Human Race, to which we all belong, believe it or not, are also the slaves of comfort and convenience. If one cannot properly realize that each life determines its own course, than such an individual has no right to be in a position of authority or influence.

What do you think, Bert?

"It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption. I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis in our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society. The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evil." (Albert Einstein, 1949)

I catch your drift.

HOOW LONG WILL THE MADNESS PREVAIL??!

"God in the safe, Ford on the shelves... All of the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects"

bangarang.