RANGER AGAINST WAR: Full of Sound and Fury <

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Full of Sound and Fury

 Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet 
--Money, Pink Floyd 
 _______________________

Another Earth Day thought from writer I.F. Stone, on the inception of the holiday. He cautioned the would-be hypocrites for congratulating themselves too heartily on their project lest they fail to see the connectivity with all other national priorities.

Stone first came to my attention in a groaning stack of his collected essays being sold (or not) at a dollar store, the place most people go for cleaners and needful paper products. Such is the fate of the iconoclastic essayist, a form most haven't time or inclination for in a while.

The occasional outliers like the Stone book which appear in such stores are intriguing, like the lovely moderne Italian espresso cups and saucers next to the chocolate Easter bunnies on the same trip. Too avant-garde to sell for their actual purpose, someone thought to cleverly stage them as children's tea set.

The largely-forgotten Stone was quoted yesterday in a piece by Naomi Klein on her recent receipt of the "Izzy" (Stone) award for independent writing, and the excerpt voices precisely the problem with our sliced-and-diced sped up views of the supposed problems which we face. Because we lack a gestalt, we exist in frustration and outrage, and do not solve problems.

"There’s no use talking about Earth Day until we begin to think like Earthmen. Not as Americans and Russians, not as blacks and whites, not as Jews and Arabs, but as fellow travelers on a tiny planet in an infinite universe. All that we can muster of kindness, of compassion, of patience, of thoughtfulness, is necessary if this tiny planet of ours is not to go down to destruction.
"Until we have a leadership willing to make the enormous changes—psychological, military, and bureaucratic—to end the existing world system, a system of hatred, of anarchy, of murder, of war and pollution, there is no use talking about buying more wastebaskets or spending a couple of hundred million dollars on the Missouri River. If we do not challenge these fundamental causes of peril, we will be conned by the establishment while basic decisions are being made over which we have very little control, though they endanger everything on which our future and the world’s depend."

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1 Comments:

Blogger Ael said...

Thinking like humans first is necessary to our species long term survival.

However, a lot of big fish in tiny ponds need to be fried first.

Friday, April 24, 2015 at 11:47:00 PM GMT-5  

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