Reply #28: We've all been reduced to ragpicking and dumpster diving.

[vickitulsa]

It may not seem like it to those who've done pretty well in their scavenging for the dregs left in the bottom of the cooking pot and crumbs left under the feast table of the masters, but I think it's just a matter of time before the ruling elite produce some more laws to eliminate every means the common people have found to survive without selling their souls.

The corruption has metastasized too far already to be reversed, I suspect. The morphing of America (and the world) into mere sources of goods and services for the rich, the corporate thieves and exploiters, has been accomplished -- right before our eyes, as you said.

I don't see any way to undo it at this point. Maybe if we'd paid closer attention sooner ... but then it doesn't seem to be in our human nature to rise up in protest or organize to fight back until the abuses and wrongs have become entrenched, and by then it's too late to stem the tide.

In the ultimate war that is the survival of the fittest, the rich found ways to monopolize everything that we all depend on to live. The privatization of water that you mentioned seems to be the final step to total control.

Sometimes I feel we deserve what we get, for our foolishness and greed, our pride and shortsightedness on an individual level. But really that's just putting emotion into the argument when, if you eliminate the emotional component, we are getting simply what we brought upon ourselves.

We did have choices along the way here.

B.F. Skinner determined long ago that you can simply take out the emotional component of the cause-and-effect paradigm and see that humans are creatures who, like all creatures, react to the stimuli working on them. The follower mentality we manifest, particularly in groups, is abundantly evident in the trendiness we embrace, the adoration of shallow and worthless "idols," the stampeding at stores to acquire whatever useless product of the moment the advertisers convince us we must have.

Skinner also asserted that the only cultures which will survive, in the end, are those whose members care more about the survival of the group than the individuals in it. You know, like ants -- and the rich.

Think about it.

I loved your rant, btw. Glad you wrote it and chose to post it. I hope (and yes, I can still hope) your efforts to disseminate it find some traction in a jaded, blinded population.

For all my depressing assessment -- and yours -- nothing is yet "written in stone." We never know what could happen to change our course in a dramatic way, but I admit to myself that it's hard to maintain hope these days.

What a crappy mess we've made of our world.