Planet Waves, By Chris Floyd

[The2ndWheel]

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/10/14/120.html

Humankind received yet another harsh message from its landlord last week. In the agony of Kashmir, in the laments of Guatemala, the planet once again laid down the hard truths of its brutal gospel: The earth doesn't love you. The earth doesn't need you. The earth doesn't know you are here.

All across the Hindu Kush, spreading through Central and South Asia, an underground tsunami of stone sent tens of thousands down to Sheol -- old and young, male and female, good and evil alike. On that same day, on the other side of the world, hundreds more were drowned in mud and rock when the backwash of a hurricane tumbled down on the Mayan Indians of Panabaj.

As on the day when the ocean surges and river floods destroyed America's Gulf Coast, the blind, implacable processes of nature made short work of humanity's pretensions to significance. All of the petty, pointless human divisions into religions, tribes, races and political factions, all the prideful ambitions for power and wealth, all the private hopes for love and fulfilment, all the prayers of the faithful and the scorn of the defiant -- everything of human worth and meaning -- all were obliterated without mercy by the swift, iron hand.

[Xipe Totec]

1. We go on from design to design,

add hope to hope, and lay out the plans for the employment of many years. Then the messenger of death comes when we least expect him. What are all the externals of majesty, the pride of wealth, or charms of beauty when nature has paid her last just debt? In the grave all fallacies are detected, all ranks leveled, all distinctions are done away. Here the scepter of the prince and the staff of the beggar lie side by side.

- Masonic burial service

[OneBlueSky]

2. "And as in all disasters, those with political pull . . .

will benefit most from 'reconstruction' aid. In Sri Lanka, poor villagers are being banned from re-settling on tsunami-hit beachfronts for "safety reasons" -- yet their land is being given to developers for five-star hotels, the Guardian reports. In New Orleans, the feasting on the dead by Bush cronies has grown so brazen that Washington has now been forced to re-bid some of the early pork payoffs, The New York Times reports. This is largely a show to allay public outrage, of course; billions more will remain safely stuffed in Bushist coffers.

"At every turn, human greed compounds our suffering. The urge to eat each other alive for power and profit, to consign whole sections of the common human family to degradation and exposure is a cruel mimicry of the planetary indifference that shadows us all. Of course, the earth isn't human, it has no capacity for conscience and compassion -- but what's our excuse for cruelty?"

kicked and recommended . . .

[Martin Eden]

3. I'll attempt to anwer Floyd's question

At every turn, human greed compounds our suffering. The urge to eat each other alive for power and profit, to consign whole sections of the common human family to degradation and exposure is a cruel mimicry of the planetary indifference that shadows us all. Of course, the earth isn't human, it has no capacity for conscience and compassion -- but what's our excuse for cruelty?

We don't need an excuse, because we are OF the earth. The indifferent forces of physics that convulse the atmosphere and the ground beneath our feet apply no less to the biological forms that evolved here. We behave according to our NATURE.

Belief in God and a divine spark in human beings, rather than elevating us to an enlightenment that might help us to cooperatively cope with the natural dangers of our planet, more often than not have divided us and closed our minds. The leaders of the most powerful, technologically advanced nation on earth routinely dismiss science when it conflicts with their religious world view.

Alas, we are not as superior to the beasts of the forest as we think, because their natural survival instincts -- uncorrupted by the pathologies of human intelligence -- are healthier than ours.

[Xipe Totec]

4. My money is still on the cockroaches

They are God's chosen creatures, just waiting for their moment in the sun.

[Martin Eden]

5. Kilgore Trout wrote of the most ancient and wise

sentient being in Venus on the Half Shell. The protagonist of the story roams the galaxy searching for the answer to the question that obsesses him:

Why were we created only to suffer and die?

He finally gains an audience with the most ancient and wise creature, who resembled a giant cockroach and personally knew The Creator. This creature's answer to the question were the last two words of the book (scroll down):

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Why Not?

[Larkspur]

7. That's a very male supremacist point of view.

And it's usually expressed by those who are used to or think they are the dominant creatures on this planet.

There is also pleasure and happiness in life.

As Einstein said, the only constant is change. Those with a dominator's mentality find change unsettling.

[Martin Eden]

8. Which?

Are you referring to the protagonist's question?

[Larkspur]

9. I'm referring to Kilgore Trout

[Martin Eden]

10. I used to think Vonnegut wrote Venus on the Half Shell

but someone on DU insisted it wasn't Vonnegut.

[Larkspur]

6. Earthquakes, floods, storms, etc. prove that our planet is geologically

alive. If it was not, then we'd all be dead.

It's not the planet's power that is the main detriment to humans. It is human greed and pride. It's those 2 vices that make humans with power cheat those who do not have power.