Re: [pf] Brainwashing info sources

by Betsy Barnum

20 December 2000 15:02 UTC

Jill Taylor Bussiere wrote:

> Distorted mirrors, silence about what matters, denial--all of these are
> barriers to honest discussion about what doesn't work in our modern world.
> They hid the truth and keep us from seeing clearly what is not working, and
> why, and what can be done about it. To the extent that Cultural Creatives
> have let go of their allegiance to Modernism's values, they are able to peer
> through the distortions better than most of us. But the barriers affect
> them, too, muffling their voices and silencing their objections

I wonder how much of these bankers' difficulty that causes them to cry in their
tea is that even though they see that things are not working, any alternative
they could possibly entertain would involve substantial material loss to them,
as well as a shaking of the foundations of what they have based their lives on
and devoted their whole energy to for their lifetime. I speculate it may be a
lot easier for people with less power and less money to see alternatives and
actually work toward them, rather than abandoning their grandchildren to lives
of unthinkable horror when the current regime crashes down.

I am trying to have some compassion for these rich guys who are able to see what
their system is heading for, but since their failure to act on what they know is
responsible for untold human and ecological suffering *right now*, to say
nothing of the future, I also think they are cowards who, if there is justice in
the universe, will suffer in their turn. I could (will) work my whole life to
create alternatives and not have as much immediate impact as a handful of these
guys sacrificing their comfortable lifes and self-images to bring about change.

It seems we have to do more than let go of allegiance to modernism's values.
It's also necessary to let go of the ways we have made sense of the world and
our role in it, in favor of new ways to make sense of it that we can imagine but
have never experienced. It's pretty scary--but I'd much sooner take that leap
than do nothing and condemn the future generations to conditions of life that I
can imagine and hope no one ever has to experience.

Betsy
--
Betsy Barnum
bbarnum@wavetech.net
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1624

**************************************
I can think of no greater task for activists today than to study
the reasons why so many common people, surely a majority,
objected to the ratification of the Constitution.

--Jerry Fresia, Toward An American Revolution