SOCIAL: F&#@#k. The Bailout Sucks.

[Tom Radulovich]

Why is a druid any less credible than, say, an economist?

On Nov 25, 2008, at 4:42 PM, Amandeep Jawa wrote:

> Wait - what was our choice?  Cause I would have picked a Mars  
> mission, recreating our energy grid using renewables, a rebuild of  
> the school system, and bringing mammoths back from extinction  
> through genetic engineering, funding a vast worldwide education and  
> health effort (esp. for women), and a puppy.
>
> But seriously what was our choice?
>
> 'deep
>
> .ps
> Really, I'm reading a druid?  And he's making a lot of sense so  
> far?  Have I been in CA too long?
>
>
> On Nov 25, 2008, at 4:27 PM, Tom Radulovich wrote:
>
>> Of course we had a choice.
>>
>> John Michael Greer, who writes "The Archdruid Report" (It isn't a  
>> cute handle; he is actually an Archdruid), wrote a piece called  
>> "The Flight to Abstraction" which I haven't been able to get out of  
>> my head for a few weeks.  The post contains one of my favorite  
>> quotes about Las Vegas: "of all of the cities I have ever visited,  
>> Las Vegas is my least favorite: a garish urban cancer that  
>> apparently exists for the sole purpose of proving that it’s  
>> possible to take a barren, scorpion-infested wasteland and make  
>> something even worse out of it."
>>
>> Las Vegas provides a segue to Giambattista Vico's treatise on  
>> history, which includes the idea that as societies age, they lose a  
>> focus on the concrete realities and focus increasingly on  
>> abstractions. For example, the cost of the AIG bailout alone (±  
>> $250 billion) would build the US a world-class, nationwide  
>> electrified passenger rail system. But somehow, the task of shoring  
>> up AIG and all of the abstract 'capital' it represents (capital  
>> once meant 'goods') became a much more compelling political  
>> imperative than creating actual, tangible, usable infrastructure we  
>> could use to move around the country without continuing to destroy  
>> the planet.
>>
>> Greer's take on history and civilization owes much to Oswald  
>> Spengler, and his view of industrial civilization's prospects is  
>> throughly pessimistic, but he is a thoughtful and original writer.
>>
>> http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-decision-some-two-and-half-years-ago.html
>>
>> On Nov 25, 2008, at 2:19 PM, Amandeep Jawa wrote:
>>
>>> The original post is here:
>>>
>>> http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/big-bailouts-bigger-bucks/
>>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 25, 2008, at 2:16 PM, Amandeep Jawa wrote:
>>>
>>>> damn. this f*()&)ng sucks.  I don't know that we had a choice,  
>>>> but F@#$k!
>>>> ----------------------------------

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