From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Dec 07 2003 - 17:49:00 GMT
Wim and all:
Wim wrote:
Thanks for your quotes of 30 Nov 2003 19:54:53 -0700. Most of them remind us
that American liberals are a bit stupid to bother about elections being
stolen. They should -together with conservatives- try to do something about
their elections being bought!
dmb replies:
The only worse about buying elections rather than stealing them is that the
former is harder to detect. And that was the point of all those quotes.
Contrary to the beliefs of the so called free-market advocates, economic
power tends to corrupt democracy and make us less free. While I do believe
that free markets can be quite wonderful insofar as they allow the
expression of our wishes and desires, large and powerful corporations have
found countless ways to artifically manufacture and control our wants and
desires. And as you rightly point out, they have far too much influence on
the democratic and legislative processes. Or as I like to say, our
government is too often 'coin operated'. Another point of the quotes was to
clearly demonstrate that this danger has been clear to many major league
thinkers for well over 200 years.
Wim wrote:
Your (slightly unbalanced) post of 30 Nov 2003 13:49:41 -0700 prompts me (as
you didn't reply when I asked it 24 Aug 2003 15:08:27 +0200) to ask you
again the question:'Did you read how Wilber assessed Bush and Gore...? He
says he can work with both democrats and republicans (liberals and
conservatives) from a "second tier" perspective. No need for one of the two
to win I'd say...'
dmb says:
Well, I think you've over simplified what he was saying and I'd point out
that he said it two or three years ago, before we all had the chance to see
Bush's actual policies. I think what he is saying there is not very
different than what Pirsig is saying; that we ought not attack social level
values blindly nor should we follow them blindly. Instead we ought to
recognize that intellectual values couldn't exist without them, that they
serve a purpose in the overall evolution of things and that we ought to dust
them off and re-examine what they are really all about. I think that's what
Wilber means when he talks about seeing both conservatism and liberalism
from a higher perspective, to see their roles in a larger framework. (This
is why I'm so fond of Campbell and mythology in general; it allows us to do
that dusting off.) As I've said many times, Wilber is very Pirsigian and
this is just one more example.
The problem with Bush is that his policies are actually pretty radical. Real
conservatives don't like the idea of trying to change the world by force, or
even other nations by force. His faith-based pre-emptive war policy is
unprecedented in "Amerkin" history.
Thanks,
dmb
"Propaganda is to democracy what teh bludgeon is to a totalitarian state,
and the mass media is the primary vehicle for delivering propaganda in the
United States." Noam Chomsky in MANUFACTURING CONSENT
"Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a
philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the
few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments
and passions to those of their rulers. When we inquire by what means this
wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of
the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is,
therefore, on opinion only that government is founded, and this maxim
extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as to the
most free and most popular."
-- David Hume. Of the First Principles of Government. 1758.
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