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host · 06-30-2008, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

preamble:

you see these claims that capitalism is somehow rational because of the relation of supply to demand. you see these claims that demand, somehow, runs the show.

but sometimes you look around.
you're wandering the aisles in a convenience store.
in the refrigerator between the wall of budweiser and the wall of processed cheese and meat-like products, you see 5 different kinds of bottled water.
what is this? you wonder.
why are there bottles of tap water for sale?
some of them even make fun of me--evian spelled backward.

o, but it's so much bigger than you think:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

becoming a water sommelier is my new alternate identity project.
i like the efforts to explain bottled water as magic.
magic is a little park erected in the center of downtown chumpville.

we want what we are told we want.

but i buy bottles of sparkling water.
i like the bubbles.
i say to myself: there are no bubbles in tapwater.
and that is what keeps me from recognizing the extent to which i, too, am a chump.
it is the sense of superiority enjoyed by the vast alliance of those of us who like bubbles relative to those of you who do not that explains this thread

are you a chump for bottled water as well?

roachboy, corporation dictate how we live, who we fight, who leads us, and who gets the water and the fuel, and for how much, because, even if they were to wake up:

Quote:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2008/0...americans.html
June 19, 2008
Most Americans are afraid to feel outrage

By Joe Bageant

....The majority of Americans do not feel a thing about these state orchestrated persecutions of their fellow citizens. They do not feel anything because they are afraid to allow themselves to feel outrage. And because their government has conditioned them not to feel public anger. There are social consequences (being an outcast) for speaking such things aloud. There are even more consequences for acting upon those feelings. The citizenry is deeply afraid of those consequences. The bottom line is that they are afraid of their government.

But as long as these citizens pretend nothing is happening, they believe they are safe. Safety, they believe, is being below the radar of officialdom, whether it be that of the IRS, immigration, or the cop in the rear view mirror. Unfortunately, both the radar and the officialdom are those of an expanding punitive surveillance state. So staying below the radar means increased cringing all your life.

Then one day it becomes impossible to cringe any lower. The boot comes down as far as possible upon the unforgiving earth. The boot begins to grind upon the people for the simple sake of grinding despotism. Much as people tend to give despotism a face and a name, despotism is not a man, not a woman, not a government. It is an atmosphere, an environment, a world granted permission to exist by people whose culture and spirit has become necrotic through fear. One whose capability for compassion, respect, reverence even, for the freedom of others, and therefore liberty, has been extinguished....

The" marketing" of water is only a symptom of a much deeper, dysfunction and denial:

Quote:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2008/0...ling.html#more

....After a while, the gentleman sitting next to me (to whom we had not directed any conversation) got up, started walking out, and peered at us saying, "“If we don’t fight them there, we'’ll have to fight them here."” Same old. Same old. I didn’'t reply.

Back to the bartender. Next, the only other two people there, a young couple, walked by to leave the establishment. The bartender was probably figuring at that point that we might be driving business away, but he didn'’t stop arguing with us. The young man looked our way as he was leaving, saying something (I can’'t remember exactly what) about Iraq and his having been in Iraq four times. Although I knew better, I replied with some comment about the immorality of the invasion and occupation. His wife at that point angrily kept repeating the fact that her husband had been in Iraq four times.– I guess she expected that we should thank him for that, and when we didn'’t, she was upset. The couple ended up staying in the pub, and the four of us argued debated.

Now, a few days later, I remember only three things the vet said: The old, "“If you don'’t like it here, just leave."” And, "“I hope you die before I do."” I couldn'’t– and still can'’t figure that one out. If he would have just said "“I hope you die"” I would have “gotten it.” But why is it a good thing that I die before he does?

But, then he said incredible thing and this is really why I am writing this to you. My brother and I kept asking the bartender and the couple, "Why? Why? Why are we there? Why are we doing this?" And, of course, we chimed in oil, empire, Israel. And this is what he said:

“"BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT WE DO. THAT’S WHAT AMERICA DOES. WE KILL PEOPLE.”"

I know it’s a cliché to say it, but I almost fell off my bar seat. I told him another cliché, "“You hit the nail on the head. I agree with you completely.”" I didn'’t get the feeling he was mocking us. In fact, he seemed satisfied that he came up with a reason.

He then quizzed me about the number of deaths in Iraq, Vietnam and World War Two. At first I didn'’t understand where this was going, but his point was, "Hey, only 4,000 some Americans have been killed compared to 50,000 in Vietnam." And, of course, there was absolutely no mention of the Vietnamese or Iraqi dead.

I don'’t know why this exchange continues to haunt me. I never really “talk politics” in redneck country. I even hate that we use the word “politics” to describe the concept. As you know, a lot of people like to say, "“Oh, I don'’t do politics.”" To me, that’s like saying “I don’t do life.”

At any rate, that was days ago and I am still thinking about what he said. I'’m not even angry. I never got hateful with him or his wife. I never “attacked” him personally. Maybe this stays with me because I realize my alienation from most Americans (including and especially my "liberal" friends) and my culture has reached grotesque proportions. I had already lost all hope, which I think is rational so I don'’t know why this is staying with me. Do you believe it? THAT’S WHAT WE DO. AMERICA KILLS PEOPLE.

Thanks for listening. I wanted to go to Belize before I die, but now I figure I'’ll be lucky to make it to West Virginia. I need to find a cave near a stream. I love to read emails from your fans. One email from a fan of yours stays with me. This one I have saved:

“"As a weirdo and a life-long contrarian, I can say that it isn't easy to go against the herd, and the pay and hours suck. You lose much of your social interaction since you don't have much to talk about with other people once you stop believing in the collective mass-hypnosis."”

Best to you.

Paulette

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2007/0..._from_ame.html

...There are rumors that Aljazeera may yet come to American television. Hard to imagine, but let's hope so. It may not even be possible to hold the jack rabbit attention spans of most Americans with full context news, or full context anything for that matter. Yet I'd be willing to bet that if more of Americans were exposed to AJ's world coverage, especially the second and third worlds, people would respond. Not a majority of Americans, mind you, because most of us are too poorly read and uneducated to care. Even so, we're not completely heartless, just kept blind and ignorant through the media's relentless strip mining of our culture.

When you are among the Garibano, a people whose culture is relatively intact, the American marketplace's stripping of culture and it's commoditization of human experience is glaring. Even more so for the fact that it goes unnoticed by our citizens. Try to rally Americans against corporations and all you get is a blank, flat response. Their entire lives have been spent watching smiley face media presentations of giant corporations. They constitute our entire cultural landscape and average Americans cannot imagine the corporations that provide them with goods, services and jobs as being bad in any way. With particular thanks to television and the capitalist state's ethos, corporations are now seamlessly interwoven into our deepest identities, both personal and national. Consequently, while I was watching Howard Zinn, back in the states the National Geographic channel was running television specials on the Harley Davidson factory and the Peterbuilt truck plant, narrated in patriotic tones very much resembling the old Soviet Russian domestic propaganda and Chinese "people's films." In the U.S. television industry, these shows are categorized as "educational," though their purpose is the same as the Reich's 1930s productions -- to attach the people's identity to the "ingenuity and raw power" of the American fatherland to create pride in the accomplishments of the corporate state, and ultimately, to perceive consumption as triumphal......

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2006/1...plentiful.html
Dear Dermot,

Thank you for the link to the solar stills. Actually, I may have given the wrong impression about water there. There's plenty of water. The village well, with proper upgrade and conscientious maintenance, would probably serve residents' needs for some time to come. But it doesn't seem to get that from the couple of guys in charge, neither of whom has any training in such matters, according to the best newspaper in Belize, the Liberator, published by political and cultural activist Michael Flores of Hopkins Village. While I was there a couple thousand dollars of public money was spent on very misguided repairs, whether purposefully misguided or simple ignorance, I do not know. I cannot pretend to understand the intricate subtleties of village life and politics.

But I do understand capitalism. And I do know that now that the bottled water people have their hooks into the locals, they are not likely to let go easily of those with the money to pay for it. And those who've learned to depend upon bottled water deliveries cannot unlearn their dependency very easily. Hell, look at what we have become in this country.

At any rate, with Hopkins being developed by first worlders, demands for water are bound to increase. And with the privatization of water nearly everywhere in the third world, how long can it be until the public well becomes a prize for a developer, or whatever? Especially if it is currently being neglected, with regard to the future. I don't think people there understand the pressure that will be put on water resources in the future by development. No matter. It is not my business to interfere with their lives and community. But I cannot help but think about these things, having seen them happen elsewhere in similar situations.

On the other hand, individual collection of rainwater from rooftops into standing tanks and cisterns has served many in Belize for over 100 years, and still does. And there is certainly plently of rain during certain parts of the year to be collected, provided one has the roof area to collect enough. Just like here, people do not favor it, but it does work well if done properly.

So, with Luke and Marzy's permission, I will hopefully install rainwater collection to capitalize on the metal roofing of existing structures. For now it can be used for showers, if nothing else. Or watering a small garden, or whatever. But at least it will be there when and if it is needed, requiring no pumps, no electricity, just gravity and god's goodwill toward man in the form of rain. At the same time, Luke may have very good reasons why it's not worth doing, or shouldn't be done. They know their world by the sea far better than I can ever hope to.

In brotherhood,

Joe

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2006/0...the_blue_.html

There are superficial people everywhere, but a whole section of the human soul is simply missing in Americans. Most foreigners can never understand it unless they have lived inside America's total dominance of the material slave-state -- Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
-- Gui Rochat

By Joe Bageant

Once one becomes aware of that babies die in the third world as an indirect result of our simplest choices such as buying Ziploc plastic bags or bottled water or driving a car, life changes for any approximately moral American. Restlessness sets in, a nagging guilt that only swells with time until finally night thoughts grow so damned anxious that something has to be done. It's been that way with me for a long time. About a year ago I decided to do something more about it than pat myself on the back for recycling the mountain of bottles and unread magazines our household seems to generate. So last fall I vowed to find a decent third world family and put up the money to do something together to better their lives and my own. The issue was so unbearable by spring this year that, by god, I was determined to get it done....

...Rommel drives on deep into Hopkins

Fortunately for my quest in Belize, fate is sometimes expedient. It was on the balcony of the Belcove that I found family I had come looking for. A Garifuna (also known as Black Carib) couple sat in the darkness. And as I listened to them talk I actually had tears in my eyes, such was their plain honesty and dignity in their obvious poverty and mutual love. An hour later I knew they were the people I'd come to meet -- Luke and Marzlyn Castillo.

A couple of days later I was in their home village of Hopkins, originally settled by descendents of escapees from a West African slave ship run aground in 1635. Having escaped, the Garifuna people have never been slaves and are proud of it. Soon I was sleeping in their 600-square foot house with ten other family members, six children, a cousin and a friend who met up with me at the hotel, and enjoying every minute of it, every human sound and smell of a natural boisterous native Caribbean household. Roosters crowed outside and pots rattled and kids squalled inside.

The next couple of weeks showed the village life to be both inspiring and somewhat heartbreaking at times. Days are sleepy and blissful. Time for the most part vanishes and only the hard bright sun and the sea prevail. Chickens wander the lanes and the babies roll and play with one another amicably. It is well-known here that children nursed by ganja smoking mothers are more easygoing and socially adjusted. And why shouldn't they be? It's hard to imagine anything better than a toke and a tit rolled into one. (Obvious as this is to anyone with common sense, it has nevertheless been supported in a study by Dean of the University of Massachusetts College of Nursing, Dr. Melanie Dreher, as well as a research by United Nations health workers.)

Life revolves around the kitchen table and the blue mango tree in the back yard. During the day when it is hot we sit under the "beeg mongo" where a stiff sea breeze always blows. So there are almost no insects. The skeeters can't grab any skin as they blow by on their way inland to Belmopan. In the evening we wash the sand off the kids with a hose and soap and go inside to cook coco root (which is rather like a potato and also known as arrowroot) in coconut milk with sweet pepper and onion. And of course fish of every imaginable kind.

Getting back to get back to that project I came to accomplish, it turned out to be a dwelling. With some cash on my part, Luke is building a traditional Belizean cabana. It sits six feet up on strong posts facing the ocean so it can catch the breeze at night, and has a bath and a balcony from which one can look across Hopkins or down on the children playing under the fruit trees. Luke and Marzy will rent it out to eco-tourists for extra income. We've agreed that he not charge more than $15 a night. That way students and retired folks on small budgets can afford to stay there. This may sound like small bucks but it will more than double the family income. And if this old fat gringo comes to visit, he can stay in it as long as he wants, sleep late, write, and play guitar on the balcony. If it happens to be rented at the time, then I sleep on the family couch until it is available. And if I choose to retire in Hopkins or am driven there by the upcoming US economic collapse, then I build them a second one to replace the lost income of the first.

No paperwork is involved. Luke Castillo owns the house. Period. No legal stuff, no bullshit lawyers. We looked each other in then eye from two different worlds and shook on it. At some point good men the world over must trust one another. It only takes one look at both our faces to know which one of us has the most corrupted soul. I am lucky to have his trust, not the other way around.

In any money relationship there is power involved when one party has all the dough. For the first week I worked hard at trying to convince them that I am not rich, which was ridiculous because any American is rich by village standards. So I finally said, "Just think of me as a rich American uncle then." This is more comprehensible since many Belizeans have relatives in the US sending back money. So now I am Uncle Joey and we call what we do a partnership. For me though, it is more like having a new son and daughter and best of all, grandkids at last.

To be perfectly straight with you, what I get out of it is a feeling of direct accomplishment that a man can never have in this country. We just picked something and did it. And it got done for a mere $5,000 US. First the posts, then the floor. Being a working man in America means that, no matter how much you earn or how hard you work, it is never enough and the job is never done. Never do you feel the immediate satisfaction, much less security, from your labors as a citizen of the empire. Pay and work and grind and pay some more as everything drags on forever extracting ever increasing sums of money just to hang onto what you've already paid for. And always there is the specter of retirement and all the geet that is supposed to require. When I was a kid I read an article that said a person needed $50,000 in savings to be safe in retirement. Not long ago I read a money magazine column that said a million was not quite enough. I have no doubt that I could easily live in Hopkins for about $400 a month -- double what Luke supports a family of eight on -- and manage to have some left over for rum, guitar strings and a little ganja. ....

.....Not that shopping is a leisure activity as it is in the States. There is little work left fishing and employment at the resort is a tainted blessing. On one hand it feeds the family, but barely so at $1 to $1.50 an hour US. Groceries and commodities are no cheaper here than in the US because they are shipped from the US. So Luke cares for his family of eight on about $50 a week US. Electricity alone takes one week's pay and drinking water takes nearly another, and telephone takes another, a telephone being a necessity when you have a boss at the resort, no car, etc. So that leaves $50-$60 US for food for eight. It also leaves nothing for clothing, soap etc. Somehow though, they manage to come up with the things they need. They remain proud enough, and even with so little they are generous to a fault.

Said generosity does not come easy when you pay proportionately as much of your income for mere drinking water as Americans do for major utilities. As in much if the third world, drinking water here is controlled by foreign criminal syndicates incorporated in Canada, France or the US. It costs about two dollars for five gallons, now that water has been effectively privatized by the very companies that sell you and me bottled water in the States. Crystal, is the big one here and none of Luke's six children can so much as wet their lips without paying Crystal for it. Washing and bathing are done with raunchy water from the village well, which suspiciously has been allowed to become fetid. The heavy concrete cap has been left open for ages so the bugs, dead mice and slime could accumulate. The town's three water maintenance guys, who, besides having not one lick of training, are lackeys of the rotten PUP political party now in power. Wanna bet that Crystal is a contributor to PUP? Still, political corruption is not as bad in the US, just more obvious, and is not institutionalized as it is in America. Belizian democracy, sloppy though it be, is still effective. Belizians have kicked crooked administrations out on their asses before and PUP will be thrown out in the next election. This ain't Ohio. Votes still count here.

Luke and Marzy are among the finest young couples in the village, moreover middle class by local standards. They have a TV, a small Commie-chink-made washing machine that amounts to a sloshing plastic bucket with an electric motor. They own a small fridge and a microwave. Such displays of wealth are sure signs of connivance to some of the village's old farts.

Unarguably Garifuna culture is being destroyed by these small luxuries, particularly processed foods from "the Chinaman's store" down the road, especially television, which the kids watch in the mornings before school. Television surely has something to do with the Abercrombie & Fitch and Victoria's Secret magazine ads clipped out and pasted on the Castillo family's cottage walls. And in the background of everything there are the village's practitioners of the Dugu religion, which is fascinating and scary African stuff whose ceremonies are conducted in long dark thatched buildings wherein pigs are sacrificed at night amid smoke and drumming as the dead come back to instruct the living. Some Dugu practitioners believe the whites are stealing the soul of the Garifuna and they are right. I have seen it myself in Luke's children as the television spins its pornographic consumer holograms in their minds. Already they understand deep inside that without an X-box they are nothing. .......

....The little old man makes his living going for cigarettes, beer or anything else tourists are seeking (except whores.) Locals call him The Gentleman of Principle. "Because he is a man of the old school?" I asked the Hindu grocer on the corner. "No, my brother" the Hindu answers. "He is called that because he will always return with your beer and the right change." The Gentleman of Principal, Mr. Harris is a Creole man of the old school who has seen governments rise and fall, chopped banana stalks, picked oranges and waited on the tables of diplomats. He knows plenty. Enough that, out of respect, I felt obliged to share a drink with him and buy him a pack of smokes. Thus we sat on the wooden steps talking and after his initial gentlemanly reserve was lifted by a couple shots of Old Masters overproof rum the conversation turned to my people, the Americans.

"Americans hab only one eye," he said.

"One eye?"

"Jah. Dey see only what anudda man do not own. And dey look upon demselves wid great pride because dey own so many things. Den dey go on to de next man to see what he does not own dat dey own. Americans here got big pride in demselves cause most of us got nothing."

"Someday the other eye is going to open."

"Maybe in hebben. Maybe when dey die and God pry dey eye open wid his own finger. But right now dey living in de false light."

On my first day back at work I proudly showed the pictures of my new Belizian family to a co-worker, pictures of the children playing under the blue mango tree, Marzy with the baby of the family, Little Luke, on her hip by the tiny cottage in the sand. The co-worker looked at them carefully, then looked up at me and said, "I just don't see how people can live like that!"

Perhaps one day, if she is very lucky, God will pry her eye open "wid his own finger."

Joe Bageant is one of the few lucky ones, he is living in Belize now. I am not that far from retirement age, and more and more, I'm thinking of joining him...