AtDDtA(15) 415: the end of the capitalistic experiment

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          We are here among you as seekers from our 
          present---your future---a time of worldwide 
          famine, exausted fuel supplies, terminal 
          poverty---the end of the capitalistic experiment. 
          Once we came to understand the simple thermo-
          dynamic truth that Earth's resources were limited, 
          in fact soon to run out, the whole capitalistic illu-
          sion fell to pieces. Those of us who spoke this 
          truth aloud were denounced as heretics, as 
          enemies of the prevailing economic faith. Like 
          religious Dissenters of an earlier day, we were 
          forced to migrate, with little choice but to set 
          forth upon that dark fourth-dimensional Atlantic 
          known as time.

In Against the Day, Our Beloved Author [perhaps the trespasser 
himself?] travels backwards in time, in the process underlining 
just how radical things were at the turn on the century. All those 
drugs that just about everybody in AtD is smoking, drinking, 
breathing---all around in the open market at the time.  All this 
[well documented] activism opposing the Big Machine [a theme 
that threads throughout TRP's writings] peaking around the era 
of AtD. The characters and situations OBA lays before us in AtD 
overwhelingly skew towards the radical opposition to corporate 
ascent---just like GR and Vineland in that regard.  At the bottom 
of it all is the armeggedon machine, and those who profit from it.

Somehow, it appears to be the author himself who is speaking 
as the trespasser.

          . . . .Those of us who spoke this 
          truth aloud were denounced as heretics, as 
          enemies of the prevailing economic faith. . . .


From: Necessary Illusions, Thought Control in Democratic Societies
by Noam Chomsky:

          The system protects itself with indignation against a 
          challenge to the right of deceit in the service of power, 
          and the very idea of subjecting the ideological system to 
          rational inquiry elicits incomprehension or outrage, though 
          it is often masked in other terms.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Necessary_Illusions.html

          This is not a double standard, but flows from what Chomsky, 
          quoting Adam Smith, calls the single standard: the "vile 
          maxim of the masters of mankind: . . . All for ourselves, and 
          nothing for other people."

http://edstrong.blog-city.com/noam_chomsky_shatters_americas_illusions.htm

          In a dialectical interaction, both cause and effect of the 
          immense accumulation of capital and the heightening 
          and sharpening of the contradictions which go with it 
          internally, between capital and labor; externally, 
          between the capitalist states--imperialism has opened 
          the final phase, the division of the world by the assault 
          of capital. A chain of unending, exorbitant armaments 
          on land and on sea in all capitalist countries because 
          of rivalries; a chain of bloody wars which have spread 
          from Africa to Europe and which at any moment could 
          light the spark which would become a world fire; 
          moreover, for years the uncheckable specter of inflation, 
          of mass hunger in the whole capitalist world--all of these 
          are the signs under which the world holiday of labor, 
          after nearly a quarter of a century, approaches. 

http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/04/30.htm

          . . . .Once we came to understand the simple thermo-
          dynamic truth that Earth's resources were limited, 
          in fact soon to run out, the whole capitalistic illu-
          sion fell to pieces. . . .

          Capitalism might work if we had a spare planet or two
          By Stan Cox  September 09, 2002

           – We have led by example, and now, in Johannesburg, 
          we are leading by obstruction.

          At the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable 
          Development, the United States has been far out front in 
          opposing action on renewable energy, prevention of global 
          warming, biodiversity protection, and decent sanitation for 
          people who don't have it. One senior European delegate 
          was dumfounded: "We cannot understand why the United 
          States, being a world leader, is taking such a harsh stance."

          I'm afraid that the answer is a simple one. We and other 
          wealthy nations are committed to the global pyramid 
          scheme we call capitalism. That means we are committed 
          to infinite economic growth on a finite planet. And that puts 
          us on a collision course with Mother Nature.

          A study published last month in the Proceedings of the 
          National Academy of Sciences concluded that human 
          activities worldwide are already overshooting the earth's 
          carrying capacity by 20 percent. The authors put the 
          results in these terms: "It would require 1.2 earths, or 
          one earth for 1.2 years, to regenerate what humanity 
          used in 1999."

          As recently as 1961, humans had been consuming the 
          resources of only 0.7 earths per year. At that rate of 
          economic growth, we will have to find a second planet 
          in 40 years.

http://www.purewatergazette.net/capitalismmightwork.htm