Atta (9): 242: Today's kick-ass question

[Bryan Snyder]

Oh ... lol... I certainly did not... sorry.  The choice Chomsky states is
between renting your life away to some authority in order to obtain the
basic requirements for survival and to not do that... his point is that
since the choice of not doing that essentially equals not being able to
survive (and survive would be to have a life where the basic needs are met
and one has access to education and healthcare etc etc...) then there is no
"choice" to be made... most people will "choose" or rather be forced to sell
away their time, often doing tasks that leave a wake of destruction (since
capitalism is a system that, to quote TRP "is only buying time"). 

My main point was that I think TRP is using the railways to illustrate the
laying of divisions between two very different classes (have/have-nots,
rich/poor, preterite/elect).  I think he does it well too: the elect are the
responsible party (buying the land, hiring engineers, hiring workers (at
horrible wages, an opinion TRP shares with people like Chomsky and Zinn) and
all that goes with being in control of production.  The people affected by
this class division are the ones doing the grunt work of laying the
tracks... creating a "right" and "wrong" side of them.  

Whoever (I think I was corrected by Jasper who told me Robin threw this out
there) typed out the "wrong side of the tracks" sparked this little
theory/idea/opinion.

B

-----Original Message-----
From: David Morris [mailto:fqmorris at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2007 9:18 AM
To: wilsonistrey at gmail.com
Cc: Jasper; pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: AtDTdA (9): 242: Today's kick-ass question

On 5/15/07, Bryan Snyder <wilsonistrey at gmail.com> wrote:
> if the "choice" is between renting time of your life to someone else in
order to obtain basic necessities of survival, then there is no real
"choice"

Well as you phrased it, there is no choice because you've not supplied
the other side of "between."  Of course one option other than "renting
time of your life to someone else in order to obtain basic necessities
of survival" would be stealing/robbing by what ever means it takes.
Another would be to beg.

But anyway, who of us, unless we've inherited a bundle or somehow
obtained a great windfall, doesn't have to rent some of their time out
in order to obtain cash.  This also applies to one who "works for
himself," because the income is still from outside in return for some
product or service.  The renting is inevitable, it seems to me, but
the task demanded and the amount of time demanded seem the real issues
having to do with how felicitous or torturous is that "[non] choice."

David Morris