Slight connection to Chapter 9: diabolus avocado, Temperance, GD, BD

[Michael Bailey]

>> You could find more foolish ways to waste your time [than reading Brecht]
>>

>
> but if the Marquis de Sod had stayed with his Brechtian studies, maybe
> somebody would mount a production in a theatre near me?
>

sorry, that sounded snarky - was just remarking, like Mark:
everything's in these books!
I probably should read it, because the impression that I get from
reading the synopsis is that "land belongs to those who'd use it best"
and that squints toward Social Darwinism and even Ayn Rand...
which is hard to believe Brecht would espouse!

although van Wijk probably has it right:
there is a civilizing process taking place within colonialism, both
for the colonised and the colonisers, a trial and error process -
a more helpful gridwork of space/time employment laid upon life than
hunt and gather or slash and burn or graze and desertify...

which is neatly symbolized by those hanging weights that Mark mentioned

and if by rebelling, insurgents induce ("now look what you made me
do") the colonizers to use force, this actually cannibalizes the
civilizing process that really does sometimes take place within
colonization

"What has Rome ever done for us?"
"Well, there's the aqueducts...."

although here portrayed in decadence as a chalk fountain