How do you feel about this quote by Terry Eagleton? (He's a Socialist)

[JanMichael]

"It is a sign of just how bad things are that even the modest proposal that everyone on the planet gets fresh water and enough to eat is fighting talk. One can imagine launching revolutions in the name of some exorbitant utopian ideal, but to disrupt people's lives in such a spectacular way simply so that everyone may be guaranteed a supply of fresh vegetables seems oddly bathetic. Only extremists could argue against it, just as only extremists could endorse a global capitalist system which in 1992 is said to have paid Michael Jordan more in advertising Nike shoes than it paid to the entire South-East Asian industry which produced them. Revolutionaries are those realist, moderate types who recognize that to put such things to right would require a thoroughgoing transformation. Anyone who imagines otherwise is an idle utopianist."

I love it! Yeah it's a bad freakin' sign when simple egalitarianism is so frequently attacked. When abject avarice is cheered...

What is "Moderate"? What is "Conservative" anymore? Is safe and affordable housing so radical a thought? Is safe and affordable food so insane an idea? Is stopping the sale (Yeah, your very heartbeat is a commodity...) of your health so evil? Is a little levelling so wrong when those simple, even conservative, things become ignored, squashed, in our consumptive (as in squandering) society?

I am not a utopianist, no, I am a moderate. A thoroughly moderate-realist revolutionary:-)

Yeah it's a bad sign all right...


PS~ I edited the subject line due to the fact that most here have probably not heard of Mr. Eagleton, an icon in Britain, so that's why I added "He's a Socialist".

[JanMichael]

1. Oh come on! Where's the pro-Corpo attack???

ugh...

[leftistagitator]

2. Americans invented 2 rules to prevent beneficial social change

rule 1
The rules of American politics are to be stacked such that no poor person has a legitimate chance to participate.

and

rule 2
Any evidence of concern about the lives of poor people by a rich person is proof of the worst kind of hypocrisy which makes his character immediately suspect.

The fascists are already accusing Kerry of hypocrisy because he had the audacity to get money and not forsake his beliefs, expect more of the same in the future.

[Cleita]

3. So who is going to eat the crop that no one can afford or live

in the houses no one can afford? I have an answer for the houses. The rich buy all kinds of property to "vacation" in that goes empty most of the time. I dunno about the food unless it goes to make compost.

[JanMichael]

4. That's the conundrum of 'Productivity'.

Fewer people produce more (Or the same level with fewer workers) things and more people get pushed down into low wage/benefit jobs. Capital continues to flow up and all is well. Edit: Thus leaving fewer people with the income to buy/afford the high productivity crapola.

The 'murikan way!

[rdfi-defi]

5. good quote

but since it is coming from a socialist, i can tune it out and not think twice, no no, not think once about it

[JanMichael]

6. Did you forget the </sarc>?

:-)