Saturday, July 28, 2007

There's just gotta be a better way

I spent much of yesterday working some very tedious Cafe Press stuff. The section in question isn't even done yet, and I'm not that thrilled with it, so I'm not linking to it directly. But while I was working on that, Doctor Who came on. The television is on Demetrius' desk, and usually he puts on headphones if I'm in the room--since, if I'm in here, I'm probably trying to work on something, and my concentration is shot pretty easily. But today, when he asked if I'd like to hear the show, I said yes, given that I was working on something pretty mindless, and listening to the same show together was the closest we're going to get to "spending time together" yesterday.

Anyway, the Doctor and his traveling companion du jour find themselves in New York city during the depression. They were talking to some of the residents of "Hooverville", one of whom was remarking of the Empire State Building, which was under construction at the time. He said something along the lines of "how can they find the money to put up a building like that when people like us are starving?" Demetrius said, "Well, those people aren't working for you!" And we talked a bit about how, the more things change, the more they stay the same. How we still have this huge chasm between the "haves" and the "have nots", and still have extravagant, things being built or planned while many lack for basic necessities.


But that's not the part that's really bugging me. The part I find utterly insane is that the "haves" manage to find these artificial ways of dividing the rest of us against each other, and the rest of us keep falling for it. "Culture wars", and the like.


It's just gotta stop, that's all. I don't know HOW exactly, but it's gotta...










1 comments:

Bob Higgins said...

Renee,
You hit me where I live with this:

"But that's not the part that's really bugging me. The part I find utterly insane is that the "haves" manage to find these artificial ways of dividing the rest of us against each other, and the rest of us keep falling for it. "Culture wars", and the like."

That is what drives me nuts too. (Some would say it's a putt)

Class warfare has been a historical constant, but it almost always proceeds in the wrong direction, from the top down.

We serve as our own prison guards.

That's why I drink. Well that'll be today's excuse anyway.

Bob