"We went to the moon. Then we built a lot of Wal-Marts."--young person,

[Peace Patriot]

evaluating the material accomplishments of our civilization this Christmas 2006.

It was a joke, a toss-off. We had all been watching one of those Star Trek TV shows that deal with the technological development of civilizations. You know, if they don't have warp drive and space travel already--say, they're still burning witches at the stake, or just figuring out that their planet is not the center of the Universe--the Federation Prime Directive forbids contact, then something happens that precipitates untoward contact, etc., etc. The sort of TV show that makes you think about OUR civilization, and what a more advanced civilization might think of us, and when in Heaven's name do we get to join the Federation and get issued Replicators?!....

But I burst out laughing it was so funny, and you don't laugh like that at a wry remark without it being too true, too true! Oh, God! We went to the moon, then we built a lot of Wal-Marts.

I know, I know. NASA just found water on Mars (it's disappearing in Africa and Australia, though, and unpolluted fresh water is becoming a rare commodity on planet Earth, when it isn't destroying your city with floods), and they now have plans for a space station on the moon and trips to Mars. Big plans, but little political will. We have an oil-crazed Ferengi for President (apotheosis of greed--ugly little sentient beings who still have a money-based economy and whose only "prime directive" is to maximize profit). And like the Romans and the lead content in their cookware, their cups, their wine presses and their water pipes, and the theory that lead poisoning was the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire--oil may be our fatal flaw, causing us not only to poison ourselves and our entire planet, but also to fail in the matter of funding and political leadership to find another one and get ourselves out there, terraforming and colonizing. Instead--with leaders like Ronald Reagan, Charles Hurwitz, Kenneth Lay, the Georges Bush and Dick Cheney--we descended into a frenzy of greed, including corporate resource wars and mass killing over oil, and bankrupted the most visionary projects of our civilization--education and space travel. And we built Wal-Marts instead, outsourced all the manufacturing to cheap labor markets, and ran up a $10 trillion debt mostly to pad the pockets of the super-rich.

Well, laughter is the best medicine, as they say. I can't wait to hear the "State of the Ruination" speech that George Bush is going to give to Congress in a few weeks. Maybe that's what the new Democratic majority in Congress should do, by way of protest: burst out laughing.

"My fellow American rich people, oil barons and global corporate predators, we built a lot of Wal-Marts and filled them with plastic things made from oil, that had to be hauled 10,000 miles across the ocean from the sweatshops of Asia, in tankers that happily eat oil like candy, greatly increasing the value of oil for the Coming Squeeze. And we crippled the ability of the American people to do anything about it, by bankrupting the treasury, destroying democratic institutions like vote counting, and trashing our reputation as progressive leaders from one end of the planet to the other.

"The State of the Ruination of the most powerful nation on earth is wonderful beyond our wildest dreams. We have achieved our goal of endless war and boffo war profiteering for the foreseeable future, and, with a Democratic Congress that is mostly bought and paid for by the "military-industrial complex," we can't lose. The slaves and the cannon fodder will think something is being done--we'll toss 'em a minimum wage increase, heh-heh, and I mean minimum--and we'll all be talkin' freedom in Iraq some sunny day, and whether we "surge" or whether we withdraw "over the horizon," they'll never know what's really going on. I got to thank Wally O'Dell and Howard Ahmanson for the cleverest election theft yet--the one where we elect Democrats and nothing changes.

"My fellow rich bastards, ask not what you can do for your country, ask only what you can do TO your country. And y'all know what that means. The Great Looting is not over yet. There is much more booty out there--billions and billions of dollars yet to be stolen. And we are up to the task. We are surgers and winners and the biggest dicks on the planet. And I pledge to you that, within the next decade, we will have it all...all. Putting men on the moon will be nothing next to what we have done. We have brought the greatest democracy on earth to its knees. They will be begging us for bread, for shelter, for oil to light their lamps. And we will give it to them--for a price. Heh-heh. Yes, a price. Can't you see the old grannies and the young thugs on drugs fighting over a scrap of bread, and the soccer moms tearing each other's hair out over a drop of oil, and all of them scraping their pennies together for a high-priced bed in a Katrina trailer. That is the Dream. We still have something to live for. The State of the Ruination is not yet complete. Gentlemen, on to Iran!

-----------------------

Will they laugh?

-----------------------

"We went to the moon. Then we built a lot of Wal-Marts."

[htuttle]

1. That has got to be the definitive epitaph for American culture!

:rofl:

[Jim Lane]

10. An echo of T.S. Eliot

He wrote:

And the wind shall say: “Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls.”

[havocmom]

2. Some clever techie, puh-leeeez jam DimSon's ear piece and feed him those lines

for that speech. The novelty of him speaking truth would be lost on most, but there are some who would get the message.

Bravo, Peace Patriot. Might I ask that you keep that one safe in your journal that we may link to it for others on days when traffic here at DU is heavier than it will be today? It's a keeper!

[Peace Patriot]

4. Yeah, I'll put it in my journal. Thanks for the praise. I really did laugh

harder than I have in a long time. The question we were discussing was, What will our civilization be remembered for, when the archeologists of the future arrive here and try to figure us out. "We went to the moon. Then we built a lot of Wal-Marts." It burst from the young person's lips spontaneously. He didn't have to think about it (or had been thinking about it quietly for a long while.) And he said it with a laugh.

[Canuckistanian]

30. That's more relevant , using an archaeological perspective

It's been a stone's throw, historically speaking, from the 1960s. But what a change in terms of outlook and hope for the future of our society.

Back then, the air was ripe with possibilities. The moon landing, the Peace Corps, Civil Rights, explosive social change, advances in medical technology, etc. There was electricity, excitement and optimism about the "new way".

It's kind of sad to see almost all of the social ideas die and the technological ideas co-opted by hordes of businessmen touting "freedom of the marketplace" as the pinnacle of civilization.

Good post. Good observations.

[Hardpan]

16. Yes it is

[Sherman A1]

3. Well Said!

And there is really nothing more to add....

[cornermouse]

5. Yeah. We did.

Will they laugh? Probably.

[silverweb]

6. "State of the Ruination"

Great title! Great mock speech!

Our work is cut out for us.

[brokensymmetry]

7. Too true for comfort...n/t

.

[Silver Gaia]

8. Awesome post. Thank you...

We watched that same movie last night on Sci-Fi. One of my favorite Star Trek films of all time. Thanks for sharing the discussion that followed your viewing. A well-written, right-on-the-$$$ perspective -- an all-around EXCELLENT post. Lots to think about there. Thanks again, Peace Patriot.

[zeemike]

9. I think if I start to laugh i will wind up bawling like a baby

There is such a great tragedy that at this time in our civilization where we have the knowledge and technical ability to solve most of the problems of the world that we piss it away on pure old junk.

I am reminded of an article I read in National Geographic in 1969 about a mas transit system that was purposed and throughly covered in that issue, of a system that would have made not only the auto but the airplane obsolete as a means of transportation. And at the end of the article they seemed convinced that this was inevitable and would be done in 20 years or so. Here we are 37 years later and it has been forgotten by all but a few like me that remember. and our autos are still the same except they have tvs in them and get less gas mileage than then.
Oh shit what a waste
The only hope we have is when we read things like this post that make us feel like we are not crazy after all and that there are others out there that have not lost it.
K&R

[NEOBuckeye]

25. Sickening, isn't it?

It seems that we really blew some major opportunities for advancement back during the 1960s. We had so much potential, but it seems that we lacked the will to make it happen. Or at least, the will of those whose fortunes are tied into maintaining the status quo turned out to be much stronger than ours.

Now, three decades later, we see the result: a crumbling infrastructure built around inefficient fossil fuel use. Meanwhile, Big Oil CEOs are laughing all the way to the bank.

[Imagevision]

11. Democratic majority in Congress should do, by way of protest: burst out laughing

The Dems would score intensely if they did in fact burst out laughing at George,
how our so-called leaders can actually take Bush seriously truly is mind boggling.

We need to laugh at Bush because he is nothing more then a stringed puppet controlled and wiggled by go Fu*k yourself Cheney except with the level of slaughter going on in Iraq & Afganistan, it just isn't GD. funny!!

[BeFree]

13. Burst out laughing

Oh, what would I pay to see that?

We need to start a campaign. Everyone knows its better to laugh than to cry, and America has been crying for too long now.

"Oh that pretzeldent, he is a comedian. He just said we are winning in Iraq! Hahahaha.

Then he said all is fine with taxes and the deficit. ROFL!

And medicaid, social security and health care problems have been fixed." LMAO

Yep, we NEED a few congressmen to represent we, the people, at the state of the ruined nation event, by letting out a large laugh at the jokes we are sure to hear.

[NinetySix]

12. Kick!

[Triana]

14. K & Freaking R!!

:applause:

[LongTomH]

15. A sad summation of our accomplishments since Apollo!

"We went to the moon. Then we built a lot of Wal-Marts."

This is so sad for those us who are old enough to remember Apollo. We saw Apollo as a symbol of hope and possibility, the same sense of hope and possibility we got from JFK, Bobby, and MLK II. The great men we put our hope if were assassinated, the 60's movement was beaten down in Nixon's counter-revolution, and JFK's space program was quietly dismantled by Nixon while we watched the Apollo 11 astronauts live from the moon.

I was actually part of an organization called the "L-5 Society" which talked of building city-sized settlements in space. By the way, this was long before Prof. Stephen Hawking began recommending space colonies as a way of ensuring the survival of human civiliation.

I tried to link the idea of space settlement to a positive vision of the future for planet Earth; I was drawing heavily on R. Buckminster Fuller's idea of a "Design Science Revolution." Neither space colonies or Bucky's Design Science Revolution materialized, unfortanately, and my attempts to inspire people failed spectacularly.

By the way, the ideas we were discussing for space development included something called a Solar Power Satellite, a space-based solar collector to beam energy to the earth; this was during our first energy crisis or the 70's.

None of this came to pass; the vision of opening and developing space for everyone gave way to billion-dollar projects to put a handful of astronauts, first in Earth orbit, then on the moon. NASA's major achievement since Apollo has been to convince the public that space was too expensive for us to afford (I'm not gainsaying the magnificent achievements of Hubble, the Mars rovers, and other projects; but, NASA's people-in-space program has been a disaster.).


Hope Eyrie
Copyright 1975 by Leslie Fish

Worlds grow old and suns grow cold
And death we never can doubt.
Time's cold wind, wailing down the past,
Reminds us that all flesh is grass
And history's lamps blow out.

But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.

Cycles turn while the far stars burn,
And people and planets age.
Life's crown passes to younger lands,
Time brushes dust of hope from his hands
And turns another page.

But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.

But we who feel the weight of the wheel
When winter falls over our world
Can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes
To a silver moon in the opened skies
And a single flag unfurled.

But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.

We know well what Life can tell:
If you would not perish, then grow.
And today our fragile flesh and steel
Have laid our hands on a vaster wheel
With all of the stars to know

But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.

From all who tried out of history's tide,
Salute for the team that won.
And the old Earth smiles at her children's reach,
The wave that carried us up the beach
To reach for the shining sun.

But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.


The dream is still alive; but, will we ever again be equal to it?

[better2know]

17. PP- This post has entered the blogosphere!!- a big fan

Daily long-time lurker - infrequent poster
Love your stuff!!
You post the most amazing replies (no pressure) that certainly deserve to be their own original posts.

We've all got to wake up from this zombified nightmare. Smash your TV (watching) used to sound stupid!

So I surf the web everyday before coming to DU, IMO currently the best general interest community generated link aggregator is Reddit and your post was #162 in ranking.

I've seen some DU posts out there before but my great admiration for your work in general made me want to let you know that your work is not only recommended heartily here on DU, but by many appreciative DUers into the wider blogosphere where its starting to gather its own momentum.

It's a lot harder to say that everyone is just shouting out into the ether.

We went to the moon then we built a lot of Wal-Marts.

It's a pesky meme that says a heck of a lot in a very few words.

Populist Party History
Paper Ballots / Hand Counts
Tax Poisons not Labor
America founded to limit corporate power
Count every penny
Transparent Government
Depleted Uranium
Rule of Law
etc.

Umm. November was a political earthquake.
Swamping the disgusting so called Republican Revolution even after gerrymandering, bbv, vote fraud, all three houses of government, the entire corporate media system, terra terra terra, and two simultaneous foreign wars.
Now is when we keep the pressure up.

Thanks PP and all you DUers and all you positive people!

[Vidar]

18. It's a great line. The moon shot was about the last worthwhile thing

America did. I was thirteen at the time.

[Peace Patriot]

22. Well, the reason I stressed that it was quickie toss-off line, intended for a

laugh, is that it does leave a couple of things out. One of them is the civil rights movement of the 1960s. That was a huge achievement of our black citizens and of many whites as well. I remember "whites only" drinking fountains. Just think about that for a moment. It seems so mind-bogglingly bigoted and cruel--and unthinkable--today. But they were real. I saw them. And that, and all that it connoted, was changed in about five years time, as the result of a whole lot of highly conscious and courageous people. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and, within a decade, blacks were being elected mayor and sheriff in the some of the most bigoted towns in the U.S. I was part of the civil rights movement, and I never dreamed it could happen so fast. Sure, we have a lo-o-o-o-o-ong way to go still. And Bushism is a set-back (although it's interesting that, under Bush, we have established the principle that black leaders can fuck up just as well as white ones can--i.e., Condi Rice, Colin Powell). (--equality in being wrong!)

But young people need to now how far we've come on social development and human rights, and what a great achievement it is. And then there's the women's equality movement. When I was a teenager, girls were supposed to look pretty and grow up to be good helpmates. And that fate was enforced by girdles, bras, nylon stockings with seams down the back of them that had to be kept straight, high heeled shoes, and elaborate hairstyles and makeup that had to be kept perfect. Precedents for female leadership in any sphere were few and far between. Girls were actively discouraged from pursuing careers in science, politics, sports, film/TV production, medicine (all except becoming nurses), engineering, construction, trucking--anything that paid well. That bigotry also changed almost overnight, it seemed to me. I'd locate it between 1963 and 1964--maybe related, psychologically, to the JFK assassination? (--i.e., earthquake in the culture). Between 1963 and 1964, the CLOTHING/MAKEUP restrictions on women changed dramatically. One year you had to look like Annette Funicello (no exceptions); the next year, the first Be-In took place in Griffith Park in L.A., and a style later to be known as "Hippie" was born (long hair, no makeup, loose natural clothes, "flowers in your hair"). The change in clothing restrictions was the visible manifestation of other amazing changes--such as birth control pills becoming generally available. Male clothing also underwent a change--ties no longer required, etc. But the change for women was historic--it represented a rejection of the submissive role of women in all of western civilization to that point, and a long trajectory of education and activism, that started way back with the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (who advocated equal education for girls and boys).

As the victims of our modern Ancien Regime (Reagan/Bush), we do need to understand that western civilization was shaken to its foundation during the 1960s, and these changes were deeply unsettling to some people. Another major change was the realization of my generation that young men were not born and bred to be cannon fodder, and THIS change was profoundly threatening to the "military-industrial" complex--the war industry that had never been demobilized after WW II. And well-funded rightwing conspirators in cahoots with the war profiteers determined to turn that back around--to make us all (now including young women) into their cannon fodder again. But....

...something very important to know. In 2002, when the Iraq War Resolution was passed by Congress, ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS voted against it. In 1964, when the "Gulf of Tonkin" Resolution was passed (dramatic escalation of the Vietnam War), TWO members of Congress--TWO!--voted against it. Think about THAT. The '60s revolution lives, despite their every effort to kill it. And that figure--125 voting against--was in the midst of the fear-filled aftermath of 9/11, in the Anthrax Congress (Democrats getting little envelopes of poison in the mail; Paul Wellstone's plane falling out of the air for no reason). Still, THAT many politicians fought the fear, and stood for peace. That was the legacy of the anti-war movement of the '60s, which is still with us, and is, indeed, about to reach its most important fruition, today, in fighting Bush's war.

Also, 56% of the American people opposed Bush's war, way back in Feb. '03, before the invasion. 56%! That would be a landslide in a presidential election. These and many other similar facts reinforce my conviction that the American people, on the whole, are actually quite progressive in their views, and willing and anxious to be the progressive force they were meant to be, in the 21th century. We have suffered a setback, is all. It happens in history. (The Ancien Regime of the 19th century is a good example.) And we will recover. Our democratic tradition is just too strong to be killed. It has to do with the flow of history--the tide, the flood. We must stop being an empire and start being a democracy again. And, as we do, we will bring our potentially great creative force to bear on saving the planet, and then, stepping off of it--more surely and more permanently than we did in 1969. Big, big Universe out there, for the exploring.

"We went to the moon. Then we built a lot of Wal-Marts." But, guess what? In the black community of Inglewood, California, recently, labor groups, civil rights groups, church groups and others got together and mounted a difficult but successful campaign to keep Wal-Mart out of their community. They didn't buy the arguments--and the allure--of low-paying jobs and cheap goods. They saw beyond it--to destruction of local businesses/community, increased traffic and pollution, the ugliness of parking lots and "big boxes," cultural homogenization, and the impacts of globalization (loss of real jobs, loss of manufacturing, people as "cannon fodder" for corporate wars).

"We went to the moon. Then we built a lot of Wal-Marts. Then we started fighting back!"

A whole lot of good stuff is going on, most of it below the radar of the corporate news monopolies (or actively suppressed/marginalized by them). People waking up. People seeing through the lies. People working hard, locally, to re-empower themselves. State/local jurisdictions taking on global warming. Off-the-grid projects. Organic food projects. Local buying projects. Getting-rid-of-the-electronic-voting-machine projects. (Just look at FL-13--a Democrat challenging the machines!) Our democracy IS being reborn, of its own, because we are a progressive, democratic people, and perhaps also as the result of the Bushites' excesses, which have awakened many people to the fundamentals of our democracy that need to be restored and protected. And, with democracy, the best ideas and the best people rise, and the bad ideas and the bad people fall by the wayside, naturally. That's what democracy is all about. It is a CREATIVE force. It is unstoppable. It is at work all over South America right now--where a tremendous peaceful, democratic revolution is occurring. The bad guys are trying to damn up that creative force in the U.S.--the creative force that put men on the moon, and freed the slaves--and women--from the shackles of the past, and that imagined a peaceful world, with no barriers of weapons, race or religion. But they cannot stop an ocean wave. And that is what we, the people, are--the creative, ever-evolving wave of the future, and there is no obstacle that we cannot overcome.

[Javaman]

19. The great divide...

(I wrote these a little over a week ago.)
Posted by Javaman in General Discussion
Fri Dec 15th 2006, 05:53 PM
I was just reading Krugmans piece on the widening wealth devide. And one thing jumped out at me. I maybe pointing out the obvious, but never the less it still struck me as a sad statement on our society.

In 1969 GM was the largest corporation in the U.S. next to AT&T, today it's walmart.

GM produced cars, AT&T provided telephone service. walmart sells cheap crap.

If this isn't a more glaring example of how we have gone from being a producer to a user in the world over the past 35 plus years, I don't know what else is?

(I think this is the one fact that has gone undefined, for me, up until this moment as to why I have such a deep down revulsion of anything walmart)

This single fact sums up the blight that is upon our nation.

We are called consumers for a reason, but that is not a correct term for what Americans have become. Anyone in the world that eats and wears cloths is a consumer. What we have become is the sadly comical version of what is termed a consumer. We are far beyond that, to coin a phrase, we have become obscene Mega consumers.

In the rush for the almighty dollar what seems to have been lost in the shuffle is the concept of working for what we produce. What I'm driving at is, we the people want to work, we want to produce, however, it's the corporations that if given the ability would produce things without having to spend a dime to do it, they would in a heartbeat. (In some third world countries where jobs are out sourced, they are doing just about that) So, with that kind of mentality, is it no wonder that the gap is growing larger and larger between the have mores and the have even less?

Over the last 35 years we have, as a nation, been subject to death by a thousand corporate cuts. They whittle down our rights, they whittle down our unions, they whittle down our voice all for a bigger cash reward in the end at the expense of millions of peoples lives, both ours and people in third world nations.

As the wealth gap increases and jobs continue to go abroad to nations that produce things we used to make at less then 1/4 the price, it's no wonder that the rest of the world looks upon as as lazy, they are doing the work we want but were given away by the corporation and have left us unemployed.

The question then is: As corporations parcel out our future to the lowest third world bidder to make their products, what alternative does that leave the American worker?

If this trend continues into the foreseeable future, and the gap increases to ever larger lop sided proportions, history has proven time and time again, the people, shall we say, speak up.

But the next question that remains to be asked is; when will that be?

[The Wizard]

23. We tore down

smokestacks and we're left with the ashes.

[TankLV]

27. Actually, we didn't even tear town the smokestacks - we just abandonted them as jobs first went

to non-union locations like the south and then left the country altogether.

They still sit - crumbling and a danger to their communities - just like the repukes...

[Peace Patriot]

24. Many third world countries are fighting back--and we are beginning to fight

back, too. The enemy is the "neo-liberal" model--another phrase for global corporate predation. The most dramatic rebellion is occurring in Latin America--with leftist (and anti-neo-liberal) governments elected in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador; and in the next election cycle, Peru; and also in Nicaragua (recent election of Daniel Ortega), and a huge anti-neo-liberal movement in southern Mexico and Mexico City. The common themes of these governments and this huge social movement are self-determination, regional political and economic cooperation, and self-sufficiency, and opposition to U.S. corporate (and U.S. State Department) domination, which has inflicted such havoc on Latin America over the last 30-40 years.

Many North Americans haven't even heard of this revolution. They hear Hugo Chavez reviled. They have no clue as to WHY Chavez is being reviled by our corporate press--nor of the immense grass roots rebellion that has occurred over the entire southern continent, that he is merely ONE of the leaders of. And this revolution is not limited to Latin America. Latin America's mother country, Spain, has undergone a leftist revolution. Italy, too, has a new leftist government. And there are large anti-globalization movements in South Korea (new leftist and peace-minded government), in India (especially among small farmers) and elsewhere in Asia. In 2003, there was a 20-country third world revolt at the WTO meeting in Cancun, led by Brazil.

The reason that we, here in the U.S., are slower to fight back (although we had one hell of a protest in Seattle in 1999) is that these are often U.S.-based global corporate predators, and we are thus at the vortex of this world evil, and they have taken special measures to blind us to our own undoing (through vast corporate news monopolies controlling all news and opinion) and to disempower us (corrupting our election system, then outright taking over vote counting with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code in the new electronic voting machines, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations). These gigantic multi-national corporations have used our creativity and productivity as workers, our well-educated and healthy work force (the result of decades of union radicalism), our worker/middle class-financed infrastructure--our roads, hospitals, emergency services, schools, universities, research facilities, etc.--our natural resources, our business-friendly tax structure and LIBERAL trade system, all our common funds (Social Security, pensions, et al), and our (until recently) relatively clean legal and banking systems--to launch themselves as independent world powers, who are now working AGAINST the interests of the American people. Most other people in the world see this quite clearly. It's difficult for our people to see. WE are the "banana republic" now--the victims of the Bush Oil Cartel and their Saudi brethren, and associated war profiteers and global corporate predators. They've taken over our government. They are BLEEDING US DRY. They are taking all our money! They are killing the "golden goose."

But I do think the American people are waking up to this, and it is only a matter of time here--as in Mexico (which is well ahead of us)--before the majority reasserts itself and reestablishes the sovereignty of the people. As Evo Morales--the first indigenous Andes indian ever to be elected president of Bolivia--has said: "The time of the people has come."

[RandomKoolzip]

20. The Roman Empire didn't fall because of lead poisoning.

The WESTERN Roman Empire fell because of repeated invasions from various tribal groups from the North, West, and South, and the incompetence of its final emperor, the boy king Romulus Augustulus. Also, Rome was forced to withdraw most of its soldiers (and therefore its representatives) from the Western frontier in order to fight back invaders from the East who had been attacking major parts of the EASTERN Roman Empire, like Constantinople and Asia Minor. This left the Western half of the Empire vulnerable to attacks from Saxons, Vikings, Visigoths, and other "Barbarians."

The EASTERN Roman Empire stuck around for a few hundred more years, eventually becoming the Byzantine Empire.

Lead poisoning?! :wtf:

[pinto]

21. Great line...nice piece. Thanks.

:thumbsup:

[pokercat999]

26. Boo-hoo, the important thing is: WHAT ARE YOU GOING

TO DO ABOUT IT? You/me are still living too good with that golden ball cuffed to our leg. Things will have to become much, much worse before we'll actually DO ANYTHING! If you think this Democratic congress with the same old mustache petes will make a difference I got a bridge I'd like to sell ya.

[MountainLaurel]

28. Have you ever read "Feed"?

It's a great YA book about a future world where everyone basically has a TV running 24-7 in their head telling them what to think, what to buy. The president in that book is frighteningly similar to Bush.

[whistle]

29. But, but ....don't you understand...the same technology which got us

...to the moon also helped WalMart to buy, ship, warehouse and retail cheap goods and services at a very nice profit while driving every dead-beat mom and pop retailer out of business. The moon technology also made it possible to corrupt community and state officials into condemning large blocks of private land again acquired at bargain basement prices so WalMart could build their super stores and distribution centers right where they would best serve WalMart's interests. Without space technology WalMart could never have established a global network which allows them to set up manufactures in offshore areas and set low prices they control and be able to shift from China to India at the drop of a hat over a few cents per item. And the intelligence gathering data bases developed through the space program's need to know what the other side is doing has allowed WalMart to spy on their competition and cut prices below the other big retailers like KMart thus increasing market share. And now WalMart can even sell Apache Helicopters at below what the Pentagon is able to buy them for.

Maybe we should send WalMart executives to the moon so they can bring back moon rocks to sell.