Commodity fetishism

The Curse:

Please indulge my bleeding heart and excuse my irrelevance as I lament a general loss of craftsmanship, in a world where increasingly the victims are seen as the cause (of misery, poverty, confusion, etc.) and not the symptom...


The Synthetic Age:

In modern times we have managed to replicate many aspects of the past, except for the quality. I know what your going to say "Go live on a farm and stop using your computer then if repetition, ease and efficiency are such burdens. By the way you using a computer to write this.. and so forth." Well I said it anyway! People used to make those by hand you know! "Yeah sure grandpa!" Ok so I want the advantages of technology without the resulting negative byproducts. Doesn't everyone want their cake and everybody else's?

How to be ignored in popular discourse:

If the oppressed masses of the world were to unite or gain a class consciousness, present power structures would be meaningless as they are based almost solely on an unequal distribution of wealth and not, as we are sometimes informed, based on natural talents and abilities. If you really believe that vast wealth can be accumulated via 'hard work' or 'risk-taking' then shouldn't all inheritance be outlawed as it discourages people from doing both of those things. It only encourages people to vehemently defend so-called 'property rights' and strongly resist any attempts to redistribute wealth... (I'm not saying that your gonna get far by sitting on your arse, unless your dad was head of the CIA...)

By the way I am aware that almost all attempts at revolution are abused and exploited by those that eventually gain power, but this time it's different god damn it!!!

The interaction of politics and economics should be something we all have an opinion on, however much money we have or don't have.

The illusion of choice:

“The United States has only one party - the property party. It’s the party of big corporations, the party of money. It has two right wings; one is Democrat and the other is Republican.”
-Gore Vidal

(Ok so that quote focuses on America but it is relevant to almost all modern societies...)

“Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything.”
Joseph Stalin (e.g Florida 2000)

******