no. 455

"It strikes me as sad when something becomes widely disregarded. Piles of unsold Halloween “goods” are shoved into bins, to wait in the shadow of aisles filled with Christmas and Thanksgiving. No, I don’t especially want or care about plastic skulls and pumpkins. It is not about the object, I think, but the inherent humanity present in that object. Somebody made it. This would not exist if not for them, and yet what value does that add to such a thing? There is no passion in the factory, so none ends in the product. It is the way of our world to create in surplus while stripping away significance, one very much costing the other. I know the person who made this stuff didn’t give a shit. I wouldn’t. But when I look at that pumpkin, I see a small bit of someone’s life and can’t help but feel it deserves better than the throwaway bin at Fred Meyer."

Alex Hobbs

no. 396

"A world where we don't need workers is also a world where we don't need owners."

Patrick, commenting at Gin And Tacos

no. 362

"This is a generation that sees everything they do wrong as someone else's fault but everything that happens to other people as a matter of personal responsibility. Reading a tale of hard working, well intentioned people getting reamed by a corrupt system even as they work themselves to literal death might be an eye-opener. Sure, it will sail right over the heads of some of them. I feel, though, that the understanding that the world is not fair, life is hard, and getting by is often a tremendous struggle is a necessary precondition to having meaningful political attitudes. The idea that everything that happens to individuals in our society is their own fault poisons our entire culture, from our politics to our communities. People like Sinclair saw through this over a century ago, but somewhere along the way we chose to forget."

Ed, at Gin And Tacos, from the article "The Hand of Fate".

no. 352