Walt

With repect, we - or at least speaking for myself only - know all this 
[as per your message below]; it is numerically well-documented 
"expansion and divergence".

So rehearsing angry ballads with 'clues' like these as to what is 
'blocking the path to common sense' doesn't add anything new to what's 
needed now.
Quoting Bernard Shaw at this point is a bit deja vu - rather like a 
visit to the Museum of the USSR in Prague [over McDonalds!].

Someone on this list said recently and privately; - "My take is that we 
have no choice since love, loathe, ignore or challenge climate change - 
all of us will be conspicous observers of the consequences . . . " [that 
is now unavoidably true] " . . . /*we might as well attempt to deepen 
our understanding about turning points*/ - even as the momentum picks 
up..."

What is needed is understanding that is deepened as to what - if 
anything - we are going to/can do about it. We are at the turning point 
and time is increasingly against us if 'choice' is still relevant. 
However short of throwing in the towel, this 'doing'  _inescapably_ 
requires prefiguring how we globally are going to correct and crucially 
account for the correction of expansion and divergence.

I know a lot of people on this list - though organisers it would be nice 
if this were transparent please - and mostly even here there is an 
established inertia against dealing with this fundamental question. 
Consequently, there is - in my judgement - a preponderance of 
'debate/comment' about 'choices' we [including your 'ruling elite'] 
don't in reality any longer have.

Aubrey

santa wrote:
> This article may hold some clues as  to .
>
> ________
>
>
> A Little Poverty Never Hurt Anybody By Jason Miller
>
> Excerpts:
>
>  Wage slaves and sweat shop laborers have supplanted serfs and chattel 
> slaves. Five major corporations comprise 90% of the mass media in the 
> United States. What are their specialties? Shaping public opinion to 
> maintain the illusion that one of the world’s most rapacious and 
> bellicose nations is a “benevolent superpower” and enticing those who 
> fall prey to their charms to experience a virtually insatiable desire 
> to acquire more material possessions. A brain-washed complacent 
> citizenry perpetually ready to go on a buying binge is a wet dream for 
> the ruling elite.  [...]
>     Combining the gross domestic products of the 48 poorest nations 
> (representing 25% of global population) yields a figure that is less 
> than the wealth of the three richest people in the world. [...]
>     In terms of types of financial wealth, the top 1 percent of 
> households have 44.1% of all privately held stock, 58.0% of financial 
> securities, and 57.3% of business equity. The top 10% have 85% to 90% 
> of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of 
> non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as 
> the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of 
> the people own the United States of America.”
>
>
> see full article at:
> http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14664.htm
>
>
> _________
>
> Walt
>
> What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with 
> the rich is uselessness.
>
>      -- George Bernard Shaw
>

santa wrote:
> This article may hold some clues as  to what is blocking the path to 
> common sense.
>
> ________
>
>
> A Little Poverty Never Hurt Anybody By Jason Miller
>
> Excerpts:
>
>  Wage slaves and sweat shop laborers have supplanted serfs and chattel 
> slaves. Five major corporations comprise 90% of the mass media in the 
> United States. What are their specialties? Shaping public opinion to 
> maintain the illusion that one of the world’s most rapacious and 
> bellicose nations is a “benevolent superpower” and enticing those who 
> fall prey to their charms to experience a virtually insatiable desire 
> to acquire more material possessions. A brain-washed complacent 
> citizenry perpetually ready to go on a buying binge is a wet dream for 
> the ruling elite.  [...]
>     Combining the gross domestic products of the 48 poorest nations 
> (representing 25% of global population) yields a figure that is less 
> than the wealth of the three richest people in the world. [...]
>     In terms of types of financial wealth, the top 1 percent of 
> households have 44.1% of all privately held stock, 58.0% of financial 
> securities, and 57.3% of business equity. The top 10% have 85% to 90% 
> of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of 
> non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as 
> the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of 
> the people own the United States of America.”
>
>
> see full article at:
> http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14664.htm
>
>
> _________
>
> Walt
>
> What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with 
> the rich is uselessness.
>
>      -- George Bernard Shaw
>