I completely agree with this guy. Excuse me while i now log off to check out the Gap with my daughter.

Thanks for posting it Dusty.  When I first read the piece I knew it belonged here but I'm not quick enough with the knife to slither with you mothers.

So I knew I had to buy his book and clicked on the link, and of course it's for sale at Amazon. Still gonna buy it.

mope wrote:

Thanks for posting it Dusty.  When I first read the piece I knew it belonged here but I'm not quick enough with the knife to slither with you mothers.

One slice of ham away from a noob sandwich.  Never show weakness!

AladdinSane wrote:

I may be the lone dissenting voice here, but I don't mind living in this "American corporate state and its manufactured popular culture"; after all, it's given us the highest standard of living of any civilization...

But it's going away.  Dinosaur Time.

mope wrote:

Thanks for posting it Dusty.  When I first read the piece I knew it belonged here but I'm not quick enough with the knife to slither with you mothers.

Yer Welcome.

Come on, 2012~!  (just jokin folks, just jokin!)

Dmtdust wrote:

For Dirck:
" Corporations feed us. They entertain us. Corporations occupy one full half of our waking hours of our lives, through employment, either directly or indirectly. They heal us when we are sick. So it's easy to see why the corporations feel like a friendly benevolent entity in the larger American consciousness. Corporations are, of course, deathless and faceless machines, and have no soul or human emotions. That we look to them for so much makes us a corporate cult, and makes corporations a fetish of our culture. Yet to us, they are like the weather just there."

Yea, pretty much...  Without corporate buying power we wouldn't have the sanitation, transportation, medication, and a long list of all the other things that give us a long comfortable life...  Competition drives down prices to make these things accessible to even the poorest of our people...  Corporations aren't perfect or friendly, but they do provide needed products and services or they wouldn't exist in the first place...

Dirckman wrote:

Dmtdust wrote:

For Dirck:
" Corporations feed us. They entertain us. Corporations occupy one full half of our waking hours of our lives, through employment, either directly or indirectly. They heal us when we are sick. So it's easy to see why the corporations feel like a friendly benevolent entity in the larger American consciousness. Corporations are, of course, deathless and faceless machines, and have no soul or human emotions. That we look to them for so much makes us a corporate cult, and makes corporations a fetish of our culture. Yet to us, they are like the weather just there."

Yea, pretty much...  Without corporate buying power we wouldn't have the sanitation, transportation, medication, and a long list of all the other things that give us a long comfortable life...  Competition drives down prices to make these things accessible to even the poorest of our people...  Corporations aren't perfect or friendly, but they do provide needed products and services or they wouldn't exist in the first place...

Reg wrote:

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Gee, he finally got around to reading "A brave new world", Hoo-Ray!!

sigmoid freud wrote:

There's nothing wrong with corporations, or profit. Where it gets fucked up is when profit is the sole virtue - or in the Stalinist model, production. Cheat and lie, take risky shortcuts, do what you can to increase dividends / exceed your quota, and get those bonuses.

I would paraphrase this as:
There is nothing wrong with corporations, as long as they are just about profit. Where it gets fucked up is when they loose sight of the profit motive and try to focus on morals, government-funded behavior modification or anything outside of their business model.

tojo2000 wrote:

Now there was a waste of a book.  There's nothing in that novel that couldn't have been shaved down to a decent 20-page short story.

Hrmmmmmm.... Short Attention Span Disorder?

It was fine in its time, and I enjoyed it the last time I read it.  (20+ yrs ago)  Your speed obviously differs, but I can forgive much of the scenario of the novel, projecting back to the time it was written.  Try Chrome Yellow.  Nice class study.

Taint wrote:

mope wrote:

Thanks for posting it Dusty.  When I first read the piece I knew it belonged here but I'm not quick enough with the knife to slither with you mothers.

Advice:

Post frequently
Lash out indiscriminately
Make fun of the weakest members of the board
Fawn over the kitty pictures

Establish a fictitious HS identity and stick to it as much as you remember to.
Curse constantly