'I am neither left nor right. I only want to know what's best.'

he paused.

'So let me ask you these questions, so I can accept what you have to say.'

'I understand the good that you see. The improvements in living standards, the greater productivity, the solid economy creating jobs for people, the free speech and right to criticize, the individuality accepted and embraced, the reward for hard work and for merit and for innovation. I see all this and do not discount any of it. These are good things. It is clear to me that there is much good that has been brought about.'

'But I also see bad. Its the bad that gives me pause. But it does not seem to give you pause. And so I wonder why that is?'

'What do you think when you see all the dead people? Because there are a lot of dead people. It can't be denied and the record is clear. In Vietnam, in Cambodia, in Nicaragua, in El Salvador, in Timor, in Israel and Palestine, now in Afghanistan and Iraq. All of the dead indigineous people and all the dead Americans and British and French and Canadians and on and on. What goes through your head when you think of them?'

'Why is this acceptable? Is it because its all for the good of the system? Is it because there would be more dead if another direction had been taken? Is it because of the future prosperity that it will bring? Is it just that a few individuals are of so little importance to the whole that they can be sacrificed for a greater cause?'

'I'm not accusing you. I'm asking. Maybe there is a way to justify this and I just don't see it. Is there an end that reconciles these means?'

'And what do you see when you see the future? I don't mean the next quarter or the next year or two or even three. The real future.'

'Do you understand how we can grow and grow and grow? Because I don't see that. Do you understand how we can consume and consume, depleting the world? Again, I don't see that. Explain this to me as you see it'

'Maybe I'm blind and there's something I've missed. So please point these things out to me. I want to understand.'
- posted by Sigurd10/23/2004 07:38:00 AM