[p2p-research] john pilger on the greeks

[j.martin.pedersen]

On 26/05/10 08:42, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> isn't progress always relative, certainly Ryan could point to a remarkable
> series of improvements, while J. martin would point to parallel increases in
> misery in the last 30 years, they can easily co-exist ..
> 
> so isn't a better question, progress for who? and at what price?

Indeed. For instance:

Progress in the sense of Western science and technology all builds in
colonisation, it both made it possible and was fuelled by. And it killed
up to 90% of the population in the Americas (Applause!) and, repeatedly,
whenever a tribe encounters That Great Thing Called Civilization, it
seems that 90% are wiped out - such as the Huaorani/Waorani/Waodani in
Ecuador over the last 20-30 years, for instance.

And of course the rain forests have been cut down to fuel the factories
of progress.

The interesting thing here is that while racism and ignorance allowed
these progresses to go on for centuries - since only the black, red,
yellow and otherwise coloured people suffered at first - science and
progress is slowly becoming self-aware (and that coulld somehow be seen
as progress, but probably too late) through the recognition that, lo and
behold, the planet is a relatively closed system, resources are finite,
and what you do unto your brother's forest you do onto your own climate.

Look at the immense environmental and labour costs that go into the
production of cyberspace, glossed over by the fetishists, the terrible
poisoning of our children by the medicinal industry, inventing diseases
such as ADHD to cover up the great progress of the food additive
industry etc. etc. and the cancerous outlets from all the rest of the
factories of progress, - so until science and technologists fully
recognise the costs to the planet and people and the history of
exploitation associated with their socalled progress, science and
technology remains the little white boy's toys, with which he ignorantly
plays in his sandbox. However, they cannot, because they are locked into
a machine called capitalism for which they have always acted as a
primary justificatory mechanism that the capitalists and the followers
call upon to eradicate any advocacy of equality (which doesn't mean
gleichschaltung as in Hitler).

There is too much blindness resulting from staring into the virtual
fire, like moths we will burn.

-m

PS: Transcendence is a very real thing. Anyone engaging in
self-reflective praxis will have experienced it on a personal level. In
a good relationship it will occur. It can happen for a society or for
humanity as well, but it requires self-critical recognition. Such a
process begins with the history of the social struggles that have given
many the rights which we enjoy today - and that is progress - but which
many are so "easily" surfing past without a trace of solidarity shown
with the bloody past that those rights entail.