happy holidays from the makers of dissent

“western colonizing powers offer the native the gift of individual freedom and independence. they try to teach him self-reliance. what it amounts to is individual isolation. it means cutting off an immature and poorly furnished individual from the corporate whole and releasing him, in the words of khomaiakov, “ to the freedom of his own impotence,” eric hoffer from the true believer: thoughts on the nature of mass movements__________________________________________ if eric hoffer was alive he’d merit a shot to the nuts for this dreck...it is redolent of the nineteen-fifties consensus era it was written in and i have launched it across the room any number of times…so what do the “western colonizing powers “ ( and this is an accurate statement…whether in the overt form of colonialism or in the covert subversion of local culture through the destruction of its mainstays like local agriculture through cheap imports of industrial food or sowing discontent through engineered desires the west invades local culture like a virus ) offer? western culture with all its material accoutrements…and none of the support offered by a local, traditional culture…an “i got mine, you get yours” market economy instead of the supportive social group humans evolved in…”immature and poorly furnished” for what and by whose definition…western culture with its imperial triumphalism and hubris…its unwarranted exceptionalism…you bet they’re ill equipped for that…it’s a polar opposite for where they are wrapped in a shiny lie that steamrolls local culture…local culture is self-reliant and adapted to local conditions in a way western culture can never be…local culture recognizes limits…western culture has economists that classify limits as irrelevant externals…guess which will last longer…local culture may seem impotent in the face of the barbarian west but it can find its footing and its voice…organizations like via campesina are proliferating in defense of traditional cultures…the homogenizing west has it wrong in a multitude of respects…eric hoffer’s eurocentric view was a symptom of a malaise that carries right through to john Boehner, barak Obama, and their sycophantic mouthpiece tom freidman…I need to read some buffalobird woman to cleanse the pallet.