>Capitalists have destroyed whole societies. Self-sufficient
>people have been forcibly transformed into disfranchised
>wage workers. Indigenous communities and folk cultures have
>been replaced by mass-market, mass-media consumer societies.
>Cooperative lands have been supplanted by agribusiness and
>factory farms, villages by desolate shanty towns, autonomous
>regions by centralized autocracies.

I agree. But we won't hold back time or man's expansion.

>People use to live contented lives in the rain forest. They
>hunted, fished and raised food. Their entire way of life was
>wiped out by a few giant companies that destroyed the rain
>forest in order to harvest the wood for profits. See, you
>equate things like Blockbuster video, The Thigh Master and
>Don Dupree's Money Making Package as advancement.

Tools of the capatilist's trade.

>
>"Capitalism kicks love's limp-wrist ass every time it gets a
>chance." Yup, sure does...for now. And you're wrong about
>love. Love is attainable by all and love's presence is
>measured by how much of it you give away, not by how much
>you keep--completely contrary to a capitalist philosophy.

Tell poor kids anywhere in the world that and they'll give you what is the local equivalent of the finger.

Until 2000, I spent two weeks or more every year in the back-alley, dirt-poor regions of the world as part of missionary work. It was when I realized the children in the village we had adopted were just as poor, just as sick, just as poorly nourished within days after we left that that "Love" rhetoric not only wore thin but wore out. I also realized another thing: "Love", as spouted by we missionaries, is self-serving, patting ourselves on the back bullshit. We give and gave it every year; every year that damn village sank deeper into oblivion.

>Yes you're right, it's capitalism that keeps the guns and
>the grunts loaded and the F-16s fueled, ready to kill
>people. But when a man kills another man he kills part of
>himself. And that's not empty, religious bullshit! It's
>true! You'll find out; everyone will. Lasting peace can
>never be achieved through war and killing because tyrants
>always return, like Jason in Friday the 13th. It's not the
>tyrant that needs to be defeated, but rather what makes a
>man want to be a tyrant. When everyone refuses to fight,
>there'll be peace.

Someone noted how Afghanistan was supposed to be peaceful after the defeat of the Soviets. What happened? Religious fanatics became more oppressive than the Soviets. The "religious fanatics? The friggin' Taliban.

>You know what capitalism produces in the inner city pal?
>Bangers who say: "You can't kill me I was born dead." It
>ties in to the Saudi Arabia terrorist thing. People really
>should listen to these things, it all counts and it's all a
>sign of what's happening around them. It's kind of like what
>Paul Simon said, "The words of the prophets are written on
>the subway walls and tenement halls...."

Err..."Racism" produced the inner city, not capitalism.
>
>All these consumers you talk about are bonding with "things"
>Ed. Things are beginning to replace the warmth we once
>experienced from relationships with people. They're the
>walking dead. How much can you consume until you're happy;
>its like cocaine--you can't ever get enough. And then people
>wonder what their missing in life and why they're not happy.
>
>You might want to reconsider the meaning of the word
>"advancement." I honestly don't know how advanced any of us
>can be: We keep killing ourselves, Earth (our life support
>system) is dying and after we all finish fighting over oil
>we'll be headed for Gene wars. Now the technology's
>available to own a human being from conception to birth.
>That's capitalism at it's best, isn't it? LOL!

Life (the entirety of it) is a fundamental thing: one biological system murdering another and for nothing else other than "Lebensraum."
And I agree: man...err...humankind is the most murderous, most ruthless, most barbarous biological system in the universe.
But you don't REALLY expect us to give away that advantage, or do you?
You see, "life" (as we know it as sentient beings), once stripped of its philosophical bullshit, is worse than "dog eat dog", its "dog will knaw off its own foot if its trapped and sees no way out" kind of world. And yes, as a single-minded biological system, we're even worse than mindless, equally efficient Cancer.
Hell, Cancer, because it has no mind, thus no conscious, nor an awareness of its eventual fate once its host dies, itself dies after killing its host.
We're worse because we (humankind) know the outcome but still we keep up our murderous, mindless behavior.

"Love", as you preach it, has had about 2,000 years to change the world. "Love", as you preach it, should have made some inroads into man's seemingly mindless, evil behavior. It has not and it will not. Why? Because "Love,” offers no sustenance, no shelter, no food, no real hope.

That is why "Love", as you preach it, loses out to capitalism:
"Love" offers the poor the weak, the defenseless some silent "company" while they suffer and die.

Here's a taste of reality-Ed style: all the while I traveled as a missionary, I KNEW the oppressive heat and bugs would go away in a week or two. Even as a grunt, I knew if I lived, the heat and bugs would go away.

I am not, repeat not-dammnit, a "captalist" but I'll be damned if I'll ever go back to using dial up Internet service. Nor am I likely to give up any one of my 3 (overindulgent) meals a day for one of those kids in our adopted village.
Neither are you, at least not more than a week or two each year.

Ed
I get it done with my YAHOO-DSL!