Re: AOL!=USA - was (no subject)
On Saturday 06 September 2003 11:14, Ron Johnson wrote:
> On Fri, 2003-09-05 at 17:10, Katipo wrote:
> > On Saturday 06 September 2003 02:26, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2003-09-05 at 04:18, Stefan Waidele jun. wrote:
> > > > Paul Johnson wrote:
> > > > > [...]
> > > > > First, since you're on AOL, I'm going to assume you're American, so
> > > > > act like you know English.
> > > >
> > > > Not quite.
> > > > AOL is pretty worldwide, and IIRC german AOL-subscribers also have
> > > > @aol.com e-mail.
> > >
> > > Why is AOL "AOL" in Europe? Why not EOL? Heck, GBOL, DOL, FOL
> > > (or OLF; they do things backwards)? Espana might be ESOL...
> >
> > I like the internet like that.
> > It has this tendency to dispense with myths like imaginary lines on maps.
> > Although in the case of AOL that could definitely be a negative.
>
> Are you saying that when you're eating American food, wearing American
> clothes, listening to American music, or burning the American flag,
> it really doesn't matter where "here" is; you're in Imperial America?
What I'm saying is:-
/quote.I remember in the early seventies, when I was in my early twenties, a
friend and I used to stand up and speak to the lunch time crowd in the main
square of Queenslands' state capital, Brisbane on the anti-nuclear issue. We
must have got close to a thousand interested listeners at times. They'd
listen, then go away and turn back into 1974 robots again.
'Democracy breeds complacency, and therein lies its' downfall'. (Plato - The
Republic, 500BC.)
The fragmentary thought structures that we have inherited from Descarte by
way of Bacon and Newton have gained us much ground technologically, but has
isolated us from our environment, each other, and even from ourselves.
We have placed paradigmal restrictions on our thought structures like
imaginary lines on maps, that unify the population masses confined within
them, while alienating from us those beyond them. Nationalism is the
procreator of racism.
I've been considering the fact lately that if Bushs' administration were to
cease 'extending the boundaries of American sovereignty' (nicely padded
phrase for invasion, isn't it? It was employed in a forum once by a
philosophy lecturer from Indiana that I used to flame a lot. I'm glad that he
claimed to be a lecturer rather than the real deal), and instead relaxed
those boundaries, and allowed the world in, so much more would be achieved.
But there's no money in it./unquote
>From something I wrote in another forum, just to save me from writing it out
again.
As a footnote:- food doesn't have a nationality, neither does cloth, I like
some 'American' music, particularly mississipi delta and its' derivatives,
but I don't think sound has a nationality either. I don't bother burning
flags, flags are just symbols, I tend to look at what those symbols
represent, and try to appeal to peoples' sense of sanity instead.
A while back there was a highly emotive slogan being kicked around:-'United
we stand'. That's right! United we all do.
Regards,
David.
Reply to: