Friends, I would urge you to look closely at the photograph. It shows a man in a red shirt who is holding a club and this club, one of many different shapes and sizes that are at his disposal, is used to try to put a small, white ball into a hole in the ground.
The man is surrounded by a group of well-dressed people who are watching the ball the man in the red shirt hit as if their lives depended on it. They have paid big money to gain entrance to the golf course so they can follow the progress of a group of men or women who are trying to put their golf balls into 18 similar holes.
And the television crews are there as well and the heroic efforts of the group of contestants are shown around the world and are watched by millions. Advertisers pay millions to advertise their products while the clubs are swinging and balls are going into sand traps and lakes and long grass and glades of trees.
And the man or women who gets around the course with the lowest number of club swings can earn millions of dollars in prize money plus untold amounts of money in product endorsements and all this for putting a white ball into a hole in the ground which must rank as the most asinine activity that any human could engage in!
Do surgeons get millions of dollars for performing delicate, life-saving operations? Do researchers get millions of dollars for finding cures for cancer? Do policemen get millions for saving someone from a burning vehicle? Do people who go to third world countries and spend their lives helping the poor get adulation and millions of dollars? Of course not! They’re not doing anything as worthwhile as hitting a white ball into a hole in the ground using three or four swings, are they?
Please look at the photograph above then contrast it with that of the black child in the post below who is starving and near death. These two photographs show clearly the complete poverty of values that exist in our current world.
How can something as meaningless as golf become a multi-billion dollar industry while dying children count for nothing?
That’s capitalism I guess.
I’ve been wondering these things too, my whole life.
Everyone who actually does something to help society, gets nothing, while those who waste a lot of time and energy on “nothingness” make millions.
Not much balance in life there ; (
Nice one and Cheers from the usa, where not much seems to be changing either.
The wars continue and needless loss of life and waste of millions, er trillions of $$$$.
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David G Reply:
March 31st, 2009 at 9:49 am
Thanks, Coffee. The fact that we could change the way the world is run but don’t reflects poorly on all of us, I guess.
Cheers.
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We probably care more about the golf because if we feed soemone today they can still go hungry tomorrow. We all wish WE were they ones hitting the white ball in the cup and getting paid and well I might add.
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David G Reply:
March 31st, 2009 at 11:55 am
Chuck, your capitalist indoctrination is truly awe-inspiring!
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David,
The Vic government is paying Tiger Woods $1.5million to come to Vic and hit the little white ball around a park, even if he loses the tournament he still gets $1.5 million. Considering the State Government last year denied a $2million request from a small private hopstial in Wilson Promitory to stay open. This hospital is (was) the only one on the Promitory and about 150km from the nearest other hospital in Frankston. The governments thinking is that Tigers presence will create jobs galour as sheeple want to see him and want their services. Obviously little white balls mean more than what a surgeon or policeman does. Did you watch the compass program on atheism screened last Sunday night?
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I agree that golf is a good example of the excessive inequities borne from capitalism. I was about to write something more extreme, a lot more, about the sport of putting white people in holes. But then (and perhaps even now) I expect my comments would have been viewed as too insulting, too threatening, too viciously militant to post.
David, you and most of your contributors are no doubt well-intentioned people, exemplary neo-humans in many regards. However, as I’ve followed this site for a couple of months now, and as I have many other blogs and discussion sites on the internet, I continue to hear the same laments, the same pleas for reason and sanity in an increasingly over-the-edge world of evil perpetrated by those whose lust for wealth and power knows no bounds. I also can appreciate the sorrow and frustration that having no meaningful responses to the designs of the powerful brings — I’ve suffered these for almost 40 years, since I began to question what I’ll call the status quo. I also realize that you want to keep your site going, and can not allow contributors and participants to subvert your “rules of engagement” to keep your site on-line.
Nevertheless, you all must realize that continual scorn and anger generated towards the powerful and the unjust does absolutely nothing. How any people visit and read the material on this site, and how many actually attempt to live their lives more conscientiously as a result? Not to slight your efforts, but I’d guess the number is in the 2- to 3-digit realm. My point is this: expressing the anger, exposing the insanity and hypocrisy and hatred and greed is fine if that’s what your psyches need, but I’ve gone far beyond frustrated and fed up with doing nothing, and of having no place to work with others to do something – a lot – more to change the world by whatever means necessary. I know very well I cannot write of these things, from the experience of having been interrogated and harassed by several government agencies in the past – I won’t do much good locked in America’s gulag.
So, I probably won’t read here as much in the future, and will likely post even less, if ever again. I must do more to take concrete action to subvert the power, and that will mean breaking many laws in the process. I vow not to hurt innocent people, but how many who refuse to change their behavior (such as buying corporate crap, working for imperialist criminals, and paying taxes to murderous military regimes) are truly innocent? I guess I’d rather die for a good cause than go to my grave knowing that I could have done more than just complain.
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Kemosobi, I heard about that invitation. That the State Government can find money to bribe a golfer to come out to Australia but not for a hospital demonstrates the total lack of morality in this world. We, the people, need to change things.
Peter, I guess each one of us does what they can to bring about change. I use the weapons of words combined with strong images but, for others, that may not be enough. If we each use the skills that we have then surely, if to achieve good for all is our aim, then, eventually, we will succeed.
Take care, friend, that you do not put yourself into a position where the Vested Interests can pick you off and neutralize you forever in a camp somewhere.
There are many ways to skin a cat! Old Chinese Proverb.
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Thank you for the rant about golf! I have long held that same opinion about all major sports. There is a major football team in my state and every year hugh amounts of money are spent so men can either try to do major physical harm to each other, or hug each other and pat their team mates on the butt.
All that they do is worth nothing in real terms of making life more livable, but for a little while, if “our” team wins we can all pretend that we are “number one” and forget how miserable our lives really are.
It is not a good idea to say this out loud too often since it seems that nearly everyone is a fan of “their” team.
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Today (marts 31)
Golf,, asinine activity indeed…
I want you all to know that yet another day of disgrace, as a Dane, in Denmark, has happend because of an instant, in Aahus, where a public busdriver denied a headscarf-wearing woman access to the bus.
More worse is, I think, that not a single comdemnation from the medias and employer (Arriba), to the buschauffors ). but only poured oil on as a ‘the inherently’ human mistake / misjudge!!
NO TALK ABOUT SACKING THE EMPLOYEE – NO TALK ABOUT LEGAL PROCEEDINGS etc..
Sad sad sad it’s come so far in the Dane homofobicals (seing muslims everywhere) sickness in the little kingdom of Denmark
I studious study English to try to ‘understand’. – This (message) -”John, we have been sold a lemon, I’m afraid. It’s time we rejected it!” I can not figure out with the help of my dictionary. Do there be another explanation, or am I maybe too stupid, David ?
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David G Reply:
April 1st, 2009 at 11:27 am
John, being sold a ‘lemon’ means you’ve been sold something faulty (a product or a value), something that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
No, I don’t think you’re stupid at all. It’s great to see someone trying to make sense of this crazy world. Cheers.
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I am fortunate to have lived in California my whole life because it is the most interracial place anyone could live in and we all manage despite differences. In fact I just recently read that my city is the most interracially mixed and happy and relaxed town in America. I am shocked to hear about descrimination against a woman in her scarf could happen in Denmark! A place that I always imagined as evolved.
Best to you with learning English, John. Like most anything, the more one practices the easier it becomes. We are learning French over here. Au revoir.
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Could the Pres get us involved in a war against N. Korea as a way of sniffing out people who might be less than enthusiastic supporters. The forces of evil have perhaps smelled some smoke. Maybe even they have noticed that their feet are getting a little warm. Ordering some kind of action against Iran the other member of the official axis of enemies of the US might show some weakness so why not attack some country whose government no american has any respect for. That way the military can get used to taking orders from a new rider. Then maybe Obama will try to pull out of Afghanistan because there is a bigger war in Korea that Americans are not tired of yet and that the military can think of a better end game for, like the reunification of Korea. And if the Chinese do not like it then the US will deal with them now rather than at some future point when the strategic situation may be even worse.
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Darn the more that I think about what I just wrote above the more it seems to grow.
If the US shoots down this rocket it has clearly engaged in an act of aggression. There is no reason at all to suspect that an announced rocket test is really a sneak attack. Such an act of aggression can be expected to result in North Korean retaliation, which would “naturally”
result in counter retaliation.
I wonder if the forces of evil see this rocket test as giving them a target of opportunity or if this has been part of their grand strategy all along. Two Iranians always tell me that Khameni, and the US and UK are working together. I do not believe them but what if I am wrong?
The US acts like it is really concerned with what is going on in the Middle East lulling China in to a false sense of security when the US goal has been to crush China all along. The Russians too could be playing double agent to further lull the Chinese in to a false sense of security. The result of this is that China has concentrated on Economic development and not military development. It is creating an economic model that could compete with Europe and the NAFTA.
Could that explain why it needs two big air bases in Central Asia, not counting Afghanistan?
Because it wants to be able to attack China from all sides so there are no safe havens anywhere in the country?
With a war on the Korean peninsula the US could use its under used Navy to support South Korean Ground troops moving north. If China does not intervene unifying Korea would be a big feather in the cap of Obama and many officers. It would give many Americans a sense of pride in their government whether or not it is really something to be proud of. 2 down 1 to go. (If Khameni is not really one of them) It would again prove that dispite some gripping that the military will still obey illegal orders when called on to do so.
If China does intervene then the US has a chance to knock out a competitor before they are to powerful to handle. The Chinese nuclear deterent may not be sufficient because the US may plan on knocking it out in a first strike and if anything is left they may figure that they already have the means to shoot it down. That is a lot of speculation but why is the US raising the tension over a rocket test? If they do not shoot it down then they look weak.
So why raise the expectations?
The moment of truth could come for the world in less than 48 hours. Tick tock tick tock.
Is the appearance of some resistance in the military again a deception to put China or maybe Russia and China at ease? Tick tock tick tock tick tock. Are there US soldiers who would actually kill other Americans to prevent them from carrying out illegal orders? Tick tock tick tock. Or is the resistance actually so powerful that it could launch a bloodless coup similar to what happened in Portugal in 1974? Tick tock tick tock.
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David G Reply:
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Paine, no one could ever accuse you of lacking in imagination! Tick tock!
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