Hi,
Your commentary Thank Heaven for 7-Eleven is a great piece of writing. No cliches, no shrill ersatz plaintiveness, just cool dense writing. Excellent and sharp evocations too, from the 7-Eleven parking lot to the cold truthful insights (reduced humanity in return for consumerism for instance) to the issues like Virgil and dental insurance, elections, global capitalism, large-scale gutless passivity, you name it. I liked most especially your humor and honesty. Great stuff! And the bit about having to change the subject among friends. Yeah, there are some of us who seem to lead undercover lives because we can't seem to forget the world is such a stupendously horrific place.
But I just wanted to say though (not at all in disagreement with you, just an interesting footnote) that I come from the place where people live on hillocks of garbage (Mumbai, read: in slave-government capitalist-paradise hell that is now India). But no, even there now, the US isn't considered the place to be. I spoke to a young boy there recently, a carpenter's apprentice, who has to make a lot of his own tools and so on. I told him it isn't like this in the West, that there people like him have tools but their work costs the earth.
He says no, he wouldn't like to live there:
It's all about money there. I've heard about it. Those people have no souls. I like my work. I like not having to buy everything in stores. I like having a family that cares. I may not have the money they do but too much money turns you into a wooden being.
This guy isn't Harvard educated and he isn't making a speech. He is just being sincere. Now there's hope for you!
Thanks again,
Amita
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Amita,
I am so glad to hear that the bullshit American sales job on the rest of the world has begun to fail. I've met people in Latin America who feel the same as your young friend in Mumbai. Letters like yours give me great hope, something hard to come by from here, inside the iron heart of the consumer state.
Again, my sincerest thanks.
Solidarity,
Joe
PS: For 30 years it has been my secret dream to spend a few months in Vanasari, or some similar holy place in india. May I live long enough to do it.
