By John Steppling

Thomas Paine's Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=270

You know, one of the things that has been interesting about our long dialogue here is that you are *there* and I am *not*. I forget, I think, what it must be like to live in the middle of the madness, of the vast necropolis of the mighty empire. Someone asked me recently if I didn’t miss the US, and in particular Los Angeles (my birthplace). I thought about it and said, “no, I don’t”. And it’s true, I don’t. I miss small things of the culture; Mexican food, good Bar B Q, and of course a lot of my old friends. But I DO NOT miss anything else. Burroughs once said, many many years ago, that whenever he left the US he felt a great weight lifted from his shoulders.

Crossposted at DailyKos

Thoughts on dropping out of the American Consumer Society

Preface: I have thought about/contemplated the themes in this piece for...I don't know how long.

I remember one afternoon, it had to be 1980. I was standing on a railroad track near a house I rented out north of the dinky college town where I went to college. I found some piece of plastic crap - a broken toy.

I knew it would not begin to decompose for 10000 years - or something like that and that it was produced from petroleum for little of nothing, sold to somebody for a big profit (relatively) for a moment's novelty.

It just seemed wrong.