tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2343439372519556254.post792476771185612327..comments2024-02-11T03:50:53.613-05:00Comments on Counterlight's Peculiars: Disposable People Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2343439372519556254.post-71335403120009118002017-06-29T01:06:29.087-04:002017-06-29T01:06:29.087-04:00Thought inspiring post. But i think you might be ...Thought inspiring post. But i think you might be a bit harsh on old Karl here. I don't think his goal was so much to strip away the "opiate" as to strip away the brutal economic conditions that made the opiate necessary. Most only quote the "opiate" line, shorn of its context:<br /><br />"Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." -Hegel's Philosophy of Right, KM<br /><br />When I read old sermons of Oscar Romero, I understand this. When I am forced to hear the bad spiritual-vaudeville of Joel Osteen every Sunday on the overhead tv at the laundromat, I want to reach for a brick.<br /><br />But I'm not here to defend Karl as much as to think about this out loud as I read the statements defending this shit-show health care/tax cut plan of the GOP. Here we are, in an advanced stage of Capitalism that old Karl could barely have imagined, listening to the privileged defend austerity for the sick and old. JChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09950629662884545936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2343439372519556254.post-22792650919010273662016-12-11T21:39:15.350-05:002016-12-11T21:39:15.350-05:00So many thoughts, Doug. You've raised so many ...So many thoughts, Doug. You've raised so many questions, for which I have no answers.<br /><br />Just this---<br /><br />"I believe in such a fundamental and inviolable worth, but then again, I’m just a woolly headed liberal humanist, a Christian who believes in Santa Claus and flying spaghetti monsters, a weepy sentimentalist, or so I’m told repeatedly."<br /><br />Me too, and "God bless us every one!"JCFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14516376500318551838noreply@blogger.com