[lbo-talk] Americans Getting So Fat It's Disgusting

[mike larkin]

--- Dennis Perrin <dperrin at comcast.net> wrote:
> Mike Larkin provided:
> 
> <
>
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031013/ap_on_he_me/extre
> me_obesity_2>
> 
> Michigan is, apparently, one of the fattest states
> in the country, and I
> believe it. I see incredibly fat people on a daily
> basis, mostly working
> class (this includes those who toil in those veal
> crates euphemistically
> called "cubicles"), and I wonder what the ratio of
> political
> apathy/ignorance/powerlessness is to mass
> consumption of fast "food," candy,
> chips and soda? Many of these people (some of whom
> are so large they
> qualifiy for handicapped parking spaces -- no joke)
> appear to trudge through
> what must seem to some of them a meaningless life,
> their one solace being
> able to eat as much as they can afford. Other than
> staring at computer
> screens for 8 hours a day and staring at TV at home,
> what do they have other
> than snacks and shit meals? The political system is
> so far removed from them
> it may as well operate on Mars. I talk to people
> while I work, and most have
> no idea who's running the government, and they don't
> seem to care. It's all
> a dull spectacle, flashing on and off between McRib
> and Eggo commercials.
> 
> DP
> 
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

True, but the fanatical workout fiends I meet at the
gym aren't any more enlightened or interested about
current affairs; all that potential political energy
is diverted into furious exercise routines that
encourage a kind of elitism: "it's survival of the
fittest, and we're the fittest."

Also, there are all those Ivy League lawyers who can
read and write wonderfully, and know a fair amount
about current affairs, but go home and veg out with
fast food just like everybody else.

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