[lbo-talk] The Collector

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> "Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community  
> excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of  
> material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge  
> America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising,  
> and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special  
> locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them.
<snip>
> Robert F. Kennedy Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas,
> March 18, 1968
> Michael Pugliese

Milton S. Gwirtzman must have been a good speechwriter.  Still and  
all, don't you hate to be lectured by a Kennedy on "the mere  
accumulation of material things?"

I created an online store <http://www.cafepress.com/montages> where  
nothing is sold, featuring this remark by Walter Benjamin:

"The collector dreams his way not only into a distant or bygone world  
but also into a better one -- one in which, to be sure, human beings  
are no better provided with what they need than in the everyday  
world, but in which things are freed from the drudgery of being  
useful." -- Walter Benjamin

If only Michael P. can always (like in this instance) free his  
collection of quotations from the drudgery of being useful. . . .

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>
* Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/mahmoud- 
ahmadinejads-face.html>;  <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/chvez- 
congratulates-ahmadinejad.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/ 
2005/06/iranian-working-class-rejects.html>