"...the modern American heirarchical system provides a natural order for the exercise of sadism."

[Fire Walk With Me]

Full quote:

"The intricacies of the modern American heirarchical system provides a natural order for the exercise of sadism." -Fiona Kelleghan, on Greg Frost, "The Savage Humanists", page 26.

"They've exchanged freedom and awareness for some kind of organizing principle or explanation. And it's usually a bad idea." -Jonathan Lethem on the characters of his novel "Amnesia Moon".

"I'm unwilling to embrace blindly that which I've not considered to the fullest." -Greg Frost, "Fitcher's Brides".

Some lovely anti-Republicanism writing in this fine book of short speculative fiction. "The Savage Humanists", edited by Fiona Kelleghan.

[villager]

1. It's speculative fiction!?

Wow.. thought you were excerpting essays!

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. The stories in the book, and those quoted in the lengthy, interesting introduction

are indeed speculative fiction, but are all quite scathing regarding the ills of our day. The first story is very hard to forget.

One states that the gold stolen from the Incas caused the European economy to flop. I don't know if this is true, but it's interesting if so. And well-deserved!

The tagline on the back of the book states:

"...Here, they use SF's unique powers to comment on the human condition in mordantly funny, satiric stories..."

[conscious evolution]

4. gold stolen from the Incas

I remember reading somewhere that Inca gold caused the Spain to flop.
Most of the other European countries diversified their holdings here by investing in many different means of producing wealth.The Spanish just came here to loot the gold.When they stole all of the gold from the indigenous peoples they had nothing else to base their economy on which resulted in their fall from power.
Don't know how true this is but it makes sense to me.

[Hannah Bell]

6. the gold thing = inflated the spanish currency, destroying its value. "investors" moved their money

"offshore" - to holland.

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. Never forget Katrina.

Never forget the social, economic, and resource bottleneck BushCo hope to force us into, in order to gain power- and indeed, the very act of creating fear and danger in order to scare people into blindly embracing an organizing principle, one which results in their gaining even more power, such as the "Patriot Act".

[conscious evolution]

5. American heirarchical system

is the result of monotheism,imo.
Everyone wants to be god and will do whatever it takes to be the top dog.

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. One kick for a book and stories which think like we do.