Sand Castles: To close the day's battles . . .

Some children were playing beside a river. They made castles of sand, and each child defended his castle and said, "This one is mine." They kept their castles separate and would not allow any mistakes about which was whose.

When the castles were all finished, one child kicked over someone else's castle and completely destroyed it. The owner of the castle flew into a rage, pulled the other's hair, struck him with his fist and bawled out, "He has spoiled my castle! Come along all of you and help me to punish him as he deserves."
The others all came to his help. They beat the child with a stick and then stamped on him as he lay on the ground ... Then they went on playing in their sand castles, each saying, "This is mine, no one else may have it. Keep away. Don't touch my castle."

But evening came; it was getting dark and they all thought they ought to be going home. No one now cared what became of his castle. One child stamped on his, another pushed his over with both hands. Then they turned away and went back, each to his own home.

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I guess it's getting to be evening time here.

kind of a disgusting little story any way you look at it.

And now my favorite DU poster piles on.

Can't tell you how many times I almost chimed in to support your hazing of Grant, but you were on such a roll all by yourself.

To me it's just a story about misplaced attachment making us vulnerable to unpleasant aggression.

I like the idea that my need to defend and retaliate arises out of a sand castle like structure set up by my ego. But that some day my life force will dwindle to the point where my ego structures will collapse. Then maybe I will catch a glimpse of the true nature of Being.

I still enjoy your perspectives on workers' rights and policies immensely.

with the dark = period of decline. but it didn't seem worse than barricading myself in my castle & killing people.

esp this line seems to refer to the present situation (& it doesn't seem we're anywhere close to dropping our egos): "I guess it's getting to be evening time here."



you gotta explain the context for the dummies.

I will always think of myself as a blue collar, labor activist type even though the reality is that for the last 20 years I have been a bacterium working away in the bowels of finance. At least I was able to be a part of the team that brought you the near destruction of capitalism as we knew it.

I do think the sand castles has some relevance to US workers. Why are we busting our butts to chase the lifestyles of the rich and famous that we can never achieve (the game is fixed, and the illusion that anyone could achieve those lifestyles is a key element in the control exercised over the working class), when with just a little thought and intelligent focus of our desire train we could provide for ourselves as a class without a capitalist/finance superstructure? Union pension funds have enough capital to start little seed/experimental projects of investing directly in the means of production -- such as labor intensive farm operations, or small factories -- and running the enterprises as communal enterprises (including paying a return on capital for the benefit of retirees) with a focus on benefits to the working/consuming classes rather than profit.

Anyway it's late in CA and my mind is not sharp.

Until tomorrow.

It was a mountain in South Vietnam that the NVA occupied.

US found out about it, went out to that mountain and had a huge battle where hundreds of men, on both sides, were killed.

After several days of fighting and dying, the US took possession of the mountain.

Then we left, we back to our bases.