Re: followup: bulldozing habitats (and humans)

thought of bulldozers this way since seeing one uprooting a
perfectly good tree outside of the architectural building during
college. since then it has come to symbolize, for me, the way
the modern mindset can erase whatever pre-exists it and bull-
doze or raze the area, to make it an empty void in which to build.
this is one reason why modernism cannot work at ground-zero.

someone from palestine moved to st.paul to be with their brother
and relatives, i think it was, and a few months ago (three or four)
was shot dead while clerking at their corner store, in an area in
which such crimes are decades unusual. so too, other such types
of crimes seem to be occurring, and last week the FBI issued a
statement that such crimes will likely increase with an Iraq war,
that is, vigilante racial murders, out the insane fear mongering.

then too, the FBI has stated that it is watching over all Iraqi citizens
and visitors, during this time, as a result. at the same time, today,
they issue an alert that they are taking special watch over certain
portions of the U.S. Iraqi population, to pre-empt any civilian attacks.

it made me remember one of the people at the corner store, who
is an Arab owner and is said to be the profile of a place that will
be targeted and looked after. another store  of larger size is now
standing vacant, as of tonight, emptied of its contents, the owners
shut it down, existing in that realm of the questioned demographic.
in the summer there was a young woman who was sobbing outside
as times were getting more and more tense against Muslims in the
patriotic fervor and rabid media xenophobia, and her boyfriend or
husband was nearby, and yet i wondered if this was in some way
related to the stress, and how do you bridge the gap of strangers,
to share the commonality of this place, back to itself, and people.

maybe the naming of this place as the 'midwest' has ingrained a
sense that maybe there is a parallel to the 'mideast' or near east,
here, in the near west. yet, there is a monotony so great that only
bulldozers could create it, something so easy to assume is pure,
complete, and without question, righteous and good in its nature.
i still believe development is something different, when it is about
people. but when about machines, it may be pure machinations,
a grinding down of humans different psyches, into a monolithic,
mindless, numbing deadness and disquiet. graves, cemeteries.

maybe development, maybe bulldozers, though also psychology,
basic psychology, individual and group, state and nation, world.
a clash of mentalities. until this is differentiated, through design,
no bulldozers or development models will matter much, and other
nations have yet to become slaves of 'medicines' so as to cope.
beyond looking away, i wonder why 'we' cannot change more,
as thousands of millions of subsequent idiot abound. when the
populace is silent to this late-date, it is hard to blame the FBI and
the CIA, and others, for all the ills. everyday people share in the
responsibility for what is happening. and many are in disbelief.
that is, that a world exists beyond their own limited understanding.

minds, in schools, in institutions, have been bulldozed and also
developed along these same lines, an unenlightened educational
brutalism where power is what is rewarded, over and over and over.
when truth matters, it does not matter, as it is not a value in the
mind.
it is only those in authority, who can get things done, however so.
that George W. Bush's presidency may be like a point-guard in a
basketball game, and playing the system as far as he can take the
'win' to the apathy and impotence of all others in the game, shows
something about the nature of development issues: it is privatized,
it is powerful, and it is unrelentingly political, at any and all costs.
how democracy is designed in this type of human populace may
not be something considered that such superficiality could outweigh
the world's concerns, and with such ease, -- it may be a belief in a
certain type of 'public' ethics and morality, beyond private beliefs,
that may have been part of the checks and balances up to now, or
as a gauge, but not longer as religious zealotry has overtaken the
group mind, the public mind, and as in worship, praise and silence,
heretics and enemies, and one belief that is supreme over all 'others'.

undeveloped, is the US American mind, whereas those countries and
places considered 'undeveloped' or developing or less developed may
indeed be much more civil in their mind, about human nature, else, it
may be that they are foggy too, about any differentiation, and the model
used by the US for developing itself and others is pushing the envelope
of feasibility to the point of break-up and collapse, as public policy
does
not equal private policy, that when a president says 'my country' it is
not
the same as 'our country', and representing people is done with a mind
that knows others exists and respects the US American difference, does
not lie, cheat, exploit, and manipulate this to achieve
self-empowerment.
that is, unless there is 'opportunity' and a business-model to do so,
such
as a government, and a full-court-press,  the 3-point shot, and the
buzzer.