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Wow- there’s a lot here. I’ll have to read it again later. My first, more visceral response was a longing for the simpler reality I experienced at 5, 6, 7 years old in rural America. The knitting mill my dad worked at employed a lot of folks and put food on our table. We bought our clothes from a store on main street or at a church rummage sale. I recall a Christmas dinner at the Volunteer fire Dept., everyone laughing, enjoying one another. I had no concept of suffering. People just worked and raised their kids and cared for each other—that was all I saw at that young age. If I was sick, the doc would give me a shot and my mom would pay, oh, 25 or 50 cents for it? The little grocery store just down the road was owned and run by our neighbor across the street, and he was at the store every day working and laughing with his customers. Wal-Mart was inconceivable. …Just simple memories. [As a kid, I had no concept of what some in the black community were enduring—this is before the Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in, etc. We were dabbling in Vietnam, but that would not have been comprehensible to me.]

The next thing that jumped out at me was “because of our worship of an increasing Dow.” That’s it these days—that’s where we are. [When PBS news tells me the various market numbers, I am struck every evening by the real irrelevance of the numbers themselves and human inability to understand that growth simply can’t be limitless.] You make me wonder—what’s the difference between dancing around and gazing in ecstasy at the Golden Calf and hovering about on the floor of the stock market and gazing at the figures scrolling by? The author of Exodus was prescient. (America has been "Financialized" and I don't think that is good.)

I may be back- I will have to reread part 6 again. Thanks again John for your hard work. It is a blessing to have you make me think! God bless.

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