Sometimes it's nice to start the day off with a nice Chomsky quote.
"People who believe in a better way of life know that the way we live now is criminal. Denial of freedoms, death by starvation and exploitation, denigration of people’s capabilities everywhere. If you see that these outcomes are socially produced, then you understand that every person who dies as a result was effectively murdered. Once you accept the possibility of attaining a humanist alternative, you have to be a terrible hypocrite, coward or cynic to live passively with the contrast beteween what is and what could be."
Check out Singer's stuff on absolute poverty.
However, I don't think you *have* to be a terrible hypocrite, coward, or cynic to live passively etc. etc....*most* of us live that way. Maybe that means that most of use are one of the three, but I think there are more subtle discriminations to be had.
Not of course, for the sake of *justifying* the passivity. But if one is to *combat* it, either in oneself or in others, it helps to better understand it.
Heh, unlike Bij's disinterested comment, I'll take the self-interested route and mention that Monkeyfist's Chomsky Archive loads up a nice Chomsky quote, randomly, everytime you access the front page. (Not that I'm too much a Chomsky pimp, I'm just taking my revenge on Dru for pointing to GWU's scummy prez memo w/out giving me credit for showing it to him. :> )
K.