In one way or another, the United States has been at war since the 1940s. This trend has been noted by many before me, notably among them the late Howard Zinn. Our military budget dwarfs that of any other country's, comprising approximately 40 percent of world wide military expenditures.
In case there are any doubts floating around, let me make this perfectly clear: war is profitable, greed and violence inextricably linked. This is not a new phenomenon, for people have used violence to further their interests for probably all of human existence.
What is so insidious about the way the United States makes war is the way we dress it up and try to ascribe a higher moral justification to our actions. I don't believe violence ever solves problems, but don't try to pretend that we aren't seriously disrupting millions of lives in the Middle East for political and economic reasons and for oil. Operation enduring freedom, the war on terror, operation smokescreen-and-flag-waving...complete fallacy and illusion. Right now, as Afghanis and Iraqis and the soldiers who are occupying their countries are fighting and killing each other and dying, other people are making money. The destruction of life, the construction of guns and bombs and bullets, all add to that holiest of statistics, our Gross Domestic Product. "Please, don't mind us while we destroy your country and then rebuild it for you just how we like it..."
Soon, we will need a veteran contractors affairs department for the injured military contractors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, even though we can't even adequately provide for all of our veterans.
There is no end in sight, to the violence, the lies, and the profiteering. People say we can't pull out now because we would leave Afghanistan in shambles, or we would leave a power vacuum for the Taliban to fill. I say the sooner we leave, the better, for the people who live there and for us. I don't know much about what Afghanistan was like in August, 2001, but I know that there were a lot more Afghanis alive than there are today. I imagine there were more buildings standing and more communities intact too.
We have to end these military occupations of countries we had no business interfering with in the first place. American troops will, hopefully, withdraw from Iraq by the end of this year, but is there any end in sight in Afghanistan?
Instead of funneling government money into the Middle East to protect our "strategic interests," instead of disrupting families and destroying lives with illegal, costly, and despicable "nation-building," let's keep that money inside our borders and redirect that energy to help out with another cause. We are so completely steeped in our almost 19-million-barrels-deep daily oil bath that we fail to see the future that is in stake for this country and more importantly the planet we share with all of humanity.
The way we do business today is not working. Our priorities are out of whack, putting profit and its accumulation first. The engines of production must be fueled and lubricated, the religion of economic growth cannot be questioned; indeed, it would be political suicide to do so in mainstream American politics.
Meanwhile our planet is being consumed and picked apart, degraded and eroded, polluted and exploited. Resources are extracted, the living is converted to the dead: our civilization is waging a steady war against the planet that sustains it, feeds it, and houses it. Our atmosphere is steadily being stuffed full of carbon dioxide; once safely tucked away in fossils deep in the earth, this carbon has found its way up up up into the sky and is starting to throw off the fine balance of gases up there with unfortunately rather ruinous effects.
Beyond global warming, we are facing global climate destabilization: hotter and colder extremes, melting glaciers and ice caps (Northwest Passage, anyone?), changing weather patterns throwing off seasons, ocean acidification, rising sea levels (mostly due to the expansion of warmer ocean water), generally disrupting the natural regulatory and circulatory systems we take for granted everyday. There will be millions and millions displaced by rising sea levels and resource conflicts, especially over precious water supplies.
The list goes on as the science becomes clearer; meanwhile, the world slowly rubs its eyes as it wakes up to a new reality. There were a few early risers who are joined by more everyday, but those with vested interest in the global economy and free trade, those gurus of production and demigods of the neoliberal production paradigm, those who don't want to face the truth, or don't care about it, well, they are hitting snooze and sleeping in.
- - - - - - - - -
What if some of the money we are throwing away on destructive illegal conflicts and the maintenance of our global military network instead went towards securing our nation's future? What if we created a department of Peace, like Dennis Kucinich and others have argued for? What if we diverted some portion, a quarter or even a half, of the annual US military budget to stabilizing and localizing our entire economy, our energy systems, our food systems, our transportation systems, to build resilient sustainable communities? What if we spent that money on public education, or social welfare programs, or the rehabilitation of prisoners?
What if we lived in a country that was not governed by money, controlled by fear, or benefited by war and destruction? What if we declared a war on climate change, or inequality, or racism, or poverty? Would it be any more feasible than a war on drugs, or a war on terror?
Monday, February 7, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
A World at Arms
My co-editor, bless his soul, has encouraged me post. Here goes:
I'm watching the State of the Union address, streaming on CNN.com. I was struck, watching President Obama enter the chamber, by how old our government is. They wear their age on their faces in lines and crows' feet. They wear gray suits, but these don't match their hair; it is white. They wear jowls under their chins like a badge of honor, and indeed they are the price of admission to Congress.
What is the defining quality of the old? Is it wisdom, or is it inflexibility? See here the fascinating Wall Street Journal chart on the average ages of Congressmen since 1949. It's going up. What conclusion can we draw from this? Are these old men and women sage, or simply saturnine? And what does it say about us that we young tolerate the domination of our country by the old?
I'm watching the State of the Union address, streaming on CNN.com. I was struck, watching President Obama enter the chamber, by how old our government is. They wear their age on their faces in lines and crows' feet. They wear gray suits, but these don't match their hair; it is white. They wear jowls under their chins like a badge of honor, and indeed they are the price of admission to Congress.
What is the defining quality of the old? Is it wisdom, or is it inflexibility? See here the fascinating Wall Street Journal chart on the average ages of Congressmen since 1949. It's going up. What conclusion can we draw from this? Are these old men and women sage, or simply saturnine? And what does it say about us that we young tolerate the domination of our country by the old?
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Technologic
More, more, more. More economic growth, more cars, a 2nd home, more stocks and bonds.
More stuff.
Our economic system constantly demands more. It depends on filling voids, both real and perceived, with an endless stream of stuff. The consumption of goods requires the production of more goods. These goods are designed to fail sooner rather than later and to be easier to replace than repair. Within the limitations of this system, our logic often tells us that it is cheaper to buy a new item than repair the old. We often do not have a real choice in the matter.
Technology. The silver bullet. Our savior. The great enabler. We have endless variations on the theme, but it is basically the knowledge and tools we use to modify the natural world in order to satisfy our needs and wants. Agriculture is technology. Ideas are technology. (Perhaps our most important tool is our brain--is that technology?) Pens and computers and telephones and chairs and clothing are all examples. Technology enables so many things to happen. It is hard to deny that the computer that I am typing on is an incredibly complicated and fabulous piece of technology.
I love technology, but I also hate it. I hate the way is stresses me out, and the way it connects some people even as it creates barriers between others. I cringe when I see two people sitting together, out for a nice dinner, with individual noses in individual screens. I love being able to sit down in an airplane and travel to California to see my Grandmother, to Oregon to see the Hutchison clan and enjoy time on Cannon Beach, to Morocco to study Arabic, but I hate being crammed like sardines in with strangers on planes, feeling jetlag afterwards, and thinking about how many tons of greenhouse gases my 22 years of air travel have put in the atmosphere. I dread the thought of sitting for 8 hours a day in front of a computer screen for a career down the road. I hate how thoroughly hooked we are on having the newest gadgets, the latest model, and how sold we are on the endless stream of ipads, ipods, iphones, imacs, nooks, kindles, blackberries, laptops, cellphones. None of this stuff is designed to last more than a couple years--that is why it only comes with a 1 or two year warranty, max. They can't guarantee you more because it is intentionally designed to fail. Either that or it is designed to be somewhat limited in its features. That way, you will feel so fulfilled when you buy the gadget2.0 in a year. I saw a Harvard employee's desk once practically dripping with iproducts: a monstrous-screened-imac with wireless keyboard and mouse, a shiny new ipad (resting in its case at a jaunty 45 degree angle), and an iphone all jostled for space and vied for the young man's attention. He was checking all of them.
-----------
Okay, take a deep breath. I was ranting, of course, which doesn't do much good and doesn't solve any real problem (except for providing my brain with some much-needed release). A more productive approach is to take a step back and evaluate my personal relationship with technology, something that I think we all need to do more of. These devices are man-made tools, and they should serve a purpose. My housemate Libby sent me this great article called "Seven criteria for the adoption of new technology" by Will Braun. It is his take on the necessity to critically evaluate the adoption of a new technology or gadget, and he draws lessons from the Amish for his personal dilemma: whether or not to purchase a car. Whatever your opinion of the Amish is, Braun thinks they deserve some admiration for thinking hard about the long term social impact of a new form of technology. I agree with him.
This reminds me of a discussion I attended at the 2010 Boston Skillshare led by a pair of self-described neo-luddites. They are not against technology, per se, but they, like the Amish, question the things they use and the effects those things have on themselves and others. In particular, these two women got rid of their personal computer because they found it was causing more trouble than it was worth. It was a thought-provoking and eye-opening 50 minutes that I will probably never forget. As much as I complain about technology, I still carry a cell phone everywhere and am clearly writing to you on this computer. Many people talk about how much they hate technology but how hard it is to resist its allure, how easy it is to waste away hours in front of the computer yet stand up with a lingering feeling of what-did-I-just-accomplish? The example of the neo-luddites, and that of the Amish, show that it is possible to live, and live well, by taking a critical stance towards technology.
We all do this to some degree, but don't be afraid to fight back more. Reclaiming an hour of your life from television or the computer to read, write, play cards, cook, go for a run, anything, will do you good. Remember, we don't always have to be connected or accessible all of the time.
More stuff.
Our economic system constantly demands more. It depends on filling voids, both real and perceived, with an endless stream of stuff. The consumption of goods requires the production of more goods. These goods are designed to fail sooner rather than later and to be easier to replace than repair. Within the limitations of this system, our logic often tells us that it is cheaper to buy a new item than repair the old. We often do not have a real choice in the matter.
Technology. The silver bullet. Our savior. The great enabler. We have endless variations on the theme, but it is basically the knowledge and tools we use to modify the natural world in order to satisfy our needs and wants. Agriculture is technology. Ideas are technology. (Perhaps our most important tool is our brain--is that technology?) Pens and computers and telephones and chairs and clothing are all examples. Technology enables so many things to happen. It is hard to deny that the computer that I am typing on is an incredibly complicated and fabulous piece of technology.
I love technology, but I also hate it. I hate the way is stresses me out, and the way it connects some people even as it creates barriers between others. I cringe when I see two people sitting together, out for a nice dinner, with individual noses in individual screens. I love being able to sit down in an airplane and travel to California to see my Grandmother, to Oregon to see the Hutchison clan and enjoy time on Cannon Beach, to Morocco to study Arabic, but I hate being crammed like sardines in with strangers on planes, feeling jetlag afterwards, and thinking about how many tons of greenhouse gases my 22 years of air travel have put in the atmosphere. I dread the thought of sitting for 8 hours a day in front of a computer screen for a career down the road. I hate how thoroughly hooked we are on having the newest gadgets, the latest model, and how sold we are on the endless stream of ipads, ipods, iphones, imacs, nooks, kindles, blackberries, laptops, cellphones. None of this stuff is designed to last more than a couple years--that is why it only comes with a 1 or two year warranty, max. They can't guarantee you more because it is intentionally designed to fail. Either that or it is designed to be somewhat limited in its features. That way, you will feel so fulfilled when you buy the gadget2.0 in a year. I saw a Harvard employee's desk once practically dripping with iproducts: a monstrous-screened-imac with wireless keyboard and mouse, a shiny new ipad (resting in its case at a jaunty 45 degree angle), and an iphone all jostled for space and vied for the young man's attention. He was checking all of them.
-----------
Okay, take a deep breath. I was ranting, of course, which doesn't do much good and doesn't solve any real problem (except for providing my brain with some much-needed release). A more productive approach is to take a step back and evaluate my personal relationship with technology, something that I think we all need to do more of. These devices are man-made tools, and they should serve a purpose. My housemate Libby sent me this great article called "Seven criteria for the adoption of new technology" by Will Braun. It is his take on the necessity to critically evaluate the adoption of a new technology or gadget, and he draws lessons from the Amish for his personal dilemma: whether or not to purchase a car. Whatever your opinion of the Amish is, Braun thinks they deserve some admiration for thinking hard about the long term social impact of a new form of technology. I agree with him.
This reminds me of a discussion I attended at the 2010 Boston Skillshare led by a pair of self-described neo-luddites. They are not against technology, per se, but they, like the Amish, question the things they use and the effects those things have on themselves and others. In particular, these two women got rid of their personal computer because they found it was causing more trouble than it was worth. It was a thought-provoking and eye-opening 50 minutes that I will probably never forget. As much as I complain about technology, I still carry a cell phone everywhere and am clearly writing to you on this computer. Many people talk about how much they hate technology but how hard it is to resist its allure, how easy it is to waste away hours in front of the computer yet stand up with a lingering feeling of what-did-I-just-accomplish? The example of the neo-luddites, and that of the Amish, show that it is possible to live, and live well, by taking a critical stance towards technology.
We all do this to some degree, but don't be afraid to fight back more. Reclaiming an hour of your life from television or the computer to read, write, play cards, cook, go for a run, anything, will do you good. Remember, we don't always have to be connected or accessible all of the time.
Friday, January 7, 2011
People Over Profit.
Capitalism is a system of winners and losers. Such an economic system inherently creates an unequal distribution of wealth and promotes profit and limitless consumption. Money and greed make people blind to the world around them. Large companies the size of small countries have no concept of the effects their economic activity has on the local scale, and if they do, they don’t care to stop and think about how or why.
Externalities, subsidies, free trade, expanding markets, tax breaks, and so it goes. Globalization and the inescapable free market dogma is increasingly making our planet into one big homogenized market, devoid of culture and individuality and values. Only accumulation of wealth and consumption are valued by this worldview. Priorities are out of wack. Things are too big. We are losing touch with the earth that is our only home, the source of our livelihood.
People are lost with their noses buried in telescreens and personal data assistants. Some are worrying about what ‘apps’ to get for their iphones, while others are filling out one JOB application after another. We have lost touch with our food system and we do not take the time to sit and enjoy the company of others with a good meal. Profit trumps happiness because profit is seen as the path to happiness. Justice is not observed.
Externalities, subsidies, free trade, expanding markets, tax breaks, and so it goes. Globalization and the inescapable free market dogma is increasingly making our planet into one big homogenized market, devoid of culture and individuality and values. Only accumulation of wealth and consumption are valued by this worldview. Priorities are out of wack. Things are too big. We are losing touch with the earth that is our only home, the source of our livelihood.
People are lost with their noses buried in telescreens and personal data assistants. Some are worrying about what ‘apps’ to get for their iphones, while others are filling out one JOB application after another. We have lost touch with our food system and we do not take the time to sit and enjoy the company of others with a good meal. Profit trumps happiness because profit is seen as the path to happiness. Justice is not observed.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Beyond Growth
It is imperative that we move beyond our pursuit of growth, elevated as the singular worthy pursuit that will in turn make everything else better. To a point, economic growth is imperative, liberating, uplifting. Beyond that point, more money and more stuff does not make us happier. Our plastic disposable culture is tenuous at best, propped up on propaganda and false rhetoric, revered and awed with a religious fervor. We are slaves to the free market, that untouchable fallacy that is neither stable nor free. As Bill McKibben describes it, the pursuit of Better must diverge from the pursuit of More, for these are two birds that no longer roost on the same branch, not even the same tree.
In Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, McKibben identifies three principal challenges to our obsession with growth. 1) Our growth-oriented economies, where more is always better, have produced more inequality and insecurity than widespread prosperity and genuine progress. 2) We do not have the energy to fuel growth for all, or the capacity to deal with the pollution it would create. 3) Growth is no longer making us happy.
While I agree that the market-based development paradigm has, at great costs, created a world of winners and losers, and I concur that all of our money and stuff has not made us more fulfilled or happy people, I must partly disagree with Mr. McKibben on his 2nd point. Burning fossil fuels, which escalates concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and causes climate change, whose effects are already being felt, drives economic activity and growth. As Dr. Nate Lewis, professor of chemistry at Caltech University, says in his talk on renewable energy (requires Flash player I think), "we didn't leave the stone age because we ran out of stone, and we won't leave the fossil fuel age because we run out of fossil fuels" (a quote from when he gave this lecture at BU in November, not sure if he repeats it exactly on the web version, but it is the same slides and lecture). According to Lewis, we have several hundred years of oil and natural gas supplies left and at least two thousand years of coal reserves remaining. If we wanted to, we could burn the black sooty stuff for millenia to come!
Certainly human activity is reaching all sorts of the earth's biophysical limits, but its supplies of carbon-intensive fossil energy are pretty extensive. Even though it is available, that does not mean we should use it. With the other technologies available, principally solar power, fossil fuels are outdated. We cannot afford to maintain our current trajectory of growth and energy consumption; as McKibben says, the costs, already very high, would overwhelm us.
Leaving the fossil fuel age behind us is much easier in theory than it is in practice. It is a necessary transition; however, and it will come hand in hand with a new deep economy of the kind that McKibben pushes for. Local, durable, community-based, self-sufficient, secure, and independent, with proper accounting measures that move beyond a tally of expenditures to provide a measure of the true wealth of communities, of their natural, social, and economic capital. This is where we need to go, and hopefully the rest of Deep Economy will provide the know-how.
In Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, McKibben identifies three principal challenges to our obsession with growth. 1) Our growth-oriented economies, where more is always better, have produced more inequality and insecurity than widespread prosperity and genuine progress. 2) We do not have the energy to fuel growth for all, or the capacity to deal with the pollution it would create. 3) Growth is no longer making us happy.
While I agree that the market-based development paradigm has, at great costs, created a world of winners and losers, and I concur that all of our money and stuff has not made us more fulfilled or happy people, I must partly disagree with Mr. McKibben on his 2nd point. Burning fossil fuels, which escalates concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and causes climate change, whose effects are already being felt, drives economic activity and growth. As Dr. Nate Lewis, professor of chemistry at Caltech University, says in his talk on renewable energy (requires Flash player I think), "we didn't leave the stone age because we ran out of stone, and we won't leave the fossil fuel age because we run out of fossil fuels" (a quote from when he gave this lecture at BU in November, not sure if he repeats it exactly on the web version, but it is the same slides and lecture). According to Lewis, we have several hundred years of oil and natural gas supplies left and at least two thousand years of coal reserves remaining. If we wanted to, we could burn the black sooty stuff for millenia to come!
Certainly human activity is reaching all sorts of the earth's biophysical limits, but its supplies of carbon-intensive fossil energy are pretty extensive. Even though it is available, that does not mean we should use it. With the other technologies available, principally solar power, fossil fuels are outdated. We cannot afford to maintain our current trajectory of growth and energy consumption; as McKibben says, the costs, already very high, would overwhelm us.
Leaving the fossil fuel age behind us is much easier in theory than it is in practice. It is a necessary transition; however, and it will come hand in hand with a new deep economy of the kind that McKibben pushes for. Local, durable, community-based, self-sufficient, secure, and independent, with proper accounting measures that move beyond a tally of expenditures to provide a measure of the true wealth of communities, of their natural, social, and economic capital. This is where we need to go, and hopefully the rest of Deep Economy will provide the know-how.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Overcoming Inertia
This is not an exit. This is a beginning, the start of a new consciousness. We have to square with the reality that stares at us down its hairy gilded snout. It is too easy to get overwhelmed by the enormity of it all, to get bogged down in the daunting challenges before us. So many of us go through life in a state somewhere between sleep and awake--not in a landscape of dreams, but stumbling along the gradually-eroding grade of a hazy path following hastily-posted signs to nowhere.
It is an easy-enough path to navigate, but it is hard to see another way. Distractions surround us, lights and clockwork overwhelm our senses, petty differences consume our public debates. Talking heads, screaming and tearing each other apart in uncanny high-definition-3D clarity, are beamed into households across the country. The angry fluff is just incendiary enough to hold your attention, but is anyone clear about what they are actually saying? Would you speak to your mother in that tone, sir?
Fear is everywhere unsettling, unavoidable, and distracting. Fears of blurry international enemies, vague blanket wars, lost jobs, faulty mortgages, all help to maintain the status quo. To keep everyone on the straight and narrow. It is hard to pull the wool from one's eyes when facing the loss of a house or job. The positive feedback of inertia keeps the world spinning in just a way, and it is easy to feel the tug, to fall in line like everybody else.
How can we attempt to take a step forward, to push back against the forces that would have us continue down the windy unknown path? We have to turn and face the cold steel of reality, to dig our heels in and grit our teeth. Overcoming the inertia is not going to be easy, but it is the necessary first step.
It is an easy-enough path to navigate, but it is hard to see another way. Distractions surround us, lights and clockwork overwhelm our senses, petty differences consume our public debates. Talking heads, screaming and tearing each other apart in uncanny high-definition-3D clarity, are beamed into households across the country. The angry fluff is just incendiary enough to hold your attention, but is anyone clear about what they are actually saying? Would you speak to your mother in that tone, sir?
Fear is everywhere unsettling, unavoidable, and distracting. Fears of blurry international enemies, vague blanket wars, lost jobs, faulty mortgages, all help to maintain the status quo. To keep everyone on the straight and narrow. It is hard to pull the wool from one's eyes when facing the loss of a house or job. The positive feedback of inertia keeps the world spinning in just a way, and it is easy to feel the tug, to fall in line like everybody else.
How can we attempt to take a step forward, to push back against the forces that would have us continue down the windy unknown path? We have to turn and face the cold steel of reality, to dig our heels in and grit our teeth. Overcoming the inertia is not going to be easy, but it is the necessary first step.
The Beginning
We're here because we can't stand to let things keep going the way they are. This is not an exit! This is not us saying that things are going to hell in a handbasket, and I can't be blamed. This is where it starts. We are coming together to share ideas, call out names of people doing wrong, focus attention on persistent problems, and make a better place to pass on to those who come next. This is our country, and it can only be as great as we make it.
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