Someone asked me this question:
“Obviously the destruction [of the planet] already occurring hasn’t been enough to bring us to the tipping point [of resistance]. What will it take for the masses to unite behind an effective solution?”
* * *
My reply:
“What will it take?” is something I wonder about all the time. How far does the murder of the planet have to go? Do we really have to be starving and gasping for breath before we break through denial? We’re almost at that point now, and denial is still rampant.
Part of the problem is that most people in this culture don’t have any idea how to live without industrial production — without water from the tap, without food from grocery stores. If the only source of basic necessities is this system, and people don’t know any other way to live, then they will continue to defend the system that provides them.
It’s like the demand for jobs. In the context of this society, most of us can’t live without jobs, though they’re the arena in which our exploitation takes place. So until we understand that the whole system must be done away with, and until we can live some other way, we end up demanding that the system provide more jobs.
I saw a TV program where someone showed common vegetables (eggplant, tomato, etc) to schoolchildren, and none of them could identify them. In the last couple generations, most of us have lost the ability to grow food (even when we can still identify it). More importantly, most people have no access to land.
A lot of people argue that we should form communes, permaculture “eco-villages,” community gardens and so on to serve as examples of how we could live sustainably. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing those things, but they’re not going to be what’s needed to defeat this system.
There were many cultures who used to live sustainably on this continent, and they’ve been systematically all but wiped out. So it’s not enough to withdraw. As soon as the system wants what you have, or demands your participation, they will violently destroy anyone who doesn’t cooperate.
What will it take? The same things it’ll take to make revolution to uproot all forms of exploitation and oppression.
In the first stages:
* Broad realization that this system is killing the planet, and that to save all life, including our own, we need to defeat and dismantle the system.
* A recognition of who the enemy is.
* The sense that it is more dangerous to let things go on as they are than it is to rise up and fight back.
* A vision of a viable future.
These ideas are spreading, and we need to spread them more, to unite as many as possible in a powerful movement to take this system on. We need to connect the struggle for saving the planet with the struggles for social justice — the enemy is the same.
— Stephanie McMillan
37 Comments.
This is assuming an anthropocentric view of the world.
Evolution happens.
People change the carbon state of the world from buried deep in the crust to in the atmosphere. Frogs die. Oceans rise. Bunnies lose their homes. Cities disappear. Homo sapiens become extinct and a life form that love water and higher temperatures becomes the king of the hill.
We should try to take care of our selves and not shit where we sleep, but in the grand scheme of thigs; God, Gaia, Mother Nature, General Electric or whomever the ultimate controller of the universe is (if there is one) mankind is nothing.
Hardly a blip.
A gnat landing on a mosquito.
What we are good at is projecting our feelings and ideals onto others. From missionaries in Africa saving the savages to the folks from Greenpeace saving the whales, man is always trying to put his own stamp of “humanity” and “soul” onto the poor unfortunates.
We are doing that with the Earth now. Oh woe, it is hot, things are dying. Iff the Earth had a consciousness and a soul, it would reach for a glass of iced tea and crank up the AC.
Mankind takes itself way to seriously.
Me, when the waters rise, I will have more places to go kayaking.
Cheers.
I have a question for Angelo/olegna78, who fashions himself as a social-democrat in the Western European tradition (although not all Europeans consider themselves to be social-democrats), and to other blogizens, like Albert Cirrus, who see themselves as “liberals”/”progrssives”: doesn’t it freeze your blood to read prose like Stephanie’s in the 21st century? Or do you honestly think you two see eye-to-eye politically or are traveling together along the same path?
NDJ, as George Carlin used to say, the Earth doesn’t give a damn about mankind or any other species upon its crust. And the Universe cares even less about the Earth.
Stephanie,
“We” are not obviously destroying the planet. The advanced Western cultures have the cleanest environments. As for food production. We are able to provide enough food to feed ourselves and most of the rest of the world. You can go to any supermarket you want and purchase any food you want at an affordable price. This abundance of food is brought to you by good old fashion western capitalism. But the beauty of our system of government is, you can opt out. You can go by some land, plow it under and grow your own produce and protein. Personally, I prefer to spend my time doing more enjoyable things, but to each his own. So leave my system alone; quit trying to make the rest of us feel guilty; we don’t.
Do you know how hard it is to make explosives? Though I am sure I could do a better job then the timesquare bomber. Really, using miracal grow?
It´s just dificult to take that final step from being ecologically aware to actually blowing up infrastructure.
I guess I am just trying to get up the nerve to folow the example of Theodore Kazinski (sic). I read him in 2001 after I went to the Seattle WTO protest and learned that pasive resistance is a good way to get your a$$ kicked by the police. That was my first encounter with anarchism and the black block. It was also where I learned that protests don´t do anything if the PTB don´t want it to. Direct action is the only thing that actually works.
People are too stoopid to resist. On Saturday afternoon before Katrina hit on Monday morning, I went to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the waters were calm. Business as usual everywhere. I spoke with several people, no one was worried. Late that afternoon, I stood at Long Beach boat harbor with my gf and smoked a hand-rolled cigarette and made this statement: “You know, 48 hours from now, all of this may be gone.” I could see the Long Beach Yacht Club, lots of pleasure boats, many shrimp boats, the seafood place and across the highway, a K-Mart, McDonalds, another shopping center, a couple banks and more. One month later, when I stood in the same spot, all that could be seen were a few pilings protruding from the water and the pole that held a big, yellow “M” that was upside down.
I lived 60 miles inland in an area with lots of destruction and 4-6 weeks with no electricity. I was prepared, had plenty of propane, water, dried beans and rice, etc., but most people were totally unprepared.
So, in conclusion, no matter how much warning a person receives, the majority of people are too stoopid to hear, listen and/or heed. Too stoopid to prepare. Too stoopid to think. But, I do like ‘nom du jour’s’ kayaking proposal.
Q: “What will it take for the masses to unite behind an effective solution?”
A: An effective solution that makes no distinction between “us” and “the masses”.
Dizi,
I thought Katrina was Bush’s fault.
Whoa! The Unabomber’s techniques are included in your short list of things that “actually work”? Do you believe that mailing bombs to geneticists and computer scientists impeded technological development in those fields? Or are you so blood-thirsty that you consider the three people he killed to be a positive development in and of itself?
Listen: I’m a leftist. I believe environmental regulations are not anywhere near what they should be and that there are many common industrial practices that must change as we proceed through the twenty-first century. More information: I’m a scientist and an engineer. I’m a person for whom reading Carl Sagan’s A Demon-Haunted World was a formative experience. I’m passionate about the nature of my work and couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life.
When I read essays decrying all those who stand in the way of some hypothetical agrarian utopia as “the enemy,” and commenters who are trying to “work up the nerve” to live up to the example of Ted Kaczynski, all I can think is that I couldn’t imagine a fringe movement more fundamentally opposed to my existence. Perhaps this is not your intent, or perhaps it is inconceivable to you that people like myself exist who were driven to engineering by passion rather than by pragmatism, but we’re out there. Indeed, I suspect that most of the professors who were targeted by Kaczynski were passionate about their work.
Anyway, good luck with your future career in domestic terrorism.
Steve B: I have not mentioned the Unabomber’s tactics. Don’t put words in my mouth.
US395: The US is relatively “clean” because we export a lot of our pollution by having our consumer crap produced elsewhere.
Nom du jour: I hardly think 120 species going extinct per day is a “blip” to the members of those species. Your comment is in fact incredibly anthropocentric.
So, we need to preserve things exactly as they were before man came around?
That would be impossible. Humans are not the problem — many human cultures have lived sustainably for thousands of years. It’s industrial culture, especially the growth imperative of capitalism, that is the problem.
My god you are right. Industrial man is the ultimate evil.
This will be my last post, I am pulling out of the grid.
Shutting down.
And then I am going to take out as much evil as I can, in an environmentally acceptable manner of course.
Beware if you drive any car, use electricity, eat any food that you don’t grow yourself, etc. I am coming after you.
I guess I will see all of you in hell.
Stephanie, capitalism sucks doesn’t it? BTW you aren’t making a profit on anything here are you? http://minimumsecurity.net/blog/shop/
Like most problems, there’s no simple answer. You can’t support 6 billion human beings on the planet without a high level of technology. (Have any of you ever tried to raise your own food? I have; it’s damned hard work, and there’s no time off, no vacations, and you’re highly dependent on conditions beyond your control.) By the same token, the constant increasing demand for resources (both renewable and non-renewable) is climbing beyond our ability to acquire them. The result already is shortages, which will become more severe in the future.
The answers would require fewer people on Earth (which will happen anyway, if the current trends continue) and a massive infusion of resources (which could only come from outer space; i.e. multiple space programs exploiting the resources of our Solar System). What will happen, thanks to snarky people like nom who find it more convenient to poke fun than work towards solutions, is an increase in wars over resources, more natural disasters (hint; how far is NYC above sea level?), and a general decline in living conditions worldwide except for the elites. It would take a plague on the level of the Black Death to reverse these trends. This isn’t beyond the realm of possibility, but can’t be counted on to resolve the problem.
US395: Not enough. BTW, we do need to survive within the system we live in. It doesn’t mean we can’t see the necessity of changing it.
Nom du jour: If only your departure from the grid would make a difference, but individual consumer choices don’t. We can’t have an economy based on infinite growth on a finite planet. That’s a very basic fact — get used to it.
Stephanie: I wasn’t accusing you of talking about the Unabomber, I was responding to… uhm… a person whose post has since been removed?
I didn’t mean to insinuate that you, Stephanie McMillan, had expressed support for Ted Kaczynski; I should’ve been more specific. That said, if you are accusing me of intellectual dishonesty, I think it is a more than a little bit dishonest to remove the post I was very obviously responding to, and then accuse me of putting words in your mouth. That said, it is perfectly possible that someone other than yourself removed the comment and caused this confusion. If that is the case, I apologize for my lack of clarity.
Your essay contains no call to violent tactics and I would never insinuate that it does.
Steve B., my apologies. I did think you were talking about me. Later I saw the comment by another person that you were referring to, which I removed pending review by Ted because I was concerned about its contents, but then I didn’t have time to sort out the confusion.
Thanks for clarifying.
Stephanie,
You can go live like the Amish anytime you want. But I suspect you don’t want to live that way without taking the rest of us with you. “Spread the misery” is the moto of the left.
US, living ‘like the Amish’ won’t help, as you well know, or you wouldn’t have proposed it. You faux conservatives are very fond of setting up straw men to knock down, pretending that the straw was the opposition argument.
What capitalist system are you speaking of? The United States hasn’t had a capitalist economy for at least 150 years. The other major nations? Even longer. You want a capitalistic society, move to Haiti or some other Third-World nation which has had capitalism imposed on it by the First World. But I suspect you like your creature comforts provided by the managed, socialistic economy you live in right now. So, you, like everyone else, are beholden to the government for your way of life; no need to sound so superior and claiming an independence you don’t have.
The problem is simple; the solutions, as always, not so much. We only have ‘X’ amount of resources available. No matter what you’d like to believe, that ‘X’ isn’t suddenly going to get larger. But the population will; to the limits and beyond of the food supply. Technology bought us some breathing space from Malthus; technology is also beginning to reach its limits for food production, clean water, and power. (And once the gas and oil are gone, they’re gone.) Modern fodd production requires an abundance of power, i.e. fossil fuels. What’s going to happen when those fuels are gone? War over the remaining resources. Which is what is happening now.
The time to talk and work towards alternatives is now, when we still have oil, gas, and food. But we won’t. We’ll wait until the system collapses, then demand an immediate solution. Our leaders are going to try and keep as many of the resources for their country (and themselves) as long as they can. But eventually, the bill will come due.
There are times I dispair of my fellow conservatives…then I realize that most people claiming to be conservative aren’t.
Stephanie,
Want to see who is ruining our environment? Obama supporters attending his inauguration left over 100 tons of trash on the ground
Compare that to Beck’s rally
Bruce,
The flaw in your reasoning is simple: we either don’t know what “X” is for almost all natural resources or are far from reaching its exhaustion (case in point: uranium). Population isn’t also going to suddenly get larger. Its rate of increase slows continually, and the trend is for it to stabilize, especially if living conditions continue to improve in the developing world. Malthus was plain and simply wrong.
The alternative proposed by Stephanie is a return to pre-technological subsistence economy which would be a surefire way to spread famine and misery worldwide. Plus, it can only be achieved through violent means, as it’s implied, even if she doesn’t spell it out.
It’s ironic, really: a century ago, Stephanie’s ideological grandfathers (say, Leon Trotsky) were dreaming of supplanting capitalism, and building an optimally productive system where every worker would be a superman philosopher-scientist. Nowadays, Stephanie wants us all to become cavemen, unless the planet be “murdered”.
The only thing that remains the same is the hatred for reality and mankind.
New ways that endure do so because they are improvements over old ways. People did not decide to take up technology to be evil. They did it because they were tired of overwork, starvation, and cholera. All of the improvements in human rights over the last two hundred years can be traced to the industrial revolution. Why is it that we suddenly realized that slavery was immoral after the invention of the steam engine? The immorality of slavery was a fact that eluded such great moral teachers as Jesus and the Buddha. Slavery died out not because people became noble, but because technology removed the incentive to hold others in bondage.
Damage to our environment may be, by far, the lesser of two evils. Take away the ecobabble and community based agriculture schemes sound eerily like sharecropping and/or feudalism. Perhaps we could also bring back bio-diesel harvesting by renewable wind power, aka whaling?
You don’t operate as if everything is going to go great when the consequence of that not happening is the highest consequence you can imagine. I mean, do you run your life that way? This is a basic principle.
Also, no one who studies food attempts to make the argument that concentration of agriculture was associated with a rise in food stability. In fact the opposite is true. Gathering was the pinnacle of food security, but there is not enough open space for every human to gather anymore. Here in California, the native flora the Chumash and Pomo et al. lived off of for ages are now all considered exotics. Invasive plant species needed for cattle grazing caused this. It is the secret reason why we have so many fires. Many species actually require fire to reproduce, but the amount of fuel supplied by the invasive grasses leads to fires that screw the whole thing up. So, you can’t gather here even if all of the white people left tomorrow.
So that leaves Farming. When you talk about famine, you are using a term used to describe a man made phenomenon that came with farming. As farming became more modern, this got worse, not better. As food became more financialized, famines became particularly pronounced. Concentrated agriculture is a no no. Even Norman Borlaug (father of the green revolution) was aghast to see the extremes his Rockefeller research had been taken to. When you want to reduce risk of famine in any area, small farms are the way to go, hands down. The problem is it is totally at odds with current economic systems. So the conversation is about how to encourage subsistence farming, and implement it in the age of locked seeds and other curiosities of the free* market. But no one really thinks that concentrated agriculture is a good idea except those who profit from it. Even they are compelled to do it because it is not yet proscribed by international policy.
*it’s not. It can’t be.
bucelphalus:
This is another ‘straw man’ counter-argument. First, at no point did I state that we DID know exactly how much was left of our finite, non-renewable resources. Second, exactly how much effort is going into not only building nuclear power plants, but the associated research into making electrically-powered long-haul vehicles? Some, yes; but much more effort is being expended going after the finite, non-renewable oil and gas. That will not change until the costs of extracting the oil are equal to (or, more likely, higher than) the gain of using the oil; i.e. until it’s too late.
Second, Malthus was not ‘wrong’; he was superseded by the advancement of technology, whcih allowed one farm worker to do the work of many, many more. That technology (right now) runs almost exclusively on fossil fuels. ‘Bio-Diesel’ is a fad of the ‘eco-conscious’, who can pretend that by saving a fraction of a percent of fossil fuel usage, they are accomplishing something worthwhile. There’s no associated infrastructure to permit bio-diesel to suddenly replace oil, even if the major corporations were inclined to allow this.
Third, at no point did I suggest that returning to a pre-industrial society was even possible; nor, do I think did the original writer. What was proposed was a change in the general philosophy that natural resources are endless, inexhaustible, and the use of them is the sole right and privilege of the powerful. That’s not even close to the straw arguments that somehow we can all return to live in harmony with the land, which everyone realizes is pure fantasy. What I stated was that it would take a political and social effort to develop technology that could escape the closing trap of diminishing resources; an effort that will not be made, because it would be an effort, and those who are profiting from the current situation see no reason to expend that energy. And that, when the inevitable happens, people will demand an instant solution that doesn’t exist.
@Billy Mac: No, slavery was not ‘suddenly’ recognized as immoral or wrong. Although technology finally allowed for de facto slavery to become uneconomic on a large scale (and was replaced with economic slavery instead) you’re conveniently overlooking the violence associated with ending slavery. (In most places…) And even today, there are many people who accept the basic concepts of slavery, even if they’re not allowed to actually own their inferiors.
Bucephalus: Yes, as a conservative I find mankind, for the most part, to be mean-spirited, contemptible, short-sighted, willfully ignorant, and selfish. That’s why anarchy, an ideal form of ‘government’, can never work; people aren’t good enough for it. What about mankind do you find so admirable, pray tell? (Finding something worthwhile in humans tends to bea liberal trait, you know…) Unfortunately, since I most definitely share the trait of selfish, I’d sort of like to keep things going at least as long as I’m alive.
US395
Who comes to to enlighten people on the evils of Obama?
(FYI: I think Ted was the first one out of the gate to say he was worse than Bush.)
hope this helps.
thanks for playing
kthxbai
one more thing…
just curious. Is your name supposed to call attention to the fact that large-scale socialist work programs are one of the reasons we beat the Germans?
I wrote a short post in which I wrote about the ineffectiveness of protesting.when I said that I wanted to follow Kazinskies example. I was thinking more along the lines of moving into the woods and living off the land while being an environmental activist. I was not implying that I wanted to start a mail bombing campaign.
Mr B— took personal offense to this since he is an engineer. (The Unabomber targeted University professors and airlines.) He pointed out that he was not very effective at stopping research into computers or other technology. I agree with him on this point. He then asked if I was just blood thirsty and if the three people that the Unabomber killed where enough for me. In the overall scheme of things 3 people killed over almost a 20 year time span is not very effective. I think the US military kills more than that every day. If I was blood thirsty I would support the war. I am not and I do not.
I could have used Henry David Thoreau as an example because he lived in the woods and was also jailed for his activism. He was an anti war protester and didn´t pay his taxes to protest the war. This landed him a night in jail. Thoreau was a pacifist and pacifism and protests have as much significance as the squeals of kittens in a box. Especially when that box is several blocks from the convention hall being protested.
Now many pacifist liberals will point to Reverend King and Ghandi as examples of how pacifism works but they always fail to point out that Ghandi and King where not working in a vacuum. There where other more violent groups with similar goals operating at the same time like the Black panthers. The Government simply chose the less violent of two choices to concede to.
When I was in Kauai there was a group that help protests and rally on a regular basis. I asked when the last time your activism was effective and they said when they stopped the supper ferry from coming to the island.( There was opposition to the ferry because residents where afraid that mongooses would come to the island stowed away in the trunks of cars and destroy all the native birds. They where also concerned about the speed of the ferry that it would hit whales and dolphins. There where other residents that where concerned about traffic since the supper ferry could take cars as well as people. )
I asked how was it stopped and they said that the harbor was blockaded by surfers and the ferry couldn´t get in. It waited around for a few hours with the coast guard trying to disperse the surfers and then it had to go back and refund all the passengers. The supper ferry tried again with the same result and then it went bankrupt.
Direct action is the way to go. ELF actions, for example, correct the crude media political spectrum by demonstrating that what is referred to in the media as the “radical left” isn’t. To take an extreme example: if I force a police helicopter to land by way of five actuator mounted mirrors which redirect some 3000mW lasers bought on ebay (all lasers and mirrors are hidden far from eachother and remote controlled)…and if I time this stunt with a letter to all media outlets…(and this is a big if) if the local media summarizes the letter, I will have, in small part, moved the media political spectrum toward correction. Now, war protesters are mainstream for a day. If the media does not behave correctly, I will learn that I need to escalate.
It’s alot like what Acoatl is describing with the black panthers and MLK.
Acoatl, thank you for clarifying your position. I was concerned that your previous post might be misinterpreted.
Talking about issues like direct action and the efficacy of violent tactics vs. pacifism is perfectly legal if they are discussed as general concepts, or as historical examples or descriptions of events that have occurred, or as theoretical, hypothetical situations.
Bruce,
Malthus was definitely wrong in that he foresaw the population growing geometrically and indefinitely. That is not what the evidence of the last 30 years tells us, especially, but not excludingly, for developed countries: population growth slows down everywhere, and the more a coutry develops, the more it does. Eventually, the Earth’s population will stabilize and decline, like Europe would be doing, were it not for immigration.
About returning to a pre-industrial way of living, it might not be your ideal, but it’s pretty much what Stephanie’s all about: just read her, for goodness sake. Angelo/olegna78, who seems to be a youngster confused about his ideological bearings is all for it too. I hope he realizes “subsistence-level agriculture” means all of us blogizens providing for our own food: I know no sane humans, let alone people “who think about food” (or would that be academic ideologues?), who favour it. Me, I prefer the good ole division of labour. Of course, all famines in modern times were caused by central planning, not “centralized agriculture”, whatever that means.
I’m no conservative: I don’t think the human race is intrinsically bad or good. We have potential for both, and most of us – rich or poor, beautiful or ugly – strive for the latter. That’s not a “liberal” trait, anyhow, it’s just common sense, IMHO.
PS: I hope you guys didn’t get too squishy about the “direct action” from your ideological cousin at the Discovery building.
For US 395 concerning Katrina.
I am sure there is ample info on the Internet to tell you how hurricanes form. I doubt Bush had anything at all to do with it, but I do believe that there were people in his administration that waited to disburse funds for aid until it was assured that the right people made sufficient profit (for example, big corporations getting paid $175/ton to remove debris while the actual people doing it received $5/ton).
Anyway, if you are still following this thread, just wanted to let you know that I do not blame Bush for anything other than the lifelong bureaucrats he allowed to run things, like Cheney, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz, et al. You know, the people who have become filthy rich just by being in politics for money instead of for the good of the people. I include Trent Lott, who lost his house during Katrina.
Bucephalus:
Malthus was, as I’ve stated, supersceded by science. He did not foresee reliable birth control. That development, plus the advent of modern farming, has permitted us (so far) to avoid his conclusions. But Earth’s population IS increasing, even if not in the First World. The only way to avoid that would be to advance the technological base of the rest of the planet. But that would mean increasing the capabilities of other countries so that they could better resist our will; not something in our best short-term interest. Also, the leap to modern society requires a HUGE expenditure of resources. Are there enough resources left for all the rest of the world to get to a level where fewer children equals greater wealth, rather than the reverse?
Pre-industrial isn’t an ideal; it’s a chimera, a fantasy. It is possible to live well while consuming fewer resources, which is the core (and good) idea from the ecological front. But that won’t happen here in the US until it’s too late, for the reasons I gave.
Famines, right now, only occur as the result of politics. They have happened in the past due to a failure of crops, and we have no assurances that it can’t happen again. All it would take would be a shift of weather patterns, or a collapse of the infrastructure required to transport food. One of those is under our control, (but being ignored); the other isn’t. The other spectre that is caused by famine (however it happens) is plague; and that becomes more likely every passing year.
People, in general, strive for what is good for them in the short term. Some of them are bright enough to look father ahead, and take actions that will benefit them in the long term, even if it requires a short-term loss (hence, cooperation, socialization, division of labor, etc.). Very, very few people are equipped for, or ever consider the ‘common good’, other than as a cant phrase to begule followers into thinking they’ll get some undeserved benefit for going along with a leader. If this were not true, governments would be unnecessary; if it was impossible for some people to actually work towards ‘enlightened self-interest’ government wouldn’t exist. But no, people in general aren’t good, and don’t care about the good; they want what they want, and the Devil take the rest.
I fail to see what effect you believe comparing people who are perhaps ignorant (but, taking your viewpoint, working towards the good) to a clearly deranged individual will have, other than convincing them you aren’t worth listening to; which sort of defeats the purpose of trying to educate them.
Dizi,Odd you didn’t mention any Democrats.
Bruce:
Malthus was, as I’ve stated, supersceded by science. He did not foresee reliable birth control.
OK, so he was proved wrong by history. Can we agree on that?
That development, plus the advent of modern farming, has permitted us (so far) to avoid his conclusions.
It’s not “birth control” as in “the pill”, per se. Studies show that, as infant mortality decreases, so do birth rates. Infant mortality decreases as a country develops, ergo…
But Earth’s population IS increasing, even if not in the First World.
I’m going repeat myself, in case I didn’t make it clear: the rate of population increase is slowing down across the world. Given current trends, the tendency is for population to peak (probably by the end of the century, can’t recall the estimates) and then decrease.
The only way to avoid that would be to advance the technological base of the rest of the planet. But that would mean increasing the capabilities of other countries so that they could better resist our will; not something in our best short-term interest.
Those other countries (including my own) can and should resist your will: I can’t see how that is not in your (meaning the American people’s) interest, short or long term. Now, if by “our” you mean American politicians and the different interest groups they cater to, that’s another question.
I don’t know how else how can you interpret Stephanie’s own words:
“Part of the problem is that most people in this culture don’t have any idea how to live without industrial production — without water from the tap, without food from grocery stores. If the only source of basic necessities is this system, and people don’t know any other way to live, then they will continue to defend the system that provides them.”
, but to me it sounds like what she wants to dismantle is indeed the modern industrial economy and the division of labour. Anyway, there’s still in a world where someone so wrapped up in their own ideologically distorted view of reality can find the time to watch Jamie Oliver 😉
Bruce, we have very discrepant views of government, but I find it odd that you would say that “… no, people in general aren’t good, and don’t care about the good; they want what they want, and the Devil take the rest” and claim that as a reason why we need government. Do you really think people in office are somewhat different from those alienated, selfish mundanes? Really? Cheney? Hillary? Newt effing Gingrich? You sure jest.
Ever read anything by John Adams? He was the person I was paraphrasing re people’s general nature. No, people in office aren’t any ‘better’ than the people they govern. What they are (or used to be) is better trained in the art of governing. Educated leaders tend to understand the limits of power, and realize the need for compromise…right up until greed overwhelms their common sense.
It’s dangerous to assume that simply because a trend exists, it will continue. Perhaps the rate of increase is diminishing at the moment; but we have no assurances that this trend will hold for another 20 years, let alone a century.
I’m willing to concede that history passed Malthus by.
I’m not sure that’s the correct interpretation of Ms. Miller’s views. Are you saying there would be no benefit if people learned exactly how a pig ultimately becomes pork? And the entire system that is required for that pig to end up as pork chops at your local market? And just how much of that system is based on the idea that there will always be food for the pigs, oil for the production of that fodder and to transport the pigs to market, oil for the energy used to convert a living animal into edible, healthy meat? And that the entire system relies on a non-renewable, ultimately-going-away source of energy?
Increasing the educational and technological capabilities of countries other than the U.S. is not in the short-term interests of the American Empire. (It would be in the long-term interests of everyone; but empires rarely think that way.)
Bucephalus, did you admit that European countries are the most developed?
So, is the typical western European country more or less developed than the US? (the latter’sw population doubles every 60 years, last I checked)
this really got me thinking. My tomatos were not blooming. I asked my neighbor what to do. She said to stop watering. I took the water away. Two weeks later, the plant is laden to the point of straining it’s trellis! Apparently, if a living thing is confronted with lack, it reproduces like mad.
What am igonna do with this excess tomato population? Gazpacho. Macaroni. Bruschetta. Perhaps I can build a private tomato prison and recoup some of what I invested into stimulating such growth.
Angelo,
Your ideas on what to do with your tomatoes are the best stuff I’ve seen you write, by far! 😉