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Tragedy in the Arctic and in the Rainforest
As our globalizing civilization accelerates the destruction of the planet, it’s easy to get innured to one disaster story after another. How much worse is more coral bleaching, or tree-eating bugs spreading north, or tree-frogs going extinct because their cloud forests are drying out?
It takes a strong stomach to stay at the business of trying to protect the natural world, and it grinds away at even the most dedicated. Yet you can’t walk around in a state of fury, or depression, and expect to have a chance of accomplishing anything.
But I’m finding lately that there are stories, and images, breaking through the defenses, that chill my bones, that I can feel tearing away a chunk of my heart that I will never get back.
A few months ago, we started hearing about the discovery of more and more drowned polar bears. Global warming is causing such melting of the ice that huge distances are opening up between the ice flows that the polar bears live on. So now when they strike out to swim to another ice flow, the distances overwhelm them, and they die.
The story was bad enough, but one photo pierced me, as photos sometimes do. The photo showed a polar bear swimming, surrounded by nothing but water. In one simple picture, we’re looking at the almost inevitable extinction of this species, if the ice continues to disappear at current rates. My heart ached, projecting my consciousness into that bear alone at sea. These bears evolved to swim between ice flows, but not for major open ocean swims. There is a peculiar horror, if drowning worries you, about swimming and swimming and finally hitting that point where you can’t swim any more.
Then this morning, I picked up the New York Times to find the headline, “Forests in Southeast Asia Fall to Prosperity’s Ax.” Meeting the material needs of the swelling Chinese middle class is leading to the logging of more and more of the forests in southeast Asia, forests that are some of the ecologically rich habitats in the world. And once the forests are cut down, they are being replaced with giant palm oil plantations, reducing the amazing diversity of plants and animals down to one plant. (The story focuses on the role of new Chinese demand for wood. The reporter does not make it clear that the world’s forests were already in serious trouble from the demands of European, American, and Japanese consumers, long before the Chinese began to become players.)
This story was not the knife-to-the-heart story like the polar bears; but in the end its slow burn cut just as deeply. As one biologist says in the story’s last line, “In about 30 years, the forest will be gone.”
Just as gone as the polar bears.
And for what?
The swelling Chinese middle class likes to cook with palm oil, and major consumer manufacturers are increasingly using palm oil in detergents, soaps, and lipsticks. In one of those sick ironies that occur too often in the environmental arena, palm oil may even become an alternative fuel.
And then there are the 2008 Olympic Games, where the athletes and the spectators will move through facilities built with legally plundered hardwoods:
In one of the latest deals, on April 19, Indonesia announced that China had placed a $1 billion rush order for a million cubic yards of a prized reddish-brown hardwood, called merbau, to be used in construction of its sports facilities for the 2008 Olympic Games.
Merbau wood, mostly prevalent in Papua's virgin forests, has been illegally logged and shipped to China since the late 1990's, stripping large swathes of forest in the Indonesian province on the western side of the island of New Guinea.
Who among us, sitting in front of TVs and live webcasts of the 2008 Olympics, watching the camera pan across a room paneled with a rich, reddish-brown wood, will ever know that we are looking at the visual results of a perfectly straight-forward, plain old free market demand, that sealed the fate of huge tracts of Indonesian forests? Is this what NBC wanted when the company paid billions for the rights to broadcast this Olympics? And the advertisers, will they tell us that some of the products they are shilling us to buy are made from palm oil from plantations that destroyed even more Asian forests?
You know the answer to these questions as well as I do. Even if you work at it, it’s difficult to understand the violence that we rich country consumers unleash every day on the plants and animals of the world so that we can have pretty tables and crunchy potato chips. We don’t understand enough to even begin to think about the tradeoffs.
I continue to believe that if all of us understood these connections better, we might be willing to restrain our voracious appetites enough to preserve at least some of the world’s most ecologically rich areas. But then again, when the Times slaps me flat in the face with a story like this one, I think that I could be wrong.
400 Dead Dolphins Wash Ashore
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3828385.html
Submarine Sonar Suspected in Mystery Death of Dolphins
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/submarine-sonar-suspected-in-mystery-death-of-400-dolphins/2006/04/29/1146198390588.html
from US Navy Submarines
Dick -
That is the stupidest thing to plant & promote - palm oil?!!
It promotes coronary heart disease.
http://www.epic4health.com/paloilandcor.html
Just got slammed in the face again!
US War Costs "Could Hit $811 Billion"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042906X.shtml
The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has soared and may now reach $811 billion, says a report by the Congressional Research Service.
$811,000,000,000 right?
Al Gore | Reality Has Its Day
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042906A.shtml
In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Al Gore discusses his new film "An Inconvenient Truth" and explains why America - and even George Bush - is close to a tipping point on global warming.
See also the new "green" issue of Vanity Fair
Regardless of your view on immigration, I would think most everybody is sick of not being able to see a doctor, struggling to pay for college, sky high power bills, $50 shirts that cost companies $1.00 to make.
Are you against big business exploiting labor in Mexico so that their economy can't grow so that these people can work in their own country?
Then stand together to stop it. Put big business on notice. We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. They will not get away with pitting worker against worker, no matter the color of our skin or our country of origin.
Stand against labor exploitation everywhere. If you have to go to work to pay the bills, okay. But no shopping on Monday, NONE. Make all retail establishments a ghost town. For one day. Nobody will go out of business over one day.
I am not spending a cent on Monday.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060427/480/dcpm10904272019
House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Ill., center, gets out of a Hydrogen Alternative Fueled automobile, left, as he prepares to board his SUV, which uses gasoline, after holding a news conference at a local gas station in Washington, Thursday, April 27, 2006 to discuss the recent rise in gas prices. Hastert and other members of Congress drove off in the Hydrogen-Fueled cars only to switch to their official cars to drive the few blocks back to the U.S. Capitol.
pig at the trough
http://benfrank.net/blog/wp-content/photos/pig_at_the_trough.jpg
Sandy,
I won't spend on Monday. I'll be at work anyway. But I did spend today.
He's too lazy to walk? It's simple. You put one foot in front of the other...
Most of us learned to do this at age 2. Maybe we can teach them that they too can learn a new trick.
Oh wow! Look at the protest in NYC!!!!
Wish I could have been there.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/29/175639/552
$1,000,000,000 Iran-China energy deal ready to be signed: Chinese ambassador
http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=318875
TEHRAN Chinese Ambassador to Tehran Lio G. Tan has said that the oil and gas deal between Iran and China has been thoroughly studied by experts and is ready to be signed.
(snip)
"No country can prevent the deal," the ambassador told the Mehr News Agency correspondent.
When asked whether China was under U.S. pressure not to sign the deal, Lio responded by asking, "Would the U.S. export oil to us if it didn't let you (Iranians) give it to us?"
Of the oil companies, by the oil companies and for the oil companies.
That is today's America.
You know how they have "power grabs".
Well, in my opinion, the neocons and these businesses are on a rampage power grab. It's almost as if they're daring us to just watch what happens in November. More cheating up their sleeves? Will they steal some key votes?
Merle Haggard has released an anti-war song called "America First." It isn't what you think. It's anti-Iraq war.
http://www.merlehaggard.com/ hear the song and watch the excellent video.
Dianne,
It's very, very interesting that even the 'country and western' folks are speaking out. Wish they would have joined the Dixie Chicks years ago, but it's better late than never.
Frank Rich of the NYT's says the DSM was accurate.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Frank_Rich_Downing_Street_memo_proved_0429.html
I usually try to stay on topic, but this is important. Please call and email everyone you know in Illinois and ask them to sign this petition sponsored by the Northbrook Peace Committee to call for passage of Illinois House Joint Resolution 125 seeking the impeachment of George W. Bush under Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual of the Rules of the United States House of Representatives, which allows federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint resolution of a state legislature.
You can find the petition here: http://www.ilcpj.org/petitions/petition-info.php?pid=1&start=105&np=10#signatures
I was happy to see this after I heard Michael Avery speak on the Center for Constitutional Rights lawsuit against Bush for NSA spying. Incidentally, when I spoke to him before his speech Prof. Avery said he was a FOD (friend of Dick Bell).
Here is my report on Prof. Avery's case for CCR and for impeachment here:http://ellenofthetenth.blogspot.com/2006/04/mandamus-steel-spying-unending-war-on.html#comments
Ellen,
I will happily send it to my relatives there.
What would happen if people quit buying gas except for extremely necessary trips (work, grocery store, dr. appointments, etc.)for a month or two? Could the American people car pool to work, take public transportation, ride bicycles, and walk for a couple of months until gas prices go down? Would they?
We could do it. In China, one out of seven own cars.
Sandy, thanks for the post. Since all these greedy folks think about is money, I would love to see the American people hurt them where they would feel it... they obviously don't have much conscience so we can stop waiting for them to do "the right thing". They have no compassion, and since the only thing they love more than themselves is their money, we could push the only button they understand... their pocketbooks filled with enormous profit margins. That goes for all corporations that we supply their opiate to by our spending habits.
We enable the cycle by continuing our consumption.
Posted by: Sandy at April 29, 2006 05:27 PM
Count me in as well.
On another note, I'm absolutely disgusted at the newspaper showing a 6yo former North Korean child kissing W and telling him "I love you." The whole North Korean human rights campaign this week has been no more than a partisan attempt to do the finishing touches on turning the Korean-American community into the next Little Havana (Jan. 13 as the "Korean-American Day" was another). Of course, granting asylum to SOUTH Korean nationals (settlement in South Korea automatically turns a North Korean into a South Korean, per their constitution) is also a way to smear South Korea's democratically elected leftist regime, which the Korean-American fascist bastards consider to be a front for North Korea.
I am not only cutting out my spending for Monday, but permanently cutting out my spending in Koreatown. Fire your vets, doctors, cleaners, and other Korean-American businesses.
AllyMcLesbian
How about if I rent some Margaret Cho videos to compensate for the wingnut Korean-Americans?
& what is this about?
Montana Senator Conrad Burns and his embattled re-election campaign have been at the center of a helluva lot of press recently. Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey in today's Newsweek ask who is going to be next with the Abramoff Effect and the answer is...
More:
http://blogswarm.blogdrive.com/
Is someone keeping track of all the scandals & court dates in one place? These corrupt politicians are getting in trouble faster than Hollywood couples have babies & actually competing with them for publicity!!
AllyMcLesbian
How about if I rent some Margaret Cho videos to compensate for the wingnut Korean-Americans?
Posted by: DiAnne at April 30, 2006 12:18 AM
DiAnne, thanks for giving me a laugh! I really needed it. (And seriously, a good idea.)
As for tracking scandals, Christy and Rossiann's hyperactive blog is doing it, it seems... rebellenation.blogspot.com
Why I am not kidding about Margaret Cho:
Bring 'Em Home Now (from her blog last week)
The terrible Iraq war continues, for three years now, and Bush won’t bring the troops home. Isn't that typical of a straight man – unable to prematurely withdraw?
I performed at "Bring 'Em Home Now!"- the massive anti-war concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom last night, and it was a lavish, star-studded sold out affair. I saw lots of people I love, like Alan Cumming, who wasn’t performing, just looking gorgeous, Peaches, who rocked the house and was incredibly sexy and awe-inspiring (and name checked me!), the great Rufus Wainwright (who is sooooo fine, this woman I was sitting next to swooned, "He will never love me." I said, "He might. Maybe not in the way you are thinking of though...alas...we need a refuge from all this beauty..."), Fischerspooner, Steve Earle, Moby with Laura Dawn, Bright Eyes, Chuck D, Michael Stipe - all kinds of rock elite, proving that if the politicians can't be bothered to save us, music surely will.
I did a set, then walked out into the audience to find my friends. I didn't manage to see them, but I met a couple of guys from Iraq Veterans Against the War, Geoffrey Millard and Jose Vasquez. Geoffrey told me that he watched my dvds while he was over there, to keep his spirits up, which just blew my mind. They are courageous and deeply passionate about peace, having seen war first hand, and their work is vital to seeing an end to this madness. Everyone should check them out!
I sat in an overflowing box on the side and watched Cindy Sheehan, who brought the crowd to tears and fury. Through her activism, she has really helped turn this nation around, because she was brave and angry enough to question Bush, and we all share her frustration and grief over her son Casey. It makes me so mad, all this death and destruction, and for what?! It is still happening because the government cannot and will not admit that they were wrong. They cannot admit they were lying. We must hold them accountable. My enthusiasm and commitment to doing whatever I can to help end the war were renewed again and again. I am honored to have been able to participate at such a historic and powerfully moving event, and I hope that its impact will be felt around the world.
Posted by: Truth Shall Prevail at April 29, 2006 11:38 PM
Truth...it's so much bigger than that, I'm afraid. As astounding as the fuel consumption by the American public may be for commuting, vacations, etc. - consider the use of fossil fuels by the defense industry, the military, industry in general, shipping (getting the stuff to the stores so we can buy it, even the groceries), air transport, sea transport, even other forms of fuel production often use fossil fuels in the process.
Fossil fuel use by the burgeoning economic powerhouses in China and India, as well as elsewhere in the new "breakout economies" that those who invest in emerging markets are getting rich off of...is growing exponentially.
And for as much as the large fuel companies are investing billions in research, exploration, and pumping.....they aren't building refineries and we all know why...it's a convenient chokepoint to support the price points for their necessary commodity, and also conveniently, can be blamed neatly on the Clean Air Act and a host of other federal regs.
It's like the ANWR argument in reverse. Drilling in ANWR may add a touch on the supply side, but will no more bring down global fossil fuel prices than will a little less consumption (demand) from the American public. They'll find ways to use it. Remember the last time gas was under $1/gal? It wasn't that long ago. Everyone started driving monster SUVs or "high performance" gas guzzlers in response.
This is an important, in-depth analysis of the breadth and depth of damage of Bushco to our country
Bush challenges hundreds of laws
President cites powers of his office
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | April 30, 2006
WASHINGTON -- President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
For rest of article, see http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/
Morning All,
Last night we were at a friend's birthday dinner and managed to have several wonderful conversations with Washington types. We see these same folks about once a year and it is always a good way to track the perceptions of the progressive insiders. A few comments we overheard:
Iran official invasion probably delayed until August 2007--word.
Much discussion of how many opportunities were missed along the way to deter Iran.
It is also clear that the immigration issue is controversial--a few expressed that they feel they are more conservative on the issue than the mainstream left, but in further conversations, it really seems to be helpful to define which aspect of the issue one is talking about. People are atraching to the issue at different points: the language issue, the entry issues, the wall, the wages issue, the types of jobs issue, etc. When terms and concerns are defined, there is more agreement about what could be done than not. But it is such a layered issue and so little has been done to address it over the past years (Clinton did not do this either).
We were involved in several discussions about blogs, their purpose and effectiveness for messaging out, in, and across. There is a beginning of a rather high-level conversation about the next steps for blogs that I will try to get Dick to share. (Ellen Beth--cool about Michael Avery--Dick is a FOMA too!-- FAN of Michale Avery).
Today we are taking Larry/Will and Suz's daughter to the Save Darfur rally and we will attempt to live blog it. Depends on power sources, but we will be able to do a little, at least. Darfur is one of those back burner issues that one notices is bubbling up, but which rarely gets moved to the front burners. We decided that we need to pay attention to this effort to think about solutions. None seem to be forthcoming from Bush et al, who spent last evening joking around with the msm, being jolly.
Monday we will be paying attention to the immigration issues again--Travis Morales, who is our friend and now, tenant, is speaking at the LA rally again. We plan to spend no money, but that is not difficult; we have so little these days!
Have a great Sunday everyone--we'll be back her around 1:30 east coast time.
Posted by: Veritas at April 30, 2006 12:42 AM
Veritas, I heard that the defence department is bigger than any of the biggest companies in our country. Though I'm not sure how they compare to the oil businesses.
I heard this is the reason why our economy hasn't crashed. What we're not spending they are!
True?
Karen,
I think many people don't understand what the Dafur problems are. (Though I seem to remember even in 04, John Kerry spoke about it.)
The world lost a great thinker & economist yesterday...
John Kenneth Galbraith
http://tinyurl.com/kyrl5 = NYTimes
A couple of diaries on Kos about him:
RIP, John Kenneth Galbraith
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/30/02154/6849
John Kenneth Galbraith's Advice to Young Bloggers (and some older politicians)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/30/71512/2106
Thanks, MD for those links. Also a reminder that Tutterfly interviewed Richard Parker, the author of a great book on Galbraith, last spring.
http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2005/04/a_lesson_on_tax.html
Here is a link to the website for the book: http://www.johnkennethgalbraith.com/
Local Events (I'll go) -
These events are organized by students & young people.
It's good to see the rise of social activism in a climate where some were young enough to be encouraged to be blindly fearful & nationalistic after 9-11, & they are old enough to be cannon fodder & squeezed out of jobs because of military overspending.
These are also not elite college students, primarily, but from community colleges, high schools & trade schools & there are many minorities.
Sunday, April 30,
March and Rally for Justice in Darfur
This student organized march will focus attention on the genocide in Darfur has claimed 400,000 lives and displaced over 2,500,000 people. The international community has been and continues to be passive and ignorant of these atrocities. Join us to apply pressure the US Government to take leadership in supporting effective actions to bring peace and justice to the people of Darfur.
May Day 2006
“The Great American Boycott 2006”
“A Day Without immigrants"
Racist anti-immigrant bills in congress have sparked a nationwide mass movement for immigrant rights. HR 4437 an anti-immigration bill in Congress would turn undocumented immigrants into felons who would then face mass imprisonment or deportation, criminalize anyone who “aids,” helps, lives or works with undocumented immigrants and would legally allow corporations to exploit immigrant workers.
Other events organized by students:
College not Conflict
White Privilege Awareness Week
Some great & relevant quotes/info from Mr. Galbraith...
Nearly 40 years after writing "The Affluent Society," Mr. Galbraith updated it in 1996 as "The Good Society." In it, he said that his earlier concerns had only worsened: that if anything, America had become even more a "democracy of the fortunate," with the poor increasingly excluded from a fair place at the table.
***
"One of my greatest pleasures in my writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the realization that such people rarely read."
***
In "The Affluent Society", he depicted a consumer culture gone wild, rich in goods but poor in the social services that make for community. He argued that America had become so obsessed with overproducing consumer goods that it had increased the perils of both inflation and recession by creating an artificial demand for frivolous or useless products, by encouraging overextension of consumer credit and by emphasizing the private sector at the expense of the public sector. He declared that this obsession with products like the biggest and fastest automobile damaged the quality of life in America by creating "private opulence and public squalor."
***
Mr. Galbraith said Republicans out to roll back the welfare state made a fundamental error in thinking that politicians and their actions drive history. In fact, he argued, it is the reverse. Liberals did not create big government; history did.
***
RE: the ability of government to improve the lot of the less fortunate. "Let there be a coalition of the concerned," he urged. "The affluent would still be affluent, the comfortable still comfortable, but the poor would be part of the political system."
I am going to do this for sure.
I can feel this community revving up its efforts.
May 20th Walk for Peace and Healing
WHERE: Around Greenlake in Seattle. Register at any one of the three canopies around the lake - near the Community Center, the Bathhouse or Boat House.
WHAT: Walk to raise money for specialized medical care at a Northwest Hospital for a war-injured Iraqi child and to put a human face on war! Collect pledges for your walk.
WHO: Everyone who wants to be part of a community taking positive action!
SPREAD THE WORD!! FORWARD THIS INFORMATION WIDELY!
My son works at Essential Breads & they are giving all the Mexican workers the day off for tomorrow for the rally.
That means a limited pastry run on Tuesday so hopefully
the yuppies will be understanding about no croissants,
he says.
Posted by: karen at April 30, 2006 09:07 AM
On the immigration issue, the Democrats are sending the wrong messages to the middle class. Their rhetoric needs to better acknowledge the need for sustainable policies, including the right of current Americans to earn a reasonable wage, and support families, in a global marketplace.
As far as I'm concerned, the legitimate economic concerns of average Americans are almost never acknowledged by any mainstream Democratic politican that I hear speak on the issue. There's been some talk about raising the minimum wage, but not about real-world living wages - i.e., wages that somebody could actually support a family on. And that will likely require the Democratic Party to own up to its own mistakes - like the passage of deeply flawed North American and Central American Free Trade agreements. If these agreements were indeed fulfilling their purpose, we would have far fewer desperate economic refugees attempting to come to this country.
Bill Clinton pushed hard for the passage of NAFTA, and the Clintons will have to defend this policy in any future Presidential campaign in which they become engaged. And make no mistake, NAFTA is a big part of the Mexican immigration story. We need trade agreements that bring real-world prosperity to our Mexican, Central American, and Canadian neighbors.
May Day 2006
“The Great American Boycott 2006”
“A Day Without immigrants"
Posted by: DiAnne at April 30, 2006 10:26 AM
While I do oppose the immigrant criminalization bills on humanitarian principle, I won't be marching alongside the immigrants, because of some immigrants' own role in supporting the Republican agenda in the name of "family values."
Any Cuban or Korean (unless it's someone of Margaret Cho's caliber) attempting to march tomorrow must be booed off. After all, they created and fed the anti-immigrant Republican monster. And in the case of Korean storeowners, they are the monsters hiring and exploiting illegal labor. Have a few rotten eggs ready.
It's bad enough that Miami has already been a right-wing hellhole for a while. I won't stand idle and let W use the Korean community to turn Los Angeles into the same.
As for Margaret Cho, thanks for sharing her blog entry - however, she's an outcast in the Korean-American community due to her sexuality and politics, I can tell you that.
On the immigration issue, the Democrats are sending the wrong messages to the middle class. Their rhetoric needs to better acknowledge the need for sustainable policies, including the right of current Americans to earn a reasonable wage, and support families, in a global marketplace.
Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at April 30, 2006 02:11 PM
Not only that, their message is eclipsed by the Republican message, which says that the Republicans encourage entrepreneurship and let the immigrants work their way to prosperity, while the Dems get the immigrants addicted to welfare and other freebies while taxing the hell out of entrepreneurs.
The Republican message is considered gospel in the right-wing immigrant communities such as Little Havana and Koreatown.
Posted by: madame defarge at April 30, 2006 10:40 AM
Madame, thanks for those quotes. A man who knew the score and spoke it.
Interesting timing, his death. With us talking yesterday about global warming and corporate greed, and how we as a society have played into that by our consumption of frivolous purchases.
It ticks me off to hear the Neocons say people "should" (the authoritarian parent, again) have saved for their retirement so they weren't dependent upon social services and social security in their aging years. I have lived a diverse life, with alot of wealth, and without wealth. During the 80's and 90's we were urged and manipulated by greedy big business through advertising that we were what we produced and owned. We were told in subtle and not so subtle ways that we were what we had. Our cars reflected our status and worth, instead of our conscience and inner person determining that, at least that's what most Americans were sold. I watched my own family members become workaholics and after 60 and 70 hour weeks come up feeling short because they didn't have the money to buy that vacation home, or brand new SUV, or the 4th pair of Air Nikes and designer jeans for their children and themselves. It is a shallow life that becomes a vicious cycle, and when people are that shallow, they are their money. Been there, done that. For me, it was a stage of development. For others, they end up living there, and the opiate of money and the power it brings gets harder and harder to give the "fix". What ticks me off about it is that the same Neocons who preach personal responsibility and accountability are the Neocons who manipulated people through the media in the United States to work their 60 and 70 hour weeks to buy frivolous products during their peak years. I am speaking largely about the baby boomers. I am particularly angry today, and it will not immobilize me, but today I feel it greatly.
I have been pondering this since our discussion on the blog yesterday, and I realized that I am so used to being presented and purchasing products that are derived from petroleum that I have been unwittingly contributing to the problem of greed, insensitivity, and even global warming by my own acts of purchasing these products without even thinking about it. Even at the grocery store, our produce and other items are plastic wrapped or contained. From fresh vegetables to meat, to my Cheetos, the plastic and cellophane is everywhere in our culture, and we consume alot of it every day. We buy and enjoy the latest technology, like DVD's, CD's, and small and large consumer goods made with large amounts of petroleum based products. Big business has been controlling my consumer habits, and I wasn't even aware of it. Sure, I quit selling my soul to them in the workplace and by moving away from the "trap" ~ but I realize today that even having done that, they still seem to have a part of me.
I think what I resent so badly today is the feeling that I was manipulated to feed into the system of destruction and told to feel good about it.
We need to take personal responsibility for our purchasing habits, and hold ourselves accountable for them. We are 1/2 of the equation.
For anyone interested, CNN Presents is airing a documentary right now titled "Melting Point" on global warming. They are speaking with people all over the globe and showing pictures of the meltdown in the arctic.
Posted by: Veritas at April 30, 2006 12:42 AM
Veritas, thanks. I learn so much here.
I had a long talk with a fundie friend over the weekend, and she believed me. She was taken aback by my knowledge as I painted a picture for her as to what is really going on. She was stunned, and dumbfounded. A couple of her key responses? "You have SO MUCH knowledge about this stuff!" (it's a matter of degrees, I learn every day), and "So you don't think George Bush is......is......what he appears to be?" I got to tell her about Turdblossom. I have been carefully cultivating a relationship with this person over the past year, and she respects my opinion. I respect her, too. She just didn't have any idea. I waited until a conversation was started by her about politics, then I quietly and gently told her the truth. I am learning this process every day as well.