American Disillusion

I grew up with the idea that the USA was the greatest nation on Earth. That this is a land of equal opportunity, a land of altruism. It's easy to see why that story could get confusing in light of the historical realities of the enslavement of Africans and the virtual genocide of Native Peoples. It's hard to know what to believe, I suppose. But the reality on the ground is that America is a very violent place. Ranging from domestic violence to state violence against civilians. Ranging from harmful economic activities to colonialism and outright wars of aggression.

When Obama was elected, and inaugurated, it would have been hard not to feel hopeful. The rhetoric, if not completely correct, was in a pretty good place. But in what's now over a year since the Obama Administration assumed power, there has been a degeneration in the rhetoric, and certainly a widespread feeling of disappointment with the real politic. An example of degeneration of rhetoric is the difference between talking about opportunity and prosperity for all, to the more recent focus on propping up the "middle class." The degeneration has been gradual, like the flim-flam approach to Universal Health Care, and the Obama plan to increase military spending; and yet it has also been spiked with notable events, like the use of the Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance speech to advocate America's supposed need for war, and the dreadful showing at the Copenhagen Climate Conference.

The disillusion is driving home some simple and chilling truths. The socio-economic political system of the United States is broken. It is corrupt. I have been saying this for over 10 years. And articles like the following only make it more and more clear. So what to do...

The fact is that human activities - industrial activities - over the past 200+ years have done tremendous damage to the living systems of this planet Earth. Earth is our home. We would be wise to take care of it. After all it either belongs to all of us, or to none of us at all. The policies coming out of Washington D.C. and other locusts of political power in the USA (as well as other places in the world) make little to no sense. A drastic change in focus is needed. A change toward the direction of taking care of the planet, and taking care of each other. The adversarial, profit-oriented model of destructive competition endangers the future of humanity and most of the life on this planet. Change is due.

First, there needs to be a disruption of the two-party duopoly that represents the amoral corporate profit motive.

Then there is the need to remake the system anew - to make a system that is altruistic and grounded in the intention to serve life.

Yep. So, check out this article for more reason to challenge and oppose the unmanageable and amoral status quo:

February 9, 2010

Obama's "Change" Drops Its Mask

The Democrats are Coming After Social Security

By SHAMUS COOKE

It’s official: the Democrats are coming after Social Security and Medicare. All the backroom scheming and political conspiring is finally out in the open.

In an unusually long, 1,800 word editorial, entitled The Truth about the Deficit, published February 7, The New York Times -- cheerleader for neoliberalism -- gives its solution to the country’s debt problems. The main idea is summed up thus:

“To truly tame deficits will require serious health care reform [Obama’s plan slashes Medicare], the sooner the better. Other aspects of the long-term fiscal problem — raising taxes and retooling [reducing] Social Security — must take place in earnest as the economy recovers.”

read more: http://www.counterpunch.org/cooke02092010.html

Olympia Harbor in 1856

view larger: Olympia Harbor

Washington did not become a state until 1889. Washington was the 42nd state to become part of the United States.

In 1856, over 30 years prior to Washington becoming a state, the landscape around Olympia was very different than it is today, in 2010.

I imagine that the environment was much healthier back then, with great flocks of wild birds, and a bounteous feast accessible for harvest from the waters of the Salish Sea.

The Known Universe

I found this via the Astronomy Picture of the Day website, apod.nasa.gov/apod/

Space Rock

Here's an interesting - fascinating - amazing story about a space rock that fell to Earth: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090328.html

Think of all those rocks whizzing about out there in space.

It makes me feel safe and comfortable being here on Earth, in this phenomenal and protective environment.

God, Gold, War, Oil Pipelines, and Sarah Palin

These videos of Sarah Palin speaking in a church is a scary example of fundamentalist thought and ethos.

It reminds me of a recent post about Jeff Sharlet's book "The Family." The Family: Elite Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.

People use the concept of a higher power, aka God, to assume their own power, or somehow justify their own power over others and over planetary resources.

I wonder if these supposed Christians understand the Golden Rule (ethic of reciprocity.) Because, I can't imagine anyone using petroleum like there is no tomorrow, without regard to the environmental and social (health, etc.) impacts - not to mention impact on future generations.

How are they so sure that Armageddon is near? Perhaps it is because theirs is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anyway. agh.

I am a spiritual person. I believe that all matter and all energy that exists is part of a great whole that can be understood as a higher power. I understand that everything is part of God. Life is given as a lesson - to learn and to evolve spiritually as individuals, but also as humans collectively. That's what I believe.

So I am saddened by this fundamentalist ethos of domination, of fear-based preaching about "end-times." I wonder if those who belong to these types of communities have a love-based reality or do they perceive the world from a reality that is fear-based? Do they like it, or do they feel trapped and too fearful to break out?

p.s. Maybe Palin just has "God" confused with "Gold."

Part one


Part two

Corporate Power: the Ethics of Social and Environmental Degradation

This is a work in progress. Here are few statements that I want to explore, and a few questions that I want to answer and work with in more depth.

1) Statement: Corporate Power - that power which is vested in the biggest and most massive (primarily) international corporations - is doing harm to humanity and to the planet (to animals, plants, rocks, landscapes, mountains, oceans, air, water, etc.).

2) Question: Is it unethical to reap financial profit, from those activities which do harm and cause degradation: whether to individuals, whole societies, or whole systems (eco-systems or planets)? An alternative question is to ask "what are the ethics involved in" the process of reaping financial reward from activities which do harm / cause degradation.

(Yes, moralizing can be difficult, but we have social values and morals and ethics for a reason - to provide for the well-being, and to protect, individual, society, and increasingly more so, the very planet itself.)

Taken to its extreme and ultimate final end product, social and environmental degradation could possibly result in a destroyed planet - i.e. planetary destruction. It's scary to think that humanity may be so advanced "techno'logically'" that it will even be able to escape such a destroyed planet - only to spread a culture of degradation and destruction into other worlds...

Human Behavior: Consequences

Human behavior is having some downright harmful consequences for the Planet Earth, as well as the many and diverse species, which make the Earth home. Human behaviors are causing climate change. Industrial growth has benefitted some amongst humankind, some much more than others. But for many, amongst humanity as well as other species and the very Earth itself, the consequences have been downright harmful and destructive.

Whatever happens with climate change, I think humanity will be capable of dealing with the consequences, and of adapting (i.e. survival).

However, that doesn't give us, as human beings, an excuse to go around polluting and causing death and destruction for the less adaptable, both amongst humanity as well as other species.

Think of the extinctions that industrial society has caused. It's unacceptable. I have a vision of humanity assuming the role of stewards of the Earth, human beings as protectors of all species and of bio-diversity.

What humanity is currently doing to the planet is unacceptable to me...

Brown White and Blue