Dying For Job Growth

Obama didn't stand up for environmental and social health.  He failed to act against the threat of growing emissions that endanger our well being so as not to interfere with job creation (economic growth).  "Business groups and Republicans in Congress had complained that meeting the new standard, which governs emissions of so-called ground-level ozone, would cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs."  Article in NY Times.

This is an example of the mainstream media reporting on environmental issues as seen through the lens of politics.  Now, let's turn to a publication by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Editor-in-Chief, Cynthia Mascone, for Chemical Engineering Progress, wrote in the Editor's note recently, "But as a regulated utility, it is impossible to gain regulatory approval to recover our share of the costs for validating and deploying technology without federal requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions already in place [italics added]."

In the main article, Carbon Capture and Storage, the authors state that the "amount of CO2 to be captured is a plant-specific decision and will likely be based on economic considerations that depend on the direction any future GHG emissions regulations might take." (p. 43)

Throughout this article and others in the August 2011 issue, there are frequent references to costs--financial costs--as the overriding consideration.  Those costs can be increased or decreased based on policy decisions that affect regulations and standards.  These engineers are trying to figure out what the chances are of new regulations being implemented, and when it becomes financially attractive to install technologies to reduce emissions.  Until those regulations are in place, it is cheaper to do business as usual (continue polluting because they don't have to bear the costs of that pollution--we do!).  However, if the government uses regulations to increase the costs of emissions, it is then that the cost of doing business will become expensive enough to warrant using carbon capturing technologies.

The government's function is to protect its citizens, or at least it was.  As politicians end up ever deeper in the pockets of businesses, their purpose of protecting people is compromised.  Corporate Rule and Congressional Rule are hardly distinguishable now.  A related article in the NY Times did include this sentence, "But many experts say that the effects should be assessed through a nuanced tally of costs and benefits that takes into account both economic and societal factors."  I wished the authors would have greatly elaborated on those societal costs, other than simply mentioning lengthening lives and reducing infant mortality and hospitalizations.  They could have, of course, also taken a more anthropological approach and asked why monetary-costs are of more importance than human costs in this culture.  Imagining an episode, National Geographic of the future would discuss our society in a video exposition: "This peculiar culture focused almost exclusively on its monetary factors, despite the known effects of pollution, resource depletion, social dysfunction, and an undermining of their own physical and mental health.  Their religious adherence to profit-based mores almost led to their extinction."

Indentured Students

From a radio broadcast on kpcc.org:  http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2011/09/02/20539/student-loans/

"Total amount owed in college loans across the country: $1 trillion (more than all U.S. households owe on credit cards). Number of undergraduates who have gone into debt for their education: two-thirds."--KPCC

"These are 18-year-olds, who are indenturing themselves for life."

--Andrew Hacker, Professor, Department of Political Science, Queens College

Professor Hacker correctly identified this problem by saying these students are becoming indentured.  Their student loan debts cannot be forgiven--even with bankruptcy!  Essentially, the banks have a lifelong leash on these students, regardless of what happens to them financially.  If they become stuck in poverty because their degree didn't pay off as they were told to believe, then that is just too bad for them.  Their wages, tax returns, social security checks can be garnished.  In a society that promotes higher education as the golden key to "getting a job" so one can "earn a living" (because you're right to life is not guaranteed), despite the fact that getting a job is not guaranteed, nor is earning a livable wage enforced by any regulatory agency.  Simply, this is a scheme that promotes only the interests of money investors, not of society's youth.  Why not invest in a student loan when there is total protection from bankruptcy?  It does not matter how destitute the person becomes, the money investor still gets to rope in their share, even if that rope is around the former-student-not-getting-paid-enough worker's neck.

Professor Hacker suggested that all education should be free, which I appreciated, but that is unlikely considering the driving value program of our time: money-for-more-money (John McMurtry, Cancer Stage of Capitalism).  Without a shift in the underlying economic paradigm, debt servitude will continue.  Because the last two decades have seen an exponential redistribution of wealth up to the top 1-3% of the global population, the remaining 97% will feel ever more severely the burdens of this value program, worsening as one goes down the socio-economic scale.

Protect the Xinane!

Two dozen officers tracked down and arrested one man, named as Joaquim Fadista. Mr. Fadista had already been detained in Brazil on trafficking charges and extradited to Peru. Officials believe Fadista was involved with a group trying to carve out new cross-border cocaine routes, or was working for loggers who covet the timber growing in the untouched forests where the group, called the Xinane, live. They are particularly worried at finding an arrow head in one of the trafficker’s abandoned backpacks.
Original Article

So here's a guy (Fadista) trying to do international trade and he doesn't care who gets exploited or who gets sacrificed in the process of maximizing his profits.  Doesn't that sound familiar?  Indeed, it should.  The only difference between this guy and sanctioned corporations is that corporations have permission to sell their goods.  And their goods don't have any "life-ground" litmus test.  For example,  people in the US think they are doing a great thing by recycling their old electronics. "These [recycling companies] typically go for the cheapest recycler to dispose of their collections and do not question, what exactly these firms do with the waste." (Article) But, this e-waste is shipped overseas and the wage slaves who sort through the "used goods" are exposed to toxins.  Does anyone measure the effects this exposure has on them?  Probably not, because very few actually care.

Pharmaceutical companies get to sell Oxycontin, perhaps the most infamous narcotic, and heaps of patients become addicted to them.  Is cocaine really that much more harmful?

Are junk food, fast food, and sodas any better?  That stuff is sold globally with few restrictions.  Loans are bought and sold.  Is that for the well-being of society?  We say cocaine can't be sold, but people still want it, so Fadista took up the cause of the free market and began selling his product to willing customers.  It just seems a bit self-serving to limit goods, not on the basis of what's healthy to society, but on the basis of who can extract profit.  And when I read the article about people and governments being so concerned about the Xinane, it screams of hypocrisy.  Are the poor people in a poor nation any less deserving of protection than people who use bows and arrows?  Apparently, the answer is, "yes."

Monetary-Market Apostasy

When a person who grows up in a religious environment begins to see some cracks in the cathedral, their process of becoming non-religious is usually not instantaneous.  It begins with cognitive quakes, perhaps by seeing how awful conditions are for others or for themselves.  Great hardship, illness, or death have often been circumstances that instigate questioning into firmly held beliefs.  Or, the quakes come more slowly through dialog and reading different perspectives than those they’ve been surrounded by their whole lives. Traveling has always been a great means of broadening one’s perspective because the traveler becomes the outsider, the one whose culture becomes foreign. The light that shines through those cracks feels shocking at first.  Like the moment when they remove their sunglasses, the sun shines so bright that they wince and close their eyes. But, as they adapt, it becomes easier to bear.  And after some time, the sunlight feels natural and wholesome.  The cathedral becomes a dark place of cruelty in the way that it robs people of the joy of the bountiful outdoors.

I went through a similar emotional evolution in regards to a resource-based economy.  For many years I had seen the cracks: giant fissures revealing the fragile nature of our social system partly crumbled atop people around me.  I had also grown up watching Star Trek The Next Generation.  That show was very explicit about living in a time when scarcity, money, and enslavement to work were seen not only as archaic, but as a regrettable era of human history.  That was the first light that had shone through the cracks.  It was all wrapped under the guise of entertainment, and as such, the humanistic philosophy of the series was not taken seriously as a call to change culture (which I think was the real goal of Gene Roddenberry).  I felt alone, like a non-believer in a church of fanatics.  I had gotten used to this feeling, particularly because I had so much experience being non-religious in Christian and Buddhist cultures. 

When I watched the Zeitgeist Addendum film, I had an immediate sense of connection with the message.  I pored over the website materials and was equal parts incredulous and excited.  It was like ET phoning home.  I felt like there was a community of people who took the “Star Trek values” seriously and wanted to take them from fiction to fact.  Becoming involved and advocating for the Zeitgeist Movement had a twinge of rebelliousness to it.  It was so counter-culture that I felt like I was joining a cult.  Of course, the ZM does not seek followers or believers loyal to any particular person or superstition.  It does not engage people in any bizarre or unhealthy rituals.  Most importantly, it does not draw clear lines between “us” vs. “them.”  It was for the simple fact that the ZM stands squarely in contrast to the prevailing monetary-based values that it felt awkward.  We are social creatures, and we have a natural tendency to recalibrate our perspectives based on what people around us understand to be true.  Even if we are intellectually aware of ad populum fallacies, there is some measure of emotional susceptibility that causes us to doubt ourselves.  This tendency is actually helpful in that it doesn’t allow us to get trapped in habitual thinking of a self-created delusion.

In the year that has passed since my introduction to the Zeitgeist Movement, feelings of its counter-culture nature have subsided.  To use my analogy, in the beginning, it was like I took a quick jog outside the cathedral, but still found myself partly chained to the hallowed interiors.  That feeling has since subsided, and a resource-based economy, or whatever one wants to call it, feels like a natural step in our evolution. It does not feel counter-anything, it feels like it's part of our natural development. The sanctity of the monetary-market paradigm feels silly and reckless.  Underlying nearly every societal and environmental problem or solution is the constant consideration of money--where it goes and where it comes from.  The solution isn’t in money, it is in human effort, and as long as we have humans, we have an abundance of human effort and resourcefulness to call upon.

A world in which each person’s dignity is respected and every person is encouraged to manifest their talents not only for their own well-being, but for the well-being of humanity, feels like a natural place to “come home” to.  There is plenty of new research that demonstrates the ills our current system produces and the benefits of an environment that fosters collaboration. This is not idealism; it is a reconciliation of current findings with the way we organize society.  Abolitionists and suffragists used to seem revolutionary, and the rights granted from their struggles now seem obvious.  Despite the heavy rhetoric of the human instinct to care only about oneself, science is marshalling in destructive evidence to that cherished assumption.  One study’s author  (Moll, J.) concluded, “humans are hardwired with the neural architecture for such pro-social sentiments as generosity, guilt, and compassion.”  We need only to embrace that understanding and be willing to step out of our anachronistic cathedrals to appreciate the many splendors that await us outside.

Letter to OC Register about Bank of America

I wrote a quick letter to the editor in response to this article:
Bank of America in $8.5B mortgage settlement


Chris Kahn wrote in the Bank of America article (June 29 2011), "Countrywide enriched itself at the expense of investors by continuing to service bad loans while running up servicing fees."  Isn't this the principal concern of business: to make a profit at the expense of others' lack of knowledge or skill?  Where are all the "free market"
advocates on this?  They usually say they don't want regulations interfering with the almighty invisible hand, so why not let BofA and its subsidiaries grab as much money as they can from consumers/investors?  Rather, they prefer to complain about the government using money to help those who suffer from poverty.  Until we decide to move to a resource-based economy, these kinds of uncomfortable business practices will remain with us.

"The Elite"

Knowing that most of the wealth is owned and wielded rather mightily by few people, "the elite," it is easy to fall into the trap of blaming the system-induced problems on those people.  An "us vs. them" attitude ensnares our minds and hearts and leads to solutions that are unwise and unhelpful.

It is hard to be patient and reflect for the person who is starving while watching another greedily consuming all the food on the table (planet).  They are justified in their anger, but hasty violent reaction to a complex system-wide problem will not resolve the underlying problem.  As the disparity in access to life-sustaining resources continues to widen, communities and countries are unleashing their violence on the perceived targets and those around them.  If those that are fed enough do not start working to correct this problem for themselves and those who are hungry, violence will ripple out in widening circles and eventually ripple through their own lives.  Suffering and anger are warning signs of problems, and if they are ignored, their severity will grow.  We should treat these signs with respect and learn about their causes.

But, back to "the elite."  The elite are indoctrinated, just as we all are, that wealth needs to be accumulated. Despite all the feel-good talk that money doesn't make you happy, we all know that no money = no resources = no life = no happiness.  The fact that the world out there is always trying to get more and more of the money you have means you must be cautious about how much you let go.  How can you ever have enough when you live in a world that does not care whether you live or die, only that you can pay for it?  If you make $200,000 a year and you feel generous and want to give away 100,000, you might not do so because you have to "save for a rainy day."  What if you get cancer and cannot work?  That will cost a lot more than 200K!  Also, as you accumulate wealth, you will likely be surrounded by those that have similar resources, so you have to keep up with the Joneses.  The consequences may be real for not conforming.  If all of your colleagues have multi-million dollar homes, drive luxury cars, eat at expensive restaurants, and travel to high-cost destinations and you decide to eschew that lifestyle, it would send a signal that you condemn their lifestyle.  That attitude could see your way out of a job, out of "the elite."

Even if you own your own business, you have to "make nice" with clients.  You may have to put up appearances so they think you have a legitimate business.  Isn't that what we do by putting on suits?  Suits aren't made for comfort, they are made to give the wearer a sense of respectability that they wouldn't have if they showed up in pajamas.

"The Elite" need to be educated about the system just as much as everyone else.  Actually, they may need it even more since their lifestyles are more immune to the consequences of poverty, disease, and lack of resources.  They need to see that that their lifestyles of "abundance for few" is not just unhealthy for the planet and many of the world's people, but also for themselves.  Within the current economic paradigm, they depend on money not just for their resources, but for their social standing and self worth.  They must also realize that if they intend to have children, their kids will be at greater risk of social unrest, of never-ending worry to maintain their hold on resources, and less clean, less healthy food, water, and air.  Their children will have to deal with people who want to gain their trust to exploit them.  They will have the worries of keeping up with the Joneses and the stock market.  They too, will know, that the world cares about the money they have, not them.  They will have to squash their conscience to ensure that they keep their profits.  They may have to abandon their passion to pursue wealth-generating activities, no matter how much they detest those activities.

It's not that "the elite" deserve more pity, it's just that it's important not to get trapped into the simplistic thinking that usually follows from an angry reaction.  Anger has its place, and if things are left unchanged, anger and violence will grow.  I hope that is not what it takes for people to wake up to the problems ahead.  It may be, but I hope not.  That's why I continue to be motivated to pursue the awareness raising campaign of the Zeitgeist Movement.

Work, Buy, Consume vs. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

This compelling image reminds us about the cycle of consumption. Actually, we work, buy, and consume many times over before we die, but that image would be too large to construct.  

In the Zeitgeist Movement, the emphasis is on education, awareness-building.  This is a necessary project because the system cannot change if only a few of us want it to change.  With the exception of the ultra-wealthy, most people do not have much power alone to change the status quo.  Unlike personal revelations, in which we can change our behavior immediately, insights into our economic system and structural violence do not allow us to change those factors quickly.  It can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed, disappointed, frustrated, angry, and despair.  To add insult to injury, we cannot practically avoid the system which we reject.  We still need to buy food, pay for shelter, and other resources (gained at someone else's expense).  "How many people have been poisoned by the pesticides used on the papaya I just ate?  How brutally have the people been treated at the factory (I saw it first-hand) where my shoes were made?  The landscaping crew that constantly maintain the grounds in my townhome community, are they paid enough to live on?"  Guilt.  I see the horrors of this system, and yet my dependence on it strengthens it.

The goal of the Zeitgeist Movement to transition to a resource-based economy will take a long time, and it requires sustained effort without feeling any system-changing impact.  That's why we need to be patient and just do what we can to create a balance between what needs to be done and enjoying life.  Something that can be done by all of us is to reduce, reuse, and recycle.  Have you noticed how the media/public service announcements tend to exclusively focus on recycling?  We can all reduce and reuse if we make an effort to do so.

  

Focusing on reducing allows us to spend less money, thereby making us a bit freer from workplace enslavement.  It also decreases our impact on the environment.  And finally, by limiting our participation in the Work, Buy, Consume cycle, we accelerate the rate at which that system implodes.  As the foundation cracks, people feel the unsteadiness, and look for alternative solutions.  This searching makes the Zeitgeist Movement more relevant, more meaningful.  And that will hasten the transition.