Unsustainable

Greetings good citizen,

Occasionally one will stumble upon something that is truly worthy of the word ‘profound’, such as this little sharp-shooting paragraph from yesterday’s Some Assembly Required

I am an ardent reader of Mr. Michaelson and deeply appreciate his worldview (which is, admittedly, far ‘mellower’ than my own.)

For your edification, good citizen:

Saturday, April 21, 2012
SAR #12112

There are many truths, but only one reality.

Inertia: A lot of attention being paid to income inequality in the US, as though that were the problem. It is not. Our income inequality is a symptom; the disease is the control of the government and the political process by the rich. It is unrealistic to think that politicians bought and owned by the rich, by Wall Street, and by the corporations would turn on them. It's not going to happen. There is no democratic way to reverse the conditions that now prevail. There probably is no peaceful way, either.

The ‘poetry’ of the above statement is elegant beyond compare…and note, he did it all without using a single exclamation point!

Had it been me, there would be at least a half dozen (and two thirds of the passage would have been bolded.)

But then there is the content itself, which is exquisite!

It perfectly illustrates what I have been saying for quite some time…that we are trapped and there is no (peaceful) way out.

Which may make today’s primary story appear somewhat superfluous.

The environmental movement, and indeed the progressive movement as a whole, is at a critical crossroads. Defending past accomplishments and continuing to strive for stronger environmental laws and regulations are obviously important and necessary. However, the challenge now is greater. As James Gustave Speth, a leading environmentalist and former adviser to two presidents puts it: “For the most part, we have worked within this current system of political economy, but working within the system will not succeed in the end when what is needed is transformative change in the system itself.”

What Speth and countless others have come to realize is that the world simply cannot wait for the increasingly remote possibility that somehow “business as usual” will generate a politics that can alter the deteriorating trends. A new economic system of environmental stewardship must be built from the ground up, community by community, state by state, region by region in the coming period.

Just such a “new economy” movement is, in fact, quietly building up momentum just beneath the surface of media attention—paradoxically, in large part because the failure of national and international strategies produces more and more economic and ecological devastation. Citizens in all parts of the country have been taking the lead in constructing new economic models and institutions that not only promote democratized economic opportunity, but also, ecological sustainability.

Um, what a bunch of hogwash! Yes there are people, er, ‘attempting’ to establish a ‘green-for profit’ infrastructure out there but it’s NEVER going to work because of the ‘profit’ part of the picture.

Let me explain:

The ‘world of capitalism’ (which we all live in) is awash in debt. Much of this debt is ‘unsustainable’ because it is ‘unreasonable’. (in case you don’t understand what I’m getting at, I’ll cut to the chase and say it, I’m pointing at the huge ‘rent seeking’ portion of the economy.

No irony should be lost on the fact that our entire financial system is based on this ‘rent seeking’. Something that is currently exemplified by Benjamin Franklin’s (now) exceeding foolish remarks about passbook interest! Because he was unable to conceive of a world where a quadrillion dollars would be chasing that five percent…)

Understand that the world of capitalism was based on ‘perpetual’ five percent interest for regular savings accounts. So called ‘riskier’ loans commanded higher levels and, wouldn’t you know it, once the ‘Credit Genie’ got loose from the bottle, it took interest rates in excess of 20 percent to put it back in!

Now passbook interest is some fraction of a single percent and banks are (still) going broke trying to pay it.

So how are we going to achieve a ‘sustainable economy’ if we can’t/don’t fix our financial system?

And, the next thing you need to understand is the crowd who ripped the rest of us off wants things to remain precisely as they are.

They’ve got theirs, fuck you!

You aren’t going to see ‘renewable energy’ at anything resembling affordability because the already wealthy don’t care how much it costs (er, you.)

Worse, good citizen is where this kind of ‘myopia’ leads…it leads to a world of shortages.

The thing you need to wake up to it the EXACT NATURE of situation, those with plenty of (funny) money WILL NOT be the ones suffering from a shortage of anything, it will be the REST OF US, clawing one another TO DEATH over the crumbs that remain.

Now I am just as capable of writing without, er, emphasis as Mr. Michaelson is.

But I prefer to use emphasis to illustrate the points I make…(as clownish as it might sometimes seem.)

Our styles may differ but I believe our overall goals are, er, ‘similar’. (Feel free to slap me upside the head if this notion is in error, CK!)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

If we are to survive as a species, we must remake our entire social model…and A Simple Plan does just that!