The toll of permanent war

What is the domestic damage done by a country that lurches from war to war? Chris Hedges proposes an answer at Truthdig.com: countries that are perennially at war get eaten up from the inside out:

It is a state of permanent war that is finishing off the liberal traditions in Israel and the United States. The moral and intellectual trolls—the Dick Cheneys, the Avigdor Liebermans, the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads—personify the moral nihilism of perpetual war. They manipulate fear and paranoia. They abolish civil liberties in the name of national security. They crush legitimate dissent. They bilk state treasuries. They stoke racism.

“War,” Randolph Bourne commented acidly, “is the health of the state.”

Hedges further alleges that Obama is not in a hurry to stop the wars, because it's too much of an uphill climb and it's, in the long run, beneficial to Obama (as it was to Bush):

They support its destructive fury because it funds them. They validate its evil assumptions because to take them on is political suicide. They repeat the narrative of fear because it keeps us dormant. They do this because they have become weaker than the corporate forces that profit from permanent war.

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Hear the story about all of our stuff

In The Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard tells us that all of our "stuff" is part of a linear system that is clashing with our finite planet. Her video is extremely popular (5.5 million views) and easy to follow. Here's a short description from her site:

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

What are the main problems? We are externalizing costs, so that we are oblivious to the damages we are causing around the world when we buy so much of the stuff that we are buying. We are running out of resources. Her stats from the United States are especially troubling because we are so very much living beyond our means. We generating huge heaps of waste. We are using energy + contaminated products to promulgate toxic products and untested products. One of the highest concentrations of toxic food substances has become human breast milk. 200,000 people move from their resource-exhausted long-time communities into crowded cities, many of them slums. And consider that 99% of the stuff we run through our economic system is trash within 6 months. This is not an accident, either. It is long-time government and industry policy that we should shop and consume. We shop three to four times as much as Europeans. Which, again, leads to disposal problems. For every trash can full of waste we throw away there were 70 trash cans of waste produced to make that one can of waste. Incredible. Many DI related posts can be found here. Further, listen to Daniel Goleman's description of the basic problem and the solution in his interview with Daniel Goleman.

Continue ReadingHear the story about all of our stuff

Jim Cramer, exposed

Jon Stewart is at his journalistic best here. This was filmed in March 2009, though I hadn't seen it until today. Jim Cramer desperately tries to spin himself out of Stewart's devastating indictment. Truly worth watching:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c
Jim Cramer Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor
The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Jim Cramer Pt. 3
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		Economic CrisisPolitical Humor

Continue ReadingJim Cramer, exposed

On Truth and Power

Recently on Dangerous Intersection, an article was posted about the problem of Power in relation to truth. I wrote a response and decided to post it here, at more length, as a short essay on the (occasionally etymological) problem of Truth. When people start talking about what is true or not, they tend to use the word like a Swiss Army knife. It means what they want it to mean when they point at something. Truth is a slippery term and has many facets. Usually, in casual conversation, when people say something is true, they're usually talking something being factual. Truth and fact are conjoined in many, possibly most, instances, but are not the same things. The "truth" of a "fact" can often be a matter of interpretation, making conversation occasionally problematic. The problem is in the variability of the term "truth"---like many such words, we stretch it to include things which are related but not the same. There is Truth and then there is Fact. 2 + 2 = 4 is a fact. It may, if analyzed sufficiently, yield a fundamental "truth" about the universe, but in an of itself it is only a fact. When someone comes along and insists, through power (an assertion of will), that 2 + 2 = 5, the "truth" being challenged is not in the addition but in the relation of the assertion to reality and the intent of the power in question. The arithmetic becomes irrelevant. Truth then is in the relationship being asserted and the response to it. The one doing the asserting and the one who must respond to the assertion. Similarly, in examples of law, we get into difficulty in discussions over morality. Take for instance civil rights era court decisions, where there is a conflation of ethics and morality. They are connected, certainly, but they are not the same thing. Ethics deal with the proper channels of response within a stated system---in which case, Plessy vs Fergusson could be seen as ethical given the criteria upon which it was based. But not moral, given a larger criteria based on valuations of human worth. To establish that larger criterion, overturning one system in favor of another, would require a redefintion of "ethical" into "unethical", changing the norm, for instance in Brown vs The Board of Education. The "truth" of either decision is a moving target, albeit one based on a priori concepts of human value as applied through ethical systems that adapt.

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The Interview

Via the Barefoot Bum, I found a list of interview questions posted by the Wintery Knight. For now, I shall leave alone the good knight's contention that Hitler was a "Darwinist atheist" (certainly not a Darwinist and arguably not an atheist, given his obsession with Nordic mythology and the occult, not to mention those SS belt-buckles that said "God is with us"), as well as his claim that "Atheists struggle with morality, it just doesn’t sit well on their worldview, even though they sense God’s law on their hearts, like we do." Both are baseless and false and not worth any decent person's time. I shall answer his questions though, and with as little snark as I can muster, given that I know I'm answering someone who believes I may have "fascist tendencies" (bah - I've never once advocated a merger of state and corporate power) and struggle with morality even though I apparently really do believe in God, even though I say I don't - but obviously I'm just rebelling against our heavenly father like I did against my real one when I was 15. Really, if Christians wish to have an open dialogue with atheists, these tiresome myths must be left at the door. Anyway, on with The Interview (I have sent this post as an email to the good knight and eagerly await his reply:

1) Do you believe that the universe was brought into being out of nothing by a person (agent)? Is it possible that this agent could communicate to us, or that we could discover something about that agent? (i.e. – does God exist, is he knowable)
No. However, if an agent powerful enough to create the universe existed, you'd expect such an agent to be able to communicate with us in some way we could all understand, all at the same time. Also, if such an agent wanted anything about itself to be discovered, surely that agent would know the best way for us to do so. Revealing himself to a small number of people and letting them fight amongst themselves about who was right about what for two thousand years doesn't make a lot of sense.
2) Explain to me in which religion you were raised by your parents, if any. How did your parents approach religion in the home? (strict, lax, etc.)
My parents didn't raise us in any faith. I became a Christian at a young age after being exposed to it at primary school (age 5-12). Religion didn't come up in conversation at all at home (let alone positively or negatively). We were, however, taught the importance of empathy, politeness, generosity, respect and decency (both directly and indirectly, by our parents' examples). Both my parents are fine moral people, having proudly served their family and community their whole lives. My father was a public school science teacher (now retired but continuing to serve with Meals on Wheels). My mother was a long-time public servant and both parents were tireless social campaigners in our local area, defending our community hospital and local bushland reserves against corporate and government interference.
3) What events in your past affected your beliefs about God’s existence and knowability? (e.g. – I studied biology, comparative religions or anthropology, or I met a girl I liked)

Continue ReadingThe Interview