Questions about moral equivalence by Chris Hedges

I do wish I could disagree with Chris Hedges, because the world view he paints brings me way down. Here are some of his questions, from a recent article at Truthdig called "Fooled Again":

Is the Goldman Sachs commodity trader, who hoards futures of rice, wheat, corn, sugar and livestock to jack up prices on the global market, leaving poor people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America to starve, any less morally repugnant than the drug trafficker? Are F-16 pilots who incinerate families in Raqqa morally distinct from jihadists who burn a captured Jordanian pilot in a cage? Is torture in one of our black sites or offshore penal colonies any less barbaric than torture at the hands of Islamic State? Are the decapitations of children by military drones any more defensible than decapitations of Egyptian laborers on a beach in Libya by self-described holy warriors? Is Heather Bresch, the CEO of Mylan, who raised the price of the lifesaving EpiPen by 400 percent or more and whose compensation since 2007 has risen by 600 percent to above $18 million a year, any less venal than a human trafficker who sends an overloaded boat and its occupants to their doom on the coast of Libya?
What is the endgame?
History has amply demonstrated where this will end up. The continued exploitation by an unchecked elite, and the rising levels of poverty and insecurity, will unleash a legitimate rage among the desperate. They will see through the lies and propaganda of the elites. They will demand retribution. They will turn to those who express the hatred they feel for the powerful and the institutions, now shams, that were designed to give them a voice. They will seek not reform but destruction of a system that has betrayed them.

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Living without air conditioning – again.

I was happy to see that my electric bill for July in St. Louis was a relatively low $120. That includes all of my electric bill, which heats my water and runs the air conditioning. Some would say that I don't do a very good job of air conditioning. When I'm living at my house without any guests, I never set it lower than 80 degrees (far higher than many people I know), and I supplement that 80 degree setting with fans. It feels great in here, and it all makes sense to me--if someone said that the high temperature was going to be only 80, that would be a wonderful day. Further, when I'm going to be mostly in my office for the day, I shut off the AC entirely and use only a small window unit. When I got my recent bill, I was in a mood to congratulate myself, but a recent article in The Boston Globe suggests that I'm not doing nearly enough. Here's an excerpt:

But although there are a handful of anti-A/C crusaders out there, the idea that we need to be using less of it hasn’t become a touchstone of environmental enlightenment, like recycling or hybrid cars. This may well be an indication of how deeply it has shaped our world: While we can imagine giving up plastic bags and Styrofoam, living without climate control seems unfathomable, especially during a heat wave. Until recently, however, civilization was humming along just fine without this costly convenience—and going back might not be as impossible as we think. The human body is quite well suited to deal with heat if we let it, and if we back away just a little bit from our assumptions about what it means to be comfortable, it’s easy to picture an alternate reality in which, instead of flipping on the freon at the slightest provocation, we learn to cope with the air we have. The human body is surprisingly adaptable, and by weaving together techniques from the past, ideas from hot-weather countries, and new findings from building design experts about what people actually find comfortable, we can see a surprising portrait emerge of what life might look like if we, as a society, decided we could no longer afford our addiction. A lot would have to change. We’d wake up earlier, and nap in the middle of the day to make up for it. We’d ride bikes and scooters everywhere, and swimming would replace running as the preferred form of exercise. Maybe we’d see the return of porch culture—of screened-in card games and flowing iced tea. And maybe we’d start taking pride in tricking out our finished basements. After a while we’d get used to it, just like we got used to the artificial indoor chill we take for granted now. And who knows—eventually we might even come to like it.
Oh, and my favorite quote from this excellent article: "We’re not cartons of milk, after all; we will not spoil, even if we do sweat a little."

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Alberta Tar Sands Disaster

Stunning, shocking video. We've GOT to get off of carbon fuel. Albert tar sands area is already bigger than England. "The mass extraction of fossil fuels from our earth does untold amounts of damage. Yet, many still deny that the damage being done by the oil industry is anything to be concerned about. If you ever doubted the amount of damage being done by the oil industry, just watch this video."

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Matt Taibbi on why free market fundamentalists attack the Pope.

Matt Tiabbi on why the Pope's environmental message is making many conservatives angry:

That the pope's letter inspires such hysterical stupidities speaks to how deeply upsetting it must be to our guardians of mainstream opinion. But what exactly has all of these people so upset? To me, all of this speaks to the weirdly cultist, neo-Randian, Road to Serfdom vibe that is increasingly swallowing up the American cultural and intellectual mainstream. Capitalism and competition aren't merely thought of as utilitarian systems for delivering goods and services to people anymore. To people like Brooks and Rand Paul and Charles Murray (also known as Jeb Bush's favorite author), the free market is also a sort of religion that can address every important human question. We used to think of wealth and spirituality as being two completely separate things. But in the minds of some in modern America, they're becoming fused. The way Brooks and others clearly imagine it, one achieves wealth first, then dignity follows behind. We're losing the ability to imagine a dignified life without money. Which is pretty messed up. In the past, it was completely natural for a religious leader like a pope to suggest that our economic system leaves important spiritual questions unanswered. After all, that's what religion was supposed to be for, addressing the non-material parts of our lives. But in modern times, this idea offends many people. Hence this bizarre wave of criticism directed against an elderly cleric in a funny hat who is being blasted for being impractical, unrealistic and insufficiently appreciative of the material, despite the fact that it's precisely a pope's job to be all of these things. I'm not religious, and I'm not particularly a Luddite or an anti-capitalist. But I'm open to the idea that there should be something else in life beyond money, or that we may be losing something important when we communicate by clicks and drags instead of face-to-face meetings. Is that really such revolutionary thinking, especially coming from a pope? It seems like such a strange thing to get angry about.

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