I had a long talk with Liz last night about politics and economics. Her question was: how effective are anti-war protests? So back to Vietnam we went.

I ran through a quick outline, starting with Eisenhower, the Kennedy ambivalence, the Johnson build-up, Clean Gene, Chicago, Nixon's Silent Majority and finally Kent State.

We ended up talking about what tied the four assasinations of the 1960's together. Kennedy had already proven himself with Cuba and was beginning to ask very uncomfortable questions about our involvement in Vietnam. Martin Luther King was beginning to focus on the racism of it. Bobby Kennedy had picked up a fervent groundswell. Malcolm X was clearly ennunciating a credible other way.

Were they all the product of a grand, devious conspiracy? No. Yes. It doesn't matter. There were, and are, enough people both powerful and not who believe ardently that might is right. Whether the meme-pool is centrally directed or the hive-mind directs, the result is the same. The leadership of a political generation was eradicated.

This morning over coffee, I ran a quick calculation. The rule of thumb is that America, with 5% of the world population, uses 25% of the resources. Real vague, but at least a universe of consideration. Now, I asked, how many resources would be required if 100% of the world population used resources in the same quantity as Americans? Answer: about 5 times the current rate of resource use.

Then I received an email from Brad:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Please stop President Bush's administration from starting a war. Make no mistake about it, we are starting this to direct attention away from a failing economy and a lackluster mission in Afghanistan, where we killed more of our own and our allies than the Taliban did. There is nothing moral or righteous about this conflict. It is about vengeance, greed and oil. We are not ready to trade away our lives for the benefit of oilmen and defense contactors.

The Bush Administration is little more than a junta. They are here to take what they can while in power. Why haven't Secretary White and Vice President Cheney been indicted for corporate fraud? Perjury? This administration benefits directly from corporate criminals! It is so blatant but yet where are the purposeful hearings? The Grand Juries?

Please direct your efforts to stopping this war from happening and bringing the true villains to justice. The current situation demands that Saddam be dealt with diplomatically.

Brad Paynter

These all got me thinking about some things.

The American Way

What the hell is the American Way? Over the past decade or so, it's pretty much been defined in economic terms -- capitalism, free trade, consumer demand -- and the political terms -- democracy, freedom of thought, freedom of association -- have taken a secondary place.

Our economic way has been fueled by resources. But if we want the rest of the world to adopt our way, where are we going to find the 5 times additional resources? And don't give me the digital panacea crap. We use more paper now with near ubiquitous printing, and we're piling up heavy-metal cast-offs at an alarming rate, just for starters. Green computers come, and then go, victims to lack of demand and lack of will.

And that, imho, is the crux of the situation. US are approaching the world economically, and They are fighting back politically. It seems, in fact, that they put very little weight on economics. They take our realpolitik active support of oppressive political regimes (supposedly the necessary evil in the spread of our economic doctrine) as proof that our political rhetorical is an empty shell.

Feeling Leadership

One thing the kids don't know is the feeling of political commitment. How can they? There hasn't been a significant political disagreement in their lifetime.

I started to remember those feelings. I was much more a follower, particularly politically. I was much more in the cultural camp during the 60's and 70's. But I remember strongly the feeling that my thoughts and positions were important in my daily life and that there were people, leaders, who articulated those thoughts, too.

There was a burst of that feeling at the beginning of both the Reagan and Clinton administrations but it wilted quickly in the face of the economic juggernaut.

It's too bad there are no voices these days. It's too bad feeling that only our pocketbooks, not our voices, make any difference.

The Lily Pond

I ended up feeling that our pond, this world, is closely approaching that fateful half-full stage, where the next generation of growth will choke it completely.

Our economic doctrine ignores the negative consequences of exponential growth, believing that in the future, the benefits will expunge the negatives. Sort of like stuffing dirty laundry under the mattress.

One of the prime tenets of the economic agenda is that it is necessary to contrain government intervention in the marketplace. The actual consequences have been that government has actively involved itself in promotion of the marketplace and has been deliquent in its role of addressing and mitigating the negative social and environmental effects of market economy.

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