Nothing personal...

The dualistic thinking of the Enlightenment, so adopted-as-official-dogma by Democrats, & perversely used by Republicans (the two shit-sucking entertainment sports teams of our unitary corporate system) boils down to a couple of things:

As stated by privileged white peeples in the 17th century, reason & emotion are separate, and if people are presented with the FACTS, they will make the right decision (the liberal mantra).  The exact opposite is true----emotion and enculturation color EVERYTHING we think, and these values can be instilled with agitprop.  Anyone who is after power understands this; in our country the Rethug Reptiles are the prime example, sucking the tit of corporate money & being positively brazen about it.  The Dems will say nice things (sort of) to your face and screw you from behind, and call this "compromise".

The Rule Of Law is a falsehood---ANY conclusion can be validated with lawyer-think.

It's only a short leap to the saying "nothing personal, just business".  It ain't personal if you're winning and your Uncle Scrooge money room is full, and you have the POWER.

For the folks who lose, generally people of color who sit on natural resources (how did OUR oil get under THEIR sand, anyway???), or who are too weak to fight a massively (and in most cases, U.S. or U.S. armed) financed financial/military/political/religious regime that wants them to labor at slave wages (or NO wages), it's VERY personal.

Keep 'em stupid and breeding.  Use 'em up like spent brass in a machine-gun belt. THAT is the philosophy of Capitalism (and all the other power-isms throughout the ages). 

Link to Stan Goff's Blog-book, "Capitalism & Christianity"

Here's the link---it's free on Scribd.   A must-read for people of conscience of any sort---

http://www.scribd.com/doc/146559985/Capitalism-Christianity?post_id=770127435_10151638709642436#_=_

"Why Capitalism & Christianity? It is with the utmost trepidation that I even begin a treatment of Christianity and capitalism. I have only been studying Christianity for the last six years, but I have been studying capitalism in various ways every since I was sent to Guatemala and El Salvador in the early-mid eighties. More on that in a moment.  My disinclination to take it on as a topic for any kind of public discussion is a result of that long period of study, which proved to me that the category is slippery, widely misunderstood, hotly contested, changeable, and wrapped in hundreds of years of ideological mystification."

From 1996----seemed timely now:

Some Thoughts on Gnosticism

Here are some excerpts from a book I bought circa 1984 at K-Mart from the bargain table. They serve to explain some of my feelings about the "New World Order" without getting lost in the excruciating tide of disinformation and finger-pointing that seems to be prevailing in the investigation of this mess.

********************************************************************

The title of the book is "Night of the Wolf", published in 1983 by Harper and Row, written by an English clergyman by the name of Christopher Bryan. The book is, on the surface, a short detective story with a religious/supernatural bent. The story deals with the death of a defrocked Greek Orthodox priest, an escaped wolf, and an institution called The Academy For Philosophical Studies. The detective called in from Scotland Yard to investigate the priest's death is a thoroughly conventional sort of character who enlists the aid of an archdeacon friend in trying to unravel the related religious aspects of the case. It becomes clear that The Academy is a New World Order-type of organization that is trying to use black magic, or something like it, to realize its aims---and getting perilously close to achieving them. Following are some quotes from the chapter entitled "The Opinions of the Archdeacon", where he (Michael Aarons) tells the inspector (David Adam) what he thinks of The Academy and its aims:

"I believe...that at the core of the academy is a group of men and women with an approach to life that I should call Gnostic." (I looked the word "Gnostic" up in the American Heritage dictionary---the definition is consistent here---Michael) "That is to say, they seek salvation through knowledge, particularly knowledge of the supernatural---what they (I think) would call `spiritual' knowledge. More immediately, they seek power through such knowledge. Because they know, they will be strong. Because they understand, they will be able to use, perhaps even to control."

David was listening intently.

"Don't misunderstand me. I admit that religion does have to do with becoming in some senses stronger---at least it has to do with becoming fuller, more complete, more truly human. But I would say that even these things are not basically what religion is about. It's like marriage. A good marriage will make you stronger, too. Marriage is about trust and hope and forgiveness between people. But you know that better than I.

"The same, I believe, is true of religion. True religion is about trust and hope and forgiveness in our relationship with God. It's about that kind of seeking for the transcendent that desires a love without end and a true fatherhood." (motherhood?) "Gnosticism is false religion, because it does not desire relationship, but mastery. Not forgiveness, but power. I think it is because those who run the academy care only for power, that they feel able to treat quite ruthlessly those who cannot keep the pace they set. They will use them, and they will cast them aside, as they choose. *The weak have no value, in their eyes, save as food for the strong."* (my emphasis)

Aarons was silent for a moment, then said, "you asked me what I thought was the academy's purpose. Do I answer your question?"

David nodded slowly. "Yes, I think you do. But---can people get power this way? I mean, real power...I mean, power, say, to kill people?"

"I suppose that will depend on how far they go. If you deal with a marriage or friendship only for what you can get out of it, you do get something. Power. Satisfaction. Something of that sort. Though, of course, in doing that you do not have any real relationship with your wife or friend. If you try to deal with religion like that, I don't doubt that you get something, too, and are in touch with something---though hardly God. There is a long tradition of rebellious forces in the universe ready to make use of rebellious men. Yes, you will get something. For a while. In the end, of course, it is nonsense."

"Nonsense?"

"Oh, yes, I think so. This quest for power, for control---to use religion for our own ends---what does it finally mean but that we are trying to be gods? Little gods! Like the story of Adam: `You shall be as gods, knowing both good and evil.' And certainly, it is nonsense. The most ridiculous of all nonsense. There are times, I must admit, when to live and feel that there is no God anywhere---that is not unreasonable. But to suppose that I am God! Pfff!" He shrugged.

"The tail wagging the dog?"

"As you say," Aarons agreed with a smile. "The tail wagging the dog. The irony is," he added, "that I believe in the end the promise is, in fact, that we shall be as gods---sharers in the divine nature. But that, like life itself, will be a gift. Not something we win through our own cleverness."

The fire had burned low in the grate, and David watched as Aarons stoked it back to life.

"If the church feels as strongly as this about things like the Academy," he said at last, "why doesn't it speak out about them?"

"You mean denounce them?" Aarons shook his head. "I don't think the church is in a very good position to denounce anyone. The joy and the hope of the church are that she has been given a holy thing---a promise. But as human beings, aren't we as corruptible as any? Haven't we tried to use God for our own ends? Haven't we practiced false religion?"

"It sounds to me like you're saying you can't say something's wrong, because you once did it yourself."

Aarons nodded, conceding his friend's point. "Yes, I see what you mean. Perhaps we should speak out more boldly. Perhaps you are right. But if so, then only as fellow penitents. Not denouncing the thing as if we had no taint of it. That would be terrible..."

There was another pause. David felt that in some way he had sidetracked himself. He returned to his main theme.

"At any rate, you personally regard this thing---this false religion---as dangerous?"

"I regard it as diabolic."

"Diabolic?"

"It takes the best and corrupts it. To use sex or politics as weapons of control is bad enough, but to use religion! That is the most evil of all. If it is not our best that we do in God's name, then it will certainly be our worst."

-------------------------------------

And, finally, from a later chapter in the book, after the Academy has been destroyed by fire, and the Chairman of the Academy, escaping and horribly burned, is skulking through London to another secret and profane altar to rekindle the evil that was interrupted almost at its culmination:

"...To be perfect, his resentment must be wordless, mindless, and directed everywhere---approaching the Satanic perfection of which Milton spoke: `that fix'd sence of injur'd merit.'"

Newtown, Clackamas, and on and on...

A couple of "Christmas" pictures someone sent me in a "Wal Mart" post has EXTRA meaning now, in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut and Clackamas, Oregon shootings...what in king-sized hell kind of a country do we live in???  We truly are doomed....

I've often thought that jazz music seemed to be immune to the ethic of war---even a New Orleans street funeral "march"---until I happened on a Youtube of a C-130 "Spectre" gun-camera video---set to the music of Dave Brubeck's "Take Five".  I had to remember, Take Five notwithstanding, that a large part of the "Great American Songbook" had its origins in WW2. 

We in this generation have been disconnected from the practical reality of that, by the "generation gap" cooked up in the post-WW2 era, and the general process of time.  Would seem to be a good reason to like and follow BeBop, GypsyBop, (to name a couple) and other forms of jazz that had a more contrarian & less warlike origin.

The system we live in takes the best of what humanity has made and perverts it to the destabilizing ethic of accumulation and subservience----and power.

This item was in the local paper here….there has been a renewed interest in local history now that a new, interactive museum is getting built. Perhaps NOW the REAL history of this area will be known. This is also an example of the mentality of minor league boomtown mobsters, also known as “good citizens”. The article is ostensibly about the Wobblies, but it is a widow into the psychology of brute force greed—localized—and the “good citizens” (sarcasm in context) who perpetuate it.

If the future of humanity---general, not military-industrial "humanity" rests on localization, then this is what needs to be looked out for.

http://theworldlink.com/news/local/history-citizens-deported-organizers/article_7edea4f0-d10d-11e1-ae59-0019bb2963f4.html

History: Citizens ‘deported’ organizers

 Wobbly organizer and decorated WWI veteran Wesley Everest took a place in labor history in 1919, when he was taken from jail and lynched after a battle between labor organizers and marchers in an Armistice Day parade in Centralia, Wash. Six years earlier, he made history in a smaller way in Marshfield.
Wesley Everest was born in 1890 at Newberg, Oregon. His grandfather, David Everest, was an original settler and held the original 1850 donation claim there. His father died when he was young, his mother was killed in a buggy wreck when he was fourteen. He lived three years with relatives who owned the Westfall dairy near Portland, then at seventeen went to work in a logging camp where pay was $1.84 per day for 10 hours. That was in 1907, a time when the newly formed Industrial Workers of the World were gathering members in the logging camps along the Columbia River and the railroad lines in Southwestern Washington. He became a member of Portland I.W.W. Local 92.
By the end of 1912 Wesley Everest was working as an organizer for the I.W.W., probably first out of Eugene Local 88 and then from the newly established local at Marshfield. The railroad line from Eugene to Coos Bay was under construction and on December 29, 1912, thirty-five men working for a subcontractor near Gardiner went on strike, aided by I.W.W. organizers. Their grievances seemed just, according to the article in the Coos Bay Harbor January 2, 1913. The headline read, “35 Men Refuse to Work in Deep Mud. Strike for Less Hours and More Pay. Men Report that Copenhagen Bros. Feed Men Poorly, Charge for Hospital, Work in Mud.” The demands were for $3.00 for a nine-hour day, better food and better bunkhouses, and better conditions around the camp. That article in the Coos Bay Harbor was the first and last time that the I.W.W. was given fair coverage in the local press.
The June 26, 1913 Coos Bay Times reported that “Marshfield Deports Three Members of I.W.W. Order. Business Men of That City Form Committee and Escort Leaders of Order to Dock and Ship Them on Bonita to Jarvis Landing.” The men deported were the union secretary, W.J. Edgworth, 23-year-old Wesley Everest, and Fred Roberts, an innocent I.W.W. bystander who voiced protest over the mob action.
The businessmen of Marshfield, like the businessmen of Centralia, Washington, of Butte, Montana, and of Salt Lake City, were contemptuous of due process of law when it came to the I.W.W. Deportation, kidnaping, torture, mutilation, lynching — all were within the scope of what they thought just.
After the boat had dumped the three men off at the sand dunes of Jarvis Landing (on the North Spit), they were made to “salute the flag,” according to the newspaper report, but other sources say that they were made to kiss the flag.
In either case, the event radicalized Wesley Everest, who in 1917 was drafted into the Army and after his discharge went back to organizing for the I.W.W. until his horrible lynching at Centralia in November, 1919 (and immortalized near the end of John Dos Passos’ 1932 novel, “Nineteen Nineteen”).
There were four names on the presidential ballot for the 1912 election. In Coos County, Democrat Woodrow Wilson came in first with 30.8 percent of the vote. Socialist Eugene V. Debs came in second with 22.7 percent. The Socialist and Progressive parties together garnered a full 53 percent of the total.
The “businessmen” of Marshfield and of Bandon, like others of their class in other towns throughout the West, took the law into their own hands to stifle or eliminate the opposition.
In Bandon, for example, publisher of the Socialist paper Justice was Dr. Bailey K. Leach, a chiropractor. He wrote what Jesse Allen Luse, editor of the Marshfield Sun, called a “caustic” piece concerning the expulsion of the three I.W.W. men from Marshfield. A meeting of the Bandon Commercial Club protested what other newspapers called Dr. Leach’s “vile” attacks on the citizens of Marshfield. He was also accused of insulting the American flag and being an I.W.W. He was hauled before the meeting by a committee of 10 men who escorted him from his home. He “denied insulting the flag, and said that he was not an I.W.W. He said the people did not understand the humor if it.” He was told, “The humor of it is that you will have to leave here before 2 o’clock tomorrow.” The next day he was escorted onto the riverboat Dora to Coquille, and by auto from there to Marshfield, where he was unceremoniously placed aboard the Alice H. and deposited on the North Spit for a long walk north. There was apparently no official action or investigation into the mob rule, and of the fact that Dr. Leach was essentially kidnapped and forced to leave his professional practice and his home with no protection from the law. And Dr. Leach was not even a member of the I.W.W. He was merely trying to call attention to the violation of the legal and civil rights of the I.W.W.s who were “deported.”
Lionel Youst’s book,  “Progressive Thoughts: Essays and Reviews” was published recently. In a series of essays, Youst reflects on liberal thought as expressed over several centuries, from 16th-century essayist Michel de Montaigne to 21st-century president Barack Obama. The chapters were originally published as essays in The Advocate, Coos County’s monthly progressive journal. Retired from a career in the U.S. Air Force, Youst is the author of six other books of local and regional history.  Selections of his works are available online at www.youst.com.

35 Years Left? And, The Cornocopia Scam (1995)

Subject:    35 YEARS LEFT?

Organization: Eugene Free community Network/Oregon Public Networking

Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 15:42:08 GMT

Lines: 72

HOW CLOSE TO PRACTICAL LIMITS?

"There is accumulating evidence that humanity my soon have to

confront the real carrying capacity constraints.  For example, nearly

40% of terrestrial net primary productivity (photosynthesis) is

already being used ("appropriated") by humans, one species among

millions, and this fraction is steadily increasing (Vitousek et al.

1986).  If we take this percentage as an index of the human carrying

capacity of the earth and assume that a growing economy could come to

appropriate 80% of photosynthetic production before destroying the

functional integrity of the ecosphere, the earth will effectively go

from half to completely full within the next doubling period --

currently about 35 years (Daly 1991).

"The significance of this unprecedented convergence of economic scale

with that of the ecosphere is not generally appreciated in the

current debate on sustainable development.  Because the human impact

on critical functions of the ecosphere is not uniform "effective

fullness" may actually occur may actually occur well before the next

doubling of human activity.  (Liebig's law reminds us that is takes

only a single critical limiting factor to constrain the entire

system.)  Indeed, data presented in this chapter suggests that

long-term human carrying capacity may already have been at less than

the present 40% preemption of photosynthesis. If so, even current

consumption (throughput) cannot be sustained indefinitely, and

further material growth can be purchased only with accelerated

depletion of remaining natural capital stocks.

"This conundrum can be illustrated another way by extrapolation from

our ecological footprint data.  If the entire world population of 5.6

billion were to use productive land at the rate of our

Vancouver/Lower Fraser Valley example, the total requirement would be

28.5 billion ha.  In fact, the total land area of Earth is only just

over 13 billion ha, of which only 8.8 billion ha is productive

cropland, pasture, or forest.  The immediate implications are

two-fold:  first, as already stressed, the citizens of wealthy

industrial countries unconsciously appropriate far more than their

share of global carrying capacity;  second, we would require an

additional "two Earths," assuming present technology and efficiency

levels, to provide for the present world population at Canadian's

ecological standard of living.  In short, there may simply not be

enough natural capital around to satisfy current development

assumptions.  The difference between the anticipated ecological

footprint of the human enterprise and the available land/natural

capital base is a measure "sustainability gap" confronting

humankind." [p. 383]

A CAUTIONARY NOTE

"We admittedly make no allowance for potentially large efficiency

gains or technological advances.  Even at carrying capacity, further

economic growth is possible (but not necessarily desirable) if

resource consumption and waste production continue to decline per

unit GDP (Jacobs 1991).  We should not, however, rely exclusively on

this conventional rationale.  New technologies require decades to

achieve the market penetration needed to significantly influence

negative ecological trends.  Moreover,there is no assurance that

savings will not simply be directed into alternative forms of

consumption.  Efficiency improvements may actually increase rather

than decrease resource consumption (Saunders 1992).  We are already

the limit in a world of rising material expectations in which the

human population is increasing by 94 million people per year.  The

minimal food-land requirements alone each year for this number of new

people is 18,800,000 ha (at 5 people/ha, the current average

productivity of world agriculture) -- the equivalent of all cropland

in France." [p. 386]

      INVESTING IN NATURAL CAPITAL - 1994 - Island Press

Free catalog:  1-800-828-1302 or 1-707-983-6432 Fax 1-707-983-6164

 LIMITS TO GROWTH: THE CORNUCOPIA SCAM

NOTE: The following selections are from an article by Sandy Irvine

entitled "The Cornucopia Scam: Contradictions of Sustainable

Development, Part 2: Misconceptions About Fundamental Causes."

(Wild Earth, Winter 1994/95, pp. 72-82. All emphasis in

original.)

The Cornucopia Scam

by Sandy Irvine

POPULATION (p. 72)

"Every year, human numbers increase globally by some 95 million.

Even in India's frequently praised state of Kerala where there has

been genuine social progress and the growth rate of the state's

population has been cut to 1.7%, the population will still double

on that basis in just 47 years. Contrary to popular perception

about the leveling off of population growth in rich countries, on

present trends America's population will double to around 520

million in only 63 years.

"Yet there is generally a deafening silence on the issue of

population growth and bitter criticism of those few who do raise

the issue.  None of the major environmental lobbies, for example,

has produced any substantial literature or policy on the matter.

"Population growth exacerbates every environment and most social

problems.  Kenya's population increases by over 1600 people every

day, thereby intensifying pressure on the land, eating up space

for surviving wildlife, overwhelming employment and other social

opportunities. Population growth also makes solutions more

difficult to achieve.  Take, for example, the transition to

sustainable energy systems.  It has been estimated that the Swiss

population would have to drop to one-sixth of its present level

for the country to base itself on its own renewable energy

resources and maintain its present living standards."

FOOD PRODUCTION (p. 74)

"In terms of food production, ALL forms of farming have adverse

impacts.  For example, the extension of arable production must be

at the expense of woodland and wetlands, while its intensification

must lead to a deteriorating quantity and quality of soil systems,

even if we can avoid the problems associated with synthesized

fertilizers and biocides.  According to Mike Jacobs, author of The

Green Economy, organic farming actually improves the environment;

but the noted Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka has shown that it

still depends upon external inputs and does not close the cycle of

nutrients.  More paddy cultivation will increase methane build-up

in the atmosphere. Increased food production via irrigation will

worsen the already serious problems of salinization and water

logging."

POLLUTION (p. 75)

"The potential of pollution control technology is also

exaggerated.  It only shifts pollutants from one form, place, or

time to another.  The only way to reduce the more serious

pollutants is to generate less of them in the first place.  Many

pollutants are too dissipated to catch and contain -- for example,

carbon dioxide, fertilizer run-off, and methane from cattle and

paddy cultivation.  In the case of pollutants amenable to capture

and treatment, there is still the cost of making and using the

necessary gadgetry.  The cost of installing full-scale tertiary

treatment of the existing `throughput' of sewage is likely to be

astronomical.

"Already, great damage is being done producing the raw material

for pollution abatement techniques, not least limestone mining and

the production of lime for desulfurization.  Similarly, the

manufacture of equipment like catalytic converters causes resource

depletion and more pollution.  At the end of the pipe, there are

still waste residues, often highly toxic.

"Perhaps recycling is the most popular technological fix.  People

get enthusiastic about recycled paper, as if paper fibre no longer

wore out and trees no longer will have to be cut down.

Technological euphoria is driving out more sober thought based on

physical actualities. Entropy dictates that material usage must

lead to some material dissipation.  The phosphate put into washing

powders and the zinc used in manufactured items end up in a myriad

of locations, for example.

"Of course, much can be recycled.  It is scandalous that globally

some 66% of all aluminum and 75% of iron and paper is simply

dumped on the environment after use.  Yet, we must not ignore the

serious pollution around some recycling plants.  Recycling does

not challenge the processes by which human society creates rising

piles of waste. Indeed, to some extent, it legitimizes

profligacy."

OVERDEVELOPMENT (p. 77)

"Today's problems, in short, are symptoms of not only

MALdevelopment in specific areas but also of general

OVERdevelopment.  The problem is growth per se, not just

misdirected growth.  Humanity has reached the point where further

attempts to extend and intensify human production systems, no

matter how well regulated or technologically sophisticated, must

undermine  the long-term capacity of environment systems to

sustain life.

"At present, it takes about two hectares to cater for the typical

diet in a rich country.  To furnish this pattern of consumption

for the six billion who soon will be alive would require 12

billion hectares -- roughly eight times the amount of available

cropland, most of which is showing signs of serious stress.

Popular criticism of European Union `food mountains' and `wine

lakes' misses the key point: they are only temporary surpluses

since the production system is eroding its own resource base.

"Of course, food is only one human need and many other

environmental conditions and resources are required for

sustainable living.  The state of the Earth's tree cover is

probably the most critical indicator. Before the birth of

agriculture, forests clothed over six billion hectares.  Since

then, the Earth has been scalped of two-thirds of its original

forest, half the loss occurring between 1950 and 1990. China was

once 75% forested; now most has been destroyed, with 20 million

hectares deforested in the 30 years after the Communist revolution

in 1949.  In just 100 years, Ethiopia's forest have declined from

40% to only 3% of the land."

AIR POLLUTION  (p. 78)

"Air pollution is killing forests and lakes around the world.

Across 15 European countries, 27,000 square miles are showing

signs of `forest death.'  In southern Norway, all lakes in a

13,000 square kilometer area are devoid of fish.  Chongging in

China is perhaps the acid rain capital of the world, the rain

there sometimes being so acidic it can dissolve steel.

"Human activity is adding chemicals to the environment whose

systems have not been `equipped' by evolution to absorb their

impact.  Some 2.5 million tons of synthetic pesticides, for

example, are sprayed annually, mainly in the rich countries,

though `Third World' use is rising dramatically.  In the USA, such

chemicals area partly responsible for some 20% of the list of

endangered species.

"Another symptom of overdevelopment is the covering over of land

with roads, buildings, and other infrastructure.  It sterilizes

the environment buried beneath whilst creating problems like

excessive water run-off.  In the USA, some 526,000 hectares of

countryside, mainly good farmland, is paved over every year."

THE POOR ALSO POLLUTE (p. 79)

"...It is indeed true that a small percentage of the world's

population consumes a grossly disproportionate share of the

world's resources; but this fact is being used in ways that

distort the whole picture. Politicians from the `Third World', for

example, angrily attack plans to conserve `their' forests on the

grounds that they should not sacrifice the sovereign right to

exploit such resources simply to supply carbon sinks so that

western consumers can continue to drive their carbon-emitting

cars.  Yet the political and business elites in the Third World

live life-styles little different from those they denounce.  They

surround themselves with massive military forces, while

irresponsibly promising affluence to every household in their

countries.

"Many of these leaders have followed the path of the already

industrialized countries, with the construction of brand new

capital cities, big airports, nuclear power plants and the other

symbols of `modernization.'  From the introduction of

Canadian-style wheat farming in Tanzania to Indonesia's

transmigration programme, there are plenty of examples of

ecologically disastrous projects backed by Third World

governments, often with considerable popular support.  The

destruction of local wildlife is perhaps even more

enthusiastically supported. In Thailand, for example, tigers are

threatened with extinction simply so that East Asian consumers can

enjoy the delights of tiger penis soup.

"More generally, the environmental impact of the world's poor,

compared to that of the rich, tends to be underestimated in the

sustainable development literature.  A lot of the destruction in

the `Third World' takes place outside the formal economy as with

tree felling for fuel and new farm land.  Such activities tend not

to be as accurately recorded as, say, petrol and electricity

consumption in the industrialized parts of the world. More

important, however, is that even a small increase in per capita

consumption -- especially with fossil fuels -- in a populous

country like China will have a disproportionately large impact,

given the size of its population.  The sustainable development

lobby seldom faces the brutal truth that the `developing'

countries will never be developed in any conventional meaning of

the word if global sustainability is to be attained. ...

"This `think shrink' orientation is not an attempt to `pull up the

ladder' so that the poor cannot join the rich. In fact,

abandonment of the goal of global affluence offers the best hope

for those being crushed under the wheels of industrial expansion.

Across the `Third World,' outside the citadels of western-style

luxury, the people with secure food supplies, clean water, and

social stability tend to be those living in regions not yet

harnessed to the treadmill of development.  Indeed, many

`backward' societies offer sophisticated and practicable models of

sustainable living."

LORDS OF CREATION? (p. 81)

"Supporters of sustainable development show a collective

reluctance to explore the deep implications of what might be

called a Sustainable Earth Society whose members include more than

the human race.  Many reject, for example, concepts like carrying

capacity (it implies limits on human numbers), or values like the

inalienable right of other species to flourish (it implies limits

on human activities).  Ecological systems are still treated as

just one issue amongst many, not the preconditions for the lasting

satisfaction of all other goals."

CONCLUSION (p. 82)

"So far, most supporters of sustainable development have not made

the transition to an Earth-centered value system.  There is no

deep sense of caution and modesty about the power of human

intellect and technological prowess. There is no recognition of

the intrinsic rights of other species nor of the wisdom contained

in the millennia of evolution."

***

BIO: Sandy Irvine is the Environmental Curriculum Development

Officer at the University of Northumbria.  He is the co-author of

A Green Manifesto (London: Optima, 1988) and subsequently wrote

Beyond Green Consumerism (London: Friends of the Earth, 1989) He

co-edits a quarterly ecological and political magazine, Real

World, and is an associate editor of The Ecologist.

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION:

Subscriptions to the quarterly Wild Earth are $25 and may be

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