Abandon Affluence
Archie Kennedy | 09.05.2005 16:12 | Analysis | London
The party is still raging like mad. The drunks and the addicts and the gangs are sending out for more pizza, more booze, and more drugs and they are killing people to do it. Some of us are sobering up and waking up. We are starting to see the damage that has been done and we are whispering to each other, “We have to kick the criminals out”.
Do you ever consider what goes in to bringing you a glass of Coke?
One hundred years ago the soil of the United States felt a lot different than it does today. The reason for that is that many of the nutrients and much of the organic matter has been washed out to sea. They have been replaced with much less porous chemical fertilizers. The amount of soil, that is, the thickness of it, is a fraction of what it used to be.
We eat these nutrients and we flush them down the toilet. They go out to sea and as a result, the land loses some of its wealth.
We live inside of extremely large and wasteful systems and those systems must be either flushed down the toilet of history or radically changed.
The simple act of having a snack and a glass of coke requires a monumental effort that happens behind the scenes. The sugar is shipped to the factory from the plantation and a warehouse. This requires ships, trucks and forklifts. The sugar is packaged on the way and that requires cutting trees, processing the paper which is a large expenditure of energy in itself. The paper is then packed and shipped. It is then made into the specific packaging material for the sugar. This all requires many workers to get in their cars and go to work, using even more energy. The sugar is packaged and then moved to the factory that makes the Coke. This factory ships in many different materials that go into the recipe for Coke. Then there is glass and cans which start out as rock and are processed into cans and bottles. It would take a lot of effort to trace every worker that goes into a glass of coke.
So, you have your Coke and a pastry which is in cellophane wrapper which in turn is in a colourful box. Again, the process is far too involved to even write out here. Little by little by little, every day, every week and every year, the earth and the eco-systems provide their micro treasures for our macro systems so we humans can consume. We are addicted to bath oil, and hair conditioner and cigarettes and fat. And as the wealth of the eco-systems offer up their treasures to us, we flush them down toilets, burn them, and contaminate them irreparably.
We have to abandon affluence and our multitude of petty addictions. We have to abandon our spoiled comfort. We have to stop the madness of having our Coke and our snack and then driving in our cars to Curves to work off our guilt and excessive fat. We have to stop packing goods inside of packages that are inside of packages. We have to stop cutting tress to make paper to advertise to tell people they must consume what they don’t need and what will make them sick. We have to learn to eat from the local soil, to drink water from our local ground, and to stop all the shipping and flushing and burning.
We have to change our minds.
But when we consider that even something as minimal as the Kyoto Protocol has run into stiff opposition from those that are most addicted to the party, we know that we have to win a huge battle before we start cutting down the large macro party machines of capitalism.
Our children and grandchildren and their kids have an enemy in our midst. This enemy is equal to the bus driver that jumps from the bus with busted brakes to save himself instead of taking the risk to save the children who all perish off the side of a cliff. They are George Costanza pushing children and feeble old women down to escape what he thinks is a fire in the kitchen. They are the selfish and comfortable cowards that we think of as capitalists. They are them and their million lackeys and they are the enemies of humanity and the earth.
Everybody doesn’t have to work to distribute and produce wealth. That idea is part of capitalistic indoctrination. Capitalism has given us many gifts of technology, know-how, and toys. Thank you capitalism, we appreciate it. But it has come at a price and the sooner we start paying it back to the earth, the less expensive it will be. We have to change our economic systems, our production systems and our distribution systems if we want to save the eco-systems.
We will produce most of what we need locally and we will start living with each other in communities again. We will say good-bye to our alienated lives in front of television sets. We will produce what we need and we will distribute what is needed as it is needed. We may need bicycles and buses, we don’t need cars. We need to distribute water where it isn’t locally available, we don’t need Coke. We don’t need bath oil or bath oil beads.
We live inside big wasteful production and distribution systems but we also live inside many other systems. We live inside eco-systems and we cannot destroy them. We cannot continue to abuse the earth because we are as much a part of the earth and the nutrients we put in our mouths and flush down the toilet. As we destroy the earth, we destroy our grandchildren. They are the earth and they will come from the earth long after we return to it.
One hundred years ago the soil of the United States felt a lot different than it does today. The reason for that is that many of the nutrients and much of the organic matter has been washed out to sea. They have been replaced with much less porous chemical fertilizers. The amount of soil, that is, the thickness of it, is a fraction of what it used to be.
We eat these nutrients and we flush them down the toilet. They go out to sea and as a result, the land loses some of its wealth.
We live inside of extremely large and wasteful systems and those systems must be either flushed down the toilet of history or radically changed.
The simple act of having a snack and a glass of coke requires a monumental effort that happens behind the scenes. The sugar is shipped to the factory from the plantation and a warehouse. This requires ships, trucks and forklifts. The sugar is packaged on the way and that requires cutting trees, processing the paper which is a large expenditure of energy in itself. The paper is then packed and shipped. It is then made into the specific packaging material for the sugar. This all requires many workers to get in their cars and go to work, using even more energy. The sugar is packaged and then moved to the factory that makes the Coke. This factory ships in many different materials that go into the recipe for Coke. Then there is glass and cans which start out as rock and are processed into cans and bottles. It would take a lot of effort to trace every worker that goes into a glass of coke.
So, you have your Coke and a pastry which is in cellophane wrapper which in turn is in a colourful box. Again, the process is far too involved to even write out here. Little by little by little, every day, every week and every year, the earth and the eco-systems provide their micro treasures for our macro systems so we humans can consume. We are addicted to bath oil, and hair conditioner and cigarettes and fat. And as the wealth of the eco-systems offer up their treasures to us, we flush them down toilets, burn them, and contaminate them irreparably.
We have to abandon affluence and our multitude of petty addictions. We have to abandon our spoiled comfort. We have to stop the madness of having our Coke and our snack and then driving in our cars to Curves to work off our guilt and excessive fat. We have to stop packing goods inside of packages that are inside of packages. We have to stop cutting tress to make paper to advertise to tell people they must consume what they don’t need and what will make them sick. We have to learn to eat from the local soil, to drink water from our local ground, and to stop all the shipping and flushing and burning.
We have to change our minds.
But when we consider that even something as minimal as the Kyoto Protocol has run into stiff opposition from those that are most addicted to the party, we know that we have to win a huge battle before we start cutting down the large macro party machines of capitalism.
Our children and grandchildren and their kids have an enemy in our midst. This enemy is equal to the bus driver that jumps from the bus with busted brakes to save himself instead of taking the risk to save the children who all perish off the side of a cliff. They are George Costanza pushing children and feeble old women down to escape what he thinks is a fire in the kitchen. They are the selfish and comfortable cowards that we think of as capitalists. They are them and their million lackeys and they are the enemies of humanity and the earth.
Everybody doesn’t have to work to distribute and produce wealth. That idea is part of capitalistic indoctrination. Capitalism has given us many gifts of technology, know-how, and toys. Thank you capitalism, we appreciate it. But it has come at a price and the sooner we start paying it back to the earth, the less expensive it will be. We have to change our economic systems, our production systems and our distribution systems if we want to save the eco-systems.
We will produce most of what we need locally and we will start living with each other in communities again. We will say good-bye to our alienated lives in front of television sets. We will produce what we need and we will distribute what is needed as it is needed. We may need bicycles and buses, we don’t need cars. We need to distribute water where it isn’t locally available, we don’t need Coke. We don’t need bath oil or bath oil beads.
We live inside big wasteful production and distribution systems but we also live inside many other systems. We live inside eco-systems and we cannot destroy them. We cannot continue to abuse the earth because we are as much a part of the earth and the nutrients we put in our mouths and flush down the toilet. As we destroy the earth, we destroy our grandchildren. They are the earth and they will come from the earth long after we return to it.
Archie Kennedy
e-mail:
akenn100@hotmail.com
Homepage:
http://www.leftlite.blogspot.com/
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
Nope
09.05.2005 18:41
The third world is paying our bills and the oil will last until after I'm gone.
PARTY !!!!!
Enjoying it !
Enjoying it ?
09.05.2005 21:15
How about a 'havin it large' boot up your ass numb nuts?
Go and post on idiots forum.
Somebody
This is OK but very Wimpy (not a burger!)
10.05.2005 01:11
Agriculture has always been the key to most countries development
see: our suggestions and so much more at:
zorpia.com/venezuela1
a short exceprt Part One:
Revolutionary Transition Designs For Survival, Participatory Democracy and The Development of "A New Socialism"
(Chapter One)
For the People of Ecuador and Bolivia and All Who Struggle Against USA Imperialism
Chapter Two , at:
Original April 25 Draft ( Chapter One) at:
www.zorpia.com/venezuela1
"There has to be direct democracy, people’s government with popular assemblies and congresses where the people retain the right to remove, nominate, sanction, and recall their elected delegates and representatives… As well as political democracy there has to be economic democracy. If an elite owns and controls big business such as oil and the mines there can be neither real democracy nor social equality. Control over the productive apparatus of society has to be distributed.
This can take forms such as community ownership, self-managed enterprises and cooperatives. We call for a people’s revolutionary constituent assembly to help reconstruct from below the republic, the state and the nation of Venezuela…[ Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru... Belize...everywhere and all of the above] We have resources of energy, gold, silver, petroleum and steel. If we use national capital and process them here in Latin America we can sow the seeds of a new continent and a new development. " Hugo Chavez (Our reference for this is: Stephen O’Brien interview of Chavez at the São Paulo Forum in El Salvador in July 1996 for the CISLAC magazine Venceremos.)
Eight years later, at the opening of a social debt forum in Caracas Hugo Chavez set the outline for a continuing debate asking the question: " If it isn't Capitalism, what is it? I have no doubts ... its Socialism ... which Socialism of the many that exist? ... we must invent it ... therefore, the importance of debate ... 21st Socialism has to be invented."
AN APPEAL FOR AID: We are unaware of other groups producing aids for revolutionary transitions, but we hope to find them. We ask for input, for collaboration (translations) and a website where these issues can be addressed, debated and made available to people in several languages. Time is slipping away and the capitalists, imperialists and elite are always far ahead of the people and the poor. Please consider the importance of the events unfolding in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela (not to mention the cruel disasters of Colombia and the inevitably of Peru.)
Radical Restructuring: Part I. Applying Revolutionary Transition Designs to Develop A New Socialism
Poor Countries and Revolutionary Movements cannot expect any help from anyone. They cannot wait for Chavez in Venezuela or a worldwide movement of aid to attend to their needs. They must prepare for the worst: USA invasions or USA collusion with elite sabotage and a collapse of economic relations with most of the world. The MER solidaristic economic program addresses this real world context and what countries must do. It is also meant as a guide for revolutionary groups to present workable and visionary manifestos of the path to a sustainable and equitable design for living. Our dreams are utopian, but we aim for real and enduring results. To re-build the foundation of a people start with education – once you know what you want to teach...
Part II. Revolutionary Policies for Transitional Survival:
Democratic Redistribution and Radical Restructuring for a New Beginning
The following program will typically be required of the revolutions in the Andes and throughout Latin America (the pace of adaptation and implementation may vary somewhat) :
Phase One:
1. All cities, towns and rural districts should form popular assemblies that document the Demands, Expectations and Policies that the residents support. A two thirds vote should be attempted on these positions from the participants of the assemblies. Failing that, the vote tallies for the majority and minority positions should be recorded. In forming these assemblies care should be given to balance participation and functionality with size. We estimate that each assembly should represent between 2000 and 20,000 people over 16 years of age. Based on this criteria a nation of 5 million people over 16 would have about 500 assemblies. Geography and travel requirements should also be considered so that travel does not restrict participation unduly.
2. Based on these Position decisions, each assembly would designate a national subdivision (contiguous or nearby) that it chooses to affiliate with. Depending on these desired affiliations each country would be divided up into three to seven autonomous regions.
3. The assemblies of the cities, towns and rural areas would then choose Delegates to a Regional Popular Assembly for each autonomous region. The delegates should be chosen proportionately from lists of delegates who support differing Positions, ethnic groups or sub-regions. Each assembly would choose one delegate per 1000 people living in their assumed influence. If there were 5 million people in the country and five autonomous regions of about one million each, then each Regional Assembly would have about 1000 delegates attending.
4. Regional Assemblies would vote on Positions and select Delegates for a National Constituent Constitutional Convention; one delegate per 30,000 people in the region. Roughly, 160 Delegates from each Region would then attend the Constitutional Convention.
5. Regional Assemblies would continue to meet, vote on evolving Positions and send updates to the Constitutional Convention. Final decisions from the Constitutional Convention would be voted on by the entire population of each region with a majority vote required for ratification. Failing ratification a Region would have to work out a relationship with the rest of the country. Provisions for requiring a Region to accept the National decision could be made if the Ratification was supported by more than two thirds of the nation and less than 60 percent of a Region rejected the new Constitution. Provisions for a requirement that the percentage of participating voters in each region meet a certain threshold (66 percent?) should be considered. The processes used in Venezuela and the Venezuelan Constitution should also be consulted.
6. Regional Assemblies would assume all roles of the government pending the ratification of a new constitution. Local Popular Assemblies representing at least 30,000 people could over-ride Regional Assembly decisions by the vote of 75 percent of the participants of the local Popular Assembly (Until the Constitution is ratified).
7. All of the above recommendations are designed for countries where the government has collapsed or lost all legitimacy. They are also applicable for regions of a country where there is oppression from a central government or where the national government is fast loosing legitimacy.
8. At all levels of society it is imperative that the people form committees for: Water, Health, Labor Solidarity, Community Planning and Environmental Health and Protection.
PHASE TWO:
1. National Constituent Constitutional Convention
A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION should consider all aspects of a nation's future and the means to establish democratic, transparent and productive structures for the whole nation. For the first month of its meeting Positions should only be adopted by a two thirds vote, after one month a 51 percent vote should be adopted. Care should be given to assure that the votes and voices of all significant sectors of the nation are included in the Convention: women, students, workers, soldiers, indigenous groups, young people, slum dweller organizations, unions representing poor workers, small farmers and landless farmers.
PHASE THREE: Recommendations for a New Constitution:
a. Prioritize: The needs of the whole population for a new revolutionary/solidarity education; water for drinking and for crops; pure and affordable food/national food security; equitable land distribution; indigenous, campesino and small farm agricultural support; and enhanced popular participation in all decisions.
b. Secondary priorities: Community and national defense; housing with long term use/needs taken into account (priority for slum, rural and border areas); cooperative production units; Watershed restoration; and public spending for the sustainable development of natural and other resources.
c. Policies:
1. Expropriation of all foreign, elite or important land, structures and businesses. In cases where this is too difficult or too dangerous then the Constitution should institute extreme taxation of all foreign and elite owned businesses, bank accounts and resources to accomplish state takeover at the lowest cost and minimal disruption.
2. Extreme tariffs on all products imported to or from non-aligned nations. Quotas on imports from friendly nations to protect local businesses.
3. Extensive long term programs for the relocation of urban people to rural areas for production and for defense.
4. Education for solidarity and revolutionary economics, society and consciousness. 5. (to be continued and updated)
Part III. Overview of the Struggle and a New Agrarian Based Socialist Economics
In The MER Solidarity Model there is a market economy but the government at all levels – directed by the people’s budget prioritizations – intervenes in the market to create sufficient basic goods and to satisfy basic needs within sustainability guidelines. ( LINKS…)
A Typical Program for The Revolutionary Takeover of a Country like Bolivia or Ecuador or Peru
III.I. The Short Transition Period (First 3-5 Weeks of a Takeover) :
Immediate Priorities (Go-Slow Option)
The development path for Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru is quite similar. The poor and their allies must seize most of the land and all valuable industries, assets and bank accounts. The first thing that a new government does is to seize the banks (including the Central Bank), institute currency controls, and seal its borders to prevent capital or equipment flight. We assume that the armed forces and the police remain loyal to the people and all suspect individuals and units would be demobilized or jailed.
Security and law and order are the next responsibilities. Soldiers and police not required for protection of vital installations should be assigned to neighborhood or regional assemblies to be deployed as requested by these local authorities (worker-soldier alliance). Lists of critical jobs should be drawn up by the assemblies and the positions necessary are filled. Garbage collection, water supply, electricity (rationed), and emergency medical needs are at the top with sewage disposal and heating or cooling next. The central government's primary role other than security is to seize all food supplies and critical parts (equipment) and to distribute it fairly according to need and circumstances (weather, poverty and breakdowns). The government (local, regional and national) should also distribute transport vehicles and fuel supplies as best it can.
III.II. Phase II of Transition Period (First 3 months) :
Beginning the Orientation to Long-Run Priorities (The "Go-Slow" Option)
The primary requirements during the first months of a popular uprising are to further develop and secure the neighborhood and regional assembly operations, effectiveness and organization; to prioritize productive factors (money, skills, workers and material) for long run production of basic goods; and the planning for the inputs and related needs to secure the factors required to produce: Food, electricity, transport services, housing, health care, communications, environmental/sanitation and water.
III.III. ECONOMIC POLICIES: "Go Slow" Option
1. Credit and Currency Controls. All debts subject to cancellation.
2. Public Land given to organizations and sustainable farming coops.
3. Modest Credit programs for key sectors of the economy.
4. Increased property and income taxes on corporations, the rich and idle lands.
5. Partial decentralization of administration, armed forces and large state enterprises.
6. Increased minimum wages and health clinic access.
7. Regional Employment Programs in agriculture, land improvements, transportation and import substitution enterprises (public and private).
8. Import Substitution (with subsidies, tariff protections and research priorities for local businesses) becomes the main industrial and cooperative sector focus, with attention to interconnections (linkages and input factors).
9. Modest re-nationalization of progressively smaller foreign and then domestic monopolies, oligarchies and concentrations of ownership.
10. Encourage South American Countries (or all countries) to abrogate the UN drug treaty and launch new legalization and crop substitution programs.
11. Direct the national and regional universities and trade schools to study and compliment research in organic farming, solidarity enterprises, import substitution and ways to assist other countries (Cuba, Bolivia etc... )
12. Limit News Media ownership and require more PSAs (public or educational) and programming by organizations representing poor people and minorities. Institute high fines for lies and media misinformation ...
III.IV. Phase III - of The "Go Slow" Option
1. All of Part II, but more and faster...
2. Subsidize linkages that support import substitution enterprises managed by workers collectively or through cooperatives. Extend these programs both locally, regionally and beyond the country with friendly regimes.
3. Military construction projects: schools, hospitals, sanitation, water, market places, environmental restoration and infrastructure. Creation of a civil militia and dual purpose roles for military units.
4. Links across borders and funding for a variety of rural development approaches. Eco and activista tourism, aid programs and fair trade networking (high valued crops and crafts).
5. Government purchases of lands and increased confiscations.
6. Increase taxes on medium size farms and some on small farms that are profitable.
7. Limits tightened on land ownership. Require divestment (break up) of business conglomerates.
8. Re-location projects to rural areas for urban people. Grant urban land titles and increase urban and near-urban land and business confiscations and purchases.
9. Education for Solidarity at all levels of society.
10. Establish regionally owned and locally operated retail food stores to sell stable goods at subsidized prices in poor neighborhoods and rural areas. Community cafeterias and Free Stores (for rationed clothing, toys, household products) established as possible.
11. TACTICS of Strategic Effect: High and progressively increased corporate Taxation can be used to Bankrupt FOREIGN OR ELITE factories and other business interests. Use the governmental powers of condemnation and the justification of the public's goods/benefits... Can also use buyouts with low fixed exchange rates (an low interest) payments - and then devalue the currency a lot. - Or just simply nationalize and promise to pay... or not...
Part IV. The Crisis Program :
The Fast or Crisis Transitional Economic Program
In this scenario communities in all regions will be forced to hold clandestine or rushed meetings of Popular Assemblies to form political cadres and self defense arrangements. Hopefully, the majority of people in many nations by this time will have seen and embraced the connection of all struggles for sovereignty, autonomy, resistance, food security and radical restructuring of all aspects of all countries. This consciousness will empower people knowing that their struggle is one of many and an important part of a continental struggle whose success will sustain and re-enforce their efforts and eventual triumph. This must be a triumph of participation and decentralization in the struggle for national self-reliance, national self-determination and in the re-construction of humane societies.
Significant damage may be done to valuable infrastructure such as businesses and institutions that were seen as supporters of the former corrupt regime: public service utilities like water, power, education, mass transit or telephone (general communications) that had been privatized or run corruptly. Foreign corporations, banks and local partners of large foreign corporations may also be targeted. Large landowners will be ruthlessly driven from their vast properties and genetically altered seed and chemical suppliers may well be destroyed. Media broadcast facilities are often ransacked and export facilities (ports) are sure to be looted or damaged.
Spokespersons from many popular assemblies, unions and the military must be ready to step forward to call a national strike, road blockades and a date for a Constitutional Convention. When all regions and forces accept this framework, then the strikes and blockades can end as needed.
IV. II. Crisis Policies
Implement all of the Slow Program policies quickly, over the course of a few months. Get rid of US dollars (Yankee $ Power) and the previous currency. End trade with those aligned with the US. Fire most of the upper level military. Put half of the military to work like in Venezuela' Plan Bolivar and welcome Cuban, Venezuelan and international aid workers (doctors, engineers, advisers).
Everywhere people will denounce the US and demand leaders like Hugo Chavez and public policies that redistribute power to the people, land to the poor and dignity for all. Nationalize, and then localize a people's democratic news and entertainment media network to educate and inform the people and to spread the message of resistance to the imperialists. Ban all advertising for money and replace with consumer reports and tests of products. Ration the broadcast time for statements from political campaigns and significant groups.
IV. III. For the Preservation of Domestic Security and Self Defense (originally written for Venezuela but applicable everywhere):
1. Restrict travel by the wealthy of your country (Venezuelans and others) and require background checks of US, Colombian and Haitian citizens entering Venezuela (or other aligned places).
2.Maintain strict currency controls and broaden investigations of tax paying compliance by US and opposition connected businesses and organizations.
3. Expose the connections between the Cisneros clan (or your local and national elite), the AUC/Colombian elite, the Miami-Cuban CIA mafia and Spanish rightwing drug dealers (and US, Spanish and Mexican Banks!)
4. Phase out US Embassies, all US government operations, most US NGOs and all US corporations and other related associations.
5. Accept only Euro currency for oil and other exports (until a regional currency is adopted). Institute surcharges on all US ships, airplanes and US exports and imports. Venezuela Econ Policies
6. Stop oil and other exports to US client regimes in the region: Colombia, Dominican Republic, Aruba, Curacao (Israel).
7. Sell national assets that are outside of your country (CITIGO in Venezuela's case). Assist Bolivia and other friendly countries with their energy projects and operations. Start palm oil (bio-diesel) plantations and processing facilities in regions with few energy sources.
8. Place high tariffs on all luxury goods.
9. Slow down, shut down and sell businesses or properties owned outside of your country (CITGO in Venezuela's case).
10. Demand that the US pull out of military agreements in your country (weapons, training, drug war) and in the region (Aruba – Curacao near Venezuela, Manta in Ecuador, Iquitos in Peru). Make OAS demand that the US obey international law, treaties and withdraw its fleet from near the coasts of Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru - Or else an oil and trade embargo will be enforced !
Part V. Other Examples of Demands and the Issues involved in Revolutionary
revolucionarias
Homepage:
http://zorpia.com/venezuela1