Summary: Often progressive and liberal political ideology and practice, the aims of which overlap considerably with my own, comes across as opportunistic and shallow, lacking both wholeness and depth. And this morning I've been introduced to Rabbi Lerner and the magazine of spiritual activism, Tikkun. The material in this entry will be extracts from the Core Vision of Tikkun.

After you read the material below try to imagine someone who subscribes to the Tikkun ethos saying, "My corporate charter made me do it!" The socially and spiritually enlightened could not, in good conscience or with intact spirit, make decisions and seek goals that are clearly psychopathic. Nor would they, particularly given the lessons of corporate history (e.g., English and Dutch corporate entities which excused, permitted and allowed inexcuseable acts in the name of profit), in good conscience enable a governmental licensing process which creates and empowers corporate entities.

"We affirm the obligation to actively resit injustice and refuse to take part in it even when we can't prove that our resistance will produce change. In solidarity with the oppressed, we wish to see the democratization of economic and political institutions and a redistribution of wealth so that all people can share equally and sustainably in the benefits of the planet. We hope to have the courage -- in the traditon of the Jewish prophets and interpreters of Torah, In the spirit of Jesus and the early Christian communities of resistance to Rome, in the spirit of Muhammed, in the spirit of the activists of the labor & civil rights and feminist and gay rights movement -- to speak truth to power. "

"At the same time, we will challenge the lack of a spiritual dimension in the agendas of our allies in the progressive social change movements. That gap has allowed the Right to prsesent itself as the force that cares about spiritual issues. And the Left's failure to address spirituality has led many to believe their hunger for a larger framework of meaning and and purpose must be separated from their involvement with social transformation."

"Social change activity gets focused on a narrow political agenda that lacks the depth that can inspire sustained commitment or nourishing involvement. Imagine an international group of people who would see themselves as allies to each other in advancing this way of thinking, people who are unashamedly utopian and willing to fight for their highest ideals, yet unashamedly humble in knowing that we don't know all that we need to know to do the healing that needs to be done."

"Imagine that this group would help each other in our individual as well as group activities, affirming what is good and brainstorming with us about how to create a movement that gives equal priority to our inner llives and to social justice, that takes loving and caring as serious goals for social healing, and that rejects the utilitarian and materialistic assumptions of the contemporary world and actively forstgers awe and wonder in its participants. Imagine that you could be part of creating that."

"You can--by helping us create the TIKKUN Community. The TIKKUN Community starts from this fundamental recognition: The sources of external injustice, suffering, and ecological numbness are to be found not only in economic and political arrangements, but also in our alienation from one another, in our inability to experience and recognize ourselves and each other as holy, in our inability to respond to the call of the universe which bids us to deeper levels of consciousness and love, and in our inability to overcome our own egos and see ourselves as par of the Unity of All Being."

"We need a spiritual consciousness along with a political consciousness if we are to heal and transform the world. Some of us in the TIKKUN community are atheists or secularists, some of us belong to traditional religious communities, some of us are just beginning to work out our relationship to Spirit. But all of us understand that we need a movement that can address spiritual needs."

"It is our contention that social change and inner change go hand in hand. We are building a movement in which we can talk about love and caring for each other -- and this is the only way we can overcome the old left/right dichotomies and dead policy debates that fill academic journals, leftie magazines, the insipid television confrontations between shouting talking heads, the vacuity of so many of the speeches at leftie anti-war demonstrations, and the rhetoric of elected officials. For too long these predictable slogans and divisions have paralyzed American politics and made most of us feel like withdrawing into a purely personal life. At this moment, we are particularly excited by and supportive of the upsurge of social justice activism aimed both at promoting environmental sanity and at challenging the destructive impact of globalilzation. But we hope to play a role in deepening those and other social change movements to integrate into their core the kind of spiritual awareness that can make it possible for them to reach a much wider audience and thus be able to actually achieve their social justice goals."

Summary:  Corporations are not accidentally amoral. It's a pathology built into their structure.
Notes From an audio recording of an Interview of Joel Bakan (Professor of Law at UBC , author of Corporations: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power ) , other notes taken from a thesis written by one of Prof Bakan's students.

Corporations are institutions which are, by reason of their structure and the laws associated with their structure,  constrained to operate always and only for the benefit of the corporation. The corporate structure appears toc orrupt people who are under other circumstances 'good'. This corruption leads corporations into bad citizenship. Thus, it is argued, governments must oversee and constrain the corporations; this need was understood when corporations were first created in N. America in the vary late years of 18th century. They were not allowed to grow beyond a certain size or  to own other corporations and their capitalization was limited)
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What is built into ALL corporate charters, into corporate law, even, is that they are to operate always and only for the benefit of the corporation and its shareholders. This corrupting influence must be countered by the terms underwhich it is supervised and chartered by the state. Otherwise, and as is the present case, particularly in large, transnational corporations the result is a form of psychotic behavior.

• Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful and ethical behaviors. (Often this is associated with making others pay their expenses. Examples of exporting expenses: exporting jobs to malaysia where workers get 10 cents an hour, failing to do proper environmental cleanup and polluting land that is not in the corporations portfolio.
  



• Reckless disreregard for safety of others
  



• Deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning others for profit
  



• Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships



• Callous unconcern for the feelings of others



• Incapacity to experience guilt



• Thus: diagnosis of personality disorder = psychopath (World Health Organization 1CD-10, Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV)
  

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In Taking Charge--Corporate Charter Revocation in Canada Read Gil Yaron's careful analysis of the charter revocation strategy. (His Masters Thesis is here and a summary is here).

Excerpts(emboldening is mine, SPH):

"All corporations were once considered public institutions. The act of incorporation was a privelege (not a right) granted for a specific purpose, such as building a bridge or running a ferry. Corporations had a limited amount of capital and a finite existence. Corporations were fully liable for their actions. And where a corporation acted against the public interest or abused its charter, it could have the charter revoked. The power of the state (and in some cases, of citizens) to revoke the charter of a corporation reminds us that the corporation is not an end in itself, but rather an institution created by citizens for citizens." [p 2 of summary]

"More recently, the [sigma] Attorney General of New Yoyrk State, Dennis Vacco, initiated proceedings to revoke the charters of two tobacco lobby organizations, the Tobacoo Institute and the Council for Tobacco Research, on the grounds that they (1) obtained their charters through fraudulent misrepresentation and concealment of material facts; (2) transacted their business in a persistently fraudulent or illegal manner; and (3) exceeded the authority conferred upon them by law and abused their powers in a manner contrar to the public policy of the State. Citing numerous decisions in support of revocation where there was demonstrated a "grave, substantial and continuing abuse, involving a public rather than a private right, Crane J. of the New York State Supreme Court on October 21 1998, appointed receivers for both groups, ordered each group to file a $500,000 bond and provide a statement of assets and liabilitiess, names and creditors and claimants and all other information relevant to dissolution procedings. [pp 3-4 of summary]

"Despite its profound implications, corporate charter revocation is admittedly not a compete response to tghe issue of corporate power and influence in today's society. Corporate charter recocation does not challenge the legitimacy of the corporation itself to make decisions without input from affected individuals and communities. Corporate charter revocation does not answer this systemic imbalance within our society, but merely provides one remedy to challenge the worst cases of corporate crime and to place some meaningful deterrents on corporate behavior. [pp 5-6 of summary]

On the whole, he found, that very much still needs to be done to establish substantial precedent for charter revocation. In the US only in the case cited was this measure successful. Five other compelling cases died on or near some state Attorney General's desk.

The author suggests that attempts to build a base of precedents should not focus on transnational companies (Union Oil, in California, Weyerhauser in Washington and both involving industries with tarnished public images)and should focus on issues that are of clear concern to the state, in particular, to the Attorney General of the state where wrongs have been done. In sum, the author noted the need to focus at first on small, local institutions with minimal community presence in order to ensure minimal political fallout. What is ultimately required is that "those seeking to bring such petitions broaden their strategies [sigma] [to consider, in addition to the wrongs done] the social and political context in which the corporation operates"(p 142 of the full thesis).

Summary: Mark Twain long ago tweaked that which should be tweaked again. Our blindness to our own hypocrisy. That is, because we do not apply our critical facilities enough -it is, after all, rather inconvenient to do so--we escape the inconvenient reminder of our own tendency to lie, lie and then lie some more. In order to come to this disturbing awareness we have to distinguish between the verbal lie, "I did not chop down the cherry tree", which would have been Washington's untruth, had he told it, and the "lie" of silent assertion.

 [Mark Twain is writing here. In the paragraphs immediately preceding these he points out the difference between the verbal lie and the silent lie. He continues.] "...If they arrived at that truth it probably grieved them--did, if they had been heedlessly and ignorantly educated by their books and teachers; for why should a person grieve over a thing which by the eternal law of his make he cannot help?  He didn't invent the law; it is merely his business to obey it and keep still; join the universal conspiracy and keep so still that he shall deceive his fellow-conspirators into imagining that he doesn't know that the law exists.  It is what we all do--we that know.  I am speaking of the lie of silent assertion; we can tell it without saying a word, and we all do it--we that know.  In the magnitude of its territorial spread it is one of the most majestic lies that the civilizations make it their sacred and anxious care to guard and watch and propagate.

    For instance.  It would not be possible for a humane and intelligent person to invent a rational excuse for slavery; yet you will remember that in the early days of the emancipation agitation in the North the agitators got but small help or countenance from any one.  Argue and plead and pray as they might, they could not break the universal stillness that reigned, from pulpit and press all the way down to the bottom of society--the clammy stillness created and maintained by the lie of silent assertion--the silent assertion that there wasn't anything going on in which humane and intelligent people were interested.

    From the beginning of the Dreyfus case to the end of it all France, except a couple of dozen moral paladins, lay under the smother of the silent-assertion lie that no wrong was being done to a persecuted and unoffending man.  The like smother was over England lately, a good half of the population silently letting on that they were not aware that Mr. Chamberlain was trying to manufacture a war in South Africa and was willing to pay fancy prices for the materials.

    Now there we have instances of three prominent ostensible civilizations working the silent-assertion lie.  Could one find other instances in the three countries?  I think so.  Not so very many perhaps, but say a billion--just so as to keep within bounds.  Are those countries working that kind of lie, day in and day out, in thousands and thousands of varieties, without ever resting?  Yes, we know that to be true.  The universal conspiracy of the silent-assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or a sham, never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable.  Is it the most timid and shabby of all lies?  It seems to have the look of it.  For ages and ages it has mutely laboured in the interest of despotisms and aristocracies and chattel slaveries, and military slaveries, and religious slaveries, and has kept them alive; keeps them alive yet, here and there and yonder, all about the globe; and will go on keeping them alive until the silent-assertion lie retires from business--the silent assertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop [emboldening,  and other tweaking, is mine, SPH].

    What I am arriving at is this: When whole races and peoples conspire to propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals?  Why should we try to make it appear that abstention from lying is a virtue? Why should we want to beguile ourselves in that way?  Why should we without shame help the nation lie, and then be ashamed to do a little lying on our own account?  Why shouldn't we be honest and honourable, and lie every time we get a chance?  That is to say, why shouldn't we be consistent, and either lie all the time or not at all?  Why should we help the nation lie the whole day long and then object to telling one little individual private lie in our own interest to go to bed on?  Just for the refreshment of it, I mean, and to take the rancid taste out of our mouth.

["My First Lie and How I Got Out of It", in Twain's Short Stories Vol 2via  EcoPundit ]

When we acquiesce, via a squinting of the eyes or a well-timed turning of the head , to avoid seeing that which is clearly true, we are lying via silent assertion. We do this to avoid the consequence of not squinting or turning our heads or dodging in other ways; the consequence is that we would have to take some level of risk and assert ourselves. In the tale of the Emperor's New Clothes the child, out of naivete' rather than by reason of moral certitude and some degree of bravery, asserts that which all are studiously ignoring, the Emperor has been hoodwinked and is not in fact wearing new clothes. All the others there present were lying by silent assertion (smiling, say) or by exclamation (Oh, la la!!) over the nonexistent clothes.

As Twain pointed out, we do it all the time. We did it in the 19th and 20th centuries and we do it now. We avoid asserting ourselves because we would then be taking a risk, perhaps a significant risk. A case very much in point, and somewhat parallel, is the President Bush' assertion that, in effect, there is no global warming [it's an alarmist's fantasy]. Those of us who do not counter now and counter powerfully, are silently saying that which we KNOW to be false after any sort of consideration of fact, evidence and argument. Some of us stand to benefit greatly by credentialing this lie with our silence (e.g., oil companies, auto companies) others look the other way because to do otherwise would not only be "disrespectful" or "impolite"[the acceptable excuse] but would be taking a risk [the more
likely excuse].

For something closer to the truth than our silent assertion lie (sometimes referred to as denial), way closer to the evidence we have in hand,  read Dave Pollard's recent projections about 2045 at How To Save The World   . Excerpts of his entry are below.

• "Between now and 2045 the price of oil will whipsaw... we're in for a veryrocky ride. We will learn to conserve, ration, find other ways, some healthy and some (burning coal, wood and nuclear) not, to get energy,and we'll get used to long line-ups followed by brief periods ofsurplus, and regular, lengthy blackouts.
  
• The immediate consequences of this instability will be: (a)more political and military intervention by the West to try to control supply and hence prices; (b) the end of low interest rates and lowinflation rates, as the oil price jumps trickle down through everythingwe consume that depends on oil, from food to cars to plastics tofabrics, but again, we'll see these rates whipsaw, and speculating andhedging the sudden up-and-down changes will become a Western obsession;(c) the demise of the US dollar as the dominant currency in favour of amuch more stable combo of the Euro and the proposed new all-Asiancurrency unit, and the subsequent slow but steady decline in the valueof the US dollar; (d) a global economic depression, as living beyondour means catches up to us -- the US and its main suppliers, China andCanada, and suburbs in urban agglomerations worldwide, will be thehardest hit; (e) a crash in stock markets and in Western housingprices, followed by a flood of money from third-world corporations andtheir richest citizens to buy up Western property at fire-sale prices,and then a prohibition on ownership of property by non-residents.
  
• By 2045, in the face of this economic tumult, we'll have a New New Deal...people will be working together at both a community and a national and international level to rebuild the economy. Unfortunately, short-term expediency will again dominate ... it will be just one more horrific year for the environment.
  
• In 2045 the global footprint, the amount of resources usedby humans as a percent of the planet's ability to regenerate them, willbe about the same as it had been a decade earlier, about 300% (today it is 120%).
  
• Famine will have hit in several areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America,...Part of the New New Deal will be the prohibition of using land for animal feed or grazing, and scientists will have already comeup with vegetable-based proteins to substitute for animal proteins[...]
  
• The loss of almost all Earth's forests, much of it for theburning of wood for fuel, will have accelerated global warming and made weather enormously unpredictable. ...
  
• The first great fresh-water shortages will have hit by2045, following three consecutive very hot years, and fresh water will be rationed. Use of fresh water for non-essential purposes likewatering lawns will be a criminal offense. But although the rationing will hit some industries especially hard, just as the New New Deal was starting to work, the shortage will not be life-threatening.
• The big corporations of 2005 will mostly still be around in 2045, but mostly by default: Their stranglehold on the economy will have stifled innovation and entrepreneurship through most of the intervening 40 years, until they too fell victim to the Great Depression of the 2030s. [...] The fight over 'squatter's rights' to idle corporate assets still rages in the courts.
• Nuclear weapons were first deployed in 2015 in a warbetween India and Pakistan, which then exploded into a regional warencompassing the Mideast and seeing the limited use of new nuclearweapons by the US to protect its strategic political and economicinterests there. Since that time they have been used again by the US inwars in Venezuela, Libya, Congo and Indonesia, all ostensibly forpeace-keeping purposes.
• The United Nations continues to meet in its new headquarters in Brussels, but since the US withdrew in 2010, its power and authority has been greatly diminished.
  
• Terrorists from 35 different countries have made attacks on other countries, in addition to the never-ending cycles of civil warthat continue to plague most of the third world. Terrorists attempted to use nuclear weapons on several occasions, but only once (in Indonesia) successfully. International terrorist organizations nowprefer to use biological weapons, which require much less money and no state sanction to develop, and which have successfully been used inattacks on dozens of countries. ...

Can we find the gumption, the deep humanity,  to create the foundation for a future less bleak?

Summary: Thanks to Ari Berman of The Nation for pointing to Yale's Environmental Sustainability Ratings for 146 Countries (part of Yale's Environmental Performance Measurement Project). He notes:

"Out of 146 countries, the US ranks 45th in environmental sustainability, sandwiched between Armenia and Myanmar, and behind such nations as Botswana (34), Bhutan (39), Congo (39) and even Russia (33), that bastion of eco-consciousness. The findings, part of a join project by Yale and Columbia Universities, are based on myriad factors, including air and water quality, biodiversity, acid rain, overfishing and environmental cooperation with neighbors. While the US does surpass Israel (62) and Great Britain (66), lagging twenty spots behind the Central African Republic (25) should be cause for alarm."

I wasn't sure what to make of Mr. Berman's criticism. I needed to confirm that the US had earned the criticism from this reference point, with this instrument. (Quite different from using this publication as an excuse to criticize a country one is convinced [by other means] is guilty. Second, if true, I wanted to know if results allowed constructive action. For these reasons, I decided to dig into the report itself. Here is the introduction:

The Environmental Performance Measurement Projectaims to shift environmental decision-making to firmer analytic foundations using environmental indicators and statistics. In collaboration with the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University, and the World Economic Forum, the project produces a periodically updated Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI). The ESI is a composite index tracking a diverse set of socioeconomic, environmental, and institutional indicators that characterize and influence environmental sustainability at the national scale. An Environmental Performance Index focusing on assessing key environmental policy outcomes using trend analysis and performance targets is under development.

• More information on earlier versions of the ESI
• More information on the Yale Environmental Performance Measurement initiative
• More information on the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Poli

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The Country Profiles are in one of the appendices (click here for the full pdf file.).

What can be estimated from the scores and subscores is the degree there should be concern and, ultimately, corrective action. High ranking and high score - lesser concern. Subscores for each country allow determination of which parts of public and corporate action should be emphasized in order to achieve or maintain both a working and healthy relationship with the natural environment. Variables have been defined and developed so that they can guide intranational efforts at enhancement. Inter-national comparisons are possible because of the neutrality and precision of the terms and how they must be assessed. These variables can guide efforts to fix systems and processes that are broken. In the words of the full report,

"In seeking to provide a policy-relevant gauge of national environmental conditions and their likely trajectory over the next several decades the ESI centers on the state of environmental systems, both natural and managed. It also measures stresses on those systems, including natural resource depletion and pollution rates, becaause the magnitude of such stsresses serve as a useful indicator of the pressure on the underlying systems. The ESI further measures impacts and responses and human vulnerability to environmental change. In addition, the ESI tracks a society's capacity to cope with environmental stresses and each country's contribution to global stewardship."(from

These five measures, which together are a consolidated representation of the 76 variables , are :

1. The Environmental Systems Themselves (--an estimation of strength of environmental subsystems themselves, i.e.,air quality, biodiversity, land, water quality and water quantity-- this is therefore not a responsibility so much as a measure of what there is to protect or "how much is left in the tank")
.
2. Efforts to Reduce Environmental Stresses (air pollution, stresses on ecosystems, stresses caused by population and its by products, pressures caused by waste disposal and the production activities--(e.g.,land tillage-->run-off) water stress and natural resource management]
3. Reducing Human Vulnerability to Environmental Pressures (i.e.,toxic environments, food production and water needs,and reduction of environmentally related natural disaster vulnerability)
4. Work with Social and Institutional Capacities [Environmental Governance, Eco-Efficiency,Private Sector Responsiveness and Ecologically Appropriate Science and Technology]
5. Global Stewardship [Acting as an international collaborator on issues, examples being greenhouse gas (e.g.,carbon dioxide) emissions and the reduction of transboundary environmental pressures (e.g., export of sulfur dioxide-->acid rain), which must be dealt with by several nations, jointly.




I've selected seven nations more or less randomly from among wealthy country profiles (top quintile of all nations, having more than $14,000 per year per person). (Mexico is the sole exception). I've attached the provided country profiles and a few comments for each.

• Canada's natural resources show themselves to be in excellent shape as do its actions to reduce human vulnerability and maintain/develop social and institutional capacity. Like the US , below, it shows itself to be weaker when it comes to actually reducing stresses or participating in interational efforts to do so.
  
• 
  Like Canada and the US Iceland shows creditable strength in the areas of environmental systems, reduction of human vulnerability and social and institutional capacity building/maintenance. It's participation in international preservation efforts and accords are to its great credit (and probably provides strong, indirect, evidence of what can't be done when major industrial sector's perceive a threat to profitability.).
• Like Iceland Japan has given strong leadership and support for global stewardship. It has done relatively little to reduce actual environmentalo stresses but shows strength in reduction of human vulnerability and great strength when it comes to social systems and capacity building. It's resource strengths are relatively low, evidence of the literally thousands of years of civilized occupation of the island masses which constitute the environment of Japan.
  
• Mexico is not amongst the richest nations. Its GDP per capita is just above halfthe lowest GDP/capita of the richest quintile of nations. Note that, if it is compared to it's fellow quintile members it is only slightly less than average. Not an excuse for inertia-- but it helps level the playing field when making comparisons. Mexico's strength is its efforts to reduce human vulnerability to environmental catastrophe.
  
• Like Finland and Sweden, Iceland as well, the sustainability index profile of Norway is exemplary. It appears that natural resource strengths of Artic Circle countries (which also include the more geographically complex United States[ via Alaska], Canada, and Russia) remain strong, in part, because population pressures have never been high enough to significantly emptly ecological stocks. Amongst the Artic Circle countries, however, Finland is tops overall, particularly because of its strong efforts to reduce actual ecological stresses.
  
• The Netherlands are near the US in ranking, slightly higher (41), in fact. Where the US has better ecological stocks and has been more effective in reducing ecological stresses, it cannot compete with the Global Stewardship efforts of The Netherlands.
  
• In my citizen-stakeholder view, the US must do better; it starts with strong set of natural systems and has creditable subsystems for Reducing Human Vulnerability and Social and Institutional Capacity work, but has shown itself to be weak in both Reducing [Actual] Environmental Stress and in Global Stewardship (i.e., international collaboration on ecological protection/repair ). President Bush's resistance to international accords is an obvious example of insufficient participation. (It has been argued in other venues* that the US owes considerable (i.e.,both enthusiastic and above average amount , not the lackluster level shown here) support to world ecosystem repair. This obligation follows from its continuing immoderate and inadequately compensated depletion of the resources of world countries.)
  
• *This report, as much as I've reviewed of it, has been scrupulously neutral. In other words, a well crafted analysis of that which all agree are important variables will allow the action-oriented planner, activist or politician to interpret for her- or himself Draft 2: 2/1/2005

Summary: I give you some notes from Sam Keen. He documents suspicions that our current spirituality moves, generated,,as they are,by Occidental, high income, high tech, high consumption cultures are essentially empty and self-absorbed. He concludes, as you will see, that we will enjoy the life of the spirit to the extent that we compassionately embrace the needs and concerns and future of those outside of our present "in group" [Notes about what to do in the Keen entry to follow :o] ]

---

• The Quest for Justice: Part I
  [also published under the Title:The Place for Justice in our lives as Christians]
  
  

  Sam Keen has lectured and studied and consulted on issues having to do with spirituality. The article summarized here traces his movement toward a spirituality rooted in three forms of justice: political, economic and ecological. This entry summarizes his reasons for being concerned about spirit's relationship with justice in the first place. The next entry will list and discuss his recommendations.

  He holds two M.A.s in theology from Harvard and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton. His books include Learning to Fly, Fire in the Belly and Hymns to an Unknown God (all Bantam Doubleday Dell). He works his tiny ranch in Sonoma, California, where he exercises on the flying trapeze installed by the creek next to his study

  • A Puzzling Void

    [I made the] simple observation that amid all the offerings on holistic living, healing, meditation, awareness, opening the heart, oneness, knowing God, sacred bodywork, etc., there was not one reference to justice. [Yet] if we step back into the Greek tradition from which we got many of our ethical and political ideals, we find that the quest for justice was considered the controlling virtue for both the individual and the state. [In Aristotle's way of thinking ] "all virtue is summed up in dealing justly." [In the Judeo-Christian tradition[sigma]] the best summary of what God requires of us is "to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God."

  • Spirit and Justice Revisited

    My hunch [---]is that something is askew in the current spirituality movement. To be concerned with spirituality but ignore the quest for justice is as much a contradiction as "compassionate egotism" . Spirituality centered on cultivating a sense of personal well-being is an example of what the existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre called "bad faith". All major religious traditions distinguish between the sacred and the profane, between the sacrocentric and egocentric visions of self and world. "Ego" and "spirit" are flags signifying radically different principles of identity and loyalty.[sigma]To be egocentric is to be motivated by fear and desire and therefore prey to illusion. [ to be 'sacrocentric' or to have a] spiritual orientation involves process and practice, of transcending the isolation and illusion of being a separate entity.

  • Beyond The Ego

    To explore the spiritual dimension is to move from [---][sigma] self-absorption to identifying with others through the imagination which leads [by progressive steps] to compassion. [By these means we discover that] we are all in this transient, suffering world together! Likewise [we can understand] the Golden Rule not as a commandment to love others but as a description of what happens when we discover that I and thou are inseparable.

    As we become social selves, we develop an ego that internalizes the world view, values and loyalties of our tribe, nation, and culture. The normal, egocentric citizen is ruled by a conscience based on the duty to care for members of the in-group. We are taught to love our kin and kindred, and learn [sigma] "before we are six or seven or eight, to hate all the people our relatives hate.".

    By contrast, the spiritual quest carries us beyond normality, ego, and tribal identity into a universal commonwealth. While [egocentric] citizens dwell [within a tightly bounded community of several layers], spirited men and women are moved by [sigma] a "transmoral conscience" [Paul Tillich] to expand the circle of communion to include outsiders, strangers, and enemies.

    Spirituality [if 'real' as opposed to what we now recognize as dressed up narcissism] should make us more radical, not more conformist, critics of our society rather than blind patriots. Spirited men and women are cosmopolitans, citizens of both the polis and the cosmos. The spiritual life leads equally to sympathy and to a disposition to act to lessen the suffering of others.

    Faith without works is dead. Compassion without a concern for justice remains a vague sentiment without consequence for the neighbor. The quest for radical [full, deep?] justice goes beyond the civic virtue we owe our neighbors. It is not satisfied by mere fairness or the obligation to share a minimum of wealth and power [just enough sharing to minimize the likelihood that the 'other' will not take the trouble to strike us or try to take what we hold to be ours]. [True spirituality] demands that we work toward the possibility of fulfillment and a harmonious life for neighbors and distant strangers.

  • Compassion in Action

    For compassion to [actually have effect] it must [be exercised powerfully, not just expressed as a private sentiment]. Spirited action requires an alliance of love, power, and justice. As Paul Tillich said, in both interpersonal and political relationships, love, power and justice are inseparable. Without love, power becomes tyrannical and justice is only a name for the rule of [the] strong. Without power, love is reduced to sentimentality and justice to an impotent ideal. Without justice, love is a perverse dance of domination and submission. [---]Compassion-seeking justice is compelled to battle the sources of injustice = the psychological predisposition to greed, indifference, lust for power, the myopic economic ideology that ignores everything but the bottom line, and the corruption of government by the few for the few.[---and therefore] I believe the central vocation that will define authentic spirituality in the 21st century will be a new quest for justice.

Summary: Dave Pollard' s interested in How to Save the World (also the name of his weblog). His arguments and suggestions are very much worth your time.

He just wrote, for example, a marvelously focused essay (see bottom of page) on the necessity for containment of corporate consciousness and action. In it he concludes:

It must be stopped. Americans must start working together to use the only resources that haven't already largely slipped from their control -- their votes and their dollars -- to stop the coup and take back their country from rapacious corporations and their political handmaidens. To do this they must:

• Demand that political leaders support aggressive programs to end corporatism and undue political influence, including the elimination of corporate 'personhood' and other corporate 'rights', campaign finance reform, and the elimination of indemnity of corporate managers and directors from litigation for corporate misdeeds. This will be the most difficult change, since it literally requires politicians to bite the hand that feeds them.
• Demand that political leaders reform corporate taxation to prevent corporations from using offshore tax havens, strongly discourage them from eliminating or exporting jobs, and penalize them for environmental destruction and wasteful resource consumption.
• Demand that political leaders put a total moratorium on the sale to private interests of public lands, property and resource rights, on the basis that these public resources belong to the people.
• Demand that political leaders revoke 'free trade' agreements, and replace them with statutes that strongly discourage international trade in goods and services that can be readily provided locally (even if they can be produced elsewhere cheaper), and strongly encourage international trade in goods and services that cannot be readily produced locally.
• Refuse to buy imported products when domestic products are, or should be, available, even when those imported products are cheaper in price.
• Refuse to support retailers that import the majority of their merchandise. Identify, publicize, and organize nationwide boycotts of the products and services of corporations that have eliminated valuable jobs (and hence lowered the quality of their products and customer service) or exported jobs to lower-cost countries.
• Support local businesses that employ people at reasonable salaries and show social and environmental responsibility for the community.
• Learn to take responsibility for their own employment by establishing new local businesses with high labour standards, and high social and environmental standards, which place a greater value on the well-being of their people and communities than on their profitability.

Politicians will only learn to behave responsibly when they are held to account by informed citizens, and forced to wean themselves off the patronage of corporate elites. Corporations will only learn to behave responsibly when they are stripped of legal and tax protections that encourage them to behave otherwise, and lose in the marketplace to businesses that put people and community welfare above profits.

Think his criticism is extravagant ? Perhaps biting the hand that feeds us all? Yes the changes would amount to a self-imposed revolution, but I'd like to think that Americans still have a sufficient mettle to choose and travel a difficult path to survival when the alternative is "the bottom".

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While you're at it you should look at his signature essay How to Save the World an ecological essay. After recommending detailed changes he concludes:

That is my prescription for saving the world. Before it can work we need to do [three] other things first:

We are hospital workers in the ER trying together against incredible odds to save a horribly ill patient. And we are doing so in tears.

Reading Mr. Pollard is an experience in righteous critical thought. Agree or disagree, all to the good. At the very least, it will be a tone-up and sort-out for several of your important thoughts and values. Gets fresh oxygen in areas of the brain-mind that may have been left alone for too long. (We should be able to explain and justify what we believe and do, right? )

Summary: High tech, high consumption countries (e.g., N America, Japan, Eurodollar countries via the UN) fund the Global Virtual University (aka 'closing the barn door after the horse got out').

At first glance: Wow! an educational program for third world, impoverished. 'developing' countries--using online instructional technologies. Great!.

On second thought, isn't it way late? University-trained harvest [natural resources --metals, minerals, lumber, shrimp, etc.] managers bringing planning and management concepts to control the removal of [whoops, oh yeah!] the last small fractions of what's left.

Some details below! (See the last paragraph for a hint or two about the ecological sequence motivating this action.)

In the meantime only the government leaders and a few rich have been benefiting from misappropriated resource payments. In the unlikely event that there had been an even-handed distribution of payments, the compensation would have been insignificant given the chain of loss ( ecology--> livelihood --> life) that has resulted from the ecology-be-damned harvest procedures that were applied.

GVU - Global Virtual University. Quote: "The Global Virtual University (GVU) is an online university for sustainable development, and has a particular objective to meet the educational needs of the developing world. The agreement to start the university was officially signed in September 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, where the Norwegian Government, the United Nations University (UNU) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) pledged their support and partnership." [Serious Instructional Technology]

Another Quote:Program Details-

The programme suggests a two-year study, covering 120 credit units according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) (corresponding to 40 "Norwegian credit units). It includes: 1) preparatory courses in (a) e-learning technologies, and (b) GIS - geographical information systems, common to all areas of specialisation (0 ECTS credit units), 2) core courses (common to all areas of specialisation) in environmental, developmental and managerial issues (30 ECTS credit units), 3) specialisation courses (30 ECTS credit units), (4) courses covering special interests (reading and conference electives) (7,5 ECTS credit units), 5) research methodology (15 ECTS credit units) and thesis seminar (7,5 credit units); and 6) masters thesis (30 credit units). It is proposed that the common, core courses will be attended by students from all areas of specialisation within the GEDS programme, whereas the other courses will be attended by students selecting one of the areas of specialisation.

True Rationale for GVU: Compensatory Window Dressing?

The GEDS programme recognises that many developing countries are poor despite an affluence of potential utilisable, natural resources. For different reasons, these countries have not managed to utilise their natural resources for a substantial development process. Instead, they experience increased poverty, social problems and environmental degradation.Also, on a global level, several interacting factors have combined to increase the pressure on the environment, such as population growth; over-exploitation and mismanagement of natural resources; environmental pollution; and warming of the global climate. There are also reasons to believe that these factors have contributed to many of the natural disasters witnessed during the last decades. This is especially unfortunate for many of the poorest countries, as they have shown to be most strongly exposed to these natural hazards.

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If you really want to dig in, read David Korten's commentary,"Development, Heresy, And The Ecological Revolution An open letter to the industrialized world". A large snippet follows:

Copernicus spoke a humbling truth regarding the insignificance of humanity's physical position among the stars - considered a heresy in its day and a threat to many cherished institutions. His act and the resulting change in perspective regarding man's place in the cosmos, deflating as it was of a long-standing human arrogance, liberated Western society from a number of debilitating intellectual and institutional constraints, ushered in the age of science, and led to human accomplishments that have exceeded even the most fanciful imaginings of the greatest thinkers of his day.

This was not, unfortunately, the end of our society's propensity toward a debilitating - and, in our present case, potentially fatal - arrogance. The highly evolved intelligence that produced the scientific revolution and made possible the industrial age has given our species a decided competitive advantage over other forms of life in the competition for ecological space on this planet. This success has been of such magnitude as to lead us once again into a trap of blinding arrogance - a belief that our technology makes us the masters of nature and places us beyond the reach of natural law.

We now face the need for a new revolution in our self-perception and institutions, an ecological revolution, with implications for human behavior and institutions that may be more profound than those that followed from the insights of Copernicus. While such a revolution will be certain to bring its own trauma, there is substantial prospect that it may also release a new era of progress as far beyond the current human imagination as the accomplishments of the modern era would be to those who lived in the Middle Ages. In the absence of such a revolution we will almost certainly remain locked onto our present course of social and ecological disintegration - the outcome of which may well make life in the Middle Ages look advanced.

Yet the countries likely to play the most influential roles in making the choices we currently face - the industrialized countries of the North - have committed the full weight of their political and economic resources to policies that seriously threaten the future of our planet and its people. These policies are built on three assumptions:

* Sustained economic growth is the key to human progress.

* Integration and globalization of the world economy is a key to growth and beneficial to all but a few narrow "special interests."

* International assistance and investment work to build strong economies in less fortunate nations and are important to the progress of their people, especially the poor.

Unfortunately, these assumptions turn reality on its head; they are the economic equivalent of maintaining that the sun revolves around the Earth, when all the contemporary evidence points to the contrary. Policies based on these assumptions are actively exacerbating poverty, environmental destruction, and the disintegration of the social fabric in nearly every country of the world. They are the antithesis of the policies required to support truly sustainable development.

See also:

Envirolink's material on Environmental Economics

This entry from Dr. Weevil in which GW is credited with ecological restoration in Iraq. Before you explode, or, for that matter, give GW a pat on the back, read the accompanying comments.

The results from a meta web search at ez2find. (search phrase= "ecological exploitation")

Some collected ecolinks, including Goldsmith (The Way).

As he pens a critique of Richard Dawkin's recent book, A Devil[base ']s Chaplain, Ian Glendinning brings fundamental concerns to the table. The issue his entry surfaces, for me, is the dangers of entitling rational thought to be the sole producer and sole arbitrer of 'truth'.

In attacking all things that retain any element of mystery, for whatever reason, Dawkins is being hyper-rational. Where mystery and misunderstanding is born of scientific ignorance, then Dawkins does his duty in pointing it out [...]. Where the mystery is emergent from objective complexity and uncertainty, and worse still, in combination with the uncertainties of social science, then I believe in suspending disbelief of folk knowledge, captured in those metaphors and aphorisms we actually live by.

Ian's reference is to George Lakoff's Metaphors We Live By ( which I will add to my reading list). I'd like to add some related propositions that were proferred by Edward Goldsmith in The Way.

Man is cognitively adjusted to the environment in which he evolved.

Fundamental knowledge is inherited [--which I take together to mean, among other things, that human brains are so constructed, as it were, to be knowledge-makers, collaborators, competitors in a natural, ecological world-- just as human brains are, in Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device, preconstructed to learn ANY human language].

And,

Fundamental knowledge is ineffable and we mainly have access to it by intuition. [Consequence? Big holes in the inventory of "ideas we can live by" department if we trust only that which our rational arbitrer and creator of ideas can crank out].

Much more to be said and thought -- but the stakes are very high. The following from the appendices of the Way:

Modernism: A set of tenets held be our present industrial cultures. [Among tenets named by Goldsmith:]

To maximize all benefits, and hence our welfare and our wealth, we must maximize [and therefore] venerate economic development. (xiii).

All benefits, and therefore our welfare and our real wealth, are derived from the man-made world; this means in effect, that they are the product of science, technology and industry, and of the economic development that made those possible. (xiii)

Reason Writes

Today marks the completion of my daughter Reason's 22 revolution around the Sun. Happy Birthday! She left for New York City this past June and now works for a biotech investment firm as an analyst. We miss her. This morning, I repost a sample of her writings. Reason Wilken writing on September 21, 2001 : In formulating an intelligent response to the terrorists, it is important for this nation to remain committed to a rational course of action and to not let anger cloud our judgement. While it is necessary to find and neutralize those responsible for the attacks on America, care must be taken to avoid the involvement of innocent citizens. How can America preach the importance of human life and then proceed to bomb civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan or wherever these terrorists hailed from? Even in this time of profound grief and anger, to do so would lower ourselves to the level of those kamakazi pilots. The synergic scientists whose work I am studying believe that you should, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." What is it that most of us want others to do unto us? Synergic scientists answer this question as follows: Help others as you would wish them to help you. If I was being angry and destructive, I would hope that others would help me by containing my dangerous behavior. I would hope they would prevent me from hurting others and myself. I think America must act with strength and resolve to contain the terrorists and eliminate their threat to all humanity. If we wish to act as a synergists, America must put away its anger. We must realize that with crisis always comes opportunity. Opportunity to grow, to become stronger and more resilient. As we watched citizens from all over the country come together with surprising fervor to donate blood, help and supplies, it became very clear that America will get through this. Instead of allowing these attacks to weaken our morale as they were intended to do, this crisis has only proven the strength of our patriotic spirit and united our citizens. We will not be a nation whose inhabitants live among rubble and go about their daily lives in fear. America must remain resolutely united against terrorist attacks, so that tenants of high-rise buildings will never be required to keep a parachute handy under their desks just in case. (10/03/02)

Welcome to America

Timothy Wilken writes: I find myself frustated with those immigrants who desire the benefits of living in America, but are unwilling to bother learning our language. If learning English is a burden that they refuse to shoulder, how much can we expect them to know about our American values, our history and culture? In a synergic society, all citizens work together. That means they must be able to communicate clearly with each other, and just as importantly understand each other.Working together requires a common language, common values and a working knowledge of our history. I expect a synergic society would be very open to immigration, but those immigrating would be required within a relatively short period to learn the language, take classes in society mores, values, and history, and pass exams to demonstrate they understand. Special schools could be created just for this purpose. This would have the additional benefit of giving community an opportunity to get to know and examine these prospective citizens. This educational process should be a helpful screen for terrorists. Any immigrant stopped in the public space could be required to show proof of currently enrollment in such a school and/or evidence of graduation from the same. (10/03/02)

The Benefit of Protecting Nature

New York Times: Science -- Yesterday's Times carried a photograph of 20 or so muscular, blue-capped swimmers jumping into the Hudson River just south of the George Washington Bridge, about to embark on a 7.8-mile race downriver to Chelsea. The photograph was notable not only for what it said about the adventurous swimmers but for what it said about the river itself. The Hudson is a river reborn. Thirty years ago it was little more than a sewer along its entire 350-mile length, from the Adirondacks to the Battery, choked with untreated municipal waste and industrial chemicals. Nobody in his right mind would have jumped into its waters, let alone swum 7.8 miles. Today it teems with life. Its fish populations are healthier than they've been in years, boating is booming, towns that once turned their backs on the river are clogged with tourists. The recovery of the river is also testimony to what political leadership and an active citizenry can do to restore the environment. On the political side of the ledger, two initiatives deserve major credit. One was Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's $1 billion Pure Waters Bond Act of 1965. The other was the federal Clean Water Act of 1972. Together they imposed stiff controls on municipal and industrial waste and underwrote waste treatment plants up and down the river. The 1960's and 70's also fostered the growth of a powerful environmental movement dedicated to saving the river. The movement's first victory was a memorable court decision blocking Con Edison from building a hydroelectric plant on Storm King Mountain, just south of Newburgh. Its most recent accomplishment was a federal order requiring the to rid the river of toxic contaminants known as PCB's. The Hudson is not home free. Though manufacturing has declined along the river, residential development has boomed. A growing population inevitably imposes greater demands on the ecosystem. Further progress will demand continued vigilance by the private citizens who have fought so hard to restore the Hudson and by politicians in both Albany and Washington. Even now there are signs that the Bush administration is seeking to narrow the scope of the Clean Water Act. For the sake of the Hudson, and rivers elsewhere in America, that cannot be allowed to happen. (10/03/02)

What are Conservation Corridors?

New York Times: Science -- Conservation corridors are the interstate highways of ecology. In a world where wildlife habitat is increasingly fragmented (largely because of human activity), connecting two or more patches of habitat by a thin strip of protected and undeveloped land can help allow the movement of animals, plants and insects, reducing local overpopulation and other stress-inducing problems that at their worst can lead to extinctions. Intuitively, the idea makes sense. But there is a lot of debate, and little direct evidence, as to whether corridors actually work as intended. So a recent large-scale study by researchers from the University of Florida, North Carolina State, Allegheny College and Iowa State is welcome news to those who favor the concept. In the study, reported in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, eight 125-acre stands of pine forest served as the researchers' petri dishes. Within each, they clear-cut and burned five parcels of two and a half acres, creating successional habitats [~] for flora and fauna that are the first to take over a newly cleared area. Of the five patches, one was in the center and the other four surrounded it, 500 feet away. One of the peripheral patches was connected to the central one by an 80-foot-wide corridor; the other three were isolated. To avoid skewing the results, the unconnected patches were expanded to match the size of the connected patch plus the corridor. The researchers then tracked the movement of several species of butterflies, pollen and seeds into the peripheral patches. They found that there was more movement of butterflies between connected patches than isolated ones, and that there was better dispersal of pollen and seeds [~] largely the work of animals [~] as well. The results, they say, "clearly suggest a role for corridors in connecting populations of both plants and insects." (10/03/02)

Bush failing to Protect the Environment

New York Times: Science -- In a report to be released on Tuesday, the Democrats found a "dramatic decline" in enforcement of environmental statutes during the Bush administration compared with the Clinton administration based on analyses of data from the Environmental Protection Agency. The Bush administration initiated about half the number of administrative actions against polluting companies in two time periods compared with the agency under President Bill Clinton, the report said. ... The report said the total amount of penalties and remedies recovered from administrative enforcement actions was much less under Mr. Bush than under Mr. Clinton. From Jan. 20, 2001, to March 7, 2002, the Bush administration recovered $165 million from polluters, compared with $845 million recovered by the Clinton administration from Dec. 4, 1999, to Jan. 19, 2001. The report also compared the actions taken by both administrations in a three-month period, from April 20, 2000, to July 20, 2000, under President Clinton and from April 20, 2001, to July 20, 2001, under President Bush. In those periods, the Bush administration recovered $53 million while the Clinton administration recovered $289 million. Similarly, the report said, the average settlement with each polluter during the Bush administration has been about 37 percent of that in the Clinton administration, an average of $85,000 during the three-month period under President Bush and $226,000 under President Clinton. (10/03/02)

[My World of [base "]Ought to Be[per thou]]

Can we be made accountable to Gaia?

Introduction: This entry assumes that suprasystems are not presently constituted or constrained to act in the interests of natural systems. If there is an overlap of planned impacts and benefit to habitats or ecosystems it is always in a manner distorted by human exploitation. This point of view requires that internal restucturing and external repurposing be accomplished so that Gaia will always have a seat [and have a powerful {veto? vote] at the suprasystem's planning and evaluating tables.

While Gaia is the containing system, seemingly quite bounded yet not closed [energic and material input, output through its boundaries]-- it's contained subsystems are huge and have separating boundaries that vary with circumstance and have energy, material and information exchanges that are dynamic.

Diagnosis... (a)human multiplication and (b) human use of nonreplaceables have a combined effect : moving Gaia to a state of high entropy and lowered ability to self-repair [More appropriate system speak here needed]. In plain language: unless we [the set of all human systems, suprasystems etc] dramatically alter our present tendencies it seems easy to see that we make the earth uninhabitable by people [except in dramatically lowered numbers living in conditions of considerably higher threat and lesser quality] or, worse, rendered uninhabitable by intelligent life.

It also appears to be true that all human suprasystems pursue ends that make it more likely that such a future becomes real. That is, unless gaian health as a whole and in her subsystems are part of the core planning of all human systems , in a way that its never been before, then our present actions will continue to devolve the planet for humans and for higher forms of life.

All of that is still background.

What I would like to review, summarize, preview or invent is the family of sets of techniques that get systems to include ecosensitivity as a strong determiner of actions. Instead of providing "The theory of supra system limitation" [or the like] I'll describe a particular vision and note how it might help to serve the purposes I have argued need serving.

Let me describe, [I have to limit myself to painting in bold strokes her] what is meant to be a major intervention for that purpose. This is what it amounts to: a) the creation of an instantaneous and comprehensive link to Gaian ecological subsystems which allows analysis of present health and the projection of future health based on proposed human action and b) the creation of the human infrastructure to build, maintain and use such a system and c) the creation of information and action links with the general society.

This amounts to adding a created linkage between Gaia and human action. We have linkages of all sorts already ... but as members of ecosystems ... top link predators who were subject to the limits of birth rate, death rate, competition and material availability in spatially bounded ecosystems until relatively recently, in geological time terms. However, we have, in this age of technology and industrialization and now in the information age diminshed our natural connections to [and limitations by] nature; thus our limits are mainly those that other humans or our communities place on us. We must self-limit in order to avoid destroying the systems that house, and feed us.

So we have to insert what Gaia hasn't had the chance to yet create. A means of limiting human system action before a suprasystem or even Gaian collapse is eventually provoked by our actions. In short, I have called this giving Gaia a voice in all of human action.

The information system I am describing would allow us to directly query 'Gaia'about present and future consequences of any level of human action; in short we would be able to ask what would happen, to our ecological setting [at any level of specificity or generality] if we did thus and so. 'How is Gaia doing as we do thus and so in Anderson Valley", that is "What are present consequences and future likelihoods and how would each be modified if we change if we did X".

Beyond that I would propose that not only must we create such an 'oracle' but that we must, through human institutions, strongly insist that all human action be accountable to such oracular analysis of the consequences of individual or collective actions. That we artificially insert some strong controls on individual and collective action which limit the likelihood of ecological damage.

Give Gaia a human interface, make it universally accessible and modifiy human supra systems to require responsibility for Gaian consequences. That productivity or profit margin have been 'intolerably' constrained are empty arguments for certain consequences, even if made by a suprasystem, and no suprasystem can contravene such an oracular pronouncement. It would be considered criminal to do so and justice would be swift and effective.

For now this is the vision that is available to me. How do we move from an ineffective EPA and a Natural Resource system that is pimping for the big extractors and harvesters and from post hoc whining about consequences to such a gaia-bound set up.

First we create: gaia's data network.

6/24/02 8:18 am

How much is enough (part 22)

In response to: http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/SVN_Living_Economies.htm

Self-limiting behavior from individuals and groups is a matter of struggle, a matter of triumph of spirit over cravings. No easy victory for the individual, a matter of self-discipline and/or of spiritual distillation via 'training'and enlightenment.

I have yet to see corporate or political bodies facing the same task of self-limitation without exacting a tremendous price from voiceless participants in this spiritual struggle. In the US, for example and because I can speak with some authority as a member-witness-student, we have had real material and martial successes, yes, but at the expense of voiceless victims. Examples of voiceless victims: the environment, those identified as 'other' and members of other cultures, societies and states. I don't think I need to say too much about rainforests, irretrievable erosion losses, hangings, mutilations, imprisonments and aborignal genocide to make my point. We are a vital society and a successful (as in powerful) one, yes. But that doesn't make us either the most virtuous, a dubious title anyway, or even 'safe'. [Am using safe here to mean: If we stick with the leadership and trends following from this society is it likely to become less destructive and thus be more likely to support health in the Gaian and Human World]? Initially I would have to say that we're not safe to ourselves, to nation states or to Gaia. We're demonizing any other cultures who object to the alliance of consumer/corporate consciousness that presently dominates economic and military world realities and we're ignoring the the irreversible and progressive degradations we are causing to the planetary ecosystem, Gaia .

Enough said on that. It's arguable for many, certainly, but sufficient for you to see my motivations whether you fully agree with my conclusions or not.

It is in this context that I am proposing a small experiment in large group consciousness raising. It will be built upon the rapid and democratic access to imformation that the internet provides. In short its goal is this: that all people on the planet will be given access to world, regional and local eco-health maps whenever they want. That those maps are truthful, and literally "up to date" [accurate based on data retrieved and integrated in the past 24 hours] and maintained by living and nonliving systems of impeccable credibility.

In short, this information system will involve voluntary contributions of intellectual, social and temporal capital and will work outside of present state, nation or corporate systems. It will give instantaneous and accurate information on the health of the world and local ecosystems.

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My first question is this: would access to the unimpeachable truth as to our actions' present cumulative and future effects on Gaia's health help us curb our destructive behavior.

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Second and Related Question: With this knowledge (and the social institutions that have been created to maintain it) would the probability that Gaia survives be significantly increased?

[The general question is this: If any multi-organization, multiperson suprasystem has timely access to unimpeachable evidence of its effects on 'the world' will it become significantly more able and likely to alter it's behavior for the better?]

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My third question would matter only if the answers to the first and second amount to a convincing [resounding would be better..but] 'Yes'. Why? Because, whatever the details of any answer in the affirmative, [I believe that] much sacrifice on the part of many will be required.
The third question would be "How will we do this quickly enough to matter?"

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[I've included a link to David Korten's work on Living Economies. Just discovered but clearly working with similar issues.]

Spike Hall

Self indulgent interactions of developed nations with their environment (http://www.fs.fed.us/eco/eco-watch/ew940713.htm)

Summary: Our ecological systems are degrading in response to our 'abuse'. How much is enough? Will we accept an end to our quest for more? Will we accept limits?

How many years are enough? How much food is enough?

How much beauty enhancement is 'necessary' and at what expense?

How many children should/can we have? (Exponential population growth has been projected by many as the central variable to occur by 2030?)

How much freedom [e.g.,to bear arms, to degrade the environment, to irritate and insult one's neighbors] is enough freedom?

The answers are complicated. But part of the answer has to be based on boundary. In other words, for whom or what?

Food for whom when one system's increase in food may mean loss or death for another?

Generally speaking to extend one system's boundaries and or energy/matter processes is to jostle, at the very least, one or more other systems.

When humanity (6 billion of us) decides [whether actively, as in a vote, or by default] that more babies will be born and more of the old will live longer .. we have a metascale jostling that amounts to disruption of a catastrophic sort.

It seems that that which is motivating each of us as individuals in western european and asian and islamic cultures alike is some version of more. I think whoever is going for the more is also turning a blind eye to the expense (What's the problem? I've got the money? What's the problem my army's big enough?) if it's measured in anything other than means to purchase or take the 'more' involved.

Where are the limits?

What will be the consequences without them?

What would existence be like if we decided to have an absolute limit of one child per couple for the next 20 years?

What is self-limiting and what are the economic, philosopical, political bases from which such self-limiting can occur?

Example: An old person's philosophical movement starts that says that no artificial interventions of any sort will be used to extend life (other than eating well from locally grown food)?

Example: A cross-cultural global organization sets up a global information network that reports the indisputable facts about natural systems into which humans intrude. Its premise is that if all know the damage we cause it will be far less likely that spin-meisters and dollars can distort in favor of systems trying to hide the natural destruction that would occur from following a corporate plan to expand.

Today's current events example: Societal consideration of the issue of menopause. In the last twenty to thirty years we have moved from not discussing it to discussing it quite a bit. Our discussions have led to better understanding, yes, but also an increased reliance upon medications on the part of women who enter post reproductive years. Today, in an article entitled 'Menopause forever' a reporter for the New York times reports on perimenopause. The bottom line is that this aspect of female existence will be moved from the category as natural (and thus is something to accept) to a disease (and therefore something to fight). As it is moved into the disease category we enlist doctors and phaarmacists and drug companies to help us maintain our vigilant defense against aging. And this sort of sequence is at the center of our problem of self-limitation.

In short there are a couple of things going on here that matter to the enough discussion. First, our greed for more and our fear of the great unknown , death, are being manipulated by corporate entities (directly and indirectly) eager for larger markets. Second, we are accepting this manipulation as we fail to ask how much [in this case, of the years of 'peak' youthfulness] is enough?

In "Sustainability, Hierarchy, Culture, and More:Thoughts from Russia" Zabelin (January 2, 1994) captures some of the concern with,:

Thousands of hectares of forest have been wasted on paper to discuss what needs to be done for humankind to avoid an "environmental catastrophe.

Very few write about what can realistically be done and what cannot possibly be done: it won't be published, and it's dangerous - bearing "bad tidings" has been notably risky to maintaining one's lifestyle, even ones life.

We "just" need to transfer the train of human civilization onto different tracks, changing the previously announced route and destination. This can be done very quickly (one can count the years) and in a coordinated manner on the entire planet, since the "environmental problem" has not been solved in any one particular country. We need to convince/force/or otherwise make the populations of North America and Western Europe decrease their consumption by about five times, and give the saved resources to the residents of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Simultaneously, we need to convince/force/or otherwise make the residents of Asia, Africa and Latin America not have more than two children per family, and even better - one. And we need to convince/force/or otherwise make everybody eliminate their armies with their weapons, and everybody together should happily work on constructing a kingdom of universal justice on Earth. "Just" this.

"Just" this is derived from the simple fact that the planet Earth has limited resources and can support a limited number of animals of one species, including the type "human." And if there are more of such animals than there should be, then the natural limiting mechanisms are unavoidably turned on. There can be no exceptions.

Generally speaking, the species "human" (inasmuch as it is a "logical" species) has abilities to turn on its own mechanisms of limitation. The fact that I am writing these lines and that you are reading and understanding them is proof of this. We can control the birth rate; we can economize electrical energy; we have an understanding of justice, etc.

On the other hand, in its present state, the species "human" does not have the opportunity to make a feasible decision on turning on mechanisms of self-limitation. The fact that even in the most developed countries, no more than 10% of the population votes for the "Greens" is proof of this. More than 90% votes for various parties of unlimited material and technical growth.

We know what needs to be done, but we cannot act logically. So, we unavoidably fall under the influence of natural limiting mechanisms. Aggressiveness (crime, inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflicts, nationalism), stresses (heart diseases, alcoholism and drug abuse, suicide, social apathy), epidemics (AIDS, cancer, flu), and the pathology of pregnancy are only some of the most normal results of overpopulation (whoever does not believe me, observe fish in an aquarium: it's extremely instructive). Pollution of the environment, or more specifically, accumulation in the environment of non-biodegradable products of human activities (plutonium, strontium, cesium, heavy metals and dioxins are no more than specific products of human activities) is responded to by a general poisoning and weakening of the organism, and manifests itself in the growth of the death rate and the decrease of the birth rate."

From http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/index.html

The EPA has released a new report that does admit the reality of global warming (NY Times this am). The report lists consequences, such as loss of alpine meadows, decrease of water supplies based on snow melt, higher sea level plus attendant consequences which will be problematic for many.

Somehow the Bush administration while admitting big consequences will not signify that these events will require major adjustments or that the adjustments and consequences are dire enough to require us to DO anything (for example participate in Kyoto accord, or, if that agreement is flawed, substitute an alternate, more effective agreement.)

Ecological Policy and Politics in Developing Countries

Economic Growth, Democracy, and Environment

The interconnectedness of the global environment and finiteness of the earth's natural resources require an increased understanding of environmental and natural-resource policy and politics in countries around the world. This is especially true of industrializing countries where widespread ecological disturbances and rapid exploitation of natural resources are taking place. Ecological Policy and Politics in Developing Countries provides an in-depth study of ecological problems, policies, and politics in ten major industrializing countries. Each chapter discusses the increasingly international context of domestic environmental policies and explores some of the powerful interests and institutional forces that contribute to ecological problems and shape the policies to deal with them in each country. The authors identify some of the major impediments to both well designed environmental policies and their effective implementation. The ten countries included here -- the Czech Republic, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Taiwan, Thailand, Slovakia, and Venezuela -- cover five continents, over half of the world's population and most of the major industrializing countries.

[Author: Uday Desai ISBN Number: 0791437809 Format: Paperback Published Date: April 1998 Pages: 327

Publisher: State University of New York Press Distributor(s): Bookazine Company, Incorporated, Ingram Book Company]