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Edited on Mon Apr-14-08 10:35 AM by Peace Patriot
environmental damage in a way that is not very helpful. You advocate for the trees as if the trees, and the earth itself, could battle against us. (A tree is "more holy" than humankind.) And it may be that we are at war with nature--that's one way to describe our problem-- but nature is not at war with US. Nature PRODUCED us--just as we are. Whatever can nature have had in mind, to produce a species that is so clever that it can destroy the earth and all its critters and the very ecological matrix in which we evolved?
It is not in our "nature" to leave things alone--or, I should say, it's not in the nature of the great majority of the human race to leave things alone. You could almost write the history of 'civilization' in forests destroyed. It may be that indigenous tribes that live in harmony with nature are more civilized than the rest of us, but the trouble is that the rest of us aren't like that--are not capable of returning to that state of harmony. We may learn from them--we MUST learn from them, or we are all doomed. But there are too many of us--billions of us--who don't have the skills or the psychology to live in a truly sustainable way.
I am more in the middle of this issue. I see what we have done to nature. I really, really do see it. But I also see the struggle of humanity to survive--our insecurity, the burden of our forward-thinking brains, our use of our skills to create our own security (for instance, storing grain for seven years into the future, or creating and disseminating refrigerators)--and I feel compassion for US. When will we ever learn?
And because I see both sides, I am rooting for South American democracy, because I feel that, if we have real democracy, the wisest policies with naturally arise. It's interesting that here in the U.S., protection of the environment has always--since the 1970s--received huge poll numbers. 80% to 90% of the people wanting strong environmental protections. But our severely damaged democracy has been unable to respond to the will of the people. The few among us who are excessive greedbags and powermongers keep frustrating the wisdom of the majority.
South America is on a better path. They have the potential to actually adhere to the greater wisdom--for several reasons, one of them being that the new left leaders of South America are far, far more responsive to the wisdom of the remaining indigenous tribes that any of our leaders are. Leaders like Evo Morales, Rafael Correa and Hugo Chavez not only have indigenous blood (Evo Morales, 100%), but they are culturally and politically--and I think spiritually as well--more attuned to native beliefs about the sacredness of the earth. Another is that, to achieve truly sustainable policies, these countries MUST eject the multinational corporations that have plundered their resources and enslaved their people, and that can only happen with real democracy. The South Americans have far better democracies, now, than we do--far, far better. They actually hold transparent elections--unlike our own.
You see, we have to figure out how to produce policy that reveres every tree--how to produce a government that fosters not just prosperity but also WISDOM. You could have a king, I suppose, who imposes wisdom by fiat--but that happens so rarely that the earth cannot depend upon it. For instance, in England, centuries ago, the king protected the forest--but kings are too corruptible, and changeable. We need to produce a system of human organization that has the ability to reflect our highest consciousness. Democracy (not necessarily associated with capitalism--or the predatory capitalism that we have seen) is the best hope for understanding nature and living on earth in a peaceful way.
A South American defense pact may well be necessary to protect the democratic gains that have occurred there, as the result of people-driven social movements--for the aggressive, bloodthirsty, greedy, global corporate predator-driven government of the north is out to destroy these democratic gains.
We can certainly look with despair on the compromises, say, that the leftist Brazilian government has made with multinationals (for instance, on biofuel production), or we can look with hope on the tremendous advances that Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have made in official policy on the U.S. "war on drugs" (all vigorously oppose it--one of the biggest reasons being pesticide spraying). I choose to look with hope upon such advances and the tremendous potential for better policy on all fronts, through democratic means, rather than presuming that a democratic South America will follow the same path we have followed--co-optation of democracy by multinationals.
I guess I'm saying, don't underestimate democracy. Yeah, the human race has a miserable history of assaults on nature--but it has mostly been unconscious--out of need, and feelings of insecurity, where we've used our natural cleverness to plan for the future. Well, now we have to plan much more comprehensively--for centuries and millennia--not just for next year, or for seven years, or for the next generation, but for all life, forever. That's a big leap for us to take. And democracy is the only way we're going to take it--that I can see.
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