OT: rant about trees and pubic hair... (was Re: Welcome to Scotland)

[Rob Cozens]

Andre, et al,

>So our forest and trees are going down, people here don't seem to
>value nature and are ready to bring down everything to build more
>houses, buildings, all in the name of progress.

I am among a fortunate minority of Americans who live in closer 
day-to-day contact with nature than mankind.  My residence cannot be 
seen from the road, and overlooks several hundred acres of 
undeveloped (but sustainably logged) coastal hills.  In the 15 years 
or so before moving here I rented on two 300+ acre ranches where no 
other residence was visible from any window in my house.

Much of my understanding of life is based on lessons learned 
observing animals interacting in the wild...and interacting with 
them.  And so I have wondered for decades how those lessons and 
understandings are attained by people growing up in large 
metropolitan areas, insulated from such observations and 
interactions.  My personal conclusion is those understandings of our 
dependence on nature and each other have been lost to the propaganda 
promoting "economic development". resulting in a society dominated by 
sociopathic money addicts.

Andre, yours is one of growing examples that money addiction is now 
afflicting populations living close enough to nature to know 
better.  The "benefits" of economic development were dramatically 
illustrated in a (LINK TV?) television documentary about the 
homecoming journey of several families from New Zealand to their 
native island home (Tuvi?, Tuval?) to show their children their roots.

When those on the homecoming journey had left the island 20+ years 
previously, it was a typical south sea fishing community.  In the 
intervening years, the island nation had been assigned the Internet 
extension ".tv" and subsequently sold their rights to ".tv" to a 
group of private investors for BIG $.  Today, no one on the island 
fishes for a living: they spend their time waiting for the royalty 
checks and supply ships to arrive.  Much previously open space on the 
island is now littered with the packing material and trash from 
imported goods--but of course that won't be a problem for long, 
because the rising sea levels that accompany our economic 
"development" may have the entire nation under water in a few decades.

The night before the return trip to New Zealand, locals and returnees 
got together in the village lodge to sing and dance in traditional 
island style.  Then the kids turned on a CD player and "danced" to 
rap music.  One didn't have to look too long at the elders' 
expressions to know exactly how they felt about what money addiction 
had done to their culture.

Money addicts promote "private enterprise" but really mean 
privatizing profits while socializing as many costs as 
possible.  Exxon has yet to pay a dime for the environmental damage 
done in Prince William Sound over two decades ago; Chevron & other 
oil platform owners have been dragging their feet and orchestrating 
end run tactics to avoid completely removing decommissioned oil 
platforms from the Santa Barbara Channel for 12 years.  And have you 
seen pictures of the environmental mess in the Ecuadorian rain forest 
left by Texaco...who employed drilling techniques that were illegal elsewhere?

Herbert Hoover once said, "There's nothing wrong with Capitalism 
except Capitalists: they're too damn greedy!"  If the issue were 
simply human greed, society would have a much easier time dealing with it

But we are facing an addiction stronger than those associated with 
heroin or cocaine.  Climate change and other elements of 
environmental degradation, auto makers' unwillingness to promote 
increased fuel efficiency, mass marketing of unsafe or poisonous toys 
are just a few examples of the effects of money addiction.  It exists 
in every "private" company that receives government subsidies or 
tariff protection and/or works to socialize the environmental costs 
of its operation.

This addiction may have already damaged the environment 
irrevocably.  If not, it certainly will do so if left unchecked.

Rob Cozens

"The way to destroy the power of the Corporate State
   is to live differently now."

  -- Charles Reich, The Greening of America