> From: "Mark Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> It is clear that capitalism cannot survive. Climate change + energy
deficits
> have become the 'determining last instance' of all historical processes in
our
> epoch; all our politics ought therefore to be based squarely on this fact.
>
> Unfortunately all but the most catastrophic scenarios fail to say just how
bad
> life will be for most people, most of the time, in this century. The
> progressive collapse of the fundamental systems: energy, water, food
supply,
> and the onslaught of terrifying epidemic disease, ensure that most states
will
> collapse and that civil society everywhere will be stressed and will often
> fail.
>
> The Left of every hue is evidently afraid of even addressing the issue,
the
> enormity of which seems to paralyse people and induce a fatalism and even
a
> kind of nonchalance which is also part of the problem.
>
> It is certain that capitalism will collapse, that hundreds of millions and
> undoubtedly, billions, will die. No-one who fails to make these facts the
> basis and guiding compass of their politics, has any right even to claim
that
> they have a politics.
>
> Mark
Well, I feel like stealing this post and sending it everywhere in cyberspace
because it is so spot-on.
As I whistle through this graveyard in the dark, I do two things: try to
look for positive solutions (localism, bioregionalsim) and ask myself "what
about the Left?". Why exactly IS the Left so afraid to address this issue?
.....the issue with the ultimate and most serious threats to the oppressed.
The arguments I have perceived here on Crashlist are generally a) "only by
destroying capitalism first can we do anything about it." b) "it's not my
problem, I am too busy trying to support the revolution" c) "there is
nothing we can do" d) "these enviros are a bunch of idiots."
The Left (for want of a better term) has the skills, organizational
understandings and the courage to address the issue in ways world-wide that
no other socio/political/economic entity does. Yet for the most part the
Left is still focused on hair splitting the differences between NATO and
other killers, Bush and other puppets, Wall Street and other tulip bubbles.
Why is the Left's indignation over the bombing of one criminal's assets by
another criminal cartel so acute, when the world is dying from the actions
of neighbors we could all influence? ... simply by, as Mark comments,
"addressing the issue" and educating those within our spheres of influence.
To me it seems so much more appropriate a use of our limited time and
resources.
The news sparking this post awakens us to the fact that we could do the most
to insure a better life for ... say ... the oppressed of the Balkans, the
Near East, or the Indian Subcontinent by insuring their water supplies. It
is not yet an insurmountable task to do so, or to at least mitigate the
abject misery their children will suffer.
We should at least entertain a discussion on the list as to why "we [fail]
to make these facts the
basis and guiding compass of [our] politics."
tom
"A rapidly growing human population, rising "economic" expectations,
continual decline in natural resources and increasing pollution by
industrialised countries are leading to a crisis of epic proportions. ...
The origin of our dilemma is the economic illusion that humans make basic
commodities. We now know ecosystems make our basic commodities, therefore:
economics is in fact the natural science that deals with the production,
distribution and recycling of ecoproducts." -- John Pozzi
(speaking on the issue raised by:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Environment/2001-02/satmap170201.shtml/
)
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