Business as Usual

Good government is a balance between anarchy and despotism, and the balance, if it is achieved at all, is made on such a razor’s edge that the times in human history when government might be considered to be enlightened, benevolent or even competent, are rare indeed. The problem is that human organizations such as governments and corporations, or even churches, little league teams and ice cream socials, become lenses which magnify human nature along with human effort. Human nature, along with all the compassionate and altruistic impulses of which it is capable, is also capable of greed, lust for power and a brilliant capacity for rationalization and the justification of one’s dubious deeds.

                Recent polls indicate the continuation of a longstanding dissatisfaction with government among the governed. We are generally unhappy with Washington and also with our state and local governments. Our unhappiness is exacerbated by the return of that traveling circus of politics and punditry which seems, like the hot weather now, to extend well beyond its appointed season. A President has about two years to get something accomplished before he has to start running for re-election; a Congresswoman, about six months. With a presidential election due next year, we will get to hear from our two perennial parties for the next year and a half just how miserable we are and why our misery is directly attributable to that other party.

                As voters we will likely do again what we have done so many times before. We will skim the surface of the speeches and the arguments looking for clues that our candidates are just like we are, and they will offer us ample material to convince us of just that fact via slogans and key words. If we voted for Coke in the last election and are dissatisfied with the results, many of us will vote for Pepsi this time around. If the polls indicate that the elections might be close, look for our tried and true polarizing issues to be hauled out and hoisted up the flag pole:  abortion, gun control, immigration reform. The candidates will make impassioned speeches and promise reforms that they have no means to deliver. Very little will change, but our anger will be assuaged for another few years while business as usual continues.

                The real issue behind our general dissatisfaction is, in fact, that “business as usual.” It is the business which, like a tapeworm, extracts wealth from the economy without producing wealth. It is the uber-bank borrowing money from the Fed at 1% interest and then purchasing treasury bonds that pay 4 percent rather than lending that money out. It is the continuing favoritism by the rule of law for the corporate rather than the individual as corporate profits soar to all-time highs. It is the continued disenfranchisement of labor in favor of management.

                Let me elaborate on that last statement. It was not a political endorsement of unions, although unions do serve a useful purpose in our economy when they are not, themselves, tapeworms feeding on productivity. The statement about labor and management is an attempt to illustrate the growing problem of the shrinking middle class. The problem with every democracy and with every society which attempts to be egalitarian is that, at some point, those who manage a society’s institutions learn how to use those institutions to leverage personal benefit. In a society such as ours where honor and morals have been replaced by relativism, it is easier to rationalize those benefits. Consider the local company where the managers have special privileges unrelated to productivity:  They come and go as they please while regular employees are chained to their cubicles.  Managers go to meetings and conferences at company expense, attend luncheons and benefits during working hours and they use company time to pursue interests unrelated to business under the guise of “reaching out to the community.”  Regular employees are monitored for productivity throughout the day. They are limited to strictly enforced break times and lunch breaks. They make the widgets, sell the widgets, provide the customer support for the widgets, but they make a fraction of the salary as the corner offices which may never have seen a widget – or a fraction of the money made by someone in an office a thousand miles away trading stock of the widget making company.

                If you want to understand Washington and what is wrong with our national government, look no further than your local institutions of business and government. The deck is stacked, legally, socially and systemically against those who produce wealth in favor of those who extract it. The system will not change until our dissatisfaction exceeds the ability of those who hold power to distract us from the real issues. Keep this in mind while you enjoy the political season.

This Memorial Day, And The Next

               Memorial Day of 2011 will soon be a rapidly fading memory. This is the seventh year I have sat at my desk to write on this Congressional Monday holiday while our nation was at war. It is the tenth year our young people have risked their lives in Afghanistan; the eighth year in Iraq.

               For some of us, the memory will not fade. A constant awareness of a son or daughter, a parent, a friend or relative in harm’s way will be with us during every waking hour, often intruding even into our dreams, our nightmares.

               Most of us, however, will not be so troubled. Some may pause to remember a parent or grandparent who fought in World War II, go to a parade and wave a little flag or post a word of gratitude and recognition on Facebook.  We will quickly return to our normal lives and our routines of working, commuting and collecting the materials of life.

               Those who fight would not deny us this luxury. The ability to pick up our normal lives and carry on, to allow our children to grow up unburdened by the fears and responsibilities they will face all too soon as adults – is indeed why soldiers fight.

               Nevertheless, with recognition comes responsibility, and we set aside that responsibility too easily.  The ascendance of materialism through media and our constant saturation in marketing has created a popular culture that is shallow and vapid; a culture which assumes without question that it is entitled to every largesse and every luxury, a culture which can pay occasional lip service to the sacrifices necessary to maintain our affluence, but which by and large is unconscious of the life and death struggles necessary to maintain what we take for granted.

               In World War II it was clear to every citizen what could and should be done to support the war effort. In Korea and Vietnam we fought ideologies with armies and during the Vietnam War we struggled as a nation with the concept of questioning the war but at the same time supporting the warrior. During all these conflicts we were very much aware as a nation of reasons and costs. Things have been different during our latest decade of war. We have a peripheral awareness of the conflict.  The enemy is a concept with a changing face and he does not wear a uniform.

The truth of the conflict is not that hard to understand, but it is very difficult to accept. Strip away the politics and the patriotism, the religion and the ideology and what is revealed is something much more fundamental.  Our lifestyle built on an economy of consumption and high energy use is supported by a delicate framework of technology that is dependent on maintaining supply lines from around the world of materials that we do not have or do not produce. Even a Chicken McNugget contains materials from at least 11 countries:  chicken from Brazil; bread crumbs from the UK; wheat from Canada, Pakistan, Paraguay and Australia; emulsifiers from Spain; dextrin from China and vegetable fat from the UAE. This entire supply chain is dependent on oil and the whole world knows under what countries the oil lies buried.

There are many among us who wish that they could do more to support our troops. We cannot all wear a uniform and put ourselves in harm’s way. We can lend our support to the many volunteer groups that exist to help our warriors. We can keep an awareness of the conflict alive in our thoughts, our prayers and our conversations. All of these are worthwhile efforts, but they address only the symptoms, not the disease of war. If we are truly weary of the disease, there is but one place to look for a cure, and that is in the consumption and the wastefulness of our entitlement.  Are we truly willing to send a son or daughter to fight for our right to sit idling in the drive-thru line in our huge gas burners, waiting for the McNuggets? Are we willing that someone should die so that we can keep the thermostat at a balmy 78 during the winter and a cool 70 during the summer? Unless we are able as a nation to make this connection, to acknowledge the true cost of our largesse, the price of our willful ignorance will continue to grow and one Memorial Day will bleed into the next, and the next…

No Political Solutions In Sight

                The political season is upon us again. Does it ever really leave? The speeches and the posturing, the accusations, innuendo and lies, the polls and predictions and the constant analysis of every word and every nuance will all join the stream of hype that now flows continuously through our national consciousness.  The celebrities of politics and punditry will discuss, they will rant and rave and debate. They will call in “experts” and sit in panels and talk and talk and talk, dissecting the disjecta membra of a fragmented democracy.

               The talking points of the talking heads are now keen to underline the “philosophical divide” currently plaguing the nation, as if there were two species of Americans who separate every choice into a liberal or a conservative decision.  We are ripe for this division. We are conditioned this way from birth; taught to compete, to view life as a series of right and wrong choices between pairs of opposites:  East versus west, black versus white, democrat versus republican, good versus evil. Give us two choices on any subject and we are likely to personally identify with one or the other, defending against any aspersions cast on our “team” as if they were personal insults.  We are not taught to think logically or dispassionately.

               Unfortunately for us, the problems currently batted around by political parties are outside the scope of politics. These problems will only yield to logic and to science, not to political solutions. Conservative and liberal labels will not adhere to these problems. The price of oil and gasoline, for example, along with the price of everything else we need to live our lives in the civilization we have created, is a popular political football and we demand a political solution. “Let’s tax the oil companies,” we say, although increased corporate taxes are almost always absorbed by higher prices and lower wages.  The increasing cost of living is a problem beyond democratic and republican talking points. It is a problem of supply and demand and a parasitic financial sector.

               As long as gas prices increase independently of the price of oil, we can catch a glimpse into the arena of speculation and the effect it has on everything that we do and everything that we consume. Western Civilization has encouraged the monetization of the human condition and in doing so we have allowed a small group of financiers to gamble with the commodities which support life as we know it. They speculate on food, energy and raw materials, making obscene profits and driving up the price of goods and services. Supply and demand can no longer predict what we pay for goods and services because our economy is host to a small but powerful group of parasites, tapeworms which produce nothing, which add nothing to the net wealth of the economy as they feed off of it, enriching themselves while they weaken the host.

Political solutions will not be forthcoming. Divided by partisan politics, we are conquered as we select from the same two column menu the next set of marks for lobbyists. Our elected officials will stage impassioned arguments. They will pass meaningless resolutions. They will add thousands of new elements to the already burgeoning collection of laws and regulations which no average citizen can navigate without a lawyer.  They will do everything they can to divert taxpayer money into their own districts to increase their chances for re-election and if history is any guide, they will create more problems than they solve.

Meanwhile, the price we pay for living as we do will continue to rise as climate change and overpopulation tax the physical limits of a closed system. There is only so much oil, so much water, food, and arable land, steel, copper and concrete to go around and the supply lines for these commodities are subject to many potential disruptions.  Civilizations rise and fall on these supply lines, a fact to consider if you still believe that we fight wars and maintain 140 military bases around the world in order to bring freedom to the downtrodden.

Afflicted as we are, this great nation of ours is poised for a difficult transition. The pace of change will continue to accelerate and we, weakened as we are by our parasites, may be slow to respond, but there is still time to minimize the damage. We can begin by accepting the fact that change is inevitable; accepting the fact that unlimited consumption based upon unlimited credit is coming to an end.  Cheap energy is gone. Demographics are changing. New and innovative solutions will be required, not just for the sake of profit, but for survival itself.

              

The Next Personification of Evil

               Headlines around the U.S. this morning are celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden.  Anyone currently serving on active duty in the military along with their families and friends, anyone who is a veteran or anyone who knows one, is probably feeling a sense of understandable pride in the success of Seal Team 6 (not a real unit but rather a name used for reference purposes) who in 40 minutes completed a job that was begun a decade ago. Families, friends and co-workers of the almost 3000 who died in the September 11^th attacks are experiencing both the satisfaction and the renewed grief of remembered pain that occurs when a murderer is brought to justice.

               We needed this. We needed a victory, even a symbolic one, after our ten year investment of American blood and treasure to fight an enemy with no home country and no professional army – an enemy that, for millions of Americans, bore the visage of Osama bin Laden. Had we achieved this victory ten years ago, the history of the past decade would be quite different.

               If only it ended here. If only by killing one person whom we have named the personification of evil could we eliminate evil itself and go on about our business as usual. If only by declaring anyone evil who opposes us, whether they are devoutly (if insanely) religious zealots willing to sacrifice their lives in any attempt to do us harm, or patriotic citizens of other countries whose governments are opposed to our own or whose business interests run contrary to ours, could we guarantee the participation of the Almighty in furthering our own cause.

               We should know by now that things just aren’t that simple.  To invoke “evil” in any conflict is to cease trying to understand cause and effect and it is to abrogate any responsibility for the circumstances which led to the conflict.  The circumstances of our conflict with Islamic fundamentalists can be traced from the main streets of Hiawassee and Young Harris all the way to Constitution Avenue in Washington and indeed, to all the capitols of the developed world.

               Please don’t misunderstand me. We are not the “Great Satan” either. We are an enterprising and industrious people and we have been incredibly successful. However, the phenomenal growth of our population and our affluence was fueled by oil, and the largest deposits of oil in the world just happen to exist in the middle of the area which hosts three of the world’s largest religions. In order to guarantee our oil supply, we have manipulated events, staged coups, supported dictators and fielded armies in this area since World War One. Long memories of oppression and exploitation magnified by religious zeal have produced, and will continue to produce, enemies with which we must contend.

               War has always, at its root, been primarily a conflict over resources and economic power. Religion and nationalism and the conflict between good and evil inspire the troops and mobilize the citizens, but these things are the public face of the conflict more than the genesis. We are entering a transitional phase in the history of the world where the ability of the planet to support its burgeoning population in the lifestyle to which the western world has become accustomed, is declining. Competition for hydrocarbons,  oil, coal, natural gas, will continue and escalate, but our lifestyle is also dependent on other commodities as well – steel, copper, concrete, lumber and rare earths, not to mention food, and, at the center of the next resource wars, water.

               Conflict is inevitable. As a simple but devastating proof, I offer an example provided by Jeremy Grantham, Chief Investment Strategist of GMO Inc. Using ancient Egypt, with 3000 years of history, as an example, suppose we gave every Egyptian 3000 years ago 1 cubic yard of material wealth.  Then for the sake of argument, let’s say that we grew that economy at a compounded interest rate of 4.5%, which is a number popular with American economic planners today. How much wealth would Egypt have 3000 years later? The answer might astound you, but that amount of material wealth would not fit within our solar system, nor a billion more like it.

               In conclusion, Osama bin Laden is gone, but as population growth leads to privation  and privation inspires religious fundamentalism, there will be more just like him. We may call them evil, but the true enemy is compounded growth and a culture that is geared to growth rather than sustainability.

              

              

Spanish Moss

     During the years I worked as a wilderness guide, I spent many more nights sleeping on the ground than in my own bed at home. Three months in the field was followed by about a month spent at home, and apart from the occasional visit to our base camp for re-supply, all of that three months was spent outdoors. In the winter months if you spend enough time outside, your body becomes remarkably acclimatized to the cold. Fifty degrees is shirt-sleeve weather.
     There were adjustments to make during the time spent at home after an extended stay away from technology. The bed was too soft so I slept on the floor (and my back has thanked me ever since.) The television was rarely on:  after weeks of natural sounds, quiet conversation and silence, the mindless chatter was insufferable. Electric heat made the house too hot and stuffy, and the electric bill for the month after a return from the wilderness was among the lowest of the year.
     Throughout the years that I lived closer to nature and less dependent on technology, I was not particularly aware that I was living as the majority of the world's population lives. This morning an unlikely source brought it home to me when I woke up to see Spanish moss hanging outside the bedroom window of this rented vacation home.
     During the 1990's the wilderness school which employed me ran expeditions for adjudicated youth down the Ocmulgee, Oconee and Altamaha River systems in the winter months. Our canoes, which put in just south of Macon, Ga., would travel over 300 miles through some of the wildest and most remote areas of the southeast to our takeout location near Darien, Ga. Spanish moss is a constant companion in the blackwater swamps of South Georgia, and for groups of unruly teenagers unaccustomed to budgeting time, energy or industrially produced paper products, it was often a replacement for those paper products when they ran out.
     For a moment this morning when I woke up and Spanish Moss was the first thing I saw, as has happened so many times from inside a sleeping bag, the memories of the past were incongruous with my king sized mattress, the television left on all night, the sound of the coffee maker coming from the kitchen and the behemoth heat pump humming outside, just on the other side of the thin shell separating me from the great outdoors.
     The shell that separates us all from that great outdoors is thinner than most of us realize, and we fight to maintain it. The battleground extends from boardrooms to the halls of Congress to the deserts of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and about 140 places around the world where we have military bases. The fight is about oil, minerals and raw materials that we forcibly extract from the earth to be consumed in the bonfires of our vanity. The fight is about maintaining at all costs the cancerous philosophy of growth and consumption which supports that thin shell, and we are destined to lose this battle.
     The war (and notice how much of our language is framed in terms of struggle and violence) may yet be won. In our own rural area I read headlines of solar farms online and under construction. Innovation is alive and well as new technologies make our energy consumption more efficient. But as in all wars, there will be casualties. Not to single out a particular automaker, but our "ram tough" insistence of compensating our sense of powerlessness with giant hauling and pulling conveyances which brag about getting a measly 20 mpg - is ram stubborn and ram stupid, and this attitude permeates our entire energy economy. Additionally, we have an aging population less able to adapt to change. Personally, I would have a hard time returning to a tent and a sleeping bag and I am just as fond of comfort and convenience as anyone else. Our parents fought to preserve freedom and to give their children better opportunities. We will do the same, but my own generation will also fight to keep the air conditioner on and the gas tank full, and this fight is not going to be pretty.