Community | July 20, 2011 | 36 comments

You can't kill a planet and live on it too

source: http://www.truth-out.org/you-cant-kill-planet-and-live-it-too/1310403275

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JanforGore
Let's expose the structure of violence that keeps the world economy running.

With an entire planet being slaughtered before our eyes, it's terrifying to watch the very culture responsible for this - the culture of industrial civilization, fueled by a finite source of fossil fuels, primarily a dwindling supply of oil - thrust forward wantonly to fuel its insatiable appetite for "growth."

Deluded by myths of progress and suffering from the psychosis of technomania complicated by addiction to depleting oil reserves, industrial society leaves a crescendo of atrocities in its wake.

A very partial list would include the Bhopal chemical disaster, numerous oil spills, the illegal depleted uranium-spewing occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, mountaintop removal, the nuclear meltdown of Fukushima, the permanent removal of 95 percent of the large fish from the oceans (not to mention full-on systemic collapse of those oceans), indigenous communities replacement by oil wells, the mining of coltan for cell phones and Playstations along the Democratic Republic of the Congo/Rwanda border - resulting in tribal warfare and the near-extinction of the Eastern Lowland gorilla.

As though 200 species going extinct each day were not enough, climate change, a direct result of burning fossil fuels, has proved not only to be as unpredictable as it is real, but as destructive as it is unpredictable. The erratic and lethal characteristics of a changing planet and its shifting atmosphere are becoming the norm of the 21st century, their impact accelerating at an alarming pace, bringing this planet closer, sooner than later, to a point of uninhabitable ghastliness. And yet, collective apathy, ignorance and self-imposed denial in the face of all this sadistic exploitation and violence marches this culture closer to self-annihilation.

Lost in the eerily comforting fantasy of limitless growth, production and consumption, many people cling to things like Facebook, Twitter, "Jersey Shore" and soulless pop music as if their lives depended on it, identifying with a reality that's artificial and constructed, that panders to desire rather than necessity, that delicately conceals the violence at the other end of this economy, a violence so widespread that we're all not only complicit in it to a degree (e.g., if you're a taxpayer, you help subsidize the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction), but victims of it as well. As Chris Hedges admonished in his books, "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy" and the "Triumph of Spectacle," any culture that cannot distinguish reality from illusion will kill itself.

Moreover, any culture that cannot distinguish reality from illusion will kill everything and everyone else in its path as well as itself.

As the world burns, as species die off, as mothers breastfeed their children with dioxin-tainted breast milk, as nuclear reactors melt down into the Pacific while the aerial deployment of depleted uranium damages innocent lives, it is perplexing that so few people fight back against a system that has horror as a reality for most living on the planet. And those who fight back, who stand in opposition to the culture behind such wholesale abuse and call it what it is - a genocidal mega-state (especially if you believe that the lives of nonhumans are as important to them as yours is to you and mine is to me) - are met with hostility and hatred, scoffed at, harassed, even tortured. With so much at stake, why aren't more people deafening their ears to the nutcases who preach a future of infinite-growth economies? And why do so many people continue to put "the economy" first, to take industrial capitalism as we know it as a given and not fight back, defend what's left of the natural world?

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36 comments // You can't kill a planet and live on it too

  • figgdimension
  • squarethecircle
  • totally_dilapidated
  • DeistofSurreal
  • DeistofSurreal
  • DudleyDooleft
  • VanessafromDC
  • SandyBerman
    • SandyBerman  
    • This comment was removed as a violation of community guidelines.
  • JanforGore
  • squarethecircle
  • SandyBerman
  • squarethecircle
    • 0
      squarethecircle  
    • SandyBerman:

      Thanks for the invite.
      In my opinion, and it is only that, so please take it as you like, but as you already know, I am done with possession and claim. I feel by getting rid of nationalism and borders as well as our concept of economy and religion, we can step forward from the hate forced on us by these man made institutions. They are just that and can be man made better. I appreciate the clarity of the different forms of Zionism, most people just assume all Zionists are truly Jewish. I don't however think anyone is entitled to call a location "theirs", the Earth is home to us all and all issues need to first be addressed on a global level then individually addressed by local situation in the same awareness. By holding on to and trying to work within broken systems we put our eggs in a basket proven to have holes in it. Change must happen immediately, we can not afford to wait for elections that have already proven themselves ineffective. We can all get along but it will take a fundamental change of value...people and planet have value, not money. It is that simple.

      As a side note I would like to mention there are very few if any groups of people that haven't been discriminated against over time. The Indians went from 12,000,000 to 250,000 and we still live on "their" land. We all have more in common than we are allowed to think or have the true history to show.

    • 10 months ago
  • totally_dilapidated
  • EmileZ
    • +1
      EmileZ [removed]  

    • "Moreover, any culture that cannot distinguish reality from illusion will kill everything and everyone else in its path as well as itself."

      That is certainly true about this culture. America has become a kind of Disneyland (for a great many of us, particularly the relatively well off and the college educated proffesionals). Maybe things have always been this way (more or less).

      It is up to us to face reality and not the false choice we are continually being presented with as the limit of our ability to comprehend history and influence the future.

    • 10 months ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • EmileZ:

      Americans were at a high point following World War II, so after it was over for a period of a few to ten years they felt unconquerable, unstoppable. Some still think that way, but of themselves, so they apparently decided to figure out ways they could enslave the Worker Class to keep feeding them that feeling.

      Much like worker ants serving their queen, even to the death, even to the deaths of the worker's children shipped overseas like the walking dead, 20 years old sent to die.

      For the kings & queens.

    • 10 months ago
  • bailey78
    • +2
      bailey78  

    • Well when it gets so bad that we can't survive without having an air filter straped to us all the time maybe they will try to do something then.

    • 10 months ago
  • Richard_Wyatt
  • Vierotchka
  • Incredulous
  • squarethecircle
  • warman1138
    • +3
      warman1138  

    • Unlike ancient civlizations that ruined parts of their ecosystems contributing to their downfalls. Ours are the result of corporations for profit and their combined efforts are doing in the entire planet instead of just an area or region.You put up very good and interesting posts thanx.

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  
    • warman1138:

      Thanks, and yes in a way as well we are still so much like the civilizations before us and have not learned from history regarding the limits of the biospheres we depend on. Easter Island, the Mayans, etc., even the Romans who though as visionary as they were barbaric still allowed greed and their arrogance override their glory. This is stuff that empires crumble from. And it is happening again, only this time we are taking the Earth with us.

      http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100326101117.htm
      Welcome to the Anthropocene epoch

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • +6
      JanforGore  

    • Let's face it, on the whole we have become too comfortable in our lives to ever really be willing to give up the ammenities we have come to rely on for our comfort, even knowing what their creation is doing to this planet for future generations. Everything we touch seems to be able to be traced back to a violent birth in the raping of resources, the exploitation of others and the continued feeding of this giant industrial monster that now permeates every facet of our lives even down to the seeds we plant in our soil. Our voracious appetite for "stuff" is leading us down a road to ruin where all we will have left are landfills overflowing with stuff that was replaced by new stuff that was made by the continued raping of the planet, the exploitation of others and the continued feeding of the industrial giant. And the cycle goes on and on.

      Is this truly our purpose on this planet? Just where do we think we can go when we have done our best to give ourselves the worst? Add to this the added quickening and devastating pace of climate change/biodistress and we see a clear impasse regarding the limits of the Earth's resources and the ability of our ecosystems to function. Yet we place more value on an Iphone than we do the potability of the water we use daily or the land that was mined and stripped of its value to give that phone to us.

      In reassessing the meaning of the word "value" is it only in the material things that fade and are actually fleeting? Our concepts that lead to our behavior are not an accurate depiction of our destiny. And that is our greatest obstacle to the truth that leads to the world we were meant to live in. Only when those concepts can be altered to see the true "value" before us will we be able to realize why we are truly here.

    • 10 months ago
  • Valence
    • +3
      Valence  
    • JanforGore:

      Couldn't have said it better if i tried.

      A side note, our misconstrued view of the meaning of value, mainly contributes to the reason why Celebrities have the power that they have, why aren't we celebrating teachers, professors, scientist, doctor,people who actually do something important? Its absolutely appalling.

    • 10 months ago
  • wynnmeg61
  • artemis6
    • 0
      artemis6  
    • JanforGore:

      very well said , beauty has value , love has value , connection has great value , history has value , health , wisdom , kindness , the scent of wildflowers , freedom , REAL freedom from the corporate overlords for ever and ever .

    • 10 months ago
  • milojacks
  • JanforGore
  • DudleyDooleft
    • 0
      DudleyDooleft  
    • Valence:

      Good point Valence. Our teachers, professors, scientists, doctors, and people who actually do something important, for the most part, are not in the employ of the information sources that tell us what is important, but celebrities are.

      Let's not talk about global warming, poverty, real healthcare reform, or anything substantive that may provoke a modicom of independent thought, too risky. Let's talk about Paris Hilton, Sarah Palin, or even Bristol Palin, these are real "meat on the bone", news worthy topics.

    • 10 months ago
  • sue4e3
  • Valence
    • +5
      Valence  

    • Its hard to really understand the value of a planet, when s many people have an innate sense of carelessness.

      Things taken for granted aren't truly understood until lost.

      In order for any good to come of us living on this planet we need to unite, not just as a country, not just as a continent but as Human beings, look at how animals in the wild live in pacts, why are we the supposed "Superior Beings" such individualist?

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • Gravity_Man
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • JanforGore:

      Your skill as a writer has increased very much. Your statements approach a Work of Art there Jan.

      Well, the taxpayers paid for Space Shuttles that were only used for half their expected longevity, so take 1/2 of the monies spent on the whole mess and chalk it up to MUSEUM FURNITURE EXPENSE.

    • 10 months ago
  • artemis6
    • +2
      artemis6  
    • Valence:

      It is a myth used against us --- divide and conquer . It has always been a lie . What we do the earth we do to ourselves . They just do not teach us that in school or church .

    • 10 months ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • artemis6:

      That's true, but all you lack for is a few excellent -dedicated- tools. That's why the divide & conquer works when the tools are kept from your hands.

      "Dedicated" is a word used in a different way than you likely are familiar with. When used of tools or machines it means one that has a particular function and does it best. You could say a garden hoe is a dedicated tool. It is the best tool for hoeing a garden plot.

      You lack engines that are similarly dedicated. The combustion engine is a split hoof. Instead of being dedicated it tries to do many jobs well and ends up doing none well. That's why it spits poison exhaust in the planet's face and destroys all life on Planet Earth.

      Combustion engines are a golden calf.

    • 10 months ago
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