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The Gaia Referendum: Or, How Ecuador is Giving Nature Her Day in Court—Part 5
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Although the government is ultimately responsible for upholding the rights afforded by the new constitution, in Ecuador, every individual, organization or community now has the power to represent Nature in the court system and halt any damaging activities. Alberto Acosta, ex-president of the Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly, helped draft the new laws. He remarked: “If social justice was the axis of struggle in the 20th century, environmental justice is going to be the focus of conflicts for the 21st century.” Any legal measures to protect the environment have, until now, concentrated only on regulating human behavior. Ecuador’s new constitution represents such a radical turning point because it champions sustainable development and progressive cooperation over economic growth.
“I think a lot of eyes will be on Ecuador,” said Mari Margil, associate director of the Community Environmental Legal Defence Fund-the law firm that worked with the members of Ecuador’s Assembly to draft the legal framework. “With this vote, they are leading the way for countries around the world to fundamentally change how we protect Nature.” Throughout late 2007 and early 2008, the Legal Defense Fund was invited to assist the Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly to draft provisions relating to ecosystem rights for the new constitution. The Delegates asked the Fund to draft language based on specific groundbreaking ordinances and laws developed for and adopted by certain municipalities in the United States. Officially, the new constitution seeks to repair many of the nation’s past inequities and injustices, not just those related to Nature. New provisions guarantee collective rights to water and food, free education for all, increased spending on health, the availability of low-interest micro-loans, building materials for first-time home owners, and free seeds for planting crops. According to Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuador’s ambassador to the United Nations: “It aims to supersede the assumption that having more will enable better living.” Inspired by the indigenous Quichua concept, sumak kawsay-which translates as ‘balanced living’-this new constitution promotes being in harmony with oneself, society and nature.
“Throughout legal history,” stated Mr. Acosta, “each extension of liberties-the abolition of slavery or the expansion of civil rights-has required a recognition of the ‘right to have rights’. It has taken a concerted political effort to change the laws which deny this vision.” Ecuador’s extension of legal rights for Nature may also represent a wider shift in how humans view their place in the world. The Legal Defense Fund has been fielding calls on the subject from Italy, Australia, South Africa and Nepal-also in the throes of its first constitution. Some religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dalai Lama, have recently declared that caring for Nature is a spiritual duty, while the Catholic Church has incorporated ‘Thou shalt not pollute the environment’ into its revised list of Seven Deadly Sins.
Such ongoing progress could begin to make neoliberal development models obsolete and have a tremendous impact on multinational corporations, especially those in the extractive industries, from entering new markets and conducting “business as usual.” “We are still on time for our laws to recognize the right of a river to flow and to prohibit actions that will destabilize the Earth’s climate…” said Mr. Acosta. “It is time to stop the mad commodification of Nature, as it was in previous years time to prohibit the buying and selling of human beings.”
The Gaia Referendum: Or, How Ecuador is Giving Nature Her Day in Court—Part 4
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I find it interesting that much of the pioneering work and language unveiled in the Ecuadorian constitution originated back here in the United States. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, based in central Pennsylvania, has pioneered many of these rights-based environmental protection concepts here at home. To date, the organization has assisted more than a dozen local municipalities, including areas of California, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New Hampshire, with the drafting and adoption of laws recognizing the Rights of Nature. The key to these laws echoes the sentiments of Justice Douglas in his opinion-that a fundamental change in the recognized status of ecosystems is required if we are ever to effect meaningful and lasting environmental change. An evolution under the law must occur: Ecosystems must no longer be regarded as property, but rather as rights-bearing entities in the eyes of our judicial system. The law must eliminate the right of a property owner to interfere with the functioning of ecosystems that exist and depend upon that property for their continued existence. Such laws are not absolute-in certain cases, they permit development that does not interfere with the ability of a “tenant” ecosystem to thrive and flourish.
For much too long, America has taken a completely different view of the environment and its custodial relationship to it. In fact, our current laws codify environmental destruction and apathetic inaction. The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and all similar laws-these treat nature as property, thus legalizing environmental destruction by regulating it. How much pollution is ok under the law? How much destruction? How important is an ecosystem, or a species? Rather than prevention, our current system relies on codification and value-neutral judgments that are often made by those least knowledgeable of the particular problem or issue at hand. As Thomas Linzey, a US attorney who has helped to develop the new legal framework for nature, states: “The dominant form of environmental protection in industrialized countries is based on the regulatory system. Governments permit and legalize the discharge of certain amounts of toxics into the environment. As a form of environmental protection, it’s not working.”
And Linzey continues: “In the same way, compensation is measured in terms of that injury to a person or people. Under the new system, it will be measured according to damage to the ecosystem.” Thus the new system becomes, in essence, an attempt to codify sustainable development, and by extension, the ability for man to coexist in an environment of peace and ultimate accountability with nature. “The new laws would grant people the right to sue on behalf of an ecosystem, even if not actually injured themselves,” concludes Linzey.
The new laws proposed by the CELDF-and which now form a fundamental piece of the Ecuadorian constitution-recognize that ecosystems possess the basic and inalienable right to exist and flourish, and that people possess the legal authority to enforce these rights on behalf of the ecosystems. More important for the effective implementation of such rights, as Linzey states, these new laws require governments to remedy violations of these natural rights. If adequate legal remedy and accountability exist-and these concepts will most likely be the first tested in the South American nation-the constitution has a solid chance of working. If such remedy is given only lip service by the high courts of the land, the landmark people’s referendum will have approved just another piece of impotent paper. I, for one, am praying that we see the former option in action over the coming years.
The Gaia Referendum: Or, How Ecuador is Giving Nature Her Day in Court—Part 3
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In stark contrast to the exploitation mentioned in the previous entry and its aftermath, the new constitution provides, for the first time ever, in any country, explicit legal protections for the environment. Article 1 of the Chapter entitled “Rights for Nature” reads as follows: “Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has a right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structures, functions and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public bodies.” Article 2 states that “Nature has the right to an integral restoration. This integral restoration is independent of the obligation on natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people and the collectives that depend on the natural systems.” In extreme cases, the section goes on to say that the State will establish the most efficient mechanisms for restoration. Wow.
The document also decrees that the government must apply “precaution in all the activities that could lead to the extinction of any species, the destruction of ecosystems or cause the permanent alteration of natural cycles.” Taking these concepts even further, the constitution also includes the right to be free from “exploitation” and “harmful environmental consequences.” Article 4 states that “The State will apply precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles.” Obviously, the practical interpretations of such language remain to be seen, especially given President Rafael Correa’s past record in certain areas, particularly with regard to oil exploration and drilling. But for now, as a personal aside, I’m allowing the optimist in me to be my guide; I want to believe, therefore I shall.
For President Correa, the new constitution represents a symbolic departure from the small nation’s long-standing reliance on oil, marking a noticeable shift toward renewable energy sources as the long-term solution for Ecuador’s economic future. The document provides additional strength to the Correa administration’s 2007 decision to halt ongoing oil exploration in the Yasuni rainforest, the most biologically diverse ecosystem on the face of the Earth and home to numerous indigenous peoples and endangered species. The strong language of the new constitution cements this direction in a dramatic and enduring manner. Is there a selfish component to this complex game? Of course there is. Ecuador is trying to gain concessions in the international carbon-trading game, essentially saying, “Pay us billions to keep our rainforest pristine and use the credits to offset your terrible polluting practices in [insert name of large industrial nation here].” But hey, that’s politics, right? I don’t think it should obscure the larger legal accomplishment of the new constitution itself, which is not only progressive but truly revolutionary in its scope.
The Gaia Referendum: Or, How Ecuador is Giving Nature Her Day in Court—Part 2
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Environmentalists throughout the world certainly seem to view Ecuador’s referendum as something of a sea change for world environmental policy, one which it will be difficult to backslide from should the desire ever arise. Just ask Dr Mario Melo, an attorney, environmental law advocate, and an advisor to Fundación Pachamama, which helped Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly in the drafting of the new document. As he eloquently explains, the new constitution redefines the Ecuadorian people’s relationship with Nature at its most basic level. Nature is no longer treated as an object to be appropriated and exploited, but rather as a rights-bearing entity that enjoys full parity within the nation’s legal system. “In this sense, the constitution reflects the traditions of the indigenous peoples living in Ecuador, who see Nature as a mother and call her by her proper name, Pachamama,” Dr. Melo remarked.
And no other place on Earth enjoys such fabulous natural diversity. Geographically, Ecuador abounds in unique habitats and precious ecosystems. The Amazon rainforest, the Andes and the Galapagos Islands are home to rare and irreplaceable flora and fauna: the jaguar, spectacled bear, land and marine iguanas, golden-headed quetzal, umbrella bird, river otter, fur seal and thousands of species of orchids. The country is also culturally diverse, with a quarter of its population comprised of indigenous peoples. Descendants of the Incas, Quichua, Otavaleños and Saraguros live primarily in the Andean highlands, while the tropical rainforest serves as home to the Shuar, Huaorani and Achuar Indians. Two as-yet-uncontacted tribes still dwell in the Yasuni rainforest. The new constitution represents a groundbreaking step towards the protection of this natural wealth and cultural diversity.
This new blueprint for Nature’s ‘right to exist’ creates an alternative paradigm for sovereignty on every level, one more distinctly in line with the beliefs and practices of Ecuador’s numerous indigenous tribes. It clearly acknowledges that all life on Earth is interconnected, and that it must be protected and respected for the sake of all species and peoples. A major contributor to this progressive legal shift rests with Ecuador’s growing discontent with foreign multi-nationals and their never-ending penchant for exploitation. Ecuador contains every South American ecosystem inside its borders (which include the Galapagos Islands), and has endured a series of disastrous events brought about by large foreign companies in recent years, the most impactful being the current massive Chevron lawsuit, which accuses the oil company of dumping 18 tons of oil and contaminating groundwater over more than 4,200 acres of rainforest, poisoning as many as 30,000 locals. In general, Ecuador’s experience with such corporations has gained it little more than the pollution and poverty these giants leave behind.
The Gaia Referendum: Or, How Ecuador is Giving Nature Her Day in Court—Part 1
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Every day, we’re bombarded by environmental predictions more dire than those of the day before. Every day, we’re told that time is running out for our planet if we don’t make some drastic course changes. The stark policy truth is no secret: Today’s environmental laws have been warped and manipulated beyond recognition. In short, they have ceased to serve their original purposes, assuming those purposes were ever even known or recognized by the armies of lobbyists and complicit politicians who have made careers out of circumventing them. By almost every measure, the environment today is in worse shape than when the major US environmental laws were first adopted several decades ago. Unfortunately, until recently many nations simply mimicked the US legislation, replicating a system that has been twisted and broken from its outset.
The signs that these laws have failed are more pervasive than ever-species decline has accelerated worldwide, and certain extreme instances of such decline, like Colony Collapse Disorder, continue to baffle scientists; global warming is occurring at a greater rate than previously believed; deforestation continues at a disturbing pace, especially given new scientific data proving the vital importance of the rainforest and its role as a carbon sink; and overfishing in our planet’s oceans is pushing many fisheries beyond the point of collapse. Nations and their citizens alike need to wake up and face the problem before it’s too late, and a critical first step along this path is the recognition that true environmental protection will remain unattainable as long as we adhere to a structure of law that treats ecosystems and their denizens as property over which we wield absolute control.
But the winds of change may have begun to gather force this past Autumn. September, 2008 saw the creation and ratification of what may become known as one of the most important international documents of the Twenty-first Century: Ecuador’s new Constitution. By an overwhelming margin in a national referendum, the people of Ecuador approved a new constitution that is the first in the world to legally recognize enforceable Rights of Nature, or ecosystem rights. Unfortunately, what should have been a roar of progressive victory from environmentalists the world over became little more than a whisper, with the event’s fundamental importance overshadowed by a myriad of more pressing items on the international stage, from the American Presidential election to the precipitous deterioration of the world economy to the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For you see, Ecuador has gone where no other nation has yet ventured. It has given Nature herself a set of inalienable rights, rights that may be prosecuted and defended in a court of law. Christopher Stone would be proud; in one of the more famous law review articles ever published—Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights For Natural Objects—Stone, a USC law professor at the time, argued that natural objects should have at least three basic rights:
1) The right to institute legal action at their own behest;
2) The right to have injuries to them taken into account in determining legal relief; and
3) The right to benefit from that relief.
Shortly afterward, Stone’s views were codified further in a landmark environmental law case brought before the United States Supreme Court. In Sierra Club vs. Morton, Justice William O. Douglas argued that inanimate objects should be accorded the right to sue in a court of law. As he famously stated: “Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. The corporation sole-a creature of ecclesiastical law-is an acceptable adversary and large fortunes ride on its cases…. So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes-fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it.”
Together these men’s writings have served as the underlying philosophy for something resembling a quiet but persistent environmental movement, albeit a somewhat radical one. But as we stand at the end of the first decade of the new millennium, as we hear one dire ecological prediction after another, isn’t it time to start entertaining more radical and forthright solutions? Solutions that might start to bear fruit in our own lifetimes, instead of in our grandchildren’s? The people of Ecuador certainly think so, and their new constitution may represent the herald of a new age of reason.
American Twilight—Part 4
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“The success of a party,” Woodrow Wilson claimed, “means little except when the nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose.” By this standard, both of the parties that currently dominate the American political landscape are failures. The Republicans are handicapped by an ideology holding that it is somehow possible to pursue big-spending conservatism at home and an interventionist military program abroad while cutting taxes repeatedly. The Democrats, meanwhile, are paralyzed by the micro-agendas of countless feuding lobbies and other factions. Unfortunately, as a nation we currently stand at something of a crossroads. As a people we need to choose the road less traveled if we are to have any hope of addressing problems long overlooked. And, if both history and recent events, particularly the debate related to the just-passed stimulus bill, are any indication, our political leaders will not choose that road of their own accord.
In this era of an increasingly moderate populace, perhaps it is time for an even larger populist reorientation of the status quo. Even though confidence in government, business, and church remain at all-time lows, Americans themselves continue to become more informed and more sophisticated, thanks in large part to the Internet and, more recently, to the all-pervasive activist phenomena surrounding the social networking sphere. Surely this cultural growth, with a nudge from the proper quarters, can be redirected toward increased civic participation, as well? As our nation moves boldy into the post-industrial age, our citizens-the real stakeholders in our government-need to begin to take back some of the power that rightly belongs to them. We’ve just seen a President who campaigned on a platform bearing remarkable similarities to several of the statements made above-we’ll see if his policies actually deliver on the promises; we’ll see if the invitations extended to the common man during the election will hold true beyond the administration’s first challenging year.
But it would be short-sighted, especially in the face of our current laundry list of crises, to assume that governmental reform alone represents an adequate beginning. A similar awakening needs to occur in corporate America, as well. As Halstead writes in his well-known essay, “American Paradox,” “The only way to free both major parties from the minoritarian groups that now wag the dog—whether teachers’ unions or moral fundamentalists—is for Americans to re-enter the political process en masse…Like an unused muscle, collective power need only be exercised to regain its inherent strength.” For our nation to move forward and regain a semblance of its former stature—both moral and economic—on the world stage, it will require the collective efforts of a populace that has become increasingly jaded and suspicious over the past decade. Do we have what it takes to rise to the challenge, to do what we’ve done so many times before? I’d like to think so. But like it or not, a storm is brewing as we stand on the cusp of the new millennium. How we weather the storm, how we reinvent ourselves as a nation, and how we finally face many of issues we’ve spent the last century avoiding—each of these things will determine the ultimate role that America will play in the 21st Century, both on the world stage and in the lives of its citizens.
American Twilight—Part 3
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As we approach the second decade of the 21st Century, this atmosphere of elitism continues to gain momentum, and its consequences grow more far-reaching every day. For a variety of reasons, our political system has gradually nurtured and perpetuated a climate of popular exclusion. Even as 21st Century media outlets and the Internet cast stark illumination on the worst examples of the system, the general level of public apathy towards government, coupled with a sense that non-participation has become the norm, provide windows into a larger crisis of social conscience. Of course, exceptions do exist (witness the 2004 Howard Dean and 1992 Ross Perot presidential campaigns, as well as the recent Obama campaign), but people no longer trust their government as they once did. In an age where sitting presidents are accused of infidelity and worse, where elected officials regularly grace the pages of magazines like People and US Weekly, perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us when average citizens begin to buy into pieces of one fringe conspiracy theory or another. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us when the average citizen feels more like a victim than a voice. The American political stage of the new millennium, while more open in many ways, has certainly become far less trusting and participatory than at any other time in the history of our country.
In fact, overall trust in most organizations in this country has fallen considerably over the past few decades. Trust in our government crested in 1966 and has dropped by about half since then. A scant sixteen percent of Americans, as opposed to fifty-five percent in 1966, claim to have “a great deal of confidence” in major corporations, and with the scandals sweeping both Wall Street and corporate America these days, these numbers are sure to fall even further. Only twenty-three percent of Americans say that they trust organized religion, again down by about half since the mid-sixties. And once again, the recent scandals sweeping through the Catholic Church-and the Church’s seeming inability to satisfactorily rectify these crises-will probably affect these numbers, as well. Finally, and perhaps most telling, the percentage of Americans who say they trust other people has fallen to thirty percent, down from a high of about fifty-five percent in the early sixties. Disturbing trends, to be sure, but perhaps not surprising in light of the events of the past half-century.
And as we enter an era where a growing and increasingly vocal minority label themselves “Independent” with regard to party affiliation, perhaps it’s time to train the harsh light of scrutiny on the two major parties themselves, since it is this rivalry-Republican vs. Democrat-that has shaped and defined American politics and policy for the past hundred and fifty years. But do these time-worn institutions even resemble themselves, anymore? Republicans, urged ever onward by the Christian Right, carefully frame their arguments in morally derived absolutes: The Soviet Union was an “evil empire.” All drugs are “evil.” As Ted Halstead writes in his essay, Dysfunctional Duopoly, “Moralism may or may not make for good politics, but it rarely makes for good policy, because it substitutes wishful and parochial thinking for careful analysis.”
And while the party known for its dedication to smaller government and less intrusion into personal liberties continues to trumpet these ideals in the halls of power, its near term record tells a different story. From concessions to big business to runaway agricultural subsidies to overt restrictions on free trade, recent Republican administrations have allowed government spending to careen totally out of control. Champions of the free market? I don’t think so. These days the Republican ideology makes the Democrats look more libertarian than ever.
And what of their traditional opposition? Once a stated champion of the common man, the Democratic Party has become so fragmented, so divisive, and so reliant on massive and often forced coalitions among the myriad interest groups that form its base, that its leaders often seem downright schizophrenic. Unfortunately, as party leaders attempt to satisfy one special interest after another, the results have been paralyzing, and most of the recognizable ideals upon which the party was built have been lost. As Halstead writes: “In its legitimate desire to preserve the New Deal and the Great Society, the Democratic Party has become trapped in the past, routinely defending antiquated industrial-era programs that no longer serve their original ends…they are increasingly guilty of confusing ends and means.”
In addition their scattershot approach to policy, the Democrats, once the stated champion of the common man, no longer seems to think the common man can make decisions on his own, and the Obama administration shows no sign of altering this perception. Democratic proposals of recent years tend to refashion outdated agendas from the party’s heyday, and exhibit a disturbing lack of vision and ability in the face of the crises looming before America in the 21st Century. While the party continues to overtly champion certain individual rights-abortion and lifestyle choices among them-it has regressed with regard to choices in the public sphere, attempting to limit personal involvement in large social programs like Social Security and Medicare. To a certain degree, the party’s leaders seem locked in a strange kind of time warp-while our country needs bold leadership in this age of globalization and the Internet, we’re getting wishy-washy policy reflections of the 1950s, instead. Hopefully the new administration’s promise of real change will prove to be much more than campaign slogans and hollow words.
Wrath of the Nine Percenters. Or, a plasma TV in every pot…
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In a time when we’re bombarded by statistics every day, and each day the sum total of the bombardment seems ever more grim, ever more hopeless, certain items still manage to stand out from all the ambient noise. For me this week, two items fell into this category: First, that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bought more mortgages from 2005 to 2008 than in the 30+ years since each company was founded; Second, the additional $30 billion bailout of AIG coupled with a slow burn of understanding that began to coalesce for me relating to certain elements of the stimulus package just passed by Congress. Namely, the almost $8 billion in wasteful spending and pork that has been stuffed into the damned thing, as well as elements of the process attached to the overarching “rules” to bail individuals out of their mortgage nightmares. Now, I feel for the average American as much as the next guy, but I’m proud to be a card-carrying member of the “91 percenters,” or those who didn’t a) work the system to purchase far more house than they could afford; b) work the system to purchase second or even third homes (living in Las Vegas, you’d be surprised out how common this was, and even more suprised by who was doing the buying), and; c) work the system just because it was broken and eminently workable, and I had weekly if not daily invitations to “work it” by those supposedly in the know. In fact, I didn’t purchase a home at all over the past few years, primarily because I didn’t have enough saved for a downpayment for the house I wanted. Do I feel silly now? The government is certainly trying its best to make me feel that way. Had I gotten into a single home, with a non-jumbo mortgage, and had I simply allowed myself to sink deeper and deeper into the damned thing (probably by buying a new Hummer or some such thing–this IS Vegas, right?), I’d be a prime candidate for one of the various bailout scenarios orbiting the much larger set of handouts generously described as the stimulus bill. Remember: I live in las Vegas, the epicenter of plunging home prices and foreclosures. In the proposed bill, those who receive the most help are those 50% or more “underwater” in their mortgage. According to new statistics just released, one in five of all American homeowners now owe more than their house is worth. That’s more than a crisis, folks-that’s a bloody disaster.
For someone who does not currently own a home, it’s certainly a fascinating first-hand view we’re getting into the essential collapse of a keystone of the American Dream, and the battle lines are certainly being drawn on sidewalks in suburbs all over this great country. Because, you see, the 91% of the population (although this number continues to fall) who bought the home they could afford, who weren’t wooed by clever P&I scams and ARMs, are largely getting angrier and angrier as the details of these various rescue packages continue to be released, and who can blame them? It’s like watching your junkie neighbor blow all his cash on crack and then seeing his kids get need-based scholarships to private school-it just ain’t right.
And in the end, it comes down to a combination of attitudes that remain, for better or worse, uniquely American. The buzzwords should sound familiar to anyone who follows the liberal media-entitlement, avarice, untouchability, immunity, and basic, old-fashioned American arrogance. Of course this couldn’t happen here, in the good old U S of A. And now we’re faced with a possible downgrade of certain US government bonds by Moody’s; we’re being treated to the effective implosion of Dubai and a desert culture whose meteoric rise can only be compared to the smoke and mirrors that gave birth to a place like Las Vegas, a place built not on substance (read: oil) but on flash and false promise (read: real estate and finance). We’re seeing the partial and “temporary” nationalization of banks in the UK, and we’re hearing whispers of similar pending deals here-not with struggling regional institutions, but with major banks like Citigroup, whose stock price is now lower than one of the off-institution ATM fees the company charges. But remember: Ninety-one percent of those reading this are responsible people. They pay their taxes. They send their kids to public schools. My Dad taught me to be one of those guys, someone who doesn’t expect free lunches and a world without the AMT. A guy that coaches little league and plays on his local business or church softball team. Maybe it’s the fact that living in Las Vegas has accelerated some fundamental cynical physiological mutation in me, or maybe its the fact that for the past ten years, average people felt that they were playing in a social class a little above their means because their home was a long-term “investment” that represented a never-ending stream of home equity loans and emergency lines of credit. But more and more, I wonder, where have the solid ones gone? The “real” ninety-one percenters? The sense of entitlement of the average American has become not only extreme and but in many ways embarrassing when considered on the international stage.
And in the face of everything that has happened over the past year, with the meltdowns in real estate and in the financial sectors, and with many first world nations looking to us for help in shoring up their own flagging economies, there remain those among us who expect the system to save them. Just save them. Without ever thinking about the problem itself or what got us here. Without ever looking inward and asking the hard questions that should be asked. About greed. About accountability. Because, in the end, that’s what this is really all about: We all passed the buck to the next guy, and the finger pointing continues to this day. It’s time for our citizens as a whole to stand and say, “We overreached. That was a mistake.” It’s time for a little accountability. And so, in a roundabout way, we come to the ultimate point of this little diatribe. I’d like to humbly offer a modest proposal: Let the business cycle take its course. Yes, this would have dire short-term consequences both at home and abroad, but Americans have proven time and again how resilient we are. If things get far worse before they better (and they will), so be it. It’ a better alternative than rewarding those who deserve no reward. And maybe this time, the poignance and pain of the lesson will remain so indelible that it won’t be forgotten so easily by the next generation. Because that also seems to be the way of the new America-we have become a country with a very short memory.
American Twilight—Part 2
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All of America’s successes and opportunities have had their cumulative effects on world geopolitics, as well, as the current state of the global economy illustrates with such stark reality. As we enter an uncertain future, America now finds itself occupying an enviable position as the world’s dominant superpower, possessing not only the military might but also the economic power to influence and direct world affairs on an unprecedented scale. The past few decades have also instilled in the average American a growing sense of responsibility for world economic and geopolitical policy, as recent events in such far-flung places as Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Bosnia illustrate all too well. We’re no longer simply accused of being the world’s policeman—in many nations, we’ve become a poster child for diplomatic police brutality and strong armsmanship.
This sense of moral certitude and accountability, coupled with our considerable successes in recent decades, have made the powers-that-be secure in their assumption of a leadership role in the growing trend toward globalization as it gained considerable momentum throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Some would also argue that the foreign policy spawned by such attitudes has led us to our current situation of “primary target” among both foreign governments and many of the groups attempting to undermine or overthrow those governments. As critics of the former administration would be quick to point out, individual Americans traveling abroad are probably less secure today than at any other time in our nation’s history.
There’s also no question that America has been blessed in its abundance. Our ascent from colony to superpower—accomplished in only 200 years—is nothing short of meteoric by the conventional standards of world history and nation building. No country on earth possesses more abundant and diverse natural resources; we boast a broader range of energy resources than any other country in the world, among them significant mineral, timber, natural gas, and oil reserves, as well as a vast agricultural base. America also enjoys the protection of two sizable oceans—barriers that insulate our shores and our people from much of the unrest in other, less developed parts of the world, and which created a self-contained and stable environment within which our society was allowed to grow and prosper largely unhindered in the decades following the Industrial Revolution.
Unfortunately, these natural advantages have begun to erode, and the definition of a secure boundary is considerably different than it was a century ago. In an age of nuclear devices concealed in briefcases and viral agents capable of unthinkable destruction, the events of September 11, 2001 became much more than a wake-up call for America. They served notice to our people that we had entered a new era, one where safety and security were suddenly defined very differently. And as devastating as 9-11 was, it stands as merely the most obvious example that the past does not necessarily dictate the future. As technology improves and globalization continues, the inherent advantages provided by America’s extensive natural resources will begin to grow less important, and by extension, less relevant.
Thankfully, these natural advantages represent only part of the story. The choices we have made as Americans serve to balance this complex geopolitical equation, and hopefully the pendulum has begun its swing in a more proactive direction for the future. The hard-won construction of a political system that encourages ingenuity and industriousness has had more to do with our success than any of these natural advantages. Support for individual freedoms and property rights, an openness that allows individuals to pursue their dreams, to succeed and fail on their own merits, and to keep the ultimate fruits of their labor—these are the underlying principles that have made our country great, and upon which rest our ultimate hopes for future generations.
But the policies that deliver on these principles have become rather strained over the past few decades. As P.J. O’Rourke states in his insightful analysis of world economic systems, Eat the Rich, “…politicians are cheerleaders who have themselves confused with the people who carried the ball.” And perhaps this observation rests at the heart of our current situation. We’ve become so litigious, so mired in bureaucracy for its own sake, so self-serving and self-important, that our leaders are more concerned with taking credit for the work of others and deflecting blame than with actually tackling the toughest issues as they stagnate right beneath their noses. We’ve become a nation more concerned with congressional re-districting and all-powerful lobbies than with addressing many of our core social issues, not to mention the inevitable side effects of globalization, and somewhere along the line the voice of the individual citizen has been muted and distorted. As we stand on the cusp of the new millennium, the silence is deafening.
American Twilight—Part 5
Posted by: Christian Moore | Comments (0)Unfortunately, many of the key problems facing us as we enter the 21st Century aren’t obvious to most Americans, and the results are predictable—people pay very little attention to them. The natural corollary, that politicians are paying little attention to them as well, continues to fan the increasingly significant flames of public apathy. Without appropriately educating the American public on these looming problems, our citizens have no incentive to force the politicians to clear the decks of yesterday’s issues. In short, accountability is lacking because the day-to-day smoke and mirrors of politics has gone a long way toward obscuring these future issues from the minds of our citizens. But slowly the smoke is beginning to clear and the mirrors are beginning to crack; our government will only be able to leave its head in the sand for so long. Hopefully it won’t be too late when we finally decide to emerge, finding in the process that the world has become a very different place, both for ourselves and for our children.
In the meantime, though, politicians seem content to bicker continuously, to avoid exploring obvious but politically risky solutions, and to mislead the public by speaking in political sound bites rather than telling the truth. While the Obama Administration seemed to offer a promising alternative to the status quo, as time passes its underpinnings, too, seem to be founded more and more in compromise. The snarling tiger is morphing into the purring kitten before our eyes. In a similar vein, today’s politicians also spend a great deal of time standing in the way of progress because politically powerful lobbies provide any number of creative and lucrative incentives for them to do just that. In short, we’ve entered a new era of “spin control” politics, and for the most part our politicians have become the type of officials that their handlers and supporters want them to be. They’ve determined the best way to stay in office and best way to work both sides of the fence, even if that means sacrificing our standard of living and position in the world in the process. This overarching desire among the political elite to keep their jobs and adhere to polarizing philosophies has placed our society in a terrible position to face the future. And the long-term net result could be grim indeed—as citizens, we’re left with a system of government that can’t seem to solve the problems of the 20th Century because politics gets in the way of creative, effective, and practical solutions, solutions we need to be exploring right now rather than foisting off on future generations. Assuming this statement to be a self-evident truth, how will we ever prepare ourselves to tackle the problems looming before us in the 21st?