Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Terror of Empire's Death Spiral

Click here to access article by Frank Smecker from OpEd News.

I am in complete agreement with the observations of this writer who asserts that what we have is...
...the most terrifying culture ever to exist, a culture that wholeheartedly, without question, believes in the fantasy that it can continue to live on a finite planet while practicing a way of life predicated on the assumption of infinite growth; a culture that will do anything within its means to reinforce this fantasy--such as, for one, destroy an entire planet through extractive industry and its waste" or, better yet, send messages to underdeveloped communities around the globe that declare that the resources beneath the ground of those respective communities are needed to keep this fantasy believable for those currently living it: Those resources are coveted and they will be forcefully taken if they are not voluntarily handed over, so the message goes.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, he is unable to name that part of the culture which is the dynamic that shapes so much of our culture--the capitalist system. If we can't name it, we can't identify the cause sufficiently so that we can apply some kind of effective remedy. With this kind of conceptualization of the problem, one might be left with some kind of moral imperative--like, we should all stop shopping so much. Imagine how effective that would be.