plerosis.com

We are reaping what we have sown. The current economic implosion is not merely the consequence of foolish or unscrupulous practices in the world of big corporations and high finance, nor is it simply the fallout of the policies of a particular administration (i.e. Bush), nor the result of the reign of a particular economic ideology (i.e. neoliberalism). We are bewildered, frightened, and angry, and we want to know who to blame, but we need look no further than our own backyards. The present disaster is ultimately the result of the way we have chosen to structure our political and economic relationships to the earth and to each other, both in our personal lives and collectively as human beings.

This is not just an economic crisis, it is an ecological crisis, it is a political crisis, and, at its root, it is a spiritual crisis. This crisis didn’t begin with the sub-prime mortgage debacle, not with Bush, not with the dawn of free-market corporate capitalism. We have been in the midst of the current crisis for a very long time.

So why now? If the problematic nature of our political and economic relations to the earth and each other stretches way back (maybe all the way back) then why is everything going all haywire right now? The answer is globalization. This is a new era in the history of humanity. The expansion of the scale of human activity, power, and presence within the finite context of the planet earth has crossed a critical threshold. The earth can no longer absorb the consequences of our actions. The impact of our presence on earth has outstripped the capacity of evolution to adapt in a way that can sustain life. The reduction of friction* and increasing interconnectedness of human political/economic relations, the consolidation of power in geographically abstracted mega-corporations, the creation of a globally integrated and instantaneous communication and information network, the fast movement of huge amounts of money, all driven by the power of computers, has changed us. We as human beings now exist in a categorically different relation to the natural systems of the earth that sustain us. We have become too powerful, too fast, too effective. Because of the integrated nature of our globalized world, the consequences of our actions become immediate and far-reaching. There is less and less delay in both space and time between the moment of action and its global effects. But our wisdom has not kept pace with our power. Lacking wisdom, we have become the monster, the economic Frankenstein, of our own creation.

But what is the essence of wisdom? (more…)

Comments (1)         Print

If you follow the news, you know that the Bush administration is finally coming close to achieving its objective in Iraq. Thousands of US soldiers are dead. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead. Millions are displaced. The whole region is a volatile quagmire. But it was worth it, because Operation Iraqi Freedom has succeeded: we are finally going to get the oil. Just in time too, what with gas at $4 per gallon and all.

No-bid contracts are about to be handed over to Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, BP, Chevron and a number of smaller companies so that they can help “rebuild the decrepit Iraqi oil industry.” In exchange, they will receive premium access to one of the largest remaining oil deposits in the world. These foreign firms are positioned to keep 75 percent of the value of the contracts granted under the control of the Iraqi National Oil Company. As other global sources dwindle, this is going to lead to a cash-flow for the chosen few that will make last year’s record-setting profits laughable. Mission accomplished, he said.

Here’s how it went down. We went in for the oil. We destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure, raided its coffers, despoiled priceless and ancient national treasures, illegally held and tortured detainees, killed people, decimated the economy, spawned a civil/religious war, alienated most of the world, and reduced the place to chaos. Then we handed out no-bid contracts (see a theme emerging?) to companies such as Haliburton and Bechtel with direct connections to the highest reaches of our government, funneling billions of US citizens’ dollars into a grossly negligent privatized reconstruction of Iraq. Now we want Iraq to pay for this “reconstruction” by handing over the oil.

Iraq is nearly destroyed, the American people were first lied to and then robbed blind, and a handful of multinational corporations are getting rich beyond their wildest dreams. You want to know what Iraq was really about? Take the advice Deep Throat gave during the Watergate scandal: follow the money.

That’s Iraq, but what I really want to talk about is Naomi Klein.

The mess in Iraq is just one the most recent and egregious examples of the consequences of what Naomi Klein calls “Disaster Capitalism”. Klein’s latest book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (a New York Times best seller) is now being released in paperback. It is the story of “how America’s free market policies have come to dominate the world– through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.” Klein systematically takes us through a modern history of human catastrophe, war, and natural disaster and shows how multinational corporations in bed with political and economic free-market ideologues have seized advantage of crises to impose draconian economic policies on wounded populations, handing over to private companies the riches of the public sphere, and creating conditions advantageous to only the biggest global players, often with brutal repression of dissent. Russia, China, Central and South America, the South-East Asia crisis, South Africa, the tsunami, New Orleans, Guantanamo, Iraq… She covers it all. Disaster profiteering has become one of the most lucrative ventures available for those who are positioned to exploit a shocked and beaten populace. We, as Americans, need to understand how powerful interests play on our fears to garner support for international interventions in the name of national defense (i.e. the “war on terror”) that do little to secure us from harm, but do a lot to secure vast amounts of wealth for an elite few.

This, in my opinion, is one of the most important stories of our time. It’s scary as hell. Buy the book. Read it.

Visit The Shock Doctrine website to find out more.

Check out Audio and Video footage of Naomi speaking on top news and talk shows.
Watch her debate Alan Greenspan.

Read Naomi Klein’s latest (short) article in The Nation, in which she talks about the connections between disaster capitalism and the current food and fuel crises.

Update - A conversation between Naomi Klein and Amy Goodman concerning all of the above, and Obama’s true economic colors.

Comments         Print

I recently had an idea about creating a website called “Tell the World” that would provide a platform for people from from all walks of life from all over the globe to answer the question “What do you want to tell the world?” I imagined the answers would take the form of short videos or audio recordings and that content would be recorded by camera-carrying backpackers and intrepid travelers as well as by local folks with access to the required tech and media resources. I thought it might be a brilliant means of providing local and mostly unheard voices access to a global stage- connecting the particular with the universal, the most immediate and real with the largest possible audience.

Like most good ideas, it already exists. Or at least something like it.

Global Voices “aggregates, curates, and amplifies the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore.” The Global Voices website provides a central platform for bloggers from all over the world to have their voices heard. Many write covertly from countries with strict limitations on speech, facing the risk of violence or imprisonment should they be found out. Global Voices offers instructions and resources for cyber-dissidents, showing them how to keep writing and getting the truth out even under the harsh strictures of state censorship. The result is a collection of eye-witness accounts, opinions, and conversations from some of the most volatile and repressed places in the world.

Rising Voices is a Global Voices project that “aims to extend the benefits and reach of citizen media by connecting online media activists around the world and supporting their best ideas.” Rising Voices sponsors projects that provide local groups around the world access to new media tools such as blogs, podcasts, online video, and digital photography to “engage in an unmediated conversation which transcends borders, cultures, and differing languages”. Some of the fruit of their labors can be seen in the Videos section of the site.

Voices without Votes is another Global Voices project that aggregates global perspectives and commentary about the US elections from people living outside the United States. If you want to know how the world views our political process and our proposed candidates, have a look

The Global Voices collection is just one of dozens of initiatives advocating citizen media on the global stage. We have an incredible opportunity here that we need to encourage and protect. We as global citizens can harness the tools of the digital/internet age to give voice to the voiceless, to bear witness to repressed or ignored realties, to document forgotten histories, and to give normal people around the globe an opportunity to “Tell the World” what needs to be heard.

Comments         Print

Ely, Minnesota -I’ve been working through a book called How to Find the Work You Love by Laurence G. Boldt. It’s a great book, emphasizing the pursuit of a life that integrates work and meaning. He quotes Aristotle: “Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation.” This simple sentence, Boldt says, tells you everything you need to know to find the work you love.

There are some exercises. One of the first is to formulate an orienting question that you can use to help shape your search for meaningful work. This should be a question that gets to the center of your own personal values, the heart of meaning. What are you looking for, really?

I’ve decided to post my Orienting Question(s) and the response I initially wrote (really a further elaboration of the question rather than an answer), because it brings up a lot of the issues I’ve been thinking and writing about lately. It’s a reflection of my own thought processes, an internal debate. It wasn’t really intended for an external audience. But here you go, anyway. Good Luck.

The Orienting Question(s):

(more…)

Comments         Print

Like I was Saying
In Part One of my State of the World Address, I was talking about how traveling has given me hope. Traveling has contributed to my belief that we, as humanity, may actually survive this mess. My hope is founded upon the observation that the majority of people in the world (about 5/6ths) are basically doing OK and are good people. Somehow, this was news to me. Unexpectedly, while traveling, I was encouraged by the general goodness and well-being of humanity. This general goodness and well-being provides a necessary foundation but not a sufficient condition for hope. The sufficient condition for hope has to with developments in world history that are unique to our time. In my view, the real reason for hope is that the conditions necessary for a global transformation of consciousness are being put into play for the first time in history, courtesy of globalization.

The Noosphere
Globalization is a big word signifying (in part) a whole series of social, economic, cultural, and especially technological developments on a global scale that are making our world smaller and faster. A global infrastructure of systems of information, communication, transportation, and commerce is being put into place, and the velocity of its implementation is increasing. The Internet, mobile phones, satellites, and electronic media are nearly ubiquitous. We are saturating the planet in a web of global interconnectedness. (more…)

Comments         Print

In the next few posts, I am going to consider the impact of my travels (so far) on my own understanding of Life, the Universe and Everything and attempt to make some general observations about how I see the world now that I’ve been around it some. This is my “state of the world” address, The Big Picture as seen by yours truly. But first, as a prelude, and without further ado:

The Top Five Questions I have been asked since returning home from my travels:

What is the most unusual or disgusting food you ate while traveling?
Unusual is probably Guinea Pig (Peru). Most disgusting is definitely the Durian (Malaysia), topping even the “parts” in brown sauce that made me puke for a week (Ecuador).

Does everybody hate us here in the good ol’ USA?
Yes, but mostly they hate George Bush.

What is it like to be home? Any culture shock?
It feels like I never left, mostly. Everything and everybody is more or less exactly the same. But American life as I left it and found it again does seem stranger and sadder than it had before. In a land of such abundance and personal freedom, there is an over-abundance of confusion, fear, and pain.

Which brings me to questions 4 and 5; questions that I will spend the rest of this post (and the next couple posts) attempting to answer.

What have you learned about the world?

How has traveling changed you?

——————–
(more…)

Comments         Print

Under a full moon on a hot sticky night in Southeast India, tossing and turning in a mosquito tent pitched on a dingy mattress in a dingy closet of a room. The fan is not cutting it. I’m covered in sweat. In spite of the tent something is biting my elbows and knuckles, leaving lines of itchy red dots. No sleep. I flip on my headlamp, read, flip it off, try to sleep. Not a wink. At 4:30am I give up. Bus leaves at 5:30. No point to sleep now. The guest house barricade is propped up from the ground just enough to squeeze under on my belly and drag my pack through. Out on the street, it’s quiet. Such a contrast from daylight hours. An old man is firing up his corner stall. A young kid in school shorts, toes stretching for the bike peddles, creaks past. The dogs, comatose in the heat of the sun, are bold now. The night belongs to them. They bark and charge in packs of three and four. I reach for the ground, pretending to pick up a rock. They yelp and scurry away, but continue to stalk me, from a safer distance, barking barking.

The bus stand is waking up. The dosai and chai stalls are steaming, hot milk bubbling. Barefoot bow-legged men with dhotis wrapped around their loins, button-down collar shirts tucked in the folds, slap down rupees and huddle around the makeshift stands, sipping chai. Women in bright saris and dangling nose chains. Bleary children. I join the huddle, downing a few hot cups of tea in a vain effort to stimulate consciousness. I’m used to India at this point, after six months. The cows meandering. Piles of sleeping human on concrete. Dirt and garbage. Store front sign stacked upon storefront sign, the swirling cyphers of Tamil. The push of crowds. The smell. None of it is exotic or strange; it’s just people living, life going on. But this is my last day, my last few hours, in India, and I’m breathing it all in. The bus drivers are waking up, having stretched out on a bus seat for the night, and are brushing their teeth in the rear-view mirror. By this afternoon I’ll be in Singapore. I have no idea what to expect. I know nothing about the place, other than it’s cheap to fly there from Chennai.

The bus blasts past the bullock-carts, motorbikes, and pedestrians, honking full speed through narrow village lanes, driving mostly on the wrong side of the road. I’m used to this as well, charging honking accelerating forward in spite of oncoming Tata trucks, squeezing at the last possible second to safety. I used to grip the seat back, my heart in my throat, each time. Now I barely notice. The South India morning is stunning, lyrical voices float with the rising sun across the brilliant green rice fields, singing. Temple priests light incense. People bathe in the river, brushing teeth, combing hair. Little naked-butt kid scrubbed down by mom at the fountain, school uniform standing by. There are countless moments of grace in the midst of this chaos, a beautiful mess. India. (more…)

Comments         Print