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I used to be a Republican. I know, these days that admission may get me in trouble with one camp on the count of ‘backsliding’ and with another camp for the simple fact that I voted for Bush. (To clarify, I only did so the first time around) Believe me, very few feel more guilty about the latter than I do, and fortunately for my current sanity, the state I lived in at the time always votes blue, so I did not actually help GWB get any electoral votes. But still. It hurts.
One principle that I always appreciated about the R’s was the idea of small government. It sounds so clean, simple, and efficient. Also, the talk about ‘personal responsibility’ was something that sounded, well, good. But, as I’ve learned over the years, talk is incredibly cheap in the realm of politics, and these two simple tenets are violated in practice all the time by the same people who so vociferously speak positively about them. What set off this post was reading this article, which can be summarized as follows:
1) Republicans believe in small government only for programs that they do not wish to support. Authorizing huge medicare expenditures (the profits of which will return to the private sector, mostly to the pharmaceutical industry), and the most obvious example, the billions continually spent on defense in general and Iraq in particular, give the lie to their small government talk.
2) Republicans do not want people to trust government when it comes to administering welfare, education, or other programs. On the other hand they do want us to put our trust in government when it comes to matters of national security, especially in regard to surveillance and the management and operation of our military.
So what gives? To me, this is just pure and simple corruption.
“…the promise of global capitalism, much like the promise of communism before it, ultimately demands an act of faith: that if we permit the destruction of certain things we value here and now we will achieve a greater happiness and prosperity at some unspecified future time.” What things is he talking about? Trust, transparency, community, and a sense of working together rather than working to get ahead of everyone else.
So what is out there that can replace global capitalism? I propose micro-capitalism – a return to a truly local economy (with its inherent transparency and prerequisite trust). Perhaps (and this is me being optimistic here) progress does not anymore need to involve centralization and commoditization at the global level.
I’ve started adding photos to this site. They’re here, and also accessible by clicking ‘photos’ at the top of the page.
“In nature health is the default. Most of the time pests and disease are just nature’s way of telling the farmer he’s doing something wrong.” – The Omnivore’s Dilemma. This makes perfect sense to me. So when (and why) did humans switch from living in cooperation with nature to attempting to dominate and control it?
yerba buena, an island halfway between oakland and san francisco (some would say halfway between heaven and hell, though which one is the latter is a matter of serious debate) does little besides house the world’s largest bore tunnel (really?) and some high $$$ real estate. today, though, things got crazy on the island. i won’t restate the news, but i will add that the smoke extended well into oakland and emeryville, and the traffic was bad enough that caltrans superseded their normal time-to-destination readings on signs with a message specifically about the brush fire. fire crews had to close (at least) one lane on each deck of the bridge for firetrucks, but it sounds like the fireboat really saved the day since the side of the island with the fire was basically unreachable by road. i point this out because i don’t think fireboats really get the attention they deserve. they have an (almost) unlimited water supply!
I had a revelation on my walk home from BART today. The world doesn’t need more technology, or inventions, or even (sadly) more engineering as much as it needs more reasonable, good-hearted, generous people. Technologically, we have the tools to pretty much create whatever life we want for ourselves. Hunger and poverty only continue to exist because of people’s choices (governments, religions, etc.), not a lack of human capability to produce enough food or create enough wealth. That’s both depressing and exciting. The problem is now of our own making, but that means a solution (of our own making) should, at the very least, exist.
I hope this does not turn out like katrina, but I don’t have a good feeling about it.
The beginning of something new is always exciting. Tonight involved the “5-minute install” of wordpress, followed by the “3-hour troubleshooting of plugins” that, truth be told, I probably brought on myself by trying to build this site in one evening. Nevertheless, here it is, a beginning.
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