What Is the Most Important Challenge Facing the US?

Finn, I have only one question for you. Where did you learn economics?

From this posting we can reach three conclusions:

1) CI doesn't consider himself a consumer

2) CI considers himself one of those rare consumers with the intelligence and insight to remain mindful of the environment.

3) Though rare, the small group of enlightened consumers (inlcuding CI) are incredibly influential and have, against all odds, driven environmental protection legislature.

Considering the rapier like wit of CI (Fox, What are you smoking? - You must be on another planet.) it's looking like #2 has to be accurate.

All seriousness aside, CI is a fine representative of the Liberal position on the environment:

1) Acquisition of wealth (read capitalism) is the primary cause of pollution
2) Consumers (particularly American consumers) are self indulgent pigs who care about nothing other than their immediate and personal gratification
3) Piggish humans can destroy the environment
4) The only means of preserving the environment is to return to pre-industrial pastoral existence

(#'s 1 and 2 alone, can be found in CI posting on this thread_

Funny, I don't recall anybody here calling for a return to pre-industrialism.

Me either!

I have to hand it to you suzy, that is an excellent response, and forces me to rethink my statement.

Of course I don't think you can come up with anything that amounts to "and such," but civil rights is an excellent contrarian example.

It's an example that certainly calls my statement into question, but I would offer the following for consideration:

1) The civil rights revolution (which you rightfully insinuate it was) was a unique and singular event
2) A rapid, dramatic and fundamental change in the thinking and behavior of the majority was not required. The "minority" that was required to change was large but it wasn't the majority. In the case of a voluntary reduction of our standard of living, I think you would find that only the slimmest of minorities is ready to accept such change.
3) The changes required were not rooted in economics, and, in actuality, made little difference to the everyday living conditions of those who opposed them.

I can see why the example of the civil rights successes of the 60's might encourage people to hold promise in a change in consumerism behaviors, but I believe that there is enough of a difference between the two objectives that the success of one provides little promise for the other.

Of course, irrespective of what I think, you and nimh are perfectly entitled to pursuing a roll back of affluence and consumption. I still think its tilting at windmills, but you certainly returned my volley with vigor.

A rollback of consumption would be quite a good idea.

Finn, I have only one question for you. Where did you learn economics?

It is obvious that you are incapable of advancing a reasoned support of your contention or a reasoned refutation of mine.

If you prefer to keep dispensing precious quips, be my guest, but I've had enough.

Suzy however has not yet named who the people are who are destroyed the environment in Borneo and reduced the people there to poverty. There is a suggestion that the United States or the World Bank? installs these corrupt institutions that are destroying countries.

Finn has pointed out that democracies generally result in increased success and prosperity for the people and I maintain this is the answer for long term protection of the environment. So is it the evil Americans who destroyed Borneo? Or is it a totalitarian government or dictatorship that is exploting the people there?

I think it is important to know if this is to be taken seriously as pertinent to this debate.

LOL

But you do recall people expressing:

1) Acquisition of wealth (read capitalism) is the primary cause of pollution
2) Consumers (particularly American consumers) are self indulgent pigs who care about nothing other than their immediate and personal gratification
3) Piggish humans can destroy the environment

"All seriousness aside" - You and Suzy should think about it.

Have you removed and saved your brain in a jar? If so, and you're not using it, you can send it here:

Things That Never Had Use To Begin With
56775 SW Vermont
Gary, IN, 567445

Seriously though, you shouldn't post while mainlining an entire brick of heroine.

By that I'll assume you don't know and aren't willing to educate yourself.

[quote="Finn d'Abuzz: If you prefer to keep dispensing precious quips, be my guest, but I've had enough.[/quote]
But that's what you keep doing yourself, Finn. It is the rare post where you're not quoting and attemting to pick apart someone elses "quips"! I'm glad you've had enough!

To which Suzy wrote:


You're right, I don't know. I am perfectly willing to be educated however and invite you to educate me since you are the one who made the accusation.

Here is some information on Borneo. Though certainly not the complete story, it may answer some of your questions. You asked: "So is it the evil Americans who destroyed Borneo? Or is it a totalitarian government or dictatorship that is exploting the people there?"
The answer is that it is both. As it often, but not always, is.
"A few years ago the Los Angeles Times carried a special report on the rainforests of Borneo in the South Pacific. By their own testimony, the people there lived contented lives. They hunted, fished, and raised food in their jungle orchards and groves. But their entire way of life was ruthlessly wiped out by a few giant companies that destroyed the rainforest in order to harvest the hardwood for quick profits. Their lands were turned into ecological disaster areas and they themselves were transformed into disfranchised shantytown dwellers, forced to work for subsistence wages; when fortunate enough to find employment.
The real causes of the destruction of the forest are international demand for the timber, a massive industry suffering from a lack of legal timber (and who is driving the industry? Consumers; Europe, America, Japan, and other developed industrialized countries.), and corruption that started during, but is not limited to, the former Suharto dictatorship."
"Over the past two decades, the volume of timber harvested on Borneo exceeded that of all tropical wood exports from Latin America and Africa combined. At its height in the mid-1990s it was a $9 billion a year industry. Now it's nearly gone; more than 90 percent of the Indonesia's timber production is illegal. This is where they need a good government to make sure that the illegal production is completely stopped." As you know, most people who lead nations are usually rich.
The citizens are far from it, for the most part. Consumers of tropical timbers; i.e. buyers of plywood for new home construction in the U.S. and other developed countries (ie people with money to spend), are ultimately responsible. "Predatory logging companies and complicit consumers are bent upon repeating this pattern of disastrous tropical land management in most of the world's remaining tropical wildernesses". As you said: "we should remember that there are fanatical people in the world who don't give a flying fig about the environment." Fox, that is something I've always acknowledged. As a matter of fact, I'll go you one further and say that there are some fanatical people whose only concern is making money for their wealthy investors, at the cost of the environment. You said: "these will regenerate as the people who own them become prosperous and learn to value them as we do". Fox, let's hope that doesn't happen! The people who most value the rainforest are the people who have lived off it harmlessly for years, not outsiders who are looking to plunder for profit.

Now, you can believe that prosperity doesn't necessarily improve environment or you can continue to believe that it does?

Thanks Suzy. That is interesting information. I think that under a democracy where the people owned and controlled the land, there would have been better stewardship. Greedy and corrupt corporations from the U.S. or anywhere else can't get a foothold in another country unless there is somebody equally greedy and corrupt on the other end encouraging the activity.

So no, it is not prosperity that wrecked the environment as you described, but greed and corruption. These are not the same thing.

Here's one important challenge facing the US. Only liberals will think so, but what can we expect from the neocons?
**************************************
Fear of Fraud
July 27, 2004
By PAUL KRUGMAN

It's election night, and early returns suggest trouble for
the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and
observers from the challenger's campaign see employees of a
voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies
him as a county official, typing instructions at computers
with access to the vote-tabulating software.

When the count resumes, the incumbent pulls ahead. The
challenger demands an investigation. But there are no
ballots to recount, and election officials allied with the
incumbent refuse to release data that could shed light on
whether there was tampering with the electronic records.

This isn't a paranoid fantasy. It's a true account of a
recent election in Riverside County, Calif., reported by
Andrew Gumbel of the British newspaper The Independent. Mr.
Gumbel's full-length report, printed in Los Angeles City
Beat, makes hair-raising reading not just because it
reinforces concerns about touch-screen voting, but also
because it shows how easily officials can stonewall after a
suspect election.

Some states, worried about the potential for abuse with
voting machines that leave no paper trail, have banned
their use this November. But Florida, which may well decide
the presidential race, is not among those states, and last
month state officials rejected a request to allow
independent audits of the machines' integrity. A spokesman
for Gov. Jeb Bush accused those seeking audits of trying to
"undermine voters' confidence," and declared, "The governor
has every confidence in the Department of State and the
Division of Elections."

Should the public share that confidence? Consider the felon
list.

Florida law denies the vote to convicted felons. In 2000
the state hired a firm to purge supposed felons from the
list of registered voters; these voters were turned away
from the polls. After the election, determined by 537
votes, it became clear that thousands of people had been
wrongly disenfranchised. Since those misidentified as
felons were disproportionately Democratic-leaning
African-Americans, these errors may have put George W. Bush
in the White House.

This year, Florida again hired a private company -
Accenture, which recently got a homeland security contract
worth up to $10 billion - to prepare a felon list.
Remembering 2000, journalists sought copies. State
officials stonewalled, but a judge eventually ordered the
list released.

The Miami Herald quickly discovered that 2,100 citizens who
had been granted clemency, restoring their voting rights,
were nonetheless on the banned-voter list. Then The
Sarasota Herald-Tribune discovered that only 61 of more
than 47,000 supposed felons were Hispanic. So the list
would have wrongly disenfranchised many legitimate
African-American voters, while wrongly enfranchising many
Hispanic felons. It escaped nobody's attention that in
Florida, Hispanic voters tend to support Republicans.

After first denying any systematic problem, state officials
declared it an innocent mistake. They told Accenture to
match a list of registered voters to a list of felons,
flagging anyone whose name, date of birth and race was the
same on both lists. They didn't realize, they said, that
this would automatically miss felons who identified
themselves as Hispanic because that category exists on
voter rolls but not in state criminal records.

But employees of a company that prepared earlier felon
lists say that they repeatedly warned state election
officials about that very problem.

Let's not be coy. Jeb Bush says he won't allow an
independent examination of voting machines because he has
"every confidence" in his handpicked election officials.
Yet those officials have a history of slipshod performance
on other matters related to voting and somehow their errors
always end up favoring Republicans. Why should anyone trust
their verdict on the integrity of voting machines, when
another convenient mistake could deliver a Republican
victory in a high-stakes national election?

This shouldn't be a partisan issue. Think about what a
tainted election would do to America's sense of itself, and
its role in the world. In the face of official
stonewalling, doubters probably wouldn't be able to prove
one way or the other whether the vote count was distorted -
but if the result looked suspicious, most of the world and
many Americans would believe the worst. I'll write soon
about what can be done in the few weeks that remain, but
here's a first step: if Governor Bush cares at all about
the future of the nation, as well as his family's political
fortunes, he will allow that independent audit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/27/opinion/27krug.html?ex=1091918849&ei=1&en=bb17bb19a6f4f91e

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Just poor and desperate will do, too ...

Bangladesh wont easily refuse a much-needed industrial investment by some American corporation, "greedy and corrupt" or not. They need the jobs, the income, too much.

The irony is that, by welcoming in such corporations, no-questions-asked, they will get those jobs and cash inflow - but also increased pollution. Which they'll only be able to do something about once a newly accrued future wealth has made them more confident, which could take decades - it did here - and in the meantime, rivers may have been poisoned, forests cut, etc.

I am not advocating to keep everybody poor and "clean" instead, mind you. But I am also under no illusions about the ecological pressures that will result when third world countries massively progress on the path of industrialisation and mass-production.

It means, imho, that it is much more urgent than we think to innovate more ecological ways of production and force businesses to adopt and implement them, even if it does take some percents off the margin of profit. Depending on the successes achieved in that, it means we might have to rethink the overall, global production/consumption patterns - our cars are a lot cleaner than they used to be, but the Earth will still not tolerate 8 billion of 'em. And considering we're still the main consumers, overall, in the West, we have a special burden. One immediate way to take it up is to do some damage-prevention. For example by putting more WTO standards and the like in place to help those governments who just cant afford to set any conditions or pose any demands to corporations investing in their resources themselves, environmental or otherwise.

I mean, you're right - a greedy and corrupt dictatorship is more likely to **** over the environment than an empowered democracy. But in a world with many an impoverished democracy and corporations using the freedom of the global economy to shop about for a place with less bothersome restrictions, its not the whole story.

Thought I'd pick out a line and see what people think about it.

I think there is a case to be made that acquisition of wealth is indeed the primary cause of pollution. I think the major problem lies in the designation of a corporation as an individual under the eyes of the law. Mix this together with a few Due Diligence laws and you have an entity that has the money and the means to do serious environmental harm. Just think, how much cleaner could our businesses, industrial stations, mining operations, and automobiles be if profit were not a factor? If there was no force pressuring companies to make the highest positive cash return possible, there would be greater room for these companies to spend some money protecting the environment from their actions.

I'll write more on this later today, but I'd like to know other's thoughts....

Cycloptichorn

"Just poor and desperate will do, too ...

Bangladesh wont easily refuse a much-needed industrial investment by some American corporation, "greedy and corrupt" or not. They need the jobs, the income, too much."

Right, Nimh.

Cycloptichorn, Right you are, but profits are what drives them. How can there be an alternative?