Environment: does capitalism play a role in global warming ?

Years ago I had a girlfriend that played a game known as “6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, a game where folks would try to link something with Kevin Bacon through a series of direct and indirect associations.

This, to me, is a lot like the association between a capitalist’s drive for profit and eco-destruction.

The set of decisions that gives way to eco-destruction can be accounted for within one understanding: there is built into capitalism the necessity to please the consumer in order to survive ( this is not the same thing as the necessity to create good products in order to compete ).

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Take as an example grocery bags, whether paper or plastic. Both of these products are rendered to the marketplace for the purpose of convenienc-ing me which is a course towards profit for the store.

A store would lose my business to a competitor if it did not provide to me bags to carry my groceries ( unless no stores offered bags … hmmm ). The damage of billions of bags is documented: the production of, the delivery of, and the disposal of.

Compare that to the common practice in Europe where folks bring their personal grocery bags with them. This practice is a sensible consequence of their pre-1990 communism. However, from my understanding stores have begun offering plastic bags earlier this decade.

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Take as another example, automobiles. I lived in Atlanta for nearly 15 years. For 5 of those years I drove a 50-mile round-trip commute … even though MARTA was available.

Chevy did not have to try hard to convince me that having a car of my own is a good thing. They, in the name of profit, built a product that appealed to me, regardless of the repercussions of pollution, etc.

And again compare this to Europe, where until just recently nearly everyone used buses and trains without humiliation.

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flags in churches – is this OK?

According to the Christian Bible, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, … for all are one in Christ”, Galations 3:28.

This is effectively the same as saying, ‘There is neither Brazilian nor American, … for all are one in Christ.’

And therefore I am confused why any Christian church would have an American flag on their church’s property.

Church’s, and other respective places of worship, are above our man made borders and so it seems to me that to have a flag of any nation within a place of worship for any religion is insulting to the religion.

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Please keep in my mind that I have entitled my blog as Good Flag Betsy … as in Betsy Ross, so please do not suggest that my opinion suggests that I am not a good American.

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is a lazy person necessarily a lazy person ?

There’s an old adage that I just made up that says, “if you have no where to go then there is no reason to move.” This ties in to the concept of hope vs hopelessness.

Hope is easily understood from the point of view of a person born in cave but yet realizing/believing that there is a way out. Hopelessness is to be unaware of even the concept of an exit from the cave.

For the person with hope, there is an instinctive ambition to move in order to improve his situation, from dark to light.

But for the hopeless person, what could his instinct say … ‘move from dark to dark’?

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The point is that since a hopeless person has no where to go, he therefore does not move, and to a naive observer he appears lazy.

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Socialism: can it foster capitalism ?

Imagine a government that pays for a program.

Imagine that the program is a small business incubator.

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The point is: socialism may not necessarily be the end of all things freedom, such as – in this case – market freedom.

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Capitalism: does it stimulate ‘pecking’ psychology ?

There is a concept in the animal world known as ‘pecking order’. This concept is contrary to the ‘love thy neighbor’ concept that religious people will be familiar with.

My question: does capitalism, with all of its positive attributes, possibly stimulate individuals’ sense of pecking?

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Race: is our racism similar to a college rivalry ?

We are all familiar with some school related sports rivalry, most likely a college or a high school rivalry.

These rivalries can be personal and heated with respect to the teams: “we are gonna stomp you”. And, true, every 5 years or so the rivalry actually renders itself as real acts of aggression, especially in the world of international soccer.

But for the most part the personal and heated passions are superficial: certainly a Clemson Tiger fan would graciously offer a Carolina Gamecock fan shelter in a pouring rain, knowing that the heated comments of past game-related slurs were simply jargon acting as a rallying cry for something as superficial as team colors. And when the pouring rain stops and the Gamecock exits the comfortable home of his gracious Tiger host, the Tiger says, “I’ll kick your ass you piece of crap,” and the Gamecock returns the volley over his shoulder as he heads down the driveway.

I wonder if the type of racism that we have in America might actually be similar. Maybe white people ( maybe even myself ) consider themselves to be on the White Team, and Chinese folks consider themselves to be on the What Team, and black people consider themselves to be on the Black Team. And maybe that is the extent of it.

Maybe racism is nothing more than rivalry-ism, and, accordingly, superficial.

Obviously, 200 years ago the racism was real.

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America: when did we go wrong ?

I believe that our problems began in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, when two events happened simultaneously:

• our world-renowned success in WWII,
• the development of hyper-consumerism.

These two events led to two syndromes:

• blind nationalism,
• indiscretionary consumerism.

I believe that many of our problems arise from these two syndromes.

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Race: is a little racial jabbing healthy ?

When the movie “White Men Can’t Jump” came out in the early 90’s, I thought to myself, “Damn, they got me.” And when a black person teases about rhythm difficulties for white people I have the same thought.

To a sensitive white person either of these comments could be considered racist, but they are not; they are stereotypical, but kind of accurate, and painfully funny.

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So why is it a problem if I say ‘black people eat fried chicken’ or ‘Mexicans eat tacos’?

True, these are racial stereotypes, but are they injurious enough to be considered racist? Isn’t the problem with racism the injury that it causes? If a racially-based comment is NOT injurious, is it racist?

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Remember back to the days of Fred Sanford and George Jefferson and how much grief they gave us honkies. It was not injurious, but instead healing … and maybe even culturally valuable.

It seems to me that as a country we might be ready to graduate from the era of hyper-sensitivity. It seems that although there are still a lot of black people living within a struggle that is certainly the result of the racial oppression of yesterday, the tide of racial fairness is clearly moving in the right direction, and that to continue to be hyper-sensitive is counter-productive at this time in our history.

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