I may seem callous when I laugh off well-intentioned, uninformed dum-dums, or their polar opposite / twin, retard corpo-slime...
But the fact is, I love my fellow man. I also think the natural world is more beautiful and subtle and intricate than Man could ever hope to imitate...
Art is simply Man`s attempt to imitate, however clumsily, the beauty of Creation. We cant begin to comprehend it`s complexity with our limited resources - but we will try, like a sparkly-eyed, dim-wit of a mutt chasing it`s own tail.
My deep and irrepressible crush on Life and everything in it (I like to say that the blood at a murder scene is as beautiful as the blood at a birth... super-gay) is balanced with what I consider to be a sense of Fairness, and a sense of Relativity.
Relativity, in practice, is as simple as keeping expectations in line with who you are expecting them from. Example: For me to abstain from drinking alcohol for a week is no feat at all.
But for a full-blown alcoholic, such a challenge is akin to impossible.
Keep this concept in mind as we shift our lens from drunks to the power-drunk...from the small to the large...micro to Macro.
It's true that The Masses, collectively, are the main cause of human pollution: The poor, as a segment of the population, obviously pollute more than the rich. That's because there are billions more of them... the poor, I mean.
So stuff like this, despite it's truths, is flawed in it's implication. Why? Because it ignores...
THE ROLE OF INDUSTRY
Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, environmental and ecological concerns have taken a backseat to corporate profit. The pollution perpetrated by the largest industrial concerns in North America is constant, willful, and monumental in scale. It is thoroughly documented and increasingly visible. These days, it's also one hell of a revenue stream. Pollution is profitable.
With market penetration and profits topping corporate priorities, emerging media became a vital tool in the advertisement and promotion of products. By mid 20th century, public relations firms who specialize in the use of emotional manipulation and deceptive language not only worked to market the products, but also to whitewash and protect the producers from liability for any damages caused by the use of their products - be they personal, social, or environmental.
Teams of lawyers are retained by every major company in the world with the intention of protecting company interests, whatever they may be. For example, one day, the lawyers may be pursuing litigation against a competitor for patent infringement; the next, they may be reviewing potential options for defensive motions in response to a lawsuit filed against the company.
This may seem obvious, but it needs to be said that different people bring different styles of management to the companies they work for. Some people are by the book; some people are more casual and creative; some are downright criminal. These traits are not superseded by loyalty to the public good.
This means that, if you put the wrong people in the wrong positions, you will get a world of trouble.
It's safe to say that somewhere along the line, corruption, nepotism, gangsterism, and environmental contempt became the norm. Now we are at a strange juncture where the industrials crank out product, and these trolls work to hawk it, while the legal teams make sure no one is ever guilty of anything...that liability is never to be admitted, and only accepted when under threat of extreme consequences... And once the public loses confidence, the corrupt Government steps in to occupy one more role - that of breathless consumer - while making sure to ramp up the intimidation at the behest of those who write their cheques.
Like any parasitical entity, the corporate/political machine doesn't intend to totally annhilate it's host: It wants to keep it alive for as long as possible, to suck every remaining drop of vitality and treasure from it's flesh....
This is exactly what this new campaign of 'tighten your belt', 'let's all pitch in', 'reduce emissions' and 'no more luxury' is rooted in - an attempted shift of corporate and industrial responsibility and liability for greivous public and environmental crimes to the public that they have been feeding on for so long....
And of course, they stand to make a lot of money doing it, too.
How completely insane is it that the working people of our nations are expected to suffer Depression-era austerity, coupled with massive cuts to public funds for the functioning of our society and our infrastructure - when it's our fucking money that they are printing up (i.e. devaluing) to fund failed derivative Ponzi schemes?
They give away an entire nation and then turn to us to pay for it.
They destroy everything they touch, they poison every source - and now it's time for us to pitch in, to do our part... To flog ourselves at confession and beg forgiveness for being born.... or at least pay our taxes in earnest and thank our oppressors for giving us the opportunity to fund them....
Twenty bucks says that there will be a carbon tax on every birth within twenty years. Any takers?
They pass us their debts, they pass us their poison garbage, they sell us our own misery - while we bet on which of their horses will kill us - in this fucked-up nightmare casino.
And now...after having emptied our wallets... they want our lives.
...I almost forgot to metion the mass scientific rejection of climate change, and by extension any legislation derived therof, due to the fact that most climate change models aren't based on real data but predictions... also known as guessing....
In the end, they are realizing that they can't kill our inherent goodness, our inclination to help each other...so they figured out a way to exploit it. Volunteering, being frugal, working hard - all good things....
Just make sure you are doing them for the right reasons.
