All hail the golden arrow!

Ever seen "The Story of Stuff"? If not, while very simplistic, your understanding of this post will be enhanced by watching the clip first.

Now, with that in mind, we are all reliant upon money. As much as we try to take money out of our equation (have a look at my earlier post), it is undeniable that it is essential that we manage money, spending, and consumption as best we can. The problem is, most people tend to think along the lines of the following:

In a recent editorial, the Sydney Morning Herald identified one cause of a lack of consumer confidence in Australia has been the excessive level of household debt. Much of this debt has been attributed to the overblown housing market, but also significant has been the consumer debt from credit cards, store credit and other consumer credit sources. When the collective consciousness comes to the realisation (thanks to the Europeans and the Americans) that limitless economic growth cannot be achieved through continued retail spending, falling consumer confidence and a slowing retail sector result.

Aside from the issues of consuming consciously, with regard for ecological sustainability (this is NOT just a cliche'd slogan), or social justice issues, why do we consistently call on the retail therapist! My wife and I had a long conversation with our 10-year-old today, where we felt the need to defend our decisions about what we have chosen to surround ourselves with, materially speaking. While there is nothing like the questions of a pre-teen to sharpen and validate ones decisions, it brought focus to our drive to take money out of the equation, choosing to live with less, rather than enjoy all the spoils of living in a fortunate country.

Maybe if we all put a little more emphasis on quality of life rather than standard of living (Ron Laura's words, not mine) we might be happy to live on less, and enjoy some realistic, sustainable, fair and legitimate economic growth.

To be continued...

Some are more equal than others

In George Orwell's allegorical critique of soviet communism, the egalitarian society in which "all animals are equal" descended into "some are more equal than others." Equally, in modern democracies such as ours, the equal rights and equality of our voice or expression in the political process is at risk of erosion through the sizeable budgets of interest groups, the likes of which we have not seen for quite some time.

With huge capital growth and a bullish market with which to bank roll their voice, we are witnessing the rise of those more equal than others, and their willingness to exert that influence (fairly or not) upon society at large. What's more, is that they are increasingly bold in their methods and overt in their intentions. Those who have the capacity to monitor and protect merely look on, or worse still, empower this by claiming it is the right of riches to exercise undue influence in the pursuit of economic returns.

Writing a blog is, at times, a lonely place; uncertain of who (if anyone) is reading, or even if it is achieving any lasting impact. What could I do with a spare $billion or two when it comes to my influence over public opinion? If our government suddenly decided to try and influence reporting and editorial content there would be howls of protest, yet the neo-liberal free marketeers seem quite unfazed, maybe even impressed by recent events in media ownership. If this is not a double standard then nothing is.

All it takes for a free press to disappear is for good people to do nothing when faced with threats such as these. I am not a green, nor a national, but I am most concerned that we are repeating the mistakes of a by-gone era of obscenely rich tycoons who feel entitled to throw their economic and hence political weight around, demonstrating that they indeed are more equal than others. It ended badly in the 1920s, and yet again for many more following Wall Street's failings in 2008, and still we do nothing to stop it. It is time for action before our voices cannot be heard any more above the roar of the "more equal".

To be continued...

Religion as Soma.

Soma (with deference to Huxley's Brave New World) comes in many forms, not the least of which is religion... 

Following a recent post, I received some feedback about how human nature is flawed and how God was the answer to injustice. While I believe the individual concerned missed the basic point of the post, namely that action of a significant scale is often required to right wrongs, his views were rapidly "liked" by a few people expressing the need to simply (excuse the cliche here) "let go, and let God." Surely after 2000 years of Judeo Christian action, we would be somewhat closer to a solution for some of the more common issues I raised if that were the case.

To set the record straight from the outset, I do believe in an eternal spirit, God, Allah, etc. but I am also perplexed about misrepresentation of the divine being. If He was human, I am almost certain there'd be defamation suits aplenty for such. Many people seem to carry on like He is their fairy godmother (you have to enjoy the pun in that), who will one day wave a magic wand and all these problems will be fixed. And the best part is you don't have to DO anything! The boys from Monty Python supposedly once tried to use God for their material, but found that most of the material was far better suited to religious people. Enter Brian! So what is it that makes the religious communities feel an overwhelming desire to simplify the answers to life's puzzle to a mere sharing of a philosophical perspective? A lot of people do good in their communities and beyond from a foundation of religious fervour, yet religion itself often gets quite a bit of bad press.

The answer, I believe, lies in the externalising of responsibility. If one believes in an all knowing, all powerful and all loving God, and bad things still happen, then it is clearly the fault of evil because God is love. While the basic concept is fine, what that idea then enables me to do is to remove responsibility for doing something about this wrong, and justify it as the consequence of evil, and how can one individual be expected to fight a world full of evil. What is even more concerning, is that so many dogmatic religions, cults, sects and splinter groups can use a book of philosophy to justify almost anything they wish to in a practical sense. If it were that simple, then why is there so much division? I have heard the bible quoted to support the environmental movement and to condemn it; to justify injustice and to fight it; to embrace life and to take it. I have sufficient knowledge of theology to be able to use some choice quotes to try and convince many a religious zealot of the merits of my views, but this is only buying into an already flawed and narrow pool of evidence, if indeed you could call it evidence at all. Religious belief is not a coherent nor valid argument against an individual's moral obligation to act decisively to defend universal rights and ideals. What's worse is that this is not a new phenomenon. It is as old as religion itself, and it will continue to be a point of great debate and division.

When I wrote about an unfolding ideology, I was not referring to an unfolding dogma. The ideology I am proposing should be one of rigorous debate, but founded in immutable truths such as political freedom, equality of access and opportunity, sustainable social and economic structures, or freedom of faith. When our rights, in this context, are infringed by those exercising their rights, we have an obligation to act to restore equilibrium to the social fabric and thus avoid the destabilising effect of excess. While there is a place for faith, in some ways Karl Marx was right in referring to it as an opiate for the masses. He was, in fact, not dismissing the spiritual component of faith, but rather underlining the sheer lunacy of using faith as an excuse to do nothing. Religion is not the problem, religious people who abuse its virtues however, are.

P.S. I intended to post another piece today allegorising soma, but felt this far more pertinent. 

To be continued...

Stuff

How much stuff can one family accumulate? I think that we live fairly frugally compared to many of our peers, yet even with an attitude of limited accumulation, we still have so much stuff. What drives us to gather, collect, store (and this alone is a crazy, illogical rationale... it's the "I'll keep because I just never know when I might need it" voice in your head!) and protect our stuff, much of which we never use, and rarely take time to appreciate.

We are downsizing. On the surface it looks like a pretty straightforward shift... 3 bedroom house on the Coast for a 4 bedroom cottage in the southern tablelands. Then you look at the rooms. This "cottage" is actually half of a converted shearers quarters. The main bedroom looks like it has been created by dividing the lounge/dining room. Another looks like it was a veranda until it needed to be a bedroom. The third is barely big enough for a queen size bed, and the last, well I'm sure it was a closet in a past life. I'm not becrying our choice of residence; we wanted to downsize; but it is quite a bit smaller than where we are now. I'm quite pleased we decided to go this way however as we are now in the throws of being a little ruthless in getting rid of some of our useless "stuff."

This brings me to my second jaw dropper... who wants my old stuff? Surely the various charities would want it. There's the old TV which we are getting rid of because I couldn't bare to let me father throw out his flat screen CRT digital TV when he upgraded to a slim LCD model (which has just broken down mind you after 18 months!); there's perfectly good books which we have read and are quite useful but which no one seemed to look twice at during our garage sale; there's fabric remnants from my wife's sewing kitty which could make some great crafty goods or clothes or bags; and then there's odd bits of furniture... NO ONE WANTS THEM! Are we that wealthy as a community that even our poorest members of society can afford an LCD TV? Does no one read books any more? Is hand made just plain old fashioned? I KNOW people sit on stools still!

I have a new year's resolution: until now, when my wife would stop on the side of the road and ask me to get out and collect some old chair/suit case/stool/cabinet/ladder/etc... I would do so with the usual grumblings and self consciousness associated with a dust man rummaging through the garbage on Pitt St. No More! From now on, I will do so with joy, secure in the knowledge that at least I can be the difference I want to see in the world.

Until then, it's back to packing up our stuff.

earthkeeper

ps if you want to hear more about "Stuff" check out www.storyofstuff.com

On Washing Machines and Free TVs

My last post made me dredge up an old, unpublished post from four months ago... still relevant!

Our 4 year old washing machine is dead! Aside from the considerable annoyance it has caused it has also made me quite angry about the state of our modern lifestyle and the impact it is having on our planet. Before I dug out the warranty papers (thank God for extended warranty options!), I looked around to see what a new one was worth, what features they had before I had to make an informed decision about whether to "buy new" or "repair". The thing that really got to me was that LG had a special promotion where you could get a free LCD TV with every purchase of a new front loader... imagine that; a free TV. Now I could get rid of that heavy CRT thing that I inherited from my parents when they upgraded their TV to the latest Sony LCD.

The math was easy to interpret: repair it for $500 (actually $0 because of the warranty) or get a new washer PLUS a TV for $400 (the price of the new unit LESS the warranty payment), complete with a new warranty, latest bells and whistles, and a sense of satisfaction that we FINALLY had a slim TV that would sit on the wall and not a reinforced TV unit. Say nothing of the fact that not one but two old units would have to be thrown out; I guess we could keep the TV for our bedroom, and give the old, old TV that was replaced by the last TV to our kids so that they too can watch countless hours of TV or play DVDs or computer games in their room instead of physically exerting themselves or (heaven forbid) interacting with other people in a social context where they would have to use their creativity and ingenuity to come up with a new game together, or communicate effectively... sorry, I digress.

Seriously, what has our culture come to when it becomes easier to just discard so we can get the latest and greatest, or chain ourselves to our houses, or add to the wasteful consumption that is western society. Something has got to give!

earthkeeper

Reclaim Your World

Food security is soemthing almost as foreign to us Australians as rabid dogs, yet at the CarriageWorks Kitchen Garden Project launch last September I was confronted with a very plausable reality: we are only three days away from hunger! Pesimistic it may be, but the fact remains that we are SO reliant on our economic systems that we are literally enslaved to them to the point of having our very survival compromised should the external shock be significant enough.

Dont' believe me, check out the doco "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" at www.powerofcommunity.org and see how easy it was for Cuba to have their physical survival compromised by forces very much beyond their control.

Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist, nor am I a pesimist by nature, but I am concerned about my ability to withstand the externalities associated with decisions made by faceless men in foreign lands upon my quality of life. The powerlessness that invokes is enough to make me question the wisdom of the global village in which we live. Surely our local village would not be so quick to condemn us to servitude, poverty and ruin as they would have to face us each an every day, yet our global village has the advantage of distance. We are only as close to our global villagers as our telecommunications allow us to be, yet we can also be a world away at the flick of the proverbial switch.

I cannot accept a world where my livelihood, my quality of life, even my very survival can be determined in a board room on the other side of the world and then ignore my oposition by disconnecting their internet link or cable network. The countries of the North have been doing it to the majority world for centuries, but in this era of rapid communication and global webs the speed at which this can just as easily be applied to any one of us at any given point in time. Human evolution may just have gone too far!

What do we do? Reclaim what is ours! It is our life, our world and our future, why can't we claim it. I think it is time for us to take back our sovereignty and take charge of what is rightly ours. Sure, globalisation has led to massive improvements in life expectancy, biomedical science, unprecedented wealth for some of us, but maybe we have won this glorious prize of human ingenuity which is a high standard of living at the expense of our quality of life... and in the process forgotten the difference!

As an EarthKeeper I would like to be practical in my attempts to wind back the perils of progress and suggest some ways we can all take control of our lives, not leaving decisions to multinational corporations and their puppet governments (lets face it, many of them are! Just look at how much power BHP and Rio Tinto can have over a "successful" government such as Australia's). My pledge is to give share some ideas I have on achieving these ends, and hopefully to hear some of your ideas to the same end.

Reclaiming the earth for all keepers and not simply those who would mine its very soul,
EarthKeeper