Editorials

This page, in fact this entire site has not been updated since it became obvious the United States, Britain and Spain AKA "the coalition of the willing" took irreversible measures towards the war with Iraq. In their pursuit of "WMD", they have discovered nothing. In their pursuit of oil, Haliburton and the coalition have secured their oil and gas rights to propel their archaic fossil fuel dependent infrastructures for atleast another decade. At what cost, we will not ever know, the death toll for the Iraqis will never be publicly mentioned, atleast not by the American media. What we do know is the cost in human lives, the 'blood for oil' is disturbing. The neo-imperalism instituted by the American occupation force is alarming. The universal, preemptive strike policy adopted by the American regime is dangerous. The fact western industrialization now has little incentive to develop and institute renewable energy is simply irresponsible.

Where do we go from here? Unfortunately, even the most optimistic outlook is not without a rather draconian forecast. Without ratifying the Kyoto protocol, as most other nations have, it is estimated the United States contribution to the six most dangerous greenhouse gases will rise 32%. It appears the US and Britain will occupy and rule over Iraq for atleast another year. This should allow for sufficient anti-western sentiment to brew and escalate into what history will recall as the great Islamic revolution, an uprising of such magnitude astronauts will be able to see their reflection from space. As the first war for resources has concluded, others will follow. As our vehicles get larger, our suburban cul-de-sacs pave over carbon sequenching open space and our forests become paper, air quality will certainly decrease further. Already, in Maine, asthma rates have increased 270% in 30 years, 1 out of every 2,100 of us will die from cancer directly linked to diesel emissions. These numbers will continue to climb as the quality of our life continues to drop. We will continue to desire the newest consumer item, the trendiest wall mounted TV, the biggest SUV in the cul-de-sac, the wrinkle-free formaldehyde treated slacks, the genetically modified corn flakes, the cheap phenyl off gassing plastic summer-ware from walmart .....and work ourselves our entire lives to afford them.

This generation may be the first in American history to live shorter than the previous. Diabetes, obesity, cardiac disease and the gammet of cancers are reducing the quantity and quality of our lives. It is no consequence big pharmaceutical companies now spend more on advertising than they do on actual research. The advertisements during the evening news are full of commercials advising us to "to ask our doctor if the purple pill is right for you". Along with a diet rich in carcinogenic, fats, sugar and franken-foods, we must sadly rely on artificial drugs to restore our quality of life. Intake of nutrient saturated foods is not convenient and therefore we suffer the consequences of reliance on technology to keep us able bodied and able to go to work. As we spend more of our time indoors, 92% of our lives, our natural immunities continue to decline. Our exposure, reaction and recovery to innocuous illnesses, allergens and other elements are restricted there for we develop very little resistance to them. However, our exposure to formaldehyde's, phenols, arsenic, pesticides, and a very very long list of other chemicals we either inhale or ingest within our homes and workplaces is increasing.

The outlook, as bleak as it seems is not totally without hope. The paradigm will inevitably have to shift. Ecosystems will decline, disease will rise, pollution will not be an avoidable topic, cultures will rebel. When the paradigm shifts, I hope indeed it will occur when we have reached the crest, the pinnacle of human consumption. The consequences of global over consumption, resource depletion and the wars that follow will hopefully sway the pendulum back to a place where humanity once again considers our spiritual, emotional, physical, ethical and environmental health cannot be ignored and most of all, cannot be bought.

There is a lot of talk recently about Corporate fraud. Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, Global Crossing, and the list goes on. These executive stole billions off the backs of the individuals who built these companies. They defrauded investors and constructed palaces with the money they stole. This behavior is without question unethical right? Well, if your answer is yes, lets look at the marco picture of corporate america. How does corporate america work? It works by same unethical standards exhibited by these above executives, although in a much less overt manner. See, for business to become big, you need people, "consumers", to buy your product or service. Marketing is the force behind business, without it

products dont sell, demand isnt created. But what is advertising and marketing? It is slight of hand, it is making people believe thier wants are thier needs. Marketing is the gustapo of the corportate world. They target demographics, ie, races, religions, genders etc. They label you, collect as much information into who you are and track your every purchase. Once this data is gathered you will be targeted by every media outlet trying to sell you a product that you do not need.They manipulate the world in order to enchance a product, making you believe your life will not be as comfortable without it. It is a way of manipulating the 'consumer' into believing he/she needs something and will live paycheck to paycheck to 'afford' it. Often times the consumer cannot afford it, thus they take on mortgages, car loans, credit card debt and so forth. Is this ethical behavior? The very foundations of business are immoral, look to the bible, it violates nearly every commandment and sin. Without creating envy among people, there is no incentive for them to 'keep up with the Joneses' and perpetually buy a new, sexxier car every few years. Without greed, who would want to mass accumulate wealth, and therefore who would work themselves to death until age 65? The system would fail without a drone workforce perpetually trying to accumulate weath and pay of debt. Thou shall not kill? yes, even this is violated, on a global scale. We are killing not only ourselves in persuit of capitalism via pollution but destroying the health of the entire planet, all in the name of economic growth. Lust? what is America without it? We all (well, most of us), lust after that new, shiny auto or that bigger house in the suburbs, all to show off the monuments to our financial success. Why else would we work 40-60 hours a week if we didnt lust after these things. Thou shall not commit adultery? Ok, well in this 'god bless america' the divorce rate is 60% and sex is on every billboard, radio station, TV station and the biggest seller on the internet. Thou shall not do any work on sunday? Why that would decrease profits and dilute shareholder value. Thou shall not steal? The very land this country was founded upon was stolen.

Pride? "America is the best nation to ever exist in the history of the world" - qoute from ol' George W. Oh and gluttony? Look around, 6 out of 10 of your peers are overweight, 33% are obese, including children. Is Walmart not the epicenter of our gluttonous habits? A mega store full of worthless, cheap, plastic junk. Is it fair for 6% of the worlds population to horde 60% of the worlds wealth?Well, we do. When is enough enough? When do we say, ok, I live a very comfortable life, I need only what sustains me and my family. The answer to that is never. If we ever say enough, I have enough and need no more, than the foundations of this economy will collaspse, when the consumer stops consuming economic growth grinds to a halt. The solution? Simple, redefine progress and growth. Choose spiritual, phyisical, emotional and ethical growth over economic growth.Return to a simplier lifestyle based on community, family and agriculture.

How is it that the term consumer has come to represent everything we as a population stand for? Think about what the term consumer means. The dictionary defines consume as: to devour, deplete, waste, eat up, destroy. To be a consumer we must continually consume goods. Lets say you purchased a bottle of soda. When the containers are empty you throw them away. Why? Suddenly the bottle is no longer usable because it is empty? So, another one is produced, bought, thrown away and the cycle repeats. This goes for every imaginable item available. Think of the amount of resources needed to perpetuate that habit. Think about the number of soda bottles in your grocery store, then in all the stores in Lafayette, then in Louisiana, the Nation...World, then it is not just soda bottles, but everything, daily!! Is this a responsible, practical habit for a species that has been "advancing" for 250,000 years? A “use it once and throw it away” philosophy. All consumer goods produced have an origin and consequence, whether it is the rain forest cut down for pasture to fuel this countries appetite for hamburgers or Japan harvesting whales for an alleged aphrodisiac. Where is the positive here? What good comes about from perpetual taking? Does Christianity not condemn such gluttonous and wasteful behavior? What do we give back to the land, water and air? More pollution from refining the resources we extracted from them. We consume, so we can maintain a standard of living that we claim we have the right to. Who gave us the right to clear cut irreplaceable rain forest? Who gave us the right to accept the risk of contaminating thousands of miles of ocean to transport oil? WHO? We did, some will claim god, but that is just rationalizing to clear our conscience. The truth is we do not have the right just because we are human to RAPE the planet so we can have anything, anytime. For those who say we are at the top of the food chain so to the victor go the spoils ---- logic and the ability to reason got us to the top of the food chain and ironically our irresponsible reasoning in pursuing consumerism will bring us and the rest of the global ecosystem down, soon.

I want to know how anyone can justify cutting down rain forest when we are aware that they play a significant role in determining our global climate patterns? And do we cut them down for some noble cause that may rationalize this behavior and risk, no! We cut them down so we can make room for more cattle and 55 cent cheeseburgers that fuel the 61% of Americans that are overweight (thanks BK and McD's). In a time when we have 6 billion plus mouths to feed should we be risking changing the climate? What happens when the most productive agricultural lands stop producing because the local climate experiences severe droughts or floods? Genetically modified crops will not solve that problem. Aside from knowing rainforests influence the climate pattern, what about ethics here? Can we justify displacing innumerable numbers of species and destroying there habitat so we can either extract resources or make more room for us who already are grossly overpopulated? Where is the logic running our infrastructure off oil, coal and gas which are all nonrenewable, finite and major polluters? Where is the logic in using nuclear energy which produces waste that remains radioactive for longer than modern humans have existed? Why do we not use the 3 most abundant, clean and free energy sources available, solar, wind and hydro power?

Having good moral and ethical characteristics are great virtues to endorse in life, however this can conflict with the interest of business. The objective of business is to create business. Good moral and ethical characteristics would lead an individual to choose environmental and human health over profit in any situation. However, in an economic society such as ours, (and soon the world), this principle conflicts often with business. Until we as a global society determine that spiritual, physical, environmental, moral and emotional health are more important than acquiring status, junk and money to buy more junk, than ethical characteristics will be more of a liability than company asset.

However with that said, most companies will choose to elect an environmental health and safety officer, and/or compliance officer to ensure they conform to all regulations. This action is not done for the benefit of the environment in most cases but instead to ensure the company is not fined for polluting the environment outright. Corporations have a commitment to shareholders to incurr value. If this is not accomplished those at the top are the first to go. Executives, in my opinion, lacking good moral and ethical character (recent Enron debacle, for example), will try to ensure job security by increasing company profits at any cost, even it requires poor moral and ethical characteristics. Thus, for a corporation to hire a man with good ethical and moral characteristics would, on the surface, seem to reduce profits by ensuring the company protected the environment and therefore would not be successful within the corporate world.

Without clean air to breath, unspoiled soil to crops and pure water to drink we would cease to exist. Yet on an ever increasing global scale we consistently degrade these 3 important elements of life. Why? Through the modern translation of Christianity respect to the environment is ignored. The majority opinion of the Christian masses is that God provided man with (percieved) unlimited resources to use at his disposal. I do not believe that this was always the case. I have to believe that if Jesus were alive today he would abhore man neglect to the natural world. I think he would equally be disappointed that his followers spend enormous amounts of time and resources worshipping him, not his message. I believe jesus' message would have been that of a very simple life. He would want religion to be deeply personal and not extravagant as examplified by ornate Catholic churches and ceremonies.

How much of what is even preached through this modern intrepratation is actually practiced?I have attended several Christain masses, the message I precieved was not to sin, or if you do confess and repent. So, first of all, you can live your life full of sin (greed, gluttonly, infidelity, etc..), but as you lie on your deathbed, scared of the unknown then you can confess, repent and still God will forgive you and you can go to the promised paradise that is heaven? The sins that the bible outline are greed, infidelity, gluttony, envy etc.., Are these not the very foundation of American culture? America was founed on greed ( our forefathers were nothing more than wealthy tobacco farmers who didnt want to pay taxes to the government!!) The very roots of capitalism are greed, free enterprise provides people with the ability to attain more then they need, forefilling greed and glutonny which inevitiably give rise to envy. Why do people want bigger SUV's? Because you need status symbols to mark your social class or atleast put yourselve in serious debt buying a 50,000$ vehcile so you can appear to be of a desired social class. Why buy a vehicle that sits 9 comfortably when you only need to sit 4 or less? Why buy a vehicle that get 14 mpg when an obvious oil shortage is just a war away?

Infidelity is rampant in America, 57% of all marriages end in divorce. Why are shows like Jerry Springer and Rikki Lake drawing unpresidented ratings? There content is based on infidelity, glamorization of homosexuality and other immoral or unnatural behaviour. Can you justify the American lifestyle as anything but gluttonous? Over 60% of our population are overwieght and 33% are OBESE! This includes children. If that is not a sign of a population consuming more than it needs please correct me. How can this be justified in Christianity when the book that defines it forbiddes these very acts?!! Why would God bless America?

This month we, as Americans, celebrated our independence day. This holiday marks the end of foreign rule and the beginning of our sovereignty. Our founding fathers had a grand vision of a nation deciding its own course, a righteous one, filled with noble idealism. Many colonists died during the fighting that led to the succession, they died for a cause they deemed worthy of that sacrifice. Since then many hundreds of thousands of Americans have died similarly, fighting not to establish the dream, but to preserve it. But in 2001, what exactly is that "American dream"?

Once, the United States was the considered the land of opportunity, and many still believe that today. Yes, it is a place of virtually unrestricted capitalism, which for some can translate into success and profit, which in turn, means access to all things material. People in less developed countries view Americans as having a lifestyle worth leaving their homeland, culture and family for. On the surface, we as Americans do posses a grand lifestyle, we have access to anytime healthcare, unlimited food at our disposal, transportation, disposable income, entertainment, air-conditioning, unlimited choices for virtually anything essential and nonessential. But do we have happiness? Is happiness having the biggest and best of everything? Are all these luxuries and conveniences worth working ourselves to death for? The American dream is no longer just building a home to call your own, but it is now having a 3 story, 4 bedroom house, with 2 cars and an SUV with a television in every room. It is having more than the Joneses. It is shallow, unforfilling, unsustainable, complex, not natural and is breeding a country of angry people who feel less worthy not being able to have all these nonessential items. Our children want to resemble the lowest classes urban minorities and we let them. Parenting is lost, amongst all this wealth kids have no appreciation of hardship or value of money, and parents freely give so they can buy clothes and music that mimic not the refined, upper crust, but the bottom dwelling classes. The peasant farmer in El Salvador who owns nothing but a hut and his crops is disillusioned to believe that his lifestyle is insufficient in comparison. However, that individual has more spirituality, culture, and pride than his more materialistic needy American neighbors. He takes daily pleasure for having the little things in life such as family, friends, crops and health, things that we, the industrialized nations take for granted.

Recently Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and the richest man ever to walk the earth, held a press conference to announce he was making a large contribution to charity. The amount was 100 million dollars; the charity, a collation to end disease and death in Africa. Hoorah for Mr. Gates, he donates approximately 1/80 of his total combined wealth ( off which he will receive an attractive write-off) and gets Microsoft some badly needed good press in the midst of his monopoly lawsuit. This donation comes at a time in Africa when disease affects over 25% of the adult population. Aids and the entire spectrum of STD's as well as most major chronic and deadly diseases are beginning to balance the birth-death ratio. However, there are major worldwide organizations collecting billions annually and recruiting major international pharmaceutical and healthcare companies to donate products to end the suffering. The United Nations, Peace-Core and others have units established throughout the continent, providing medicine, food, education, all the bare essentials for a healthy, although primitive society. One UN Dr. was asked why did she volunteer to fight the epidemics in Africa, she responded, " We, as a global society must ask ourselves if we can afford to lose 100 million people, and the answer is I dont think we are".

The real problem in Africa is not disease or hunger but the misguided propaganda spread by the liberal global media about why we must act swiftly to thwart the epidemics. Can we afford to lose 100 million people? I don't think we can afford not to, whether they are Africans, Americans or Chinese. However, as nature is harsh in her attempts to balance populations, I will be blunt about the problems in Africa. For a continent that theoretically birthed the modern human race, they have had more time than any other civilization to establish a healthily, structured society. European colonization ended in the 1960's with numerous failed attempts to establish governments in the newly drawn borders. Governments in Africa have failed then and continue to struggle today. The reason is simple, there are too many factions (modern term for tribes ) in Africa that will never be able to live together in peace. The recent massacres in Rhowanda give testament to this fact. The people in Africa are not yet ready for a modern, industrialized society. They are still very primitive in thought and actions compared to western culture( this is not meant to be condescending, but objective, yet in the PC western culture it cannot be translated any other way). They must continue to evolve socially by themselves without interference from the rest of the world. It is amazing to see that even after centuries of what today is considered atrocities we still try to impose our will on less developed people. Although in the days of the conquistadors their motives were profit driven and methods brutal, the underlying principle is the same. The developed countries see Africa as an opportunity to impose Christianity, government and the modern countries code of ethics on the African people under the well intentioned disguise of charity.

From a natural perspective the crisis in Africa is a perfectly normal and well understood law of nature, for every action there is a reaction. The people of Africa have a lessened sense of consequence when it comes to sexual matters. It is well documented throughout the entire continent that AIDS is rampant and deadly. Yet it is estimated that close to 25% of the entire continent's population is infected with HIV. The actions are set in place by proliferated sexual activity in the midst of an AIDS epidemic with the inevitable reaction being an inundation of infection. Populations of most African nations are rural, uneducated, subsistence farmers and very primitive. However, no amount of western education can replace seeing entire villages wiped out by AIDS. That should be powerful enough to curb the urge to engage in unprotected sex, yet it is not. Therefore the next law of nature comes into play, natural selection. Nature has a way of regulating populations. In times of famine, only the most industrious individuals who find alternative food sources will survive to pass on his genes, in times of diseases, the individuals with strong immune systems are likely to survive and reproduce. However in this instance, the disease is not transmissible by inhalation, dermal or ingestion, and no immune system is insusceptible. In Africa it is spreading by sexual contact. Natural selection in this case selects against those who can not ignore whatever instinct they posses that is powerful enough to drive them to reproduce in light of the obvious danger. This is a natural process that should be left alone to run its course, it would be unnatural to interfere. Especially with the escalating population boom that is sweeping the globe. To sustain their impending population, Africa is going to have further to rely on imported food, and alot of it. The arable land in Africa is shrinking annually due to poor farming management but mostly the increasing desertification from ranchers and climate change. To allow for uncontrolled reproduction in wake of an obvious food deficit is irresponsible and will reap severe consequences for the entire planet as the continent will become ever increasingly dependent on foreign food for survival. If the climate continues to fluctuate and new climate patterns emerge as they appear to be, agriculture around the world will decrease, increasing demand within every nation and those who are incapable of producing their own food will be experience mass famine.

In closing, we as a global society must begin to appreciate reality no matter how politically incorrect it may seem. Just because we posses the technology to solve problems that arrive as a result of over population doesn't mean it is in the best interest of the planet and humanity to do so. Perhaps people may find justification in Christianity or in the bowels political correctness, but calculating the consequences on our natural systems, absence of sufficient food and drinkable water, development to provide suburbia and the furnishings then demanded does not equate to a balanced equation. The consequences from the environmental detrement that has been inflicted over the last 150 years is soon to be upon us. We should be focusing on reducing our global impact rather than making honorable political speaches that contain noble reasons why every human life must be preserved. We must never forget that Natural laws are constant, humanity is transient.