It's not easy being green

Fond memories from Kermit the Frog as he sang about the difficulties associated with being green.  Today, green has become the focus for a significant segment of society, of government, of international relations, and of personal choice.

And Kermit was right; it's not easy.

The transition from limitless resources and a planet that would swallow up any mess we made happened when I was young.  I remember the discovery of floating trash in the middle of the ocean.

Kon Tiki made us aware that the ocean was more than a space filler.  Jacques Cousteau opened the realms below the surface for us.  Changes in our collective thinking took decades.

Young folks adapt more quickly.  My daughter began to turn green around the 6th grade.  She began considering seriously the way humanity treats the planet and its living components.  Her musings required us to think through them with her.  She adapted more quickly than I, skipping a lot of steps I had to wade through slowly.  Years later, she married a green fellow; they make an impressive pair.

The issue is polarizing, of course, as are most choices between self-gratification and the alternatives.  If we DO anything about it, it's going to cost something and be inconvenient.

There are opponents and strong resistance.  We still have those among us who don't believe climate is changing or that pollution is a problem, and they fight against changing industrial standards for protecting the planet.

There may be some who are a bit overboard on the green side as well.

Of course, either way things are going to change.  That world that would swallow up all the messes we make is gone.  We've changed the chemistry of the atmosphere, of the oceans, even of the ground water.  We've driven some species to extinction, we've depleted others by over fishing, we've genetically engineered major changes into the world's biomass.  We've neglected to note the impact of our resource consumption on the forests and savannahs of the world.  We think there's still plenty of 'jungle' somewhere in Africa, not understanding that it was always a myth.

Things will indeed change.  A good opportunity to be proactive?  Absolutely.

She and her family produce enough to feed themselves

with some left over to sell.  Their garden is about

400 feet square.  Okra, corn, cassava, tomatoes, beans.

What comes first?  Read.  A lot.  All that stuff you blew off when it first came up, go read that with an objective willingness to learn how to live differently.

Green cares, by the way.  There are a fascinating list of peripheral issues that float to the top when you care about such things.

What comes second?
How far off the path are you willing to go?

• Short steps?  A car that gets better gas mileage and LED light bulbs for the house?
• Medium steps?  Plant a serious garden and produce 30% of what you eat yourself?
• Go for broke?  Go, sell all you have, and start over from scratch!  OK, that's scary.

The Deadliest Sin

We wonder sometimes; what part does greed play in our lives?
     Is there a safe path for us and our families through the culture that surrounds us?

Φιλαρ γυρία - avarice or greed

It has the attention of the masses and their governments now.  There haven't been any helpful answers.  Yet.

Why would folks portray the financial industry (worldwide, but particularly the U.S. and U.K.) like the cartoon here?

The finance industry folks invented ways to steal money, persuaded the government to legalize it, and made billions.  Then the crash came and the trillions came out of the pockets of average folks.  And the poor suffered the most, of course.  Nearly a million died the first year in eastern Africa alone.

Does that qualify Wall Street players as "he who sheds innocent blood"?
Of course it does.

Capitalism and free markets are great; it's the unethical play by criminal minds that make it murderous. 

From Senator Carl Levin's report,

“The free market has helped make America great, but it only functions when people deal with each other honestly and transparently. At the heart of the financial crisis were unresolved, and often undisclosed, conflicts of interest,” said Dr. Coburn. “Blame for this mess lies everywhere from federal regulators who cast a blind eye, Wall Street bankers who let greed run wild, and members of Congress who failed to provide oversight.”

Levin said they (Goldman CEO and others) denied under oath that Goldman Sachs took a financial position against the mortgage market solely for its own profit, statements the senator said were untrue.

"Goldman told investors that its interests were “aligned” with theirs when, in fact, Goldman held 100% of the short side of the CDO and had adverse interests to the investors, and described Hudson’s assets (as)  “sourced from the Street,” when in fact, Goldman had selected and priced the assets without any third party involvement. New documents also reveal that, at one point in May 2007, Goldman Sachs unsuccessfully tried to execute a “short squeeze” in the mortgage market so that Goldman could scoop up short positions at artificially depressed prices and profit as the mortgage market declined. "

In other words, they were manipulating the national and world markets for corporate and personal gain, not for the benefit of their clients or anyone else.  They reached out and assaulted the nation and everyone in it.

Thanks and a hat tip to Republicans and Democrats in Congress and the White House who obligingly passed the marketplace law for this particular assault.  Now it's worse, not better.  Nuts.

UPDATE: August 2014 - the only ones jailed for this and other such crimes are the Occupy protesters, around 7000 at last count.  Meanwhile, Wall Street continues with billions in bonuses each year for their effective avarice.
UPDATE: September 2018 - we've reduced taxes expecting some benefit to the economy.  Corporate profits increased, unemployment is down, stocks are up, but pay for the bottom half remains flat.  Wall Street is doing extraordinarily well, not suprisingly.

Americans are the ultimate innocents.

It's a bit disappointing, isn't it, when you discover that they've been stringing you along, misrepresenting things so you'd be on their side.

We were warned by Marine Major General S. Butler.

During his career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. By the end of his career, he had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He was awarded the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and twice received the Medal of Honor, all for separate actions.

His comments:

"War is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers.

In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.^[13]"

In the fifties, we were proud to be Americans.  Everything we were told about ourselves and our place in the scheme of things was noble.  Decades later, we discovered that we had supported repressive regimes, murderous dictators, and criminal actions.  And we'd turned on friends.  We were allies with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh during WWII; did you know?  Then we turned on them when the French wanted their colony back.

A group of OSS agents (later to become the CIA) made contact with anti-Japanese guerrillas in Southeast Asia. The French who had controlled the area were the "Vichy" French who, with their Nazi leanings, supported the Japanese. Of the different Vietnamese nationalists, only the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh led the national network of underground organizations and guerrillas fighting.

Ho Chi Minh met with the U.S. operative, Major Patti, and they agreed on joint anti-Japanese actions. The U.S. dropped supplies behind the lines to Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh helped Americans downed behind Japanese lines. The first American advisors helped train, equip and arm the Viet Minh. In 1945, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was formed with Ho Chi Minh as the first President. American planes flew over Hanoi in celebration of the founding.

Ho Chi Minh asked the Americans to honor their commitment to independence, citing the Atlantic Charter and the U.N. Charter on self-determination. However, by the end of the war, the U.S. government had begun to redirect its foreign policy from the wartime goal of the liberation of all occupied countries and colonies to the postwar anti-communist crusade, which became the Cold War. 

In France, where communists had led the resistance to the Nazi occupation, American policy supported General Charles de Gaulle and his anti-communist "Free French." De Gaulle aimed to restore the glory of France, which meant the return of all former French colonies.

U.S. relations with the Vietnamese turned sour. President Truman refused to answer letters or cables from Ho. Instead, the U.S. began to ship military aid to the French forces in Indochina.

Those were difficult times with difficult choices.  The path chosen may have been the best of available options, but the lies were and remain deliberate misrepresentation for the purpose of pacifying the American people.

We had been warned by President (and former General of the Army) Eisenhower in his farewell address in '61: 

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Kennedy, after his Vienna meeting with Khrushchev, "Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place."

It's now been five decades since the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident and the lies that precipitated the Vietnam war.  It was sold to us by the administration with President Johnson being the spokesman.  Johnson later admitted the hostile fire incident was untrue.

Then fifty-eight thousand died, each with a family and friends, each with hopes and plans, each one died.  The justifiable outrage over these deaths is too blindingly horrible to express in words.

Decades later during the Gulf War, columnist Sydney Schanberg warned journalists not to forget "our unquestioning chorus of agreeability when Lyndon Johnson bamboozled us with his fabrication of the Gulf of Tonkin incident."

Schanberg blamed not only the press but also "the apparent amnesia of the wider American public."

And he added:

"We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth."

About that war ...

Before launching the Gulf War, Bush Sr. claimed that Iraq was threatening Saudi Arabia. Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid–September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.  They weren't.  Independent analysis of satellite imagery shows just empty desert.

After the war, Gen. Colin Powell admitted that there had been no massive build up. A US senior commander told Newsday after the war, "There was a great disinformation campaign surrounding this war." (There was indeed.)

Then in Iraq again - Weapons of mass destruction!  WMD!!  45 minutes from launch!

No. None.  Just forged documents, exaggerated intelligence reports, faked satellite imagery, photos, and misrepresentations.  And a gullible media.  And gullible citizens.  Nuts!

Dream World

Djibouti; family friends.

It happened to us in Africa where, just for a moment, we saw the real world ...

When you do, it can trigger stress; a thoughtful response is difficult.

• Denial: "I can't seem to face what I saw - it's fading like a troubling dream."
• Anger: "The rich are so materialistic. How selfish and spoiled!"
• Retreat: "The trip rattled me badly, but I'm getting back to normal."
• Advance: "I came, I saw, I'm learning - I can't return to the dream world."

... it's a shock that refuses to connect comfortably to anything we know. It's hard to process what we see. Many folks never do.

Marilyn with the kids

With one of our teens
and her cousins.

Marilyn went with me to Africa; it took her most of the subsequent year to assimilate what she'd seen. It hurt deeply to think about it for more than a few minutes at a time. It hurt a lot.

It will happen to us in Africa.  Or Asia or eastern Europe or here at home when we encounter the real world.  Up to the challenge?  Can we get outside the box?

P.S.  All the real fun is in the real world.

~ 1 Peter 1:1-9

Charlize Theron - does she have a chance?

Charlize Theron is a cutie.  "I'm single and I need to find a man!" It was on CNN as a soundbite from an upcoming interview.

My wife and I looked at each other and laughed because it was funny, the way she'd said it.  Then we both felt a little sad for her and the odd world where she lives.  Does she have a chance of finding the joy of a healthy marriage?  After all, a healthy marriage is about the biggest blessing anyone can have, but not every attempt succeeds.

The actress lives in the world of wealth and celebrity, a difficult one in which values and worth are oddly skewed.  She lives with nosy people and intrusive media looking at anything and everything, and she's forced to live walled off from the world.  She can't run to the store, you know, not like we do.  She can't just go to church with regular folks, she can't stop at Starbucks for a coffee with an acquaintance.  Ever seen how a celeb is treated when they show up in public?

"You have to do it at somebody's house," Theron said of dating. "Because then somebody is going to see you (out) for coffee with somebody."

You can't help but wonder, how difficult is it for famous folks to have a real life?  Do they even get an opportunity to understand and enjoy the other 99.99% of humanity? How far from 'real' do they have to live?

We sincerely wish her well.  Does she have a chance?  Sure she does.

The secret ...?    It seems perhaps to have a focal point.

Marriage is like a found treasure if the two become one. 
      It founders (as in shipwreck) when they don't. 

Two becoming one - chasing that particular goal is a choice for both.  It brings a lot of change and growing up, and it goes on for decades.  The largest component of success is perhaps that one piece.

At the start, there's little chance we will come unselfishly to marriage.  Singleness is naturally self-serving, and learning to think otherwise is a radical change.  It takes a few years, perhaps, just to get that one well begun. 

Johnny Depp in France, probably, somewhere

It's a volatile upheaval, and we can make the changes if we're willing.  Even in a world like Hollywood, I suppose.  We all hope for miracles.

P.S.  Celebrity can be overcome, my wife tells me.  She says Johnny Depp took his family to some distant place in France to live where it isn't worth the paparazzi's time to go.  Hmmm.  Clever.

Whitehouse Gray

That  $615,000,000,000,000 elephant is still in the room (and still too big to fail).

Derivatives in the marketplace have grown larger than the entire world's production; $600+ trillion.  Is that so bad?

Despite the worldwide crash which they caused, financial institutions continue without effective restraint or oversight. Brought to you by the President, Congress, JP Morgan Chase and other such business-wise folks, they've dragged us all blindfolded into the casino marketplace.

"Political leaders and financial regulators were asleep at the wheel in the 1990s and 2000s as the ‘shadow banking’ system established its hold on the global economy.”   (shadow as in unregulated and unmonitored)

In the absence of reasonable regulation, financial institutions ushered us down the collective drain.  Worthless investments were knowingly sold to victims and the risk was knowingly passed on to others.

We've made little progress against such practices since then.  Wall Street along with the rest of the financial industry, with their willingness to destroy the livelihood of nations, are now perhaps the greatest and most immediate threat humanity faces.