40 years ago, just before his death, and having lost his fortune in the stock market, my father visited the commune where I was living and made the following "last words" prediction to me:
“Capitalism is dying son, I ought to know. I’m one of them. Internal contradictions will take it down. The SOB’s running it have paid their dues and they want theirs. They’ll sell everything that’s not nailed down and if you get in their way they’ll crush you.You think it’ll take five years, but it’ll take 50. Keep your head down, hang out for the long haul, and take care of your family. There are huge historical forces at work here and they will kill you.”
There are ten years still until the prediction is fulfilled, but in the intervening years I’ve seen nothing to persuade me that he did not know what he was talking about. The clearest evidence can be gleaned from considering the political silence surrounding global warming and its imminent consequences.
Has anyone heard word one about “the environment” in the current election babble? From any candidate running for office? Have you heard or read in the majority press one word about the carbon implication of completing the oil-shale pipeline, GM’s resurgence as a global car company, or our increasing dependence on carbon based fuels? Read word one about the carbon implications of air-travel?
Meanwhile, scientists,(the people we depend on for our nifty weapons, toys, and support systems) save those in the pay of the Oil and Petroleum Institute, are unified that Global warming is real, occurring, and the cause of the disasters and cataclysms of weather which are off all historical charts. Furthermore, they fear that we may be reaching “critical mass"; that if the perma-frost continues to melt (and it may be too late already), so much methane will be released into the atmosphere, that it will cause a runaway cycle of global heating that will exinguish the planet as a support system for human life.
There may be legitimate doubts about this, other than the Washington, DC ads place by the Petroleum Institute, but with stakes this high, any reasonable and prudent “leader” would follow the “precautionary principle” as a hedge against the worst---forcing naysayers to prove their contention that Global Warming is a politically useful fraud, and behaving as if the end of the world we’ve known might be a fact.
I refer to this myopia and refusal to addresss the issues on the part of the Congressional class; the refusal to address any issues but economic ones, and their willing subservience to Corporate desires, as Generational Murder. If these are not "Crimes against Humanity", what are?
The politicans have made strategically correct but insane calculations that they will be out of office with their fortunes or dead before they can be held responsible for the disasters they have facilitated. To behave in this manner is like swilling whiskey as you careen down the road blindfolded with the wife and kids in the back seat---a suicidal risk with homicidal implications.
I’m not sure what it might take on the part of the citizenry and the OWS movements to get their attention. It would have to be something large and really dramatic---three or four million people descending on Washington, a General Strike or an en masse decision to stop all but critical shopping until so-called leaders address the real issues. The economy is a sub-set of the environment, not the other way around. How can we possibly be wealthy in a degraded or toxic environment?
Germany has already passed its 2020 goal of 20% of their energy deriving from reneweable renewable sources. They’ve done this with leadership and common purpose, creating jobs and new industries along the way. We will never have an industrial economy again, and efforts to prolong and sustain it are not only futile, but are actually declaring murder on our next of kin. If the leaders won’t make the tough decisions, we will have to.