(Or What's Good for GM is Good for America)
As Americans we live with a lot of assumptions. We assume that the government is there to serve us, We assume that the people in big business would not knowingly put out products that are harmful to us, our children and future generations.
I could print up a list of countless examples where all of those assumptions are proven to be erroneous, where the trust is continually be broken. Worse I could cite examples where industries knowingly and falsely deny that their product is harmful to the public.
The Tobacco industry comes to mind. For decades they denied the product was addicted and potentially lethal to the users of their product. In the face of independent scientific and federal studies they brought forth their pet scientists to cloud the issue for decades.
Eventually they caved in and admitted that yes, tobacco can lead to a rather unpleasant death, but they continued to deny that is was addictive.. and then they caved in and admitted it was addictive. Then it's was rumored that they enhanced the addictiveness of certain products. And yet again it came out that in fact they did add chemicals to make them more addictive. And it doesn't just kill the user, oh no.. in the case of the cigarette the user can help kill off the people nearby who happen to be breathing the air the smoke is drifting on.
But it's good for all the farmers that raise the crop, and for the people employed in manufacturing, distributing and advertising the products.
Much as the raising of poppies or coca is in other countries. But the products from poppies and coca are illegal because they're harmful to you. Yeah. Wait.. so I can smoke myself to death.. but anything that might make you feel a buzz is illegal? But what about alcohol? Hmm. Ok, we're diverging from the main track slightly there. But can you spot a trend?
Ok, we all like clean drinking water, clean air, decent food right? Forty years ago climate change was bought to the attention of the federal government by certain concerned scientists. Back then all they were just looking at was CO2 levels, chlorofluorocarbons weren't on the radar and ozone holes weren't even a bad dream.
They basically said, we need to cut back on output or life on this planet is going to get really unpleasant. Their report was met with skepticism. I was 14 when I read about it and the data they had back then was rather compelling, even to a 14 year old*. They hadn't coined a good name for the effects though. What they did do was lay out a line of general projections of what happens when the earth gets too warm.
When other people all around the world began getting similar results and tried getting their governments to pay attention a certain industry got rather upset and bought some scientists of their own that would blow smoke and cloud the issue so that they could continue doing business with no loss of profits.
I'd go so far as to say they bought some politicians, but well then I'd have to lay out substantiation and it would get messy. Besides we all know that you can't buy a public official, right?
But does anyone really doubt that global warming is here now? (Let me clue you in on a little something, it's effects are a lot worse than has been publicly mentioned. A few years ago the Pentagon issued a rather grim assessment of the situation and how it would affect people's ways of life. Be afraid. Or invest in water reclamation systems.
And now we have the global economy meltdown. Yes sir your stock brokerage were out there making sure your investments were safe! And if you believe that now I have a small used planet I'd like to sell you. Cheap.
In all these instances a small group of people made unholy amounts of money while the effects of that lay waste to the lives and the planet they live on. Here's the thing I don't get.. these people have children too. Don't they give a damn about the quality of life their descendants will inherit? Apparently not. Maybe they plan on living in sealed self sufficient bio-domes.
You'd assume that people wouldn't do something as shortsighted as the people behind the decisions that have led to these various debacles. But the proof is in the results.
Apparently it's all about how many credit points you're worth not whether you leave the world a better place than you found it.
Sadly most people are too busy trying to keep their heads above water in an arbitrarily created socio-economic system to really reign in the nut cases that endanger their futures. And it doesn't matter what economic system you look at you always have these fruit cakes grabbing the reigns eventually and heading the horses for a cliff.
I don't have a solution. Throughout history there have been people that proposed alternate modes of behavior and if they didn't get killed for their efforts they were co-opted.
It would be nice if people woke up and held people that make decisions that effect the entire planet responsible for their actions. Just desserts. Then perhaps the greed impulse would start to automatically get restrained. Picture it.
It's just a thought and I know it'll never happen.. but I can dream... for now.
* I started telling everyone I knew about it, friends and acquaintances. 40 years ago if you went around spouting scenarios that see human civilization scraped off the face of the earth you quickly got a label as 'the weird guy'. Now it's fashionable, go figure. I'm comfortable being 'the weird guy' though.
No comments:
Post a Comment