[PLUG] PLUG meeting

[Karl M. Hegbloom]

On Fri, 2002-12-06 at 22:58, Jeme A Brelin wrote:
> On 6 Dec 2002, AthlonRob wrote:
> > In all honestly, I do understand where you're coming from, but I'm
> > bent a little in the anti-tree-hugger direction... stupid
> > environmental laws have cost me and my family money.
> 
> Is it possible that some things are more important than money?

... that money is an artifice (cynically, in it's meaning like "ruse")
of human society.  Contrast that with something more concrete, like say,
the food supply.  "We" can print as much money as we need, but cannot
grow more food than the land will produce.  The monetary "value" of
things is not coupled by any scientific laws to the righteousness of the
stuff being bought and sold.

For instance, it is scientific laws that govern how much food the land
can produce, or how high a concentration of pollutants will produce ill
effects on those who must breath the "second hand" car exhaust produced
by the masses of humanity.

Oil companies and auto companies are tied together by monetary economy. 
They sell cars and fuel for them.  If they sell more fuel, they make
more MONEY.  They don't care if "we" use up a lot more fuel in a day
than is stricly necessary, or if the burning of it pollutes our cities. 
They only care about having the MONEY they get from that sale.  Thus,
they do not care to support the development of more efficient vehicles
that use less fuel.  That only happens when fuel is expensive...

If it was driven by a desire to produce higher quality better engineered
products, with better and better efficiencies, etc, rather than by
MONEY, we would have cleaner air and people like me would complain a lot
less about the reek of your haze.

> It's not entirely an environmental problem, though.  It's a social
> problem, too.

That's very true.  There are a lot of anti social polluting consumerists
out there who could care less what happens to the planet after they die
or what happens to people not closely related to themselves.  To them,
it would seem that "community" exists to facilitate the exploitation of
other human beings.

> > And no, I'm really not concerned with adopting more
> > environmental-friendly ways of life.
> 
> I didn't write "more environmental-friendly"; I wrote "more sustainable".  
> Environmental protection is just one small facet.
> 
> [As an aside, I think that if people cared more about the people in their
> world and the importance of caring itself, care for the environment would
> be an effortless side-benefit in exactly the same way that destruction of
> the environment is an effortless side-effect of isolation and community
> destruction.  Nobody would have to go out of their way at all.]

Greed-Capitalist Schizophrenia ?

The proud producers of busy-work who wish us to be so grateful for our
jobs would like to know if you are happy with what you do for a
living... <grin/>

> The Iriquois had a law that said, "Make every decision based on its impact
> on the seventh generation even if it requires skin as thick as the bark of
> a pine."  In other words, even if it's really fucking hard, do what
> benefits the future before you do what benefits yourself.
> 
> > > > Money is definitely a concern, though, so it can't be too expensive.  
> > > 
> > > You have no idea how expensive your cars are.  First, your roads are
> > > maintained through the wear and tear of hundreds of thousands of private
> > > vehicle trips mostly through the state general fund.  Second, the cost of
> > > your refined petroleum products is reduced drastically by pressures
> > > exerted through the world's largest and most sophisticated terrorist
> > > organization (I'm referring, of course, to the Pentagon system).  Third,
> > 
> > I like the way you sneak in your anti-American sentaments like that.  
> > Really, I do.
> 
> It's interesting that terms like "anti-American" only come up in
> totalitarian societies.  There was such a thing as "anti-German" in the
> 1930s and "anti-Soviet" in the middle part of the last century.  But think
> about what that means.  What is an "anti-Italian" or an
> "anti-Canadian"?  It is absolutely absurd to think that one ideology is
> embodied in or exemplified by the concept of "American".

It's that this "environmentalist" talk is a "threat to [their] way of
life".  He sees that as "anti-american" somehow.  It's not anti
American.  It's anti Greed-Capitalist.  Not anti Capitalist or
anti-free-market, but anti Greed-Capitalist.  If your product is good,
then sell it.  If it's not, we have a problem with that.

It's anti american to repress free speech.  The pentagon is not "us". 
It's a closed society that may or may not have an agenda coincident with
that of the "majority" in the USA.  It is even likely that the concensus
agenda there is that of the Greed Capitalist!  Of course, the opposite
may also be true.  It's a function of who is in power.

> But I do wonder what's "anti-American" about my comment.  It is a
> statement of opposition to terrorism which is certainly the stance of the
> vast majority of Americans at this time.

Perhaps your definition of "terrorism" differs from the "common usage"
in US news media?

> The U.S. Code defines terrorism as "any use of violence or threat of the
> use of violence to advance political, ideological, or religious agenda".  
> I think that fits the purpose and method of the military (and,
> interestingly, the police) perfectly well.  I'd be interested to hear a
> counter-argument.

Special ops will be knocking down your door any minute now for that kind
of anti american clatter!  There is no counter argument.  Do some just
disappear?  Or may we truely speak freely?  Is your bin laden with
neural suppressants?  Got enough to shut us all up?

> > See, the way you phrased it, let me classify you in a flash.  :-)
> 
> Perhaps you can try to read the words and understand their meaning instead
> of classifying and applying preconstructed filters to your understanding.

PLUG your ears and put us in your kill files ?

> I think this might be related to your problem with "freaks on the bus".
> 
> > > the very cost of your vehicle is subsidized through corporate welfare and
> > > inhumane "trade" agreements.  And last but not least by far, the cost of
> > > cleaning up the waste from your vehicle from production, through its
> > > useful life and maintenance, to its final resting place are covered, once
> > > again, by the public as a whole.  If you were presented with the ACTUAL
> > > cost of exclusive use and operation of a motor vehicle, you'd probably
> > > say, "I can't afford to drive", too.
> > 
> > Ok... I'll stop driving and watch out for the black helicopters... or
> > do you have a safehouse somewhere running a security system based
> > around Debian???
> 
> Right.  It's about kooks and pigeon-holing now.  You can ignore the
> argument and start joking about stereotypes, but I think the people on
> this list are intelligent enough to see through that dim charade.

And to take that target on their backs seriously enough to keep an eye
on who might in reality be an enemy of freedom and liberty.

Why do freedom and clean air seem so intimately related in my rurally
nurtured mentality?

> The public is paying for your car at a far greater cost per mile than
> public transit and the general public doesn't even get to use it.

And that cost may not all be measured monetarily, as We well know.

> You don't pay the full cost of your car and you just ignore the real cost
> because it's inconvenient.
> 
> J.

I agree.  It is inconvenient to "change horses in the middle of a
stream".  Remember the song "Landslide" (Fleetwood Mac)?  About how "I
built my life around you"?  Many have built their life around money. 
When she sings of a "reflection in the snow covered hills", it's a dead
friend dug out of an avalanche.  Literally.

Stay alive, and stay free.