Guns

From the Christian Science Monitor 3/12/12 issue by John Yemma: “Guns have one purpose. They don’t cut rope, drive nails or propel baseballs. They are built to kill or maim. Firearms are central to almost every conflict, crime, uprising or peacekeeping mission. Governments use guns to maintain order. Rebels use them,” to create a new order.

“There are more guns per capita in the US than in any other nation. Some people like guns for hunting, target practice, and skeet shooting. If you have a gentle nature, though, you probably abhor firearms. Every time a confused young person opens fire at a school, a worker assaults co-workers, a stray bullet enters an inner-city home…every one of those violent acts is a powerful argument for locking guns away.

“If you believe in the right to self-defense and liberty, however, you probably see gun ownership as natural and just. Every assault, home invasion, robbery or hostage taking is a powerful argument that a lawfully armed citizen might have been able to stop the crime.

“The balance between public safety and individual freedom is not easy. From the Revolution through the settling of the frontier to the 21st century, guns have been embedded in the American experience. The Second Amendment to the Constitution appears to enshrine the right of individuals to own and carry firearms. In 2008 and 2010, the US Supreme Court issued landmark rulings that ensured possession of firearms for lawful purposes.” More tomorrow.

Civility - More

Fully two-thirds of Americans believe incivility to be a major problem, according to the Christian Science Monitor’s 3/5/12 edition; and half expect it to become the norm. 72% of those questioned say they’ve tuned out politics because of the incivility there. 80% think it’s wrong to be uncivil, even in pursuit of an end they think is right. Studies show that after watching political fighting on cable TV, a person is less likely to talk politics with friends. Cool. So how come we get so much of it in the media? It wouldn’t be there if it weren’t profitable. Somebody must like it.

P.M. Forni, director of the Johns Hopkins University Civility Initiative says that many of the 1.8 million incidents of workplace violence that have been reported, many more go unreported, from a push to a shooting, often originate in incivility and a lack of respect and consideration for others. “When you are on the receiving end of an act of incivility, of a slight, ore when someone treats you rudely, in 40% of cases you will think about changing jobs, and in 13% people will change jobs,” Forni says.

The cover story of the 3/12/12 Monitor headlines, “Inside America’s gun culture.” Could the lack of civility contribute to the perceived need for weapons? The lead says, “For a complex blend of reasons – including concerns about safety and defiance of what’s seen as antigun pushiness – guns appear to be looming in the public consciousness and in the American political spotlight. As Patrik Jonsson reports, a combination of favorable court rulings, grass-roots activism and anxieties about government has led to what may be a tipping point on an issue that just a few years ago was one of America’s most contentious. Gun rights have expanded. Licensing is up. God bless America! Are you wearing your American flag pin?

Civility, Last

Leonard Pitts also touched on civility – tho indirectly – when he wrote about the contemporary Republican Party yesterday, making points similar to mine. “’Severely Conservative,’ Romney said. So ‘severe’ that Ronald Reagan wouldn’t know him. That’s because what now passes for conservatism is less an ideology than an excuse for [incivility] ideological rigidity, extreme language, shameless (indeed, proud) ignorance and situational ethics wherein the only thing that matters is victory and any tactic – fear, misogyny, bigotry, lies – is acceptable so long as it advances the goal.

“Spare me the false moral equivalence of noting that liberals are sometimes guilty of the same crimes. Duh. Of course they are. But the frequency and intensity on the left do not begin to compare with that of the right. The GOP has been so overrun by extremists that ‘moderate’ [and compromise are] now an epithet[s].”

So much for civility. Too bad. Because the term ‘civility’ is about much more than polite courtesies. Derived from Latin and Old French, ‘civility’ and means ‘good citizen.’ Civility enables us to live cooperatively and respectfully in communities – not armed camps, and is the glue that binds a society. Civility is an essential element of our humanity and human sustainability, enabling us to not only survive, but thrive.

Pitts and I agree that the GOP has no interest in civility. If civility is to return to the public square, the commons we share in our institutions, the media and face-to-face, you and I - we - will have to do it. It’s a one person, one transaction at a time thing.

We have to hold the practitioners and supporters of incivility accountable. We have to say no in everyway possible to those who drag our society down and profit from incivility. We also have to support the practitioners and supporters of civility. Means and ends must be compatible. We can not achieve a fair and just society by being unfair, unjust and uncivil.

Incivility

The AARP bulletin for March is the latest ‘main stream’ publication to bemoan the loss of civility in contemporary American society. Like most of the other media sources that comment on civility, the AARP bulletin, speaks as if the lack of civility was a general, societal problem with no one in particular at fault. I disagree with this point of view.

First, I agree that the lack of civility is a serious problem. I also agree that it is a widespread, societal problem that needs to be addressed at many levels. Where I disagree is that there is no one, or no group in particular at fault. We must call a spade a spade and identify one of the prime sources of incivility and thus one of the prime ways to address it and begin to eliminate it.

To me one of the prime sources of incivility and therefore one of the prime ways to address it and begin to eliminate it, is the rhetoric of the so-called ‘conservatives,’ t-party and extremist Republicans. Their name calling, personal attacks, lack of respect, especially for the President, gross distortions of fact, and out-and-out lying have rarely been equaled.

Of course the left and so-called ‘liberals’ distort facts and have biases. But who on the left is even close to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the whole Fox News establishment? Wasn’t it the Republicans under the leadership of Newt (what kind of name is that, anyhow?) Gingrich that shut down the government 15 years ago and almost did it again last year? The Dems don’t do things like that (mostly ‘cause they’re wimps and are afflicted with blue dog-itis).

Which party is attacking women’s rights to contraception, shackling the state to the care of unwanted babies and dealing with their subsequent criminal behavior? Who speaks of honoring the Constitution, then fights against the separation of church and state - a separation that is not only about the freedom to practice one’s religion of choice, but to be free from religion, and not made to submit to unelected, undemocratic, theocratic ministers and traditions?

There’s so much more of this…. One last one: who would rather bomb Iran, in the name of their theocratic, evangelical support for the Second Coming and poorly camouflaged by the rhetoric of support for an ally, than criticize, the non-existent moral authority and hate-filled rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh?

The Republicans are not all bad of course, but lately they’ve been worse than bad. Their leadership in incivility is dangerous for civility which is, as the AARP bulletin said, “more than polite courtesies. Derived from the Old French and Latin term for ‘good citizen,’ civility enables us to live respectfully in communities, and is the glue that binds society. It is an essential component of our human sustainability, enabling us not only to survive, but thrive…. [it is about] treating others with respect, compassion, kindness and generosity.”

Haven’t we had enough incivility? It’s not just about polite courtesies. Can’t we say, ‘no’ to those who sponsor, preach and practice incivility? We can and we must! Vote the incivility out and don’t put it back in. Somehow, the oh so righteous incivility mongers always seem to get back in and when they’re in, they always seem to bring the incivility with them. Think Nixon, think Bush the second, think that Gerald Ford and Bush the first were the exceptions. Enough, already! Stop incivility now, please…!

What's the Economy For?

What is the economy for? A profound question, isn’t it? Is it to create ‘jobs’? What kind of jobs – minimum wage jobs? A single person much less a family can’t survive on that. Is it to create ‘profits’? In what form and for who – for the workers, the managers, the owners; as stock, bonuses, or increases in pay? Does the economy exist for everyone, so that everyone can have at least a minimally decent life, or does it exist for some more than others?

What is the economy for? Does it exist to provide a good, fair or poor quality of life?

How is one to participate in the economy – as a minimum wage laborer, professional, golden parachute manager or silver spoon owner?

Is one’s place in the economy earned or is it a matter of chance? Do the people without education, decent food and housing have the same chance to succeed as those with all the necessities?
Is the economy about opportunity or outcomes?

Do we want the economy to provide people, simply by virtue of their being born, minimum standards of nutrition, health, and employment? Or, as we do now, want the economy to deal with the crime, disease, corruption and lack of productivity that comes from the absence of minimum standards?

These are profound questions. In our current polarized ego dominated society they seem to be either/or choices – that the best we can do is equal opportunity, not equal outcomes, and even minimum standards for outcomes are beyond us. That people by virtue of their birth alone, even here in the greatest country on earth, are guaranteed nothing, not even the kind of true equal opportunity that would come from minimum quality of life standards.

Yet the truth is, with spirit, all things are possible. Instead of being about spirit or ego, either/or, win/lose, equal opportunity or minimum standard outcomes, it can be about both/and, win/win, both equal opportunities and minimum standard outcomes.

It doesn’t have to be about the primitive, competitive, dog-eat-dog, winner take all standards we employ now. There can be competition, but not vicious dog-eat-dog, winner take all standards we employ now. There can be compassion, joy, cooperation and community.

In fact, if you look at most of everyday life, compassion and cooperation are still the norm, tho fading fast. So what’s the economy for – either/or, or both/and? Believe it or not, it’s our choice.

Water and the Extreme Illusion of Abundance, Last

The combination of the illusion of abundant water and the lack of an ethic for water in America create a dangerous situation. By ‘ethic’ I mean the stewardship ideal. For example, if people could see how closely their children’s and grandchildren’s well-being is tied to the health of the land and water, personal ethics would drive them to cooperate not only on behalf of their families and communities but also for the natural world they inhabit.

We use four times the amount of water, per person, today, than we did in 1950. The lack of a water/environmental ethic plus the illusion of abundance, blind us to how our own back yard garden hose connects to the bigger picture. With a shared water ethic, we could live well, with much less water.

Also since 1950, the demand for water globally has more than tripled, the number of major dams worldwide going from 5,00 to 45,000.

Tho, 70% of our Earth’s surface is water, most of it, 97% is salt water. Much of the remaining 3% that is fresh is held in snow and glaciers, leaving about 1% available. Unabated pollution is reducing the purity of the invaluable 1%. While climate change is shrinking the glaciers and snow packs and contributing to long-term droughts, unseasonable floods and rising sea levels.

Human populations are burgeoning, so that by 2020, it is estimated that 35 nations will experience severe water shortages, while there is the same amount of water on our planet now as there was thousands of years ago. Now is the time to act. Lot’s can be done. Villagers in the small Chilean coastal town of Chungungo, working with Canadian engineers, have installed huge mesh nets in the mountain above the village to act like eucalyptus trees and catch coastal fog. The droplets are funneled into pipes that carry the water to the village.

Jerome Priscoli, senior adviser at the US Army Corps of Engineers Institute for Water Resources, adds that “The symbolic content of water as cleansing, healing, rebirth, and reconciliation can provide a powerful tool for cooperation and symbolic acts of reconciliations so necessary to conflict resolution in other areas of society…. Rekindling the sense of sacred water…is one way to facilitate the escalation of debate on water cooperation to higher levels and thus impact the capacity to reach cooperation and manage conflict.”

Water and the Extreme Illusion of Abundance

Some thoughts on water by Cynthia Barnett in Blue Revolution excerpted in the Utne Reader.

We take water for granted in much of the USA, because we suffer from the extreme illusion of water abundance. But have no doubt, water abundance is an illusion and our profligate use of water today, and we are using it profligately, will endanger, not only ourselves, but future generations and the entire planet. There is simply no substitute for water. Unlike oil for which we can develop substitutes, water is the essential ingredient. When the water’s gone, life as we know it is gone.

To get an idea of the magnitude of the illusion, consider Lake Mead. Lake Mead is the reservoir behind the Hoover Dam that supplies water to millions of Americans, and for millions of acres of farmland. David Pierce and Tim Barnett at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography say there’s a 50-50 chance the lake will go dry – dry – by 2021! I’ve been there. The lake is huge; its more like a small inland sea than a lake. This is an amazing, horrifying prediction. But quite believable when you see the high water marks on the cliffs getting steadily lower.

Florida has so over-pumped its once abundant groundwater that the hundred-thousand-square-mile sponge known as the Floridan Aquifer, one of the most productive aquifers in the world, can no longer supply the state’s drinking-water needs.

Americans have become so profligate in our use of water and so mesmerized by the illusion of its abundance that the swimming pool, which used to be the sought after status symbol, then the diving board, has given way to pools with waterfalls, grottoes and swim-up bars. Americans guzzle about 410 billion gallons of water per day. That’s more than the entire flow of the entire Mississippi River.

But we need not be so profligate. We can do many things to conserve water. First and perhaps both easiest and most difficult is awakening from the illusion of water abundance. It’s not that we don’t have enough water. It’s that we don’t have enough water to waste. More about this in the next post.