One wonders at the consequences of the tsunami, given it's a disaster that is unparalleled in an age when we all can watch what's going on. If it could shift the rotation of the earth on the physical plane, could it also impact the state of our consciousness? 9/11, it turned out, wasn't big enough to tip any awareness scales. Instead of looking to see why we were attacked, we acted out of our entrenched dualistic perspective, where we think about good versus evil rather than conceiving from the greater whole.
But where “might” previously could “make right,” now, against terrorists, it won't. This enemy is a concept of ours. What opposes us now is not a finite force. It's infinite. There's no way to eradicate it. It owns nothing we can conquer. We can't take over its machinery. For every piece of it we stamp out, two pieces arise. We are in a hopeless situation. Yet, we persist. Einstein said it: “The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.”
I wonder if the magnitude of what nature can do, that we are seeing now, will turn our attention to what we can do to ward off things like global warming and away from making war. I even wonder if this tragedy could be a blessing, where the loss of a few hundred thousand people pales next to all of humanity being eradicated. This alert might save us from that — an early warning that got us into a one-world perspective before global warming or some other annihilating factor eradicated humanity (see Jared Diamond's new book, Collapse, for insight into civilizations that didn't make it).
Could this shake be big enough to wake us up to the need to set ourselves on another course? An examination of the fundamentals of how we think, based on who we perceive we are and what we think we are doing here, is a much needed conversation for the world to engage in. Many people eloquently express their outrage about what isn't working, but there isn't a common conversation about how else to run the world. The tsunami could be our spur to rethink everything. Its message is that it's one world — we need to engage with each other in one system. This would be more important than giving our attention to everything else that needs attending, because, without such an over-arching consideration, we will continue to generate problems that devastate us and be victimized by a lack of preparedness for what nature can impose.
The world runs on the profit motive. But, where rugged individualism built industrial civilizations, the rich can't keep getting richer as the poor get poorer. This creates a tension that eventually cannot hold. What served to create this world of material sophistication and abundance isn't what's needed for the ongoing stability of our system. The idea of the good society and the good world has to be examined to see where else the goods of life can come from.
I like how a new piece, The Victims Of The Tsunami Pay The Price Of War on Iraq, by the great British writer, George Monbiot, makes a case for a one-world perspective. Here's the heart of it:
…In my local Oxfam shop last week, people were queuing to the door to pledge money for the tsunami fund. A pub on the other side of town raised £1,000 on Saturday night. In the pot on the counter of the local newsagent's there must be nearly £100. The woman who runs the bakery told me about the homeless man she had seen, who emptied his pockets in the bank, saying “I just want to do my bit”, while the whole queue tried not to cry.
Over the past few months, reviewing the complete lack of public interest in what is happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the failure, in the west, to mobilise effective protests against the continuing atrocities in Iraq, I had begun to wonder whether we had lost our ability to stand in other people's shoes. I have now stopped wondering. The response to the tsunami shows that, however we might seek to suppress it, we cannot destroy our capacity for empathy.
But one obvious question recurs. Why must the relief of suffering, in this unprecedentedly prosperous world, rely on the whims of citizens and the appeals of pop stars and comedians? Why, when extreme poverty could be made history with a minor redeployment of public finances, must the poor world still wait for homeless people in the rich world to empty their pockets?
The obvious answer is that governments have other priorities. And the one that leaps to mind is war. If the money they have promised to the victims of the tsunami still falls far short of the amounts required, it is partly because the contingency fund upon which they draw in times of crisis has been spent on blowing people to bits in Iraq.
The US government has so far pledged $350m to the victims of the tsunami, and the UK government £50m ($96m). The US has spent $148 billion on the Iraq war and the UK £6bn ($11.5bn). The war has been running for 656 days. This means that the money pledged for the tsunami disaster by the United States is the equivalent of one and a half day's spending in Iraq. The money the UK has given equates to five and a half days of our involvement in the war.
It looks still worse when you compare the cost of the war to the total foreign aid budget. The UK has spent almost twice as much on creating suffering in Iraq as it spends annually on relieving it elsewhere. The United States gives just over $16bn in foreign aid: less than one ninth of the money it has burnt so far in Iraq.
The figures for war and aid are worth comparing because, when all the other excuses for the invasion of Iraq were stripped away, both governments explained that it was being waged for the good of the Iraqis. Let us, for a moment, take this claim at face value. Let us suppose that the invasion and occupation of Iraq had nothing to do with power, domestic politics or oil, but were, in fact, components of a monumental aid programme. And let us, with reckless generosity, assume that more people in Iraq have gained as a result of this aid programme than lost.
To justify the war, even under these wildly unsafe assumptions, George Bush and Tony Blair would have to show that the money they spent was a cost-efficient means of relieving human suffering. As it was sufficient to have made a measurable improvement in the lives of all the 2.8 billion people living in absolute poverty, and as there are only 25 million people in Iraq, this is simply not possible. Even if you ignore every other issue – such as the trifling matter of mass killing – the opportunity costs of the Iraq war categorise it as a humanitarian disaster. Indeed, such calculations suggest that, on cost grounds alone, a humanitarian war is a contradiction in terms…
What to do? I was struck reading what Tom Hayden has addressed to the Peace Movement, HOW TO END THE WAR IN IRAQ – ACTION UPDATE. He talks about specifics, and then issues this stirring call (caps are his):
ALL THIS, AND YET THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIALIZES TO CONTINUE THE WAR AND OCCUPATION. IT’S TIME FOR AN INTERVENTION AGAINST THIS ADDICTION.
IT IS NOT SURPRISING THAT NO onE IN THE ESTABLISHMENT, LIBERAL OR CONSERVATIVE, YET ACKNOWLEDGES THE OBVIOUS: THIS WAR IS NOT WORTH ANOTHER SINGLE DROP OF BLOOD OR DOLLAR. THE REASONS ARE EXPLAINED AS “STRATEGIC” BUT NEVER OPENLY DEFINED. SOME SAY IT IS ABOUT OIL, SOME ABOUT NOT PUTTING ISRAEL AT RISK, AND ALWAYS WE HEAR THAT OUR REPUTATION FOR STRENGTH MUST NOT BE TARNISHED.
HOW CAN IT BE THAT THE WAR WAS A MISTAKE BUT THAT ITS BLOODY UNENDING PROSECUTION IS THE onLY SENSIBLE OPTION? HOW CAN OUR REPUTATION BE SALVAGED BY DESTROYING IRAQI TOWNS, KILLING CIVILIANS, TORTURING PRISONERS, ENRICHING AMERICAN CONTRACTORS, OFFENDING WORLD PUBLIC OPINION AND ROBBING OUR PEOPLE OF THEIR ECONOMIC FUTURE BY RUNNING UP TRILLIONS IN DEFICITS AND TAXING NO onE FOR THE WAR?
HAVING PONDERED ALL THIS FOR A HOLIDAY EDITORIAL, THE NEW YORK TIMES, RELUCTANTLY OF COURSE, CONCLUDES (1) THAT “THE onLY ANSWER SEEMS TO BE MORE AMERICAN TROOPS, AND NOT JUST THROUGH THE SPRING, AS CURRENTLY PLANNED”, AND (2) POSTPONING THE DATE OF THE IRAQI ELECTION, PRESUMABLY SO THAT THE ADDITIONAL AMERICAN TROOPS CAN KILL MORE IRAQIS SO THE ELECTIONS CAN PROCEED.
THIS IS THE TYPICAL THINKING OF ELITES DESCRIBED IN BARBARA TUCHMAN’S THE MARCH OF FOLLY, WHO, KNOWING THEY ARE WRONG, MAKE MATTERS WORSE FOR THEMSELVES BECAUSE THEIR HIGHEST PRINCIPLE IS NEVER ADMITTING THEY ARE WRONG. THEY COULD BENEFIT FROM BEING SENT TO A MEETING WITH DRY ALCOHOLICS BUT INSTEAD PERPETUATE THEIR ADDICTIONS ON THE EDITORIAL BOARDS OF OUR FINEST PUBLICATIONS.
THE PEACE MOVEMENT MUST STAGE AN INTERVENTION AGAINST THESE ADDICTS TO U.S. IMPERIAL POWER. NOTHING LESS WILL LESSEN THE SUFFERING, THE COSTS AND THE DISHONOR THAT THEIR BLINDNESS IMPOSES ON US ALL.
[Note — Please be in touch if you're a techie who might be able to find the glitch that creates trouble when I type “on” ….Suzanne]
Tom says we need to “search for a progressive Democratic elected official” to be the hero of our generation. Having been an admirer of his since the Viet Nam War, when he was the chief ideologue of the New Left and a courageous member of the Chicago Seven, I was struck by how uncommon it is for anyone to be making such an impassioned call. This piece seems so different from anything else I've seen, and feels so satisfying, that it made me think he could be the man. If you think so, too, email him at tomhayden@earthlink.net.
There's just one more thing, saved from my month-long hiatus, to include here. It's email I got in response to a posting I made about Pier 57, the detention facility for people who were arrested during the Republican Convention, Can this be the U.S. of A.?. Susan Berlowitz seems to me to epitomize the frustration so many of us feel, as she also fills me with a sense of admiration for a non-public hero of our day. Here's the first email I got:
Dear Suzanne,
I just received the e-mail about Pier 57 and the girl from Hawaii being caught up in the arrests here in NYC. Someone I know was scooped up off the sidewalk on that Tuesday and disappeared for a couple of days. She was detained at Pier 57, too. Her story is also harrowing. Although I marched and protested, I didn't experience the Pier. The subway Gestapo were enough for me. The police swarmed onto subway cars, looked at each face, asked people, “Is that your bag?,” looked in a few for good measure, and then were gone. According to the news, the police knew what they were looking for, but I am skeptical. The truth of Pier 57 is alarming.
Susan Berlowitz
susanberlowitz@earthlink.net
And here's her second email to me:
Dear Suzanne,
Following the 2000 election, I was so distraught that I began a reading campaign that continues today. I felt like I was back in college, and went so far as to buy two yellow Hi-Liters, one for my bag while reading on the subway and one for home use. Although I wouldn't have counted myself among the ignorant or among the unmotivated, I became aware that I needed to know more and to become even more involved. I wrote detailed letters to my Senators and to my Representative, Charley Rangel, as well as to other individuals and government agencies. I attended lectures, seminars, workshops, panel discussions and debates. I marched and attended every rally that I could. During the months running up to the election, I traveled to Pennsylvania to knock on doors. Often, I have felt as if I have been screaming into a great void, where ears are deaf to concerns about our democracy and our humanity as it relates to this globally connected world.
Someone on your website mentioned forming a third party. I couldn't agree more. What are the Democrats offering, other than centrist arguments that continue to inch their way further to the right? I have never felt represented by the Democratic National Committee. Soon, 440 people will vote on who will run that organization, and they will make decisions for 'we the people.' I don't understand. Where are the democratic principles in this arrangement, and how did this come to be? Who are those 440 people?
For far too long the Democratic National Committee has written off precincts, districts and entire states. No wonder we are in this dilemma. I read that in Ohio the Democrats don't have offices in the precincts. However, there are Republican offices in every precinct. So, other than this year, with the recount, as soon as elections were over the Democrats have whooshed back out of the state, leaving the citizens without support. I have written letters to the Democratic National Committee and have protested their actions when they've called me. Of course, the only time they call is right before elections and they want money.
I understand the progressive movement is growing, but is there a concrete place to put our energy? Like you, I don't have a voice or a platform around which people will rally. Being in NYC, there are organizations that are on the move, but for the most part I feel disconnected after so many issues were dropped and the ABB movement was adopted. Although I understood the premise, the Anybody But Bush campaign was difficult for me. Why don't we have stronger candidates? I don't think we can base a movement on that strategy.
So, my question is, what are we going to do? It's only two years till the next election, and the Democrats need to present a more progressive agenda. I have progressive friends in Nebraska and Iowa, where I grew up and lived until about nine years ago. A friend in Lincoln, Nebraska, just wrote me a letter telling me that an even more radical right-wing candidate was elected in her district. If the Democratic Party fails to rally and seriously engage citizens in places like Nebraska, they don't represent the people. I can only conclude that their interests, at the base level, lie more in the corporate realm and with their self-interests than with us, 'we the people.'
Suzanne, I have ranted long enough. I will look forward to future postings and the thoughts and ideas that you are sharing with us.
Thanks for listening!!
Best regards,
Susan Berlowitz/New York City
Amen
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