Good food for thought on the woes of our “Way of Life”; spun by the Bush administration as one of our core values, it is a roundabout way of encouraging irresponsible consumption, which breeds irresponsible plundering other nations to “ensure” our ability to continue to plunder. The Right has swallowed the Bush “science” that “the earrth is going to be fine”; that we can’t harm it. Meanwhile, the polar ice caps have melted at a rate that exceeds even the prior warnings, which many of these same people who tout “common sense science” refused to believe even then.
We went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq saying we’re promoting freedom, democracy, and the American way of life. It is a lie to promote the American way of life as it is at this moment. The great Harvard biologist, E.O. Wilson, said in his 2002 book “The Future of Life” that if the rest of the world were to actually live like we do, it would take four planet Earths. Our promise is a recipe for mass extinction of animals and plants, massive wars by humans over scare resources. Do we not invite more terrorism against the United States by entities who will increasingly say we are stealing their energy, food, air, and water?
We all participate in this lie, Republican, Democrat, and independent, rich, middle class, and even a fair number of the poor. Somewhere on the checklist of big car, huge house, thundering television, wasted food, lights left on, packrat possessions, and paper thrown away, we can pencil in our share of the madness.