Maiwwwidge, twoo wove

Just when i thought my longstanding dormant romance had finally extinguished, i read this article.  Back in love again.

Naomi Wolf in creeping fascism

I’ve been showing this to people and I’m curious what you guys think. One link is to a lecture by Naomi Wolf on the 10 steps every would-be despot takes to close down an open society, and how those steps are underway in America already. The other link is to an article with the same points if you don’t want to sit through the 45 minutes. I’m interested in any thoughts people have, I guess my main question is: How seriously do you take this? Are we/our freedoms seriously threatened? Or is this just inflated rhetoric?

video:

http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2007/11/01/creeping-fascism/

article:

www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

Thought you might like to see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKvvPnhqeX0

i have nothing to contribute

Some Light Reading

First of all, I just found this when browsing through the news.  I recommend opening the pdf and just scrolling through it to see how immense it is:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2211905,00.html 

Secondly, Dylan, the Kates, and I saw a book reading here in Seattle last night (http://www.elliottbaybook.com/events/nov07/rosenblum.jsp).  It was given by Mort Rosenblum, a highly experienced former AP correspondent who just released a book called Escaping Plato’s Cave:  How America’s Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens our Survival.  He gave a pretty good talk, even if he was a bit spacey from doing this talk several times through the day.

The jist is that we as Americans ignore what happens around us, unless it involves some skanky pop star, and are not intellectually engaged enough to understand the trends in the world around us.  He talks a little bit about how we view the world compared to those in many other nations (this guy has been all over the world for the past 30 years), why we view the world (or don’t) the way we do, and some steps we may take to counteract this.  I’m excited to read the book, and will give a review once I finish it.

Links for thought

• Architecture 2030, an initiative to change the way buildings are built to reduce greenhouse gases emissions
• Real car designers design new Hot Wheels
• Another failed U.S. spy satellite program (your tax dollars at work!)

The “Politics of Possibility”, Part 2

…the continued review of “Break Through” by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger.

Reading this book reminds me of the Design Studies course we took in the ITPD program at the University of Southern Denmark, Sønderborg. One of the class sessions was dedicated to framing an idea. I took away the lesson that the framing of an idea is at least as equal in power as the actual supporting evidence.

In “Break Through,” the authors do not deny the “traditional” evidence of the environmentalist movement, such as the destruction of the rainforest, pollution of natural resources, and extinction of indigenous species. Instead, they argue against the framing of the gradual destruction of the environment as humans imposing on Nature.

Rather than dissolving the distinction between humans and Nature, environmentalists reverse the hierarchy, arguing that humans are still separate from but subordinate to Nature. This reversal is motivated by the view that our perfectly healthy and natural desire to control out environment is a sinful desecration of Nature. But it must be asked: can human societies exist without, in one way or another, controlling Nature? (134-135)

It’s a subtle shift to say humans are a part of nature as opposed to imposing on Nature. Yet, the actions warranted by each frame are nearly opposite. If humans are imposing on Nature (aka the “natural order” of the world), then the solution to our prolonged destruction of the environment is to severely limit our use of natural resources and “reduce our impact”. However, if, as creationists and evolutionists would agree, humans are a part of nature, then the goal should be to redirect our development in a positive, less harmful direction.

The growth of human society and development of technology are not inherently bad activities, necessarily sending the whole planet towards oblivion. Rather, they are facts of human existence than can easily be pointed in a positive, healthy direction. Humans have an incredible ability to adapt to change and to use acquired knowledge to improve and grow upon the past. The recent evidence for global warming is not a harbinger of our impending doom, but rather support to focus our efforts in a new way and to consider the global impact of the technologies we develop and policies we enact.

The “Politics of Possibility”, Part 1

I’ve slipped into the bad habit of reading online reviews of books before I read them, but thought they might provide some context for a controversial book such as “Break Through” by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger. Most of the critiques of this one were similar to comments at Ted’s talk, with a stronger focus on the authors’ negativity towards the current environmentalist movement. Which probably means the commenters, like most opinionated folks on the internets, didn’t manage to actually pay attention to the book they were reading.

It’s difficult to take book taglines seriously these days, but the one for “Break Through” is appropriately “From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility”. There is a good deal of negativity in the book, but it is manifest as frustration. The authors are quite explicitly opposed to the approaches of many facets of the environmentalist movement. In that opposition, though, they offer optimism that a more holistic movement will arise:

…so long as so many Americans are fearful, pessimistic, and insecure, America’s social values ecology is unlikely to support the kinds of changes required to deal with global warming…Creating a new progressive political consensus requires paying close attention to social values, how they are evolving, and how we might create a new social contract for postmaterial American that can provide enough security and prosperity to support a new, more ecological era. (39-40)

I have been enjoying their writing and find the arguments well supported and footnoted. I’ll write next time about some of the examples they give, avoiding absurd statistics as much as possible.

Good times, good times

Alex has finally continued on his way, leaving Portland behind in a flurry of dust and stalls.

Man, it sucks we’re all so far apart. I vote for moving to San Diego and starting the next great American car company. You know you want to

Tonight I think I might drink some PBR and watch the Big Lebowski; hopefully not freaking Sara out if I cry myself to sleep… You’re being very undude.