TRUTH IN THE SHADOWS
AND HARD TRUTHS
We are at a couple of challenging junctures in American history.
The growing clamor and controversy over vaccination of children is evidence of a profound division.
The growing clamor and controversy over vaccination of children is evidence of a profound division.
As social commentators have noted, the far left and the far right have found common ground in their skittishness toward vaccines. The nexus of the issue is the right of individuals to think and act as they wish vis a vis the well being and greater good of the general society.
That is the point of Naomi Klein's latest book,This Changes Everything:Capitalism vs. the Climate.
Even liberals and environmentalists are gun shy in raising her premise, for fear of being considered "too radical."
With a lot of research and scientific scholarship Klein says the world's economic system and our planetary system are at war.
She covers food production, consumption, energy use and production, pollution of air, water and land, resource management practices and can measure how the bottom line of economics and especially profit motive trumps rivers, lakes, landfills, oceans, crop management, and etc. Protection of resources, even to worry about something like monarch butterfly populations, costs money and corporate boards are there to maximize earning and stock value. Regulations that might mitigate natural damage add costs and/or decrease earnings.
People are frightened by what Klein says. Her research should be read. Truth is sometimes a 2x4 over the bridge of a nose or more gently an annoying prophet disturbing the peace of a dinner party or social tea.
People are entitled to their views but when we live in a wired global village there are instances when the commonweal takes precedence. Health is one such instance.
It is preposterous that suppressed or eradicated diseases are making a comeback in an age when science has never been more advanced. There may be genuine concerns about efficacy and delivery of vaccinations, but this strange stew of resistance based on conspiracy theory, fear, superstition, half baked notions and now politics is frankly evidence of how silly we have become. Silly, maybe even stupid and with extraordinarily dangerous consequence.
THROWBACK SWEETHEARTS
Not sure of the occasion in the early 90's, but it pictures,
front to back, my youngest, Katherine, now finishing nursing school after a BS and a year of advanced permaculture study, my god-daughter Celia, now a PhD and working in Childhood Trauma psychology, my sainted late mother Mary Helen and a younger less gray version of your blogger.
I'm still concerned about the future that awaits those two bright, and still bright, faces.
See you down the trail.
You appear to have inherited your mother's countenance, my boy.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm... and I thought the dubious confusion would be your rumination on Brian Williams' "misremembering". Should this be a fire-able offense? If it was a Fox anchor would the left be screaming for someone's head?
ReplyDeleteYou raise a great point. I like Brian's style and personality. He is a bit of a wit, but in the old days he'd be sent packing. Can you imagine Walter, Howard K Smith, Brokaw, Jennings or Rather doing it. Well, speaking of Rather, don't you recall the 60 Minutes flap, his culpability and the eventual unseating? Brian should be in big trouble.
ReplyDeletehmmmm indeed. You have set me off to read some Naomi Klein --- with what you can guess is a surmise that she has a very slanted view of reality. Unless she is a purist and is arguing that western civilization (science, advanced political systems, etc) should have just let nature take its course in third and fourth world societies --- sort of an earthly Prime Directive a la Gene Roddenberry. I suppose we wouldn't have any real use for genetically modified seeds, pesticides, etc if it weren't for all those pesky people who have no way of feeding themselves and who without the scientific advance enabled by --- oh, capitalism -- would have long ago made the likes of Tutsi vs Hutu seem child's play. (Oh but Mao and Stalin already did that!) But there I go jumping to conclusions again. Back after I become somewhat informed. :-)
ReplyDeleteI can't help but be amused and respectful of your first reaction. Yes, she is a bit of a purist and extremist. As I noted very few are willing to raise her banner because at the kindest they would be considered a radical. However, she picks at a fundamental matter that has real-politic repercussions. How do humans order their lives and how do they take from, use or affect this garden planet where we find ourselves? It's an idealists pursuit and puts forward questions which predate how we then organize ourselves in social order. Still you have to wonder did the guys who built the first paper mill (for example) give much thought to what happens to all the junk or to the river into which the junk is dumped or to the future of such a relationship? Probably not.
ReplyDeleteInstead the thought was about productivity, economy, utility and "progress." Hence her idea of a a "war."
SO, HOW DO WE COUNTER THE MASSIVE FINANCIAL AND INFLUENTIAL FORCES MASSED AGAINST US? ESPECIALLY IN THIS ERA WHEN (1) DEMOCRACY NO LONGER FUNCTIONS AND (2) "THE PEOPLE" DON'T KNOW AND DON'T CARE?
ReplyDeleteProvocative thoughts here. But I"m withholding judgement on the vaccination issue. While I'm likely to get all my shots and encourage my family to do so, I"m not entirely sure science has all this perfectly right.
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