Vote for Joe

A front page story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper today said gas prices may go as high as $3.25 a gallon this summer. Good. That will mean some people will drive less. And if they drive less, there will be less global warming gases. And in all this, we might also move a step (excuse the pun) or two toward a more “decentralized” society. A vignette from our Back Road to the White House book about Campaign 2000: In tiny Sea Level on North Carolina’s east coast, I talked with James Styron, 61. When he grew up here, there were several oyster factories, a couple restaurants, a General Store where the “old guys” played checkers around a pot belly stove and the youth in the town listened to their life stories. “Everyone was close,” Styron said. Then Styron’s grandfather became the first in town to get a Model T., the first affordable car for the “average Joe” in America. The grandfather started to drive out of town a bit, then a bit more. Others in town followed suit in their new Model Ts. With this increased mobility, not only was there more global warming gases, but bigger stores started to go up in more central locations (read: “centralism”) between these small towns. Because the stores were bigger, they could carry items at bigger volume. And because of this volume, the stores could also sell at cheaper prices. This meant that the small downtown establishments in towns like Sea Level started going out of business. (At the far end of the continuum these days, read: Wal Mart, K-Mart, Home Depot…) As the small stores started going out of business, the downtown shopping and gathering places started to evaporate, in kind, leaving only a trace, if that, of an echo of the ‘old guys’ voices. Mr. Styron told me about the grandfather’s Model T. with a touch of pride. Then in the next breath said he was at a loss for what went wrong in the town — and why people “weren’t that close” anymore… I take what I said back at the beginning of this entry. Maybe it would be better if gasoline went to $6.25 a gallon this summer… There goes a few more votes, huh.

The following is an excerpt from the beginning of a column I’m currently working on: Okay, let’s talk “weapons of mass destruction.” They seem to be causing the darndest problems these days. We thought Iraq had them. And boy, look what happened (and is still happening) as a result. What’s more, Iraq, it turns out, didn’t even have weapons of mass destruction. Now it’s Iran (with North Korea is only a test launch away as well). We (read: U.S.) think its Iran’s intention to make nuclear bombs. They say they’re just interested in making nuclear energy. Who is to say for sure? I mean we relied on “intelligence” before, and it turned out not to be, well, so ‘intelligent’… One thing is for sure. The way I see it, you don’t need much intelligence to know: We (read: U.S.) have about 10,000 weapons of mass destruction aimed at countries all over the globe. “What if we let the weapons inspectors into Montana?” I posed to an ABC News correspondent in Findlay, Ohio, just before the Iraq War started… Question: Does anyone out there see a glaring irony in all this?

I wrote a column today that is titled: Post Modern Voyeurs and Exhibitionists. My contiention is that most people in America (many unknowingly) have become one of these, or both. An excerpt from the column: A man is walking down the street with his wife and a scantily clad woman is approaching from the opposite direction. He stares. Then he stares intently. And as she walks by, he turns and stares intently some more. At which point, his wife, just as ‘intently,’ slaps him. Now, here’s the irony… That same man could be at home sitting on his couch intently watching scantily clad women on prime time television for hours — while his wife is in the kitchen thinking nothing about it… I shared this scenario in a talk to a graduate Religion Class at Bluffton College several years ago, and the professor reflected: “When you think about this objectively, it would be just the same as if the man watching television would have said to his wife: ‘Honey, I’m going next door to look in the window at Marge for a couple hours.”‘ …This all begs the probing psycho-sociologically significant question: “Have we gone nuts?” Or perhaps more apt: “Have we totally lost our common sense, or in this case, our: moral compass?” Note: I’m a former mental health counselor. And I’ve watched, time and again, how unconscious anger has played havoc with one’s emotional state, and with one’s relationships. And don’t think for a minute that if a spouse is, day in and day out, ‘intently’ watching scantily clad people (no matter what the medium) that there isn’t unconscious anger welling in the other spouse. Anger that can, ultimately, contribute significantly to the break-up of a marriage… Incidentally, the current divorce rate in the country is approaching: 60%. Again, if we start connecting these dots…

I have just started to update our position paper on the environment, based on some 15 years of research… A hot (excuse the pun) topic these days is: global warming. It is, indeed, an Inconvenient Truth. And since the Bush Administration has declined to sign the “Kyoto Protocol” in line with universal standards for the reduction of greenhouse gases, that doesn’t mean that we individual Americans can’t “sign on” to the treaty in spirit — and in action. During an energy seminar at Atnioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, I told the assembly that my family and I had created a: “Kyoto Protocol Home Zone,” with a sign to that effect out front, and everything. (Boy was Liz embarassed when I put that up.) Anyway, we’ve decided not to use air-conditioning, turned the thermostat down in the winter, wear sweaters and close off part of the house. I also told the Voice of the People television show in Hibbings, Minnesota, that in an effort to save even more energy, we all share bath water. Although I said I always try to get in the bath before our two-year-old. (Liz was embarassed on that one too.) In addition, we try to walk and bicycle locally at least 90% of the time within a three mile radius. We’ve dramatically reduced our purchasing (it takes burning fossil fuels to produce items). And I could go on with this, but I think you get the “Kyoto Protocol Home Zone” point. We all have the power not to use the power (paradoxical pun). Note: Wouldn’t it be a sight to see homemade Kyoto Protocol Home Zone signs go up in yards all across America, right next to the homemade Vote for Joe signs?

I spent the last few days extensively updating our position paper on “Agriculture.” (The updated paper should be up within the next month.) Anyway, one of the things I’m writing about is a seminar I attended in Ohio where a Bluffton College economics professor said that modern corporations, for the most part, see people as “individual markets,” not “individuals living in community.” As a result, making money from the “individual markets” is the priority, and how people live in community isn’t given much of a thought. So corporations often don’t hesitate to pollute, overwork cheap labor, or exploit natural resources… How this translates in the farming world is that corporate mega-farms in America can grow at such volume and ship cheaply enough — that these farms can undercut small family farmers selling to local markets in: Central America. As a result, impoverished people in the Third World become that much more impoverished… Question: Something to be “American Proud” of?