Email Excerpts - orig. 08/02/05

Here is an excerpt from an email that I sent regarding a yogurt purchase I made today:

Hi,
I purchased some Brown Cow rasberry yogurt today and then I realized it was not certified organic. Why is this the case?

I also realized that I can not recycle plastic #5 in my town (Ellensburg, WA). I can only recycle plastics #1 and #2. Is it possible to create packaging that is universally recyclable or reusable?

The lid is plastic #2 which is recyclable in my town. Is the seal recyclable?

Here is an excerpt from a seperate email that I sent to a friend:

When I woke up this morning I worried that I was overreacting to the environmental issues that we have been talking about, but then I thought about the rate that we are losing species and the amount of reports of the various symptoms and I don't think I am overreacting. I think that the majority may be underreacting to the issues. It just seems like we, as a species, shouldn't be taking the chances that we are taking.

The world has had a number of economic models throughout the course of history some of which lasted for a couple thousand years. I don't think our current model has that kind of staying power and I believe that future generations will curse our shortsightedness.

CAFTA got signed today. (Central American Free Trade Act). How can the carrot of affluence be so powerful?

Here is part of the response to the email above:

I feel that I can't spend any more time at this job where my work serves one main purpose above all others .... to make a handful of men who are already obscenely wealthy that much wealthier. They see real estate as a game and their yachts and race cars and golf vacations as their justified and hard-earned winnings. I am certain that they never think about the people who inhabit their buildings ... those people are represented only by rent checks, and even those little individual checks are just abstractions to these huge numbers that represent whether or not one property or another is on budget or struggling or just about to be sold. They drop $20,000 checks to each other in the mail as little thank-you's for this favor or that ... when they could so easily drop that same money into a charity, or maybe give some tenant down on their luck a few more days to make rent. But that's not the nature of business itself, I see that.

It is becoming increasingly a thorn in my side, this question: Is it wrong to stay in a job that serves a purpose to which I am morally opposed?

If I have to stay there I guess I should try to take some action and make some changes, but this thought fills me with dread. Who would join me. Who would listen. This isn't what they pay me for. They're all profit-focused and that's all they see. I pass them in the hallways and see them at the vending machines and I wonder how many of them think about what they're creating, or supporting. Today I did an expense report for one of my managers. I do these regularly, separating out all the business trip receipts so they get billed to the right place. This particular guy was spending a lot of time in one city and going to the same coffee shop once or twice a day. I thought of those cups of coffee - the paper cups themselves - and how each one ended up in the trash along with its plastic lid. I thought about the line behind him winding out the door, people all ready for their disposable treat, thinking they're being conscientious when they drop those cups in the trash rather than the street. I wish they would drop them in the street! Our problem is we don't see our own mess! We conveniently have it hauled away. We conveniently keep our slave laborers in faraway countries that no one visits. We murder civilians the world over and the government won't show us the photographs or even tell us the numbers. We sit there and allow our elected leaders to talk about drilling for oil in Alaska, where the only ones to witness the rape of the forest will be the wild things with no voice at all. Reducing our dependence on foreign oil, they say. But the ozone layer doesn't care whose oil it is. There are no borders in the atmosphere.

I want to think we can be part of this planet without destroying it or ourselves. It seems too huge for me this last couple days and I keep getting sucked back into my own drama to avoid it. I'm still making the changes, the cause is still right there under the surface of my thoughts, but I guess I'm grieving the loss of my ability to thoroughly ignore it. There's no going back now, have you had this feeling? Once you allow yourself to be aware, to know that each little thing you do has an impact, you can't un-know it.

Today I was walking to an appointment during my lunch hour and this chick was on the sidewalk with a notebook and I could tell she was about to ask me to sign something. She looked at me and said "Do you have a minute to talk about the environment?" And I think I scared the crap out of her because I half-shouted "YES!" She's from this group WashPIRG ... it's the WA Public Interest Research Group. Here's what their brochure says:

"When consumers are cheated, or our natural environment is threatened, or the voices of ordinary citizens are drowned out by special interest lobbyists, WashPIRG speaks up and takes action. We uncover threats to public health and well-being and fight to end them, using the time-tested tools of investigative research, media exposes, grassroots organizing, advocacy and litigation.
WashPIRG's mission is to deliver persistent, result-oriented public interest activism that protects our environment, encourages a fair, sustainable economy, and fosters responsive, democratic government."

http://www.washpirg.org

That sounds good. I want to believe it's true. I felt almost manic talking to this girl, who looked about 14. I told her about the Corporation and was suprised that she had not seen it. The other girl with her had "heard it was good." Then I remembered, people get paid to do this stuff, and it doesn't always necessarily mean that they're that informed, or even that involved. I did everything short of making them take a blood oath that they would watch it and tell everyone else they know.

I don't know. I'm feeling scattered and all over the place. I'm too much talk and think and not enough action. Your advice last week was right, that I need to take that despair and channel in into a positive action. I think I am letting my fears get the best of me. I feel like the happiness I've been feeling in my personal life is making me feel guilty. I have to remember it's OK to be happy. Everything in moderation. That I can feel joy as deeply as despair is the part of why I can and will affect change.

I feel drained, I need to play some bass for a while and clean up my house. I hope you don't mind that I'm unloading this stuff on you, I trust you to understand. We've suddenly become comrades in a two-person army, fighting a war that most people are ignoring.

Yes, most people are underreacting, to respond to something you said in your earlier email. Most of them aren't reacting at all - they're completely oblivious that there might be anything to react to. For most of my life I have left these issues in other people's hands and now I suddenly feel I can't shirk the personal accountability anymore. I guess it's natural that there's some resistance.

And my reply:

Thanks for writing. It's good to hear from you. I wanted to let you know that I don't think we're alone in this. I think that there are like minded individuals coming together from all over the world to try and work these issues out.

I also know that you have been sharing your views with a lot of people which I think is very courageous.

I mentioned that I watched "The Corporation," with a friend recently and the issues it brought up have been on her mind ever since. I know that she brought it up with folks at a Yoga training workshop that she's been doing in Fremont. It's kind of like a chain letter or an infection if you will.

One of the things I was thinking about today is that it is very difficult to control people. We can't force people to act in a prescribed manner. What we can do is expose them to ideas that they might not be aware of or haven't wanted to think about.

We can't know the outcome of our actions. We can only know that in the moment we are trying to make decisions based on a broad moral plain.

It fills me with joy not that terrible things are happening, but that I am on a path which both feels right and seems logically to be correct. Everyone may not be ready to live minimally, but I think there are few people who would argue that we are doing the wrong thing by trying to affect positive changes.

I was wondering, in the whole foods store today, how many people shop there to be healthier versus how many people shop there for the sake of the environment? I imagine it is a combination of both.

T-Dog

--
Rule 42 - Don't take yourself too seriously.
Rule 43 - Don't let the bastards get you down.
Rule 44 - Veni Vidi Vici - We came. We saw. We conquered. (That's Marlboro's motto.)

:lol: Sorry folks no graphic today. Check back tomorrow.