What
if we progressives got our way? Suppose Bush was impeached or forced to
resign for his wrongdoings, or suppose he so discredited the
Republicans that they lost the presidency and both houses in 2008.
Suppose the new leaders immediately ratified Kyoto, and radically
reformed campaign finance, gerrymandering, voting machine and
corporation law. Suppose environmental laws were restored to their
strongest, and social and environmental travesties like NAFTA were
scrapped. Suppose even that corporate subsidies were scrapped worldwide
and government pork became unacceptable and impossible. Suppose Europe
and Canada elected Green governments and ushered in bold plans to
eliminate the use of non-renewable energy through a combination of
alternative energy and serious conservation.
Then what?
The ten most intractable problems:
Unaffordable health care, dysfunctional education systems,
unsustainable energy and food systems, corporate psychopathy, lack of
viable self-managed communities, the tragedy of the commons,
overcrowding and overpopulation, poverty and violence, lack of
innovation and loss of wilderness and biodiversity, would all still be
with us. The oil that we conserve would be gobbled up by China and
India, enabling them to prolong their reckless imitation of American
profligacy a little longer. Corporation law reform would be bucked by
addicts to the current overconsumption and overspending economy:
corporate thieves would have to become cleverer (and they have more
money to perpetrate their crimes than regulatory authorities have to
fight them, so it is an unfair fight). Consumers who can't get their
fix of cheap, wasteful products would buy them on the black market, and
finance them through usurers. Organized crime would start offering the
things that the government tells us are no longer ethical or
sustainable. "Pssst,,,wanna buy a Hummer, used only once by a little
old lady, and I can get you gas for it at the ration price". You
thought the "war on drugs" was futile, wait 'til you see the "war on
unsustainable consumption". Governments, already pretty unpopular for
telling people what they should and shouldn't do, don't stand a chance.
Because, you see, there is no superpower.
There is not, and never has been, a government that has been able to
push the world to do what it wants to do, to make people behave. From
the Romans to the British to the Soviets, those that have had the most
power have faltered and collapsed like overinflated balloons when they
simply got too big to sustain the illusion that they were somehow in
control. The people just said no. Sometimes it was the colonized who
started the revolution, sometimes it started right at the centre,
sometimes nature lent a hand, using plagues or disasters to tear a hole
in the thin veneer of ubiquitous might.
There is no superpower
in business, either. The mightiest coalitions of oligopolies have
always fallen to upstarts who have exploited the complacency and
arrogance of industrial dynasts and robber barons with disruptive
innovations that met human needs that the giants no longer found
profitable, and used them to infiltrate and then cannibalize the
markets once thought unassailable. Even corporatists
(like Mussolini and Salazar) who tried to merge governments and
business leaders into insuperable bastions of power were toppled by
those who realized the truth of Adam Smith's famous saying ""the real
purpose of government is to protect those who run the economy from the
outrage of injured citizens".
And of course, as all but the most
gullible know, there is no superpower watching over us from above,
either. Those that are sure that the Rhapsody is going to happen just
when things look at their worst, resemble no one so much as the broken
gamblers who are sure that they just need one more bet, one more roll
before their horse will come in, their number will come up, and they
will be saved.
I'm not trying to depress you (really!) -- the fact that there is no superpower is good
news. It means that there is a chance that we, the people, can take
back our world from the political and corporate and religious czars and
tyrants and megalomaniacs and psychopaths who seem
to run and control and be in charge of everything, and it means we can
break their hold on their deluded and addicted followers. All we need to do is to refuse to recognize their power over us -- no, to recognize that they have no power over us.
That
means refusing to fight in their bloody and unjust wars, not for any
side or any leader. That means refusing to obey their unjust laws. They
can't put us all in jail, and they can't afford to kill many of us, since that just makes the resistance stronger.
That
means refusing to pay outrageous prices for shoddy crap (file-sharers
are just the first wave of this rebellion) and refusing to pay
blackmail prices for essential goods (like healthy food, and medicines,
and houses that last, and land and water and air that is not full of
waste and poisons).
That means refusing to get into debt with
them, refusing to become addicted to their products, refusing to fall
into the trap of equating possessions with self-worth.
That
means demanding that the common good come before private interest, that
those who have obscene wealth share it with the destitute and
needy, that decisions be made in the interest of the well-being of all,
not the wealth of a few, and that bads be taxed instead of goods.
That
means publicly repudiating and shouting down despicable and
manipulative religious leaders of all denominations who prey on fear
and ignorance and steal people's money and bully the weak and the
foolish and conspire with brutal governments.
The bloated,
overstretched, scarcity-based power structure of our world is
teetering. It is no match for our own community-based, consensus-driven
self-governments, no match for
sustainable, community-based generosity economies, economies of
abundance and egalitarianism and conservation, no match for a society
and a spiritualism based on caring for each other and for our world,
and on collective well-being.
We have the weapon that brings all empires to their knees, the great equalizer. Knowledge, the truth.
Listen to the words of the tyrants -- the political bullies, the
oligopolists, the preachers who claim to talk to the only guy even more
powerful than they are. Listen carefully. You will hear the denials.
"We are not losing the war on X.
We are not to blame. Everything is not falling apart. We're not
failing. Things are not out of control. Things have never been better,
and soon they will be better still. It's just an isolated, a temporary
setback. There is no choice but to stay the course." Look closely,
listen closely. See the doubt in their eyes. See the twitch, the fear
that it is all unraveling.
We have them on the run already. They
know that their power is all illusion, that there is no one in control.
Their great fear is that you will find out.
That fear is about to be realized.
Illustration from The Emperor's New Clothes by Margaret Tarrant |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
