Politics of a New Paradigm

One of the problems with Western thought is that it doesn’t include the concepts of karma and reincarnation. I don’t think that we should necessarily take these precepts as being literally true, in the same manner that I’m not sure that we should take the stories of Moses or Jesus to be literally true. However, they are symbolic archetypes, myths that we have grown to live by, as Joseph Campbell would say.

The worst possible manifestation of the failure of humanity to embody any sense of the sacred is present in the approach that people like John McCain, George Bush, Newt Gingrich, and the Big Oil interests that they represent take toward the environment. As it becomes more and more apparent that their leadership has led us to the brink of extinction as a species, they use their own colossal failures as a springboard to take us deeper into the abyss. They use the economic desperation that they have caused through their unspeakable greed as a way to dig deeper and take still more from the earth that is sending sign after sign that she has had enough.

To me, money is paper. In fact, it is less paper and more digits on a computer screen. The economic system that we live under is quite flexible. We can change it at any time. I constantly read about the costs associated with greening the planet and responding to global warming and pollution in general as being prohibitive. People like Bush and McCain are quick to point out the economic impact of lessening consumption and embracing sustainability. They are right, a “growth economy” and a global culture of sustainable living are not compatible.

The economic system can be altered. It is malleable, even disposable if need be. Our ecosystem is not disposable. It is not optional. We seem to be proceeding from the standpoint that there is nothing that can be changed about the way that goods and services are exchanged, even if it causes the extinction of every species on earth. This is a paradigm that has to be transcended.

If the economic system that is destroying our habitat was providing us all with health, wealth, and prosperity, I can understand why it would be hard to shift out of it, though it would be just as necessary as it is today. However, half of the people on earth live on less than $2 a day. Even those among us who “have it pretty good” work and commute 40-60 hours a week doing something we probably don’t like to do for someone we probably can’t stand, with very little to show for it except basic survival. A shift in the economic paradigm would not only enable the healing of the earth, it would provide improved conditions for about 90% of the people on the planet.

I read yesterday that Americans are more supportive of drilling domestically for oil now that gas prices are over $4 a gallon. This is nauseating. People are willing to reward the politicians and their Big Oil masters for gouging them at the pumps by handing over the rights to our shared habitat so that they can rape it and pollute it just a little bit more? And the kicker is, domestic drilling will do nothing to lower the price of gas!

There are facts that support the reality that we cannot sustain continued environmental damage and expect to survive. But put the facts aside for a second. What about karma? At a time when the globe is warming and the environment is suffering in myriad ways, is it good karma for American politicians to push for the right to drill some more? The time to set aside long standing environmental regulations is when the health of the shared ecosystem is at its lowest ebb?

To be perfectly honest, I don’t think we have what it takes to survive as a species. We are not adapting to the reality of the environmental situation that the shortsightedness of the Oil Empire has wrought. If you support further drilling and environmental encroachment at this stage of the game, your karma and that of Chevron are one and the same.

What is the karmic price of the eradication of all of the species on a once beautiful and robust planet like ours? What is the economic system in eternity? You don’t have to answer right now. Give it some thought.