I'll keep this brief, as I'd love for you to consider taking the next 21 minutes to actually watch this video.
In The Story Of Stuff, Annie Leonard does a completely masterful job of illustrating how we get all our "stuff," where it comes from and where it goes. To be frank, this might be the most important short film you see all year. Hopefully it will inspire you to pass it along and start the dialogue in your own specific circle.
Feel free to watch it here, below, or there's a wonderful interactive presentation on the Story Of Stuff website.
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(I wrote this on January 9, 2009. Figured it was time to post it.)
On msnbc.com there’s an interactive map of the US, showing the unemployment rates for each state. I helped my mouse travel around the country, saddened when I noticed my wife’s parents’ home state of Michigan at 7.3%. Everybody knows that Detroit’s been hit pretty hard, but when people you love live there it gets personal, more painful. My home, California, was at 5.6%.
Then I realized the top slider was on September of 2007.
Not good.
With much hesitance, I slid the tracker along the timeline and watched the map change from lighter shades of green to darker hues, grimacing as percentages slowly climbed. Michigan turned to black first—signifying a 8-10% unemployment rate—followed by Rhode Island, and then California. We added South Carolina and Oregon to our glum ranks in November.
I realized that today in Michigan, if you have a party at your house with 10 people, one of you doesn’t have a way to pay your bills.
//
I don’t know if this happens anymore, but when I was a kid we learned a song in school. It started with the lyrics: “God bless America; land that I love. Stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above.”
Well, a light to cut through the darkness sounds pretty good right about now.
It doesn’t take too much time surfing across the internet news channels to begin to wonder when—or if—we will bounce back from this. And even though you and I might not be suffering, for so many of our brothers and sisters the crisis is already personal, and their anxiety nearly palpable, bleeding from the pictures we see and the stories we read.
In six days we’ll have a new president. The weight of the world will transfer to new shoulders and the country will look in his direction for something he’s promised us: hope. And even as the administration shifts, talks will likely continue in the direction towards economic growth being our panacea. But I’m wondering about a few things.
For example, wasn’t it at least partially a mentality of a perpetual growth that brought us here, to where we are? Like most strengths, I am afraid that our insatiable thirst for “more” also drags a shadow along with its unmatched productivity: greed.
If that’s true, the solution cannot simply be more growth.
Perhaps instead, might the way out be a better management of what we already have…?
Have you ever known a family to solve their problems by working longer hours? Of course not. So then, why do we think that, as a unified family of Americans, our results would be any different?
//
As much as I dislike the idea, it’s good for me to remember how rich I am. Honestly, it feels much better for me to go on thinking that I am poor, that I don’t have enough; to compare myself to those who have more than I do.
We, as Americans, have a unique opportunity at this point in history to stop and realize some things. To open our eyes to the fortune in our lives. To see the abundance that constantly surrounds us. To consider that maybe it’s time we sing a new song. Maybe God’s already blessed America. And if that is true, instead of recognizing our responsibility to share that abundance with the world, we have instead simply let it inspire a hunger for more… for us.
A government cannot solve our problems; it cannot legislate a solution to something that is, at its core, a localized crisis. And as much as I might like him to, Barack is not going to stop by my house and tell me how to manage my money or teach me how to be more generous with it.
//
Yes, there is hope for us. But it will not dawn with the inauguration of a new president. Hope will come when we, as a family of resilient American brothers and sisters stand tall and accept the responsibility for our own actions. It will come when we wake up and embrace the quiet resolve and mature compassion that recognizes the butterfly effects of our choices and that we, as human beings, were meant to be connected.
And that we will need each other if we want to discover a new path for a sustainable and successful life for all of us.
Hope will not come searching for us; it will not pop up from an interactive widget on the internet, arrive in the mail with a paycheck, or show up at your door to do your budget. But if we look, I have no doubt that we will find it.
//
On Friday my lovely Mitten-native wife brought home a black and white copy of an article out of a recent issue of Sports Illustrated. It's worth noting that we are probably one of the least sporty-inclined couples you will ever meet, so this is no small feat.
In the frosty winter of 2001 I made my first of what's become a yearly trek to Detroit. I actually don't actually remember if it was cold that season or not, but when you're going to Michigan in December, it's a pretty safe bet.
It was quite a Christmas; I met my future extended in-laws for the first time, got my first taste of exquisite Olga's snackers, and received a terrificly trashy romance novel called Forbidden Fruit from Allison's grandma as a present (seriously... it was awesome). Over the last eight years, a little ranch house in a small suburb outside of Motor City has become one of the most consistent addresses I've been attached to.
The recent hardships of Motown have been pretty well-documented. From the failings of the mayor to the blunders of Big 3 executives to the historic, nearly inconceivable, 0-16 record of the Lions... Detroit has slowly sunk into its status of America's favorite bastard-child city, the metropolis we love to mock and try to forget.
But I am wondering... why are we so eager to bash one of our own? How much of our rich American heritage was born in Detroit? Let's just take music and cars -- without this singular city, cars would not exist and music would be missing a large chunk of its soul. Concerning my current home: where would Los Angeles be without our beloved cars? I suppose you could say we like music here too, but we LOVE cars. Have you been on the 405 lately? We live in the damn things!
For whatever it's worth, I think its time we remember a fellow American city that's fell upon some pretty hard times.
The SI article I mentioned at the beginning was written by Mitch Albom, a native Detroiter and a fantastic writer. It's a few pages long but well worth your time. Check it out here:
THE COURAGE OF DETROIT//
I was meaning to write a profound and incendiary blog post today about something I recently learned of called The Tytler Cycle, but in my research, I came across an article written by John Eberhard and posted on CommonSenseGovernment.com. I don't know anything about the author or the website it came from, but this essay is fascinating and communicates some of the very things I considered writing about.
Eberhard posted this on 09/15/03, but it seems just as poignant today, if not more so.
Here's the Wikipedia page on Tytler
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Alexander Tytler [was] a Scottish historian who lived at the same time as the American Founding Fathers, [and] described a repeating cycle in history. He had found that societies went through this same cycle again and again, and that the cycle lasted roughly 200 years each time.
Tytler said the cycle starts out with a society in bondage. Then it goes in this sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.
Tytler organized these items in a circle:
So to give a little more on the sequence above, a society starts out in bondage, meaning no or very limited freedoms. Now faced with a very difficult situation (bondage), they turn to religion and religious faith. Through this they achieve the courage they need to fight for and win their freedom. Next, through the benefits of freedom, they achieve an abundance in material things.
Now we start into the other side of the circle/cycle. We get selfishness and laziness setting in. Then we get apathy and finally dependence. Then we arrive back up at the top with bondage again.
I was intrigued. I looked for information on Tytler on the Internet, could find none, and finally wrote to Dr. Brooks. [Note: Dr. Shannon Brooks gave a lecture on politics at George Wythe College in Salt Lake City called "The Liber," which is where Eberhard learned of Tytler.] He told first how to spell Tytler's name, and told me that most of Tytler's work has been completely lost. On further online search I found a number of sites with limited information on Tytler, but little more than what Brooks had said in his lecture.
I found this cycle to be very interesting in relation to where we are in the United States today. Dr. Brooks said he has asked the question of where the U.S. is in this cycle, in every one of these lectures he has given, to over 10,000 people to date. No one so far has said that we are on the right side of the cycle (spiritual faith, courage, liberty, abundance). Everyone has said we are somewhere on the left side of the circle (selfishness, complacency, apathy, dependence).
Let's talk about selfishness for a second. We have a situation in America today where many people are trying to get whatever they can out of the "system," with no concern of how this hurts the overall group of the United States of America.
Remember JFK's words at his inauguration speech? "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." You'd be hard pressed to find that sentiment in America today.
You've got one third of the US Post Office and the US Printing Office out at any given time on Workers Compensation disability. Does anyone really believe that at any given time, one third of those workers are injured so badly (and injured on the job mind you) so that they are physically unable to work? There are cases documented of federal government employees, for example, going out on disability in 1983, and collecting $5,000 per month for the last twenty years on a completely fraudulent claim. And only now is something being done about some of these cases.
How about all the damage claims cases in the courts? We've perhaps lost our incredulity for suits against the tobacco companies. But how about the new crop of suits against the fast food companies because they somehow misled people about the fact that their food is not really that good for you and (horrors) the customers became fat.
Recently a person sued his neighbor because that neighbor's dog bit him. And he won! Despite the fact that he was in the neighbor's yard at the time within the reach of the dog who was tied up, and was throwing rocks, antagonizing the dog!
Then we've got the welfare class. My mother taught school in the inner city, and would sometimes ask kids what they wanted to do when they grew up. They would sometimes reply, "Get high and get drunk." These kids' parents had been on welfare their entire lives and these kids expected to do the same. Why work or learn or achieve anything in class?
Selfishness Crisis
What we have in the U.S. today is a selfishness crisis. And believe me, this did not exist in any way, shape or form 227 years ago.
We have a generation, many of whom are looking for a way to bleed the system to get their "fare share." We could call them the "entitlement class." But it goes beyond the welfare class to people with jobs and careers, looking for some way to "cash in" in some way. There are many variations, but the common denominator is people looking for a way to get some kind of a free ride, in a manner in which they did not work for it or earn it.
This reaches even to the tops of corporate America, with the recent bunch of corporate executives and CEOs that had a lapse of ethics and conscience and seem to have forgot such annoying things as laws, in the interest of their own personal fortunes. Enron et al.
I'm not necessarily saying we are at the "selfishness" part of Tytler's cycle. We might have gone past that point. But we are at least up to that point. And complacency, apathy and dependence are not far behind. You could argue that some people today, such as those who have been on welfare for years, are in the dependence part of the cycle. I know that we had federal welfare reform passed a few years ago and that things are improving somewhat in that zone, but there's no question that dependency has become a way of life for a certain portion of our citizenry.
And when a people becomes completely dependent, they can be made into slaves. Rather easily.
What Next?
Since learning of this Tytler cycle, hearing the lecture myself and meeting Dr. Brooks, and discussing the issue with friends, I've been grappling with the idea that our country may go through a major crisis within the next 30-50 years.
As someone who feels that the United States is without a doubt the best form of government ever seen on this planet, the idea of such a crisis that could lead to what Tytler called "bondage" is very painful.
And yet, we can see the signs. Welfare recipients on the dole for life, people suing others for wacky reasons just so they can "cash in," state legislators and judges insisting that we must give billions in free benefits to illegal aliens, the concept of personal responsibility becoming a foreign concept, insurance claim fraud accounting for one third of all claims in California - all of these things weaken the group, the group of the USA. These examples penalize the ones who work hard and try to build a society, because these entitllement types are tearing it down. Those who take responsibility are hurt.
So is the cycle inevitable? Are we heading down the drain in the next few years? I wish I had the answer.
But I will say that I don't believe in the inevitability of our collapse. I don't think we can believe in it or that it's sane to believe in it. Otherwise that puts us squarely in the apathy part of the cycle. So I believe we have to assume it's not inevitable.
We need to educate people on the importance of ethics, of contributing rather than just taking, on insisting that people work for and exchange for what they receive. Only in that way can we reverse this slide. And I believe we can.
//
So to give a little more on the sequence above, a society starts out in bondage, meaning no or very limited freedoms. Now faced with a very difficult situation (bondage), they turn to religion and religious faith. Through this they achieve the courage they need to fight for and win their freedom. Next, through the benefits of freedom, they achieve an abundance in material things.
Now we start into the other side of the circle/cycle. We get selfishness and laziness setting in. Then we get apathy and finally dependence. Then we arrive back up at the top with bondage again.
I was intrigued. I looked for information on Tytler on the Internet, could find none, and finally wrote to Dr. Brooks. [Note: Dr. Shannon Brooks gave a lecture on politics at George Wythe College in Salt Lake City called "The Liber," which is where Eberhard learned of Tytler.] He told first how to spell Tytler's name, and told me that most of Tytler's work has been completely lost. On further online search I found a number of sites with limited information on Tytler, but little more than what Brooks had said in his lecture.
I found this cycle to be very interesting in relation to where we are in the United States today. Dr. Brooks said he has asked the question of where the U.S. is in this cycle, in every one of these lectures he has given, to over 10,000 people to date. No one so far has said that we are on the right side of the cycle (spiritual faith, courage, liberty, abundance). Everyone has said we are somewhere on the left side of the circle (selfishness, complacency, apathy, dependence).
Let's talk about selfishness for a second. We have a situation in America today where many people are trying to get whatever they can out of the "system," with no concern of how this hurts the overall group of the United States of America.
Remember JFK's words at his inauguration speech? "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." You'd be hard pressed to find that sentiment in America today.
You've got one third of the US Post Office and the US Printing Office out at any given time on Workers Compensation disability. Does anyone really believe that at any given time, one third of those workers are injured so badly (and injured on the job mind you) so that they are physically unable to work? There are cases documented of federal government employees, for example, going out on disability in 1983, and collecting $5,000 per month for the last twenty years on a completely fraudulent claim. And only now is something being done about some of these cases.
How about all the damage claims cases in the courts? We've perhaps lost our incredulity for suits against the tobacco companies. But how about the new crop of suits against the fast food companies because they somehow misled people about the fact that their food is not really that good for you and (horrors) the customers became fat.
Recently a person sued his neighbor because that neighbor's dog bit him. And he won! Despite the fact that he was in the neighbor's yard at the time within the reach of the dog who was tied up, and was throwing rocks, antagonizing the dog!
Then we've got the welfare class. My mother taught school in the inner city, and would sometimes ask kids what they wanted to do when they grew up. They would sometimes reply, "Get high and get drunk." These kids' parents had been on welfare their entire lives and these kids expected to do the same. Why work or learn or achieve anything in class?
Selfishness Crisis
What we have in the U.S. today is a selfishness crisis. And believe me, this did not exist in any way, shape or form 227 years ago.
We have a generation, many of whom are looking for a way to bleed the system to get their "fare share." We could call them the "entitlement class." But it goes beyond the welfare class to people with jobs and careers, looking for some way to "cash in" in some way. There are many variations, but the common denominator is people looking for a way to get some kind of a free ride, in a manner in which they did not work for it or earn it.
This reaches even to the tops of corporate America, with the recent bunch of corporate executives and CEOs that had a lapse of ethics and conscience and seem to have forgot such annoying things as laws, in the interest of their own personal fortunes. Enron et al.
I'm not necessarily saying we are at the "selfishness" part of Tytler's cycle. We might have gone past that point. But we are at least up to that point. And complacency, apathy and dependence are not far behind. You could argue that some people today, such as those who have been on welfare for years, are in the dependence part of the cycle. I know that we had federal welfare reform passed a few years ago and that things are improving somewhat in that zone, but there's no question that dependency has become a way of life for a certain portion of our citizenry.
And when a people becomes completely dependent, they can be made into slaves. Rather easily.
What Next?
Since learning of this Tytler cycle, hearing the lecture myself and meeting Dr. Brooks, and discussing the issue with friends, I've been grappling with the idea that our country may go through a major crisis within the next 30-50 years.
As someone who feels that the United States is without a doubt the best form of government ever seen on this planet, the idea of such a crisis that could lead to what Tytler called "bondage" is very painful.
And yet, we can see the signs. Welfare recipients on the dole for life, people suing others for wacky reasons just so they can "cash in," state legislators and judges insisting that we must give billions in free benefits to illegal aliens, the concept of personal responsibility becoming a foreign concept, insurance claim fraud accounting for one third of all claims in California - all of these things weaken the group, the group of the USA. These examples penalize the ones who work hard and try to build a society, because these entitllement types are tearing it down. Those who take responsibility are hurt.
So is the cycle inevitable? Are we heading down the drain in the next few years? I wish I had the answer.
But I will say that I don't believe in the inevitability of our collapse. I don't think we can believe in it or that it's sane to believe in it. Otherwise that puts us squarely in the apathy part of the cycle. So I believe we have to assume it's not inevitable.
We need to educate people on the importance of ethics, of contributing rather than just taking, on insisting that people work for and exchange for what they receive. Only in that way can we reverse this slide. And I believe we can.
//Now that gas prices are "coming down" (yes, we feel just GREAT about $3.75/gallon... what!?) I don't sense the same urgency in the American populace to fix this problem that existed when it was $5. Of course, this placation was expected by most and predicted by many, but that doesn't change the fact that there is still a problem out there that was never solved. And we shouldn't be fooled: it's not fixed now just because we are ignoring it.
I fear we are addicted to foreign oil, and maybe just oil in general.
But in the words of the immutable LeVar Burton, you don't have to take my word for it! Please check out some or all of the links below.
//
T. Boone Pickens, the founder and chairman of BP Capital Management (which manages over $4 billion in energy-oriented investment funds) has created the Pickens Plan, which aims to develop clean energy solutions.
Here's a great article from one of my favorite contemporary revolutionaries, Dr. Ron Paul: Big Government Responsible For High Gas Prices
Newt Gingrich has also thrown his thoughts into this discussion, and although I'm not convinced that more drilling will be a long-term solution, it does seem like a reasonable band-aid, considering our current economic challenges.
If you're a regular reader, you know I'm a big fan of Chris Martenson; he's a very level-headed proponent of financial literacy. Check out his very important explanation of what "peak oil" really is -- apparently, I had no idea!
In my quest for the truth, I came across a documentary called A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash. This film is so obviously targeted towards proving its premise -- namely, that there will be an oil crash -- that it's earned a bit of skepticism from me (as I'm sure you've noticed, it is increasingly hard to decipher truth from propaganda). Nonetheless, it is very interesting and quite well-made.
There's also an interesting intersection of the "climate crisis" with our oil addiction. Check out WE:
There's no question this is a complex issue with many moving parts, but I think we all know that it won't be solved by ignoring it. I know I'm not really offering many, if any, real solutions in this post, but awareness is a good start.
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There's no question this is a complex issue with many moving parts, but I think we all know that it won't be solved by ignoring it. I know I'm not really offering many, if any, real solutions in this post, but awareness is a good start.
//