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By Punkerslut
Greetings, Greetings, After reviewing much of your site, it appears that we share so many similar goals: "peace, human & civil rights, environmental & economic sustainability, social awareness, critical thought, conscious consumerism..." However, there appears to be a complete focus on government and politics, as you are arguing for "voter awareness, voter registration, and voter turnout," side-by-side with a photograph of the current U.S. president. But this is not directly focusing on the cause of these social ills. It is focusing on the indirect power of laws and law-making in order to accomplish some sort of real change in society. What are the real causes of these problems -- whether it is human rights, environmental destruction, poisoned consumer goods, or mass unemployment? Take some of the cases of human rights violations, such as the killings taking place in Guatemala, Indonesia, Chile, Burma, and China. Many of the targeted individuals are trade unionists, activists, journalists, and others who stand as a threat to the interests of the wealthy. The organization of a strike over toxic chemicals, or the protest of inhuman sweatshop conditions, or the execution of journalists who cover these topics; who is it that initiates such violence against the people, who is it that benefits so much from it? In one phrase, it is the possessors of society's productive forces. What about environmental destruction? Who made the decisions to excavate mines out of ancient mountains, to reduce forests to barren fields, and to dump toxins and chemicals into our rivers? There is only one group of people who have benefited by filling the world's fish with mercury and using unsafe equipment to handle dangerous chemicals. That is the wealthy class: those who can save some money by dumping toxins into the environment, instead of paying for their proper disposal. All of the land within America's cities, from Chicago to Boston to New York, is contaminated with "brown field" -- if you consume food grown here, you will poison yourself with lead. Again, this was an action taken by the wealthy, and against the interests of the public. What about mass unemployment? Similarly, we find that these are choices made by the wealthy and employing class. It is not a question of whether land can be productive, as we know that a single family of farmers can produce enough to feed a hundred families. It is a question of profit-maximization. If people are hungrier, they will pay more for food and work for less wages. It is a simple fact of economy, even if the price of bread and the murder rate rise or fall proportionally to each other ("The Lords of Industry," by Henry Demarest Lloyd.) Poverty, unemployment, and the recession, then, are not a result of the inability of people to produce -- it is a result of the propertied class benefitting receiving more profit from a subjugated population than one that is economically secure. If you truly support environmental and economic sustainability, then directly resist those who threaten these goals: the Capitalist class. These social abuses, whether mass unemployment or destruction of the land, will always continue -- as long as someone has the power to make them continue and can benefit from it. To consider yourself a true enemy of this social misery, you must be a true enemy of Capitalism. If you do not work towards the abolishment of the propertied system, then you will never be able to remove the causes of these social ills. You'll be resigned to passing bills about the legal amount of mercury per fish, the limit of responsibility in guaranteeing work, the justified amount of exploitation and oppression, etc., etc.. You will never be able to create a free world with such piecemeal tactics, especially when you have not even identified the true creator of all this social misery: the Capitalist. This leads to your next mistake: relying on the government. From the beginnings of the state to its current situation, all government exists as an arm of the Capitalist system. Why is it that trillions are stolen from the public through monopoly without any criminal conviction? Perhaps because "the company is dealing with the issue proactively." But then why is it that a poor, homeless child, caught stealing from a store to feed themselves, must face the rigors of an often juryless trial and an uncaring public defender? The law isn't written for the common people, the laborers and the poor. It is written for the rich, and this is why the government engages in wars that make the common people unsafe: because it means land and weapons contracts for a few, wealthy Capitalists. The system of Government for Capitalist has existed as long as there has been Capitalism. You seem to think that by walking into the middle of this exploitation system, with "voter turnout" and "voter awareness," you'll suddenly change everything. It will never happen. You're being drawn into the system to pacify you from being able to make any real change. That is the only effect of voting. Even where a "new party" gets into office, it almost always behaves like the last party. This should be most clear with president Obama -- he is not being criticized by Democrats for his cooperation in BP's environmental destruction. But, only a few years ago, Democrats were raging about president Bush's drilling in Alaska. If you want to change, do not ally yourself either with the Capitalist or the state that has been dominated by the Capitalist. Make yourself an enemy of both, and only then will you be able to see a world with true peace, prosperity for everyone, and real environmental sustainability. Thank you for listening. I patiently await a response... Sincerely,
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