Economic Meltdown (?), the Election, and all those other "things" on our minds lately

I have to admit, I've been extremely distracted by all of the events going on in the US right now. The largest 2 (most obvious, I should say), being the election and the crumbling of our Casino Street ecomony. What concerns me right now is how little these things actually intersect, or at least, how little it seems either of our presidential candidates seem to understand that they actually do.

During the second Presidential debate neither candidate was willing to actually point out to Americans that the economy will get worse before it gets better. This is contrary to statements released by Paulson (Treasury), Roubini (academic), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and I should mention that the debt ticker in NY is no longer long enough to show our actual debt (the new one will go up next year, probably to calm panic when people see it daily.) This includes the crumbling of other global economic systems (see the disasters in the European and the Asian markets for details) which- whether or not we'd like to admit it, are highly related to the function and stabilization of our own economy. Both candidates also seemed to endorse the bail-out plan, while neither candidate seemed to be able to state exactly what that bail-out did/will do to alleviate the rippling effects of Casino Street's now 6th straight day of loss on the average American. A point of clarification: by average I mean lower middle class and poor and in the last decades we can also add: complete poverty level Americans. The wealthy- corporate elite and government employees- are not considered "average Americans" to me, and how anyone could consider them as such is far beyond my comprehension. What this bail-out has essentially done is add a taxpayer financed patch to a corrupt system without any true restructuring to prevent this from happening again in 2 weeks, one month, 6 months, etc... I should be clear now in saying that it is not the bail-out specifically I oppose but rather, the entire de-regulated, neoliberal economic policies of the US that have gotten us (and most of the world) into this mess. The bail-out fails to address that. The presidential candidates also fail to address this. In fact, I am almost certain that Washington is part of the reason that 'neoliberal' isn't even listed as a true word in American dictionaries because to them we are just a "capitalist democracy" legitimized by tagging democracy to every possible word we can. News to Washington: we are capitalist, yes. A democracy? Not by a long shot. Americans should be calling our govenrment out on this abuse of the word.

Now, I still stand strong on my vote against McCain. Not because I believe that he and Obama are drastically different candidates. They are I suspect, largely different humans with largely different ideologies. However, I doubt either of them will be able to accomplish much on this 'compromise with the already in place system' tickets they both fall on. At the end of the day, I can barely tell the difference between the democrans and republicrats with their US Empire/imperialist policies of the last half century. I have to admit too that any elected president after George Bush will face a tremendous workload, and will need to possess a keen ability to rationalize which issues need to be tackled first. I hope what they include as a prime focus is the welfare of the people of this nation without whom they would fail to have any legitimacy. What I hope they are able to see is that globalization has not worked and local economy needs to be focused on to ensure a stabilized nation at all, let alone a powerful one. Face it: we cannot help our own with all of our jobs overseas, massive wars being fought and funded by external sources, with no access to healthcare for MOST Americans, with post-dated policies and officials enforcing them, with our civil liberties and rights slipping through the cracks unknowingly. America is in a tragic state of potential disrepair.

As a suggestion, I urge everyone to start living more conservative lifestyles. This government injection into Casino Street will cause inflation. Money is going to be sparse. If the government does buy banks to free loan availability be wary that these loans are now a speculative measure to pay off the debt used to boost Casino Street. This is a circular loop of self-defeat. I urge everyone to contact their local, state, and federal representatives to push forward a global, multilateral solution to this problem. Not a US-led solution. A democratically created and approved global solution. I urge US citizens to support global systems such as the United Nations, by telling your representatives they are wrong to bypass the UN in making decisions such as military interventions. In essence I urge US citizens to step down from our role of "global leader" to a role as "global citizen". It is imperative to the success of humanity on more levels than just economics.

Some tips for Sarah Palin

Dear Sarah Palin,

Congratulations on your vice presidential nomination, I really don't know how you did it. No, really, I have no idea. 

A few pointers:

1. Global warming actually does exist. I understand it is difficult for a woman of your caliber to make time to understand geology, physics, and ecology, but you should maybe try catching up on science before it catches up to your Grandchildren and they are fighting to survive.

2. Pipelines will not help America. Well, yes they will. For about 50 years. Wow, what a sound investment! Maybe you can go back in time and ask God while he's making the Universe if he could just ban global warming.

3. I hate to break it to you, but you won't get the votes of the women that supported Clinton. There's a large difference between you and Clinton: she knows how the government works and I have a sneaking suspicion, even knows what the Vice President does without being briefed. 

4. I am embarrassed for women and men every where, including in the US, that you are a now well-known political figure. I am thankful that you exist as an important example as to why education is important for everyone.

5. Iraq is not a playground for small town gossip. It is a real place, with real people some of whom are from the country of which you live in. War in Iraq is a violation of human rights. Oh and Iraq and the pursuit of other nations' resources are not "God's Will." Shame on you.

7. I don't think you have enough time to study to debate Joe Biden... You know, foreign policy, it's sort of a big deal. Oh and renewable energy. Oh and equal rights for all humans. Oh and our floundering economy. Oh and our dying soldiers and the dying civilians in our hands over seas. Oh and education beyond 1820. 

8. Banning books is absurd. The media loves to call Democrats Fascists but I think now we see where the real dictators are. So let me get this straight, you're anti-education?

9. Religion has no place in our Government. No religion is representative of all US citizens and should not be treated as though there is one that is. By all means, practice any religion you'd like... just keep it out of the government of which citizens pay for.

 10. Thank you for enforcing my decision vote against your party for yet another election, and for reminding me why I continue to do so.

Yours Truly,

Megan

Bottled Water

Isn't water just an amazing thing? We all need it to survive yet it has become this massive part of consumer culture and isn't really seen as a necessity, at least not to Americans.

It used to be, pre-privatization of every single resource on Earth ("they" haven't gotten to air yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if some day you pay tax on breathing), water was a given. You couldn't really deny people access to water. There was of course no guarantee that the water you were consuming would be clean, but then, there was a lot less fuss over waterborne diseases too. Anyway, the government didn't have the ability to charge people for water per se, and you certainly didn't buy bottle water, except maybe as a luxury. With the combination of health crazes which dictate varying amounts of water we should each consume every day (I've heard anywhere from 4-12 glasses) and the need for increased showering/bathing via social standards of bodily cleanliness, the increasing awareness of chemicals in our water supplies, the increasing awareness of sewage and other polluted water sources, we're all buying bottled water. Or paying city taxes to have water transported to us. Or building our wells on private property to ensure we have running water which comes with a unique set of government mandated standards (we certainly don't want to use lead pipes, right?)

In countries like South Africa, water has been an increasing issue. Poor communities unable to afford to have water transported to their homes, have called on rights established by their government to allow them at least an amount of water necessary for survival. Thus far, and this may have changed in recent times, they have been unsuccessful in actually securing the rights their constitution supposedly offers them. In China, estimates of drying up and polluted water sources (rivers) are ever increasingly an issue particularly considering a growing population and of course, a growing manufacturing sector. In the US there have been plenty of issues in terms of irrigation flowing to the South West. There have been a number of concerns about the man made water channels carrying water for agricultural practices throughout the nation, the impact of this on the environment and the availability or amount of water able to be allocated to regions that are seeing increased population and urbanization. But I am getting away with myself...

My concern is with bottled water. In the US, we buy bottled water for around $2 a pint. yes folks, we buy water. In a recyclable but damaging plastic bottle. Then we toss it and get a new one. In more recent times there have been moves to nalgene (although after the toxic plastic issues, probably much less so), or sigg bottles to stop purchasing plastic bottles, these are refillable. They assume you have a source of water that you can fill your bottle with. It's much easier here in the states, you can usually use the water from your faucet, or a public drinking fountain. Yet people still buy bottled water because it is convenient: what if you forget your sigg bottle? I'd be interested to see if more bottled water or soda is purchased annual for on the spot consumption. I can some what understand soda, it's not exactly something you can get at home. There is also a larger and growing selection of bottled waters, some from the US, others from around the world (France, Fiji, etc...) Why exactly are we importing water from other countries? On a bottle of Fiji water, one of it's selling points is "one of the last clean water supplies on Earth... bottled at the source." Bottled at the source? Are there 100,000 Fijians out there holding bottles in some aquifer for $1 a day?Speaking  of aquifers, there are several that I know of in the Americas. One is in Cortland, NY another on the boarder region of Argentina, Brazil, Uraguay, and Paraguay which spans a space larger than Texas and California combined (you may know this region as a recent target of the US for "terrorist" activity- coincidence?)

The sad part about water is that it is a commodity and not consider a necessity anymore. This happened during the rapid privatization of former government subsidized resources between the 1970s and now. Oh capitalism, you marvelous creature you. Other reasons this period of history has effected water as a highly contested resource include pollution, industrialization, urbanization, technological advances in farming techniques... the list goes on. Yet we fail to be all that angry about it. After all, most of us take water for granted in the US. We don't have to fight to have a faucet in most of the nation (although there are increasing areas where water has become an extreme issue due to the housing market downflux, natural disaster areas, etc...) We don't fight for it, and we are willing to pay to have it immediately available for our consumption even if we don't need it that availably. This is a whole different issue, perhaps another blog, consumer culture. Distribution of resources globally is sadly lopsided to the point where only what are considered "environmental extremists" and human rights activists in the US seem concerned about water and many others aren't aware of any issue with water at all. I would guess many of the "developing" nations around the world don't see this the same way, many of whom have been fighting for the right to have water since well before I was even born. 

I don't have a solution to this... the best one I can think of is to always use your sigg or nalgene bottle and refill it, not from another bottle of water but from a faucet. Bottled water, like plastic bags, is a menace. No government should allow any corporation to sell people water for basic needs. It should be available for our necessities. Why not tax people with pools?! Isn't that an extreme abuse of what is left of the world's natural resources?! Why not ban public fountains?! I have many answers to these questions, but again, no solutions. I challenge you to this however: try going 24 hours without the use of water at all and let me know what you noticed. I am certain you would reconsider that bottle of Poland Spring the next time you are at your local convenience store.