Veteran's Day

As I write this today, Veteran’s day 2009, I can’t help but realize how much violence and war has shaped our culture and lifestyles here in America. War along with a few other aspects of human civilization, such as the quest for knowledge and spirituality, has remained the underlying theme of our existence. Many times the clashes and violence that consumes us, often as a prelude to war, are a result of our quest for knowledge or defense of spiritual beliefs. When this is not the case, battles and wars are often fought as a result of fierce competition between nations to secure exhaustible resources.

During the 20^th century, aided in large part by the use of petroleum, many nations have grown and strengthened; becoming evermore dependent on resources. Governments and businesses around the world compete in a global economy based entirely on the extraction and manufacture of resources. A free trade market system facilitates the rapid growth of agriculture, industry and accordingly population. As the global population continues to increase so will our pursuit to secure the resources of the Earth.

Petroleum is the main resource, whose scarcity would affect and threaten the entire global trade network. It has been the center of many conflicts in recent decades. Many of the large oil deposits that still remain lie beneath the Arabian Peninsula and other sections of the Middle-East. Many conflicts and battles have ensued in these regions to try and secure the oil supply. It is important to point out that there are other remaining oil deposits in different parts of the world; most of which are protected or operated by the government of that territory. In the Middle East however, political instability and corruption abound and this causes concern for many nations reliant on foreign petroleum.

The U.S. government has been standout in their efforts to thwart corruption and secure oil reserves in the Middle East. Currently occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. has become an omnipresent authority in the Middle East and has established hundreds of military bases throughout Iraq, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The military troops in these regions serve to protect vital oil lines and production fields, among other things. The foreign oil supply is a significant and vital aspect of America’s economy. The U.S. presence helps to secure the oil trade and maintain the flow of petroleum crude to fuel cars, synthesize fertilizers, develop medicines, drink from plastic bottles and so forth. The use and refinement of petroleum and its products has been incorporated into many western lifestyles.

America’s troops stand tall to secure our proclaimed possessions, to nourish and protect our lifestyles/habits, our standard of living and protect us from all that threaten to take it from us. Standing on guard in hostile territories and killing in the name of democracy, all the while we fill our gas tanks, go to work and relish in our possessions. It seems a very disgraceful and brutal way of sustaining any lifestyle.

So we continue on shopping, building, conquering, destroying and dancing on our graves each and every day. This reckless, haphazard model of a so-called standard of living, once revealed, is almost inconceivable. Philosopher Jiddu Krishnam was once quoted saying, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

So, we continue on, shopping and for what reason? Why is the average person exposed to over 3,000 advertisements in one day? Telling you how to look and what to drive, offering cheap commercially farmed food, re-branding old products as new. The reality of it is that the entire global economy is based on consumer spending. Joanna Macy describes this in her book, Coming Back To Life, as the Industrial Growth Society. Many developing nations are becoming more affluent and consumer based; driving the demands for industrial growth even higher. Without consumer spending the economy would come to a grinding halt and millions, if not billions, of people would be out of work. The entire system would shut down and the population growth would deteriorate in the midst of political and social turmoil. Consumer spending is the thread that weaves the blanket of economies.

In the BBC documentary Century of Self, they used the phrase “Sea of Selves”, describing the consumer population, and their “steadfast refusal to surrender illusions of freedom for the sake of collective survival… conditioning us to fail.” It is this perpetuating notion, that one’s self and survival is more important than any other cause, that collectively could destroy our ecosystems and ultimately ourselves. It is all about controlling the misery as Kenneth Boulding said, “any technological improvements can only alleviate misery for awhile… western developmental technologies promise to repeatedly extend civilizations capacity to overstep biophysical constraints of environment.” As we continue to consume, pollute and grow unsustainably we will begin to deviate from current standards of living, and may not be able to regain them.

The increase in resource efficiencies, along with widely deployed renewable energy resources will not rescue humans from the potential catastrophe at hand. This is the point made by Jeff Dardozzi in his essay, The Spector of Jevon’s Paradox; the reason for this being that as resources are used more efficiently, the demand for those resources will decrease. As the demand for a particular resource decreases the cost also decreases, making it more affordable to people who could previously not afford it. This just creates a market shift and no effective relief to the original problem. This is called a “Rebound Effect”. An example of the Rebound Effect could be as simple as creating cars that are more fuel efficient, so in turn people do a lot more driving; or fuel efficient cars could the cause the price of gasoline to drop making it affordable to people who could originally not afford it.

Dardozzi establishes many solid points in his essay. He reveals a grim realization that the minimal efforts we conduct today to help save energy here and there may not actually provide any relief at all; but rather prolong an inevitable systemic collapse of our utilitarian, subsistence economy based on abundant energy.

The soldier’s of our military are dispersed among our fellow nations and citizens on the world stage. This is the chapter of our history which is ours to hold, act and write. The stories of our parents, their parents and many ancestors passed have helped sculpt the cultures and lifestyles of today. This knowledge is undeniable and once we realize this, a developing comprehension of our interrelatedness to everything in the universe will reveal itself. The assignment’s date is significant because Veteran’s day honors our war heroes and memorializes the fallen. It also demands for reflection of our actions and the ultimate consequences suffered in return.