A Moral Imperative
I want to see "An Inconvenient Truth". I read a review of it in "Wired" magazine's July 2006 issue that firmly states, "You and your 10,000 best friends should see this movie." It's a film adaptation of a slide show that Al Gore has been presenting here, there and everywhere on the subject of global warming.
In his review, Wired's Lawrence Lessig quotes Gore as saying that an inconvenient truth is one we "hold at arm's length because if we acknowledge it and recognize it, then the moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable." Gore's film looks at global warming, but the feeling suggested to me by that quote would seem to be a one-size-fits-all description of many a situation that needs action. Taking action is most often eschewed, especially if it means putting out an effort that would require upsetting even the tiniest detail of one's own personal little journey along life's pathways. Certainly, that quote perfectly sums up the attitudinal brick walls surrounding racism and bullying, against which I bashed my head over and over again during my years in education.
I have the impression that this film could serve as an eye-opener. Obviously, the U.S. government is concerned about it doing just that. Otherwise, why would they waste their time issuing rebuttal-style statements. Why bother denying the patently untrue? Gore is right to categorize this as an issue of morals, but it is a truth that will be acted on only if people are willing to listen and believe. In order to have that state of affairs prevail, more people need to be made aware of the practice of guiding public perception as engaged in by big business. More people need to question if their governments have already been signed on the multinationals' payroll.
Remember the Pacific Gas & Electric cover-up of hexavalent chromium dumped by them into groundwater? You might have heard of that because of the film "Erin Brockovich" Maybe Julia Roberts' portrayal of the lead character made the story behind the film seem like just so much Hollywood, but the real character saw an injustice and felt a moral imperative to get involved. Her pursuit of right led to the biggest settlement paid in a direct-action lawsuit in U. S. history. Big Business never pays out such amounts unless the cover is blown off of some inconvenient truth.
Brockovich discovered the truth behind the company's manipulation of the truth. The health of PG&E's wallet depended upon the people they were victimizing not realizing that their health was willfully being compromised. The company publicly declared that, yes, they were releasing chromium into the water system, but told the locals not to worry since chromium is used in many multivitamins. They actually suggested thereby that the chromium was good for the people drinking the water. What they purposefully omitted from their "disclosure" was the fact that there was more than one form of this substance and that the one in their effluence was one linked to cancers, birth defects, and organ failure. Lessig says Gore makes great use of a paraphrased quote from Upton Sinclair, when he talks about corporate interests "depend on the public's not understanding" the facts. He's right.
To make sure the public stays blissfully unaware, big business hires spin doctors and pays them mega-bucks to ensure that non-questioning public acceptance of their actions continues. The bonuses roll in when the spin is laid on just right, and the public is persuaded to believe that the actions being taken are to further the good of ... (fill in the blank). Celestial choirs intoning the praise of whatever corporation is in question are what they want the viewer to see. How many versions of this emperor's clothes scenario must play out before people finally begin to question? If you're becoming a little suspicious of who's paying the choirmaster, you might find some disturbing answers in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". The jacket promises you "real-life details - nasty, manipulative, plain evil - of international corporate skullduggery" and comes through with them in spades. Written by John Perkins, himself a former economic hit man, the book exposes the tricks of the trade used by such men and women to "cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars."
The name of the game Perkins was involved in is to convince developing countries to accept huge loans for various "development" projects, like the upgrading of their electricity grid, and insisting the borrowers hire U.S. expertise to do the work. This little move means the loan dollars are really never even leaving the country, but they serve to indebt those on the other side of the deal. Of course, since the countries are most often unable to repay the loan, the requisite "pound of flesh" is then taken from them, in the form of guaranteed, privileged access to coveted resources. This in turn pushes the people of the indebted country further and further into grinding poverty and hopelessness. "They will have to allow our corporations to ravage their natural resources and will have to forego education, health, and other social services merely to pay us back." Perkins declares that the ruin visited on these LDC's (less developed countries) is of no concern to the "corporatocracy" (corporations, banks, and governments, collectively) who take their profits and share them out among those perched at the top of the economic pyramid. They see no moral imperative to change the situation.
The author claims to have been troubled by misgivings about his actions from the get-go, but says he took refuge from his troublesome conscience by telling himself that he was "doing the right thing in the eyes of (his) culture), and thinking of himself as "a Merlin who could wave his wand over a country, causing it suddenly to light up, industries sprouting like flowers". Now he looks to his book to be his redemption, after his years of facilitating the greed and corruption rampant in corporate America.
Perkins details several deals in which he played a role, like the one in Jakarta. When he arrived, he was housed in a luxury hotel, but it did not prevent him from witnessing the "ugly, tragic side of the city". He talks about looking out of the window of an office and watching the scene at a canal where a young woman draped in a sarong was washing herself while an older man defecated in the water not far from her. While this was going on, the boss was trotting out the justification for the evil deal they were about to strike. Admonishing Perkins to get the Indonesians to sign the deal, the boss said, "You don't want the blood of Indonesian children - or our own - on your hands. You don't want them to live under the ... Red Flag of China."
Indeed. How much better for them to be impossibly indebted to capitalism. Not much later, Perkins found himself in the company of a young woman who told him, "Stop being so greedy and so selfish. People are starving and you worry about oil for your cars. Babies are dying of thirst and you search the fashion magazines for the latest styles. Nations like ours are drowning in poverty, but your people don't even hear our cries for help. You shut your ears to the voices of those who try to tell you these things.. You label them radicals or communists. ... There's not much time left. If you don't change, you're doomed."
This impassioned speech; the old man who told Perkins, "You have sold your soul to the devil.", the sights of unalleviated poverty all around the projects he took part in; his fear for his own daughter living in "a time of terrible crisis"; all of this finally brought the author to the point where he decided to tell his own inconvenient truth. It all brought him to question whether foreign aid is ever altruistic, and if that could ever be changed. He feels sure that the U.S. and other DC's (developed countries, in World Bank jargon) can take decisive action to help the less privileged of the world, but he doubts that such help is ever "the prime motivation" for foreign aid. He questions why we should want the LDC's to emulate our society with the stats that we have on violence, depression, drug abuse, divorce and crime.
He raises a very good question when he asks if anyone in the western world can actually declare themselves innocent by hiding behind an ignorance of the devastation being visited on the LDC's. After all, we all know about the starving babies. Talking about the dirty dealing going on, Perkins asks, "Does the excuse that most ... are unaware of this constitute innocence? Uninformed and intentionally misinformed, yes - but innocent?" Before you begin to splutter in protest, remember that it would not be the only situation where claimed ignorance is not a defense. In our own courts, ignorance of a law will not help anyone to establish innocence.
There is no let-up in Perkins recitation of indictments against our way of life. "The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world's population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995" he informs his readers, and then lets them know that the United Nations has estimated the cost of providing "clean water, adequate diets, sanitation services, and basic education to every person on the planet" to be less than half of the United States' budget for waging war on Iraq.
Maybe we all need to read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". Maybe we should all see "An Inconvenient Truth", along with our 10,000 best friends. Maybe every one of us needs to accept the moral imperative to make some big changes - now - so that we can escape the doom.
In his review, Wired's Lawrence Lessig quotes Gore as saying that an inconvenient truth is one we "hold at arm's length because if we acknowledge it and recognize it, then the moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable." Gore's film looks at global warming, but the feeling suggested to me by that quote would seem to be a one-size-fits-all description of many a situation that needs action. Taking action is most often eschewed, especially if it means putting out an effort that would require upsetting even the tiniest detail of one's own personal little journey along life's pathways. Certainly, that quote perfectly sums up the attitudinal brick walls surrounding racism and bullying, against which I bashed my head over and over again during my years in education.
I have the impression that this film could serve as an eye-opener. Obviously, the U.S. government is concerned about it doing just that. Otherwise, why would they waste their time issuing rebuttal-style statements. Why bother denying the patently untrue? Gore is right to categorize this as an issue of morals, but it is a truth that will be acted on only if people are willing to listen and believe. In order to have that state of affairs prevail, more people need to be made aware of the practice of guiding public perception as engaged in by big business. More people need to question if their governments have already been signed on the multinationals' payroll.
Remember the Pacific Gas & Electric cover-up of hexavalent chromium dumped by them into groundwater? You might have heard of that because of the film "Erin Brockovich" Maybe Julia Roberts' portrayal of the lead character made the story behind the film seem like just so much Hollywood, but the real character saw an injustice and felt a moral imperative to get involved. Her pursuit of right led to the biggest settlement paid in a direct-action lawsuit in U. S. history. Big Business never pays out such amounts unless the cover is blown off of some inconvenient truth.
Brockovich discovered the truth behind the company's manipulation of the truth. The health of PG&E's wallet depended upon the people they were victimizing not realizing that their health was willfully being compromised. The company publicly declared that, yes, they were releasing chromium into the water system, but told the locals not to worry since chromium is used in many multivitamins. They actually suggested thereby that the chromium was good for the people drinking the water. What they purposefully omitted from their "disclosure" was the fact that there was more than one form of this substance and that the one in their effluence was one linked to cancers, birth defects, and organ failure. Lessig says Gore makes great use of a paraphrased quote from Upton Sinclair, when he talks about corporate interests "depend on the public's not understanding" the facts. He's right.
To make sure the public stays blissfully unaware, big business hires spin doctors and pays them mega-bucks to ensure that non-questioning public acceptance of their actions continues. The bonuses roll in when the spin is laid on just right, and the public is persuaded to believe that the actions being taken are to further the good of ... (fill in the blank). Celestial choirs intoning the praise of whatever corporation is in question are what they want the viewer to see. How many versions of this emperor's clothes scenario must play out before people finally begin to question? If you're becoming a little suspicious of who's paying the choirmaster, you might find some disturbing answers in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". The jacket promises you "real-life details - nasty, manipulative, plain evil - of international corporate skullduggery" and comes through with them in spades. Written by John Perkins, himself a former economic hit man, the book exposes the tricks of the trade used by such men and women to "cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars."
The name of the game Perkins was involved in is to convince developing countries to accept huge loans for various "development" projects, like the upgrading of their electricity grid, and insisting the borrowers hire U.S. expertise to do the work. This little move means the loan dollars are really never even leaving the country, but they serve to indebt those on the other side of the deal. Of course, since the countries are most often unable to repay the loan, the requisite "pound of flesh" is then taken from them, in the form of guaranteed, privileged access to coveted resources. This in turn pushes the people of the indebted country further and further into grinding poverty and hopelessness. "They will have to allow our corporations to ravage their natural resources and will have to forego education, health, and other social services merely to pay us back." Perkins declares that the ruin visited on these LDC's (less developed countries) is of no concern to the "corporatocracy" (corporations, banks, and governments, collectively) who take their profits and share them out among those perched at the top of the economic pyramid. They see no moral imperative to change the situation.
The author claims to have been troubled by misgivings about his actions from the get-go, but says he took refuge from his troublesome conscience by telling himself that he was "doing the right thing in the eyes of (his) culture), and thinking of himself as "a Merlin who could wave his wand over a country, causing it suddenly to light up, industries sprouting like flowers". Now he looks to his book to be his redemption, after his years of facilitating the greed and corruption rampant in corporate America.
Perkins details several deals in which he played a role, like the one in Jakarta. When he arrived, he was housed in a luxury hotel, but it did not prevent him from witnessing the "ugly, tragic side of the city". He talks about looking out of the window of an office and watching the scene at a canal where a young woman draped in a sarong was washing herself while an older man defecated in the water not far from her. While this was going on, the boss was trotting out the justification for the evil deal they were about to strike. Admonishing Perkins to get the Indonesians to sign the deal, the boss said, "You don't want the blood of Indonesian children - or our own - on your hands. You don't want them to live under the ... Red Flag of China."
Indeed. How much better for them to be impossibly indebted to capitalism. Not much later, Perkins found himself in the company of a young woman who told him, "Stop being so greedy and so selfish. People are starving and you worry about oil for your cars. Babies are dying of thirst and you search the fashion magazines for the latest styles. Nations like ours are drowning in poverty, but your people don't even hear our cries for help. You shut your ears to the voices of those who try to tell you these things.. You label them radicals or communists. ... There's not much time left. If you don't change, you're doomed."
This impassioned speech; the old man who told Perkins, "You have sold your soul to the devil.", the sights of unalleviated poverty all around the projects he took part in; his fear for his own daughter living in "a time of terrible crisis"; all of this finally brought the author to the point where he decided to tell his own inconvenient truth. It all brought him to question whether foreign aid is ever altruistic, and if that could ever be changed. He feels sure that the U.S. and other DC's (developed countries, in World Bank jargon) can take decisive action to help the less privileged of the world, but he doubts that such help is ever "the prime motivation" for foreign aid. He questions why we should want the LDC's to emulate our society with the stats that we have on violence, depression, drug abuse, divorce and crime.
He raises a very good question when he asks if anyone in the western world can actually declare themselves innocent by hiding behind an ignorance of the devastation being visited on the LDC's. After all, we all know about the starving babies. Talking about the dirty dealing going on, Perkins asks, "Does the excuse that most ... are unaware of this constitute innocence? Uninformed and intentionally misinformed, yes - but innocent?" Before you begin to splutter in protest, remember that it would not be the only situation where claimed ignorance is not a defense. In our own courts, ignorance of a law will not help anyone to establish innocence.
There is no let-up in Perkins recitation of indictments against our way of life. "The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world's population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995" he informs his readers, and then lets them know that the United Nations has estimated the cost of providing "clean water, adequate diets, sanitation services, and basic education to every person on the planet" to be less than half of the United States' budget for waging war on Iraq.
Maybe we all need to read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". Maybe we should all see "An Inconvenient Truth", along with our 10,000 best friends. Maybe every one of us needs to accept the moral imperative to make some big changes - now - so that we can escape the doom.
2 Comments:
Thanks. I want to see the movie even more now, and I want to read that book as well. I rank my awareness of things pretty high, yet I continue to be surprised by how often my eyes open further to the horrors we in the developed countries visit upon those less fortunate than us. It's the history of our species -- for all of our capacity for good, we continue to do evil. There has got to be hope for us. We in the developed countries have got to figure out that we're not isolated, not immune, from our actions. We've seen how our environmental abuses are coming back to haunt us; the socio-political rampages of ours have spawned wars that have devastated us as much as those we've crushed; and our economic travesties ... have we not learned anything from colonialism? We're still repeating the mistakes of the past -- and it's mostly those, the corrupt, who are in power that continue to drag us all through this mess.
They are not all to blame however. There are many who think there is nothing wrong with conglomerates going on safari in foreign lands. How much has it changed from the past when the European countries set about on their globe trotting adventures? Not a bit. All that's different now is the new adventure has been ensconced in business language and international law. Well, for those who think there's nothing wrong with this world, think twice. There are two giants that have been sleeping for sometime. They've dreamed of having what we have in the developed countries, and are coming for their piece. Guess who's going to pay the biggest price as China and India's economy grows?
BTW ... the May 2006 issue of Wired has a pretty good profile of Al Gore.
Also, that was an essay of a blog post! Very well written, and packed with a lot of information.
I love this piece. I think you wrote so well and certainly made the points that need to be made. The only thing I might have said is that until each race realizes we are each a cog in the very big wheel that is earth, we are doomed.
I could write some stupid rant of a comment on colonialism and how what is going on now is simply an extension of that but why? You said it all.
Being from one of the LDC's (Lebanon), I can tell you that what that young woman said is true. The poor scream and no one hears them. We only hear the rich and famous. The poor scream and we are too busy worshipping at the altar of celebrity. The poor scream and we try to educate but most people don't want to hear because to hear and learn makes it all real and somehow more significant. If we all just hide in our little Brangelina and Britney bubbles, those wretched poor will stop screaming or if they don't, we won't hear them anyway so who cares.
It is a sad but true fact that we are canabalizing each other and no one wants to admit it. Why buy an economy car when you can buy a hummer? Why support cottage industry when the big corporations are so much more appealing in their ads?
What a great post.
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