Flagging the False Flags

[Mark]

Yet another false flag operation, the Oklahoma City bombing. Was Timothy McVeigh a patsy, or as Fred Burks suggests, a Manchurian candidate?

You can always spot a government coverup. Tapes are erased, stories change, black boxes disappear, films are confiscated, and on and on.....

Oklahoma City bombing tapes erased

So the truck bomb alone couldn't have done it and there were other explosives planted in the building that apparently didn't go off. I guess the Murrah Building bombing wasn't as well thought out as Operation Northwoods. There wasn't enough evidence pointing to foreign terrorists to justify a war. Of course there wasn't with 9/11 either. Some blurry photos at the wrong airport, a miraculously unsinged passport, some supposedly fanatical Moslems who were drinking and womanizing, names of alleged hijackers who turned out to be still alive, no black boxes from the planes at the WTC, all the film confiscated at the Pentagon, and on and on.....

[pan]

You have a way of rephrasing things to mean other than the poster meant them. That is intellectual dishonesty.

Don't put quotation marks around something attributed to others which is your reinterpretation of what was actually written.

That is intellectual dishonesty.

And speaking of being honest, Mark, could you explain why it is that you only held one job and then, after they hounded you out of the service, you went on disability? I have been wrongfully harassed at the workplace to the point that I had to move on but I didn't go on disability. What, exactly, is your disability?

[pan]

And mentioning something I admitted on a completely unrelated topic in order to discredit me is ad hominem:

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person" or "argument against the person") is an argument which links the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of a person advocating the premise

Oh...but you don't do that, do you?

[pan]

I offered you an olive branch because I saw that, once again you were going to take this discussion to the place where it would negatively impact the community spirit of RBC.

But, as was true when I offered you an olive branch via email, you don't seem able to accept a decent gesture and, instead, see it as a sign of weakness that you must pounce upon.

You cannot accept anyone suggesting that your world view might not be all that there is - you insist upon a hegemonic world view that is approved of by Mark. You claim to be a Zapatista who longs for completely democratic enclaves yet, in this community at least, you seem unwilling to understand that others may indeed have valid views that differ from your own.

As a teacher I always strive to find the potential in all of my students - even the most disagreeable ones - sadly I must conclude that I am wasting my time trying to engage you in dialogue as all you seem to be interested in is a monologue.

[Mark]

Pan writes, "...you seem unwilling to understand that others may indeed have valid views that differ from your own."

If you have a valid view, then you should be willing to defend it.

It is when you do NOT have a valid view that you find yourself unable to defend it with reason and logic, and have to resort to personal attacks.

Here's an exact quote from your "olive branch," Pan: "I must admit that I have been fucking with you (even though I still see the value in a paradigm that includes the word "and")."

So you see the value in a paradigm that includes both a valid view AND a view that is not valid? I'll defend to the death your right to post nonvalid views, as long as I am free to rebut and refute them. I believe that in the arena of free speech, the valid views will prevail. But when you post nonvalid views and can't defend them because they aren't valid, and you then resort to personal attacks to silence me so that your views cannot be refuted, you're doing something antithetical to free speech and to pedagogy. It is like a teacher saying that there is no racism in the United States any more, a student responding that there is and giving examples, and the teacher then asking the student if they have any black ancestors.

Do you do that with students also? If there is a discussion about global warming, you tell the class that you believe that overpopulation is a big part of the problem, and a student says that overpopulation per se has a minimal contribution to global warming, and produces evidence that overconsumption is causing most of it, do you ask what the student or their parents do for a living, tell the class that the student must need psychiatric help, or accuse the student of not being a team player and not fitting into the community?

Playing dirty pollutes the online community in the same way that capitalism pollutes the environment. Some of the biggest multinational corporate polluters have apologized many times for their pollution, but they don't stop doing it.

[Mark]

You mean when I mentioned that you'd admitted that you were fucking with me?

You discredited yourself. I didn't pry into your personal life to try to find something I could use to discredit you.

You discredited yourself publicly. I didn't defame you, pretend to psychoanalyze you, or use any of the other smear techniques that you and BO have used against me repeatedly.

Now you want to be able to continue making personal attacks on me by saying that if I point out you're attacking me, that's me attacking you? Good luck with that one.

A false flag operation is when an aggressor does something wrong and blames it on whoever the aggressor wishes to victimize. I'm not attacking you when I point out that you've admitted to attacking me. But if you feel that way, you can avoid the problem by not attacking me any more. Then I won't be able to point out what you're doing and you'll be safe. ;)

[Mark]

The actual quote is in bold, Pan.

As it happens I don't have a disability and I never had a disability and never claimed to have a disability. The government claimed that I had a disability and I fought them every step of the way. They won. I tried to refuse the checks but my Voc. Rehab. case worker said that since I couldn't get a job and was still homeless, it would be stupid of me not to take the $65 a month I was awarded. So I took it and went to live in places like Afghanistan and Honduras where it is possible to live very well on $65 a month as long as you don't require a western lifestyle. After about twenty years in third and fourth world countries, I ran out of visas and had to come home. Since you can't live here on $65 a month, I went back on Voc. Rehab. and tried again to get a job. But before I could get a job, Ronald Reagan was elected and cut my disability checks, along with those of a quarter million other people. He said I could work and I agreed with that assessment and always had.

This time, since the laws had changed, and because I knew they were lying when they said I'd flunked their stupid math test (they DO fiddle with Civil Service test scores), I was actually able to get a job. Because my work was, according to them, "flawless and excellent," the only way they could fire me was to claim I was too disabled to work. So for a few years the Social Security Administration was in federal court insisting that Reagan was correct to cut disabillity checks (Legal Aid had sued and said he was wrong and they eventually won, so Congress defunded Legal Aid class action suits in retaliation), while the Navy was in federal court insisting that I was too disabled to work so that I wouldn't win my lawsuit to get my job back. I insisted, as I had all along, that I was not disabled and could work. The Navy won and my disability checks were reinstated. There was even a hilarious incident after I'd been fired, when a Voc. Rehab. administrator, trying to prevent me from getting back on Voc. Rehab. said, in front of witnesses, that I was too disabled to work at ANY job in this society and that the only reason I was claiming that I wasn't was to try to embarrass my former employer, the Navy. I'm no longer on disability because when you turn 65 the disability benefits convert to old age benefits. Any more nosy questions?

Oh yeah, if you know anyone who wants to get on disability benefits, I'm always happy to explain how--I get asked that question a lot. All you have to do is NOT want to be on disability. Our government seems to have a behavioral problem some shrinks call "negative obedience," and usually does the exact opposite of what we want them to do. They're not easily fooled, so I wouldn't advise faking it (like, please don't throw me in the briar patch), but if you REALLY don't want to be on disability, or you REALLY don't want war, or or you REALLY don't want bailouts, or anything else the government does, it's like waving a red flag at a bull. A very large, very powerful, and very angry bull. I spent three years in the arena with that bull and I lost. If you want to try to convince them that I wasn't disabled and that they owe me my job and back pay, I'll be happy to grant you access to all the evidence, documentation, and three years worth of legal briefs, copies of which are with the collection of my personal papers in the Schlesinger Library. At this point the back pay alone would amount to more than my Social Security and SSI will if I live to be 300 years old, so I'd be able to buy myself a residence visa and move to Venezuela.

Now get your nose out of stuff that is none of your business, Pan, and try to learn how to speak to issues and topics instead of attacking me and asking personal questions in hopes of learning more personal information that you can use to attack me.

I don't answer because I'm a fool. You can't even come close to the personal attacks that the seventeen Assistant U.S. Attorneys assigned to my case, with full access to all government files on me, tried. I answer because other people are reading this and I enjoy the opportunity to educate.

Or would you like to show that asking about my disability is in some way related to overpopulation, overconsumption, false flag operations, or some other issue or topic, and isn't really directed at me personally at all? What you did was demonstrate that my characterization of what you and BO have been doing, disrupting productive discussions to interject distractions and irrelevant personal attacks, is accurate. Whether you're trying to stifle discussion by shifting the blame for pollution to people who don't pollute, or shut me up by trying to smear, discredit, and attack me, you are still not contributing anything of substance to the discussion. Maybe you don't know that you are propagating harmful stereotypes about immigrants, poor people, people of color, people on disability, etc., or maybe you're doing it deliberately. I don't really care. What is dishonest is when you try to pretend that's not what you're doing.

[Mouse]

I'm applying for disability allowance due to frontal lobe scars and trouble with this and that. Am somewhat slow and inclined to peace and wordless thoughts.

Waldo said Once there are enough women in any counter-meme (like "9-11 Truth") the fatties are toast. and I found that a cheerful idea.

Would that be buttered toast?

[Mark]

Hope you get it, Mouse.

At one point, since I couldn't get a paying job, I volunteered to work in the district office of the Member of Congress for my community. Part of my job was helping people who were having difficulties with various federal agencies like the IRS, the Veterans' Administration, Social Security, etc. We had a special phone number for each agency office. In many cases all I had to do was say I was calling from the Congressman's office and that we'd like to know about the progress of our constituent's case. Cases that hadn't been acted on in years were often miraculously resolved within weeks.

One day a gentleman came into the office who had severe heart problems. You could tell by looking at him that he wasn't in any condition to work. His doctor had said that he had to spend most of his time lying down, but could be in a sitting or standing position for three to four hours a day. Social Security had rejected his disability claim, saying that he was able to work as a movie theater ticket taker, since that would require him to sit or stand for no more than four hours a day. The problem was that theaters required the same hours every working day, while his condition varied and some days he wasn't able to get around at all, some days he was able to be active in the morning but not in the evening, and some days he was able to be active in the evening but not in the morning. I got a very hostile person on the phone when I called, but managed to calm them down and our constituent's disability claim was allowed to proceed. I later learned that Social Security had a policy of initially rejecting ALL claims, no matter how valid, on the basis that they could thereby avoid paying invalid claims and that valid claims would be verified when the case was appealed. Unfortunately, the appeals judges also had a policy of rejecting ALL claims, on the basis that they were merely administrative appeals judges working for Social Security, and claimants with valid claims could always appeal to a regular court of law which would verify the valid claims. This saved the taxpayers a lot of money as claimants frequently died before the appeals process could be completed.

Buttered toast sounds delightful! I think I'll have a nice cup of tea with mine.

[pan]

Another example of intellectual honesty.....Waldo quotes you and disputes your statement, then you write a post pretending that he is supporting your point of view.

You continue to argue by labeling anyone who disagrees with you as supporting the fatties, racist, etc. I have demonstrated how you have indeed resorted to ad hominem attacks. When I point this out you respond that I am not arguing facts but personally attacking you.

You know Mark, you fashion yourself as a Zapatista who supports small community democracy where everyone has a voice. Yet you, in this small community insist that a hegemonic viewpoint must be adopted that aligns with the world according to Mark - "you're either with us, or against us". That, my friend, is more akin to a Stalinist viewpoint than that of a Zapatista.

Believe it or not dude, you aren't being tortured, or beaten, and no one is trying to crucify you.

BTW: Your story about not being disabled is truly touching.

[Mark]

My statement wasn't something I was asserting, but a response to your comments along the lines of this one:

"And just what are you (or anyone else) doing to defuse that bomb? Yes, reducing one's own consumption helps but individuals' actions are akin to removing a drop from a swelling tide that presages the tsunami.

I don't see how arguing or labeling those who otherwise agree with every statement you are making and share your concerns deeply (if you are interested in researching this you could review all past posts by either BO or me on this and the previous incarnation of RBC and you would find many, many, many posts by each of us that are saying essentially the same thing you are saying now) contributes anything to defusing the bomb.

I also don't see how labeling it as Patriarchy or Racism is useful. A War on Patriarchy or a War on Racism is just about as useful as a War on Poverty, Drugs or Terrorism. And just as likely to make absolutely no difference.

The Hegemonic Racist Patriarchy is a wonderful concept to understand intellectually. Once one understands it - what next? What can you or I do to 'help defuse this bomb'?"

If you and BO shared my concerns deeply, then you wouldn't belittle them and insist that your concerns are equally valid when they're not. If you agreed with me, then you wouldn't keep trying to silence me through personal attacks.

First you equate demonstrating that a particular argument is racist with labeling the person who made it a racist, and now you're saying that if I point out that a particular argument or position is supporting the fatties, racists, etc., that I'm labeling anyone who disagrees with me. If you can disagree with me by making an argument that does NOT support the fatties and racists, then I won't rebut that argument by pointing out that it supports the fatties and racists.

Overconsumption is something that the fatties do. If it was merely overeating, it wouldn't contribute to global warming and threaten the survival of the planet. But it isn't just overeating, it is industrialization which irreparably pollutes the planet. You don't disagree, you just say that yes, you agree, that you're tired of hearing about it, and that you'd like to talk about what you see as an equally valid viewpoint, that overpopulation is what is threatening the planet. But you haven't made any arguments for why you think that overpopulation is as big a threat to life on earth as industrialization. You just make personal attacks on me and keep saying that your viewpoint is equally valid. Overpopulation is a potential threat to the planet if and only if the people living on less than $2.50 a day all buy cars and TVs and start living consumer lifestyles. As Monbiot points out, since wealth is being funneled into fewer and fewer hands and more and more people are being pushed into poverty, that isn't very likely to happen.

The rest of your comment, about what I am, who I am, etc., is just ad hominem.

Imagine a community of people who favor socialism. Our government doesn't like socialists and if it learns about a community like that, it will immediately pay COINTELPRO agents to infiltrate it, divide it, corrupt it, and either convert it to capitalism or destroy it. In order to infiltrate, the infiltrators have to pretend to be socialists. So they say that they agree with socialist principles. Once they're accepted into the community, they keep insisting that they agree with socialist principles, but they block constructive discussions of socialist principles by saying that they agree with them but that alternative and equally valid views like capitalism should also be discussed. If somebody persists in discussing socialist principles, or won't accept that capitalism is an equally valid view, they attack that person, attempt to discredit them, try to isolate them from the group, and use all the other KUBARK techniques. They interrupt and disrupt all discussions of socialist principles by saying that they agree, that they've heard it all before, that it won't change anything to keep saying it, and insisting that their "equally valid" capitalist viewpoints be discussed.

If you agree with what I say, then please allow me to say it. If you cannot help develop new frames, paradigms, and memes to make what you claim to agree with more powerful, please don't attack me for trying to do so. Countering sexist, racist, capitalist, and other regressive propaganda is what I do. I may succeed or I may fail, but assuming that my attempts won't contribute anything and will make no difference is not a valid rationale for attempting to silence me.

If you disagree with what I say, and can present arguments that aren't capitalist, racist, or otherwise regressive to support your view, please do so. If the only arguments you can present are capitalist, racist, or otherwise regressive, I have not only the right, but the moral obligation to say so. If you think that labeling patriarchal or racist propaganda for what it is, doesn't make it more visible and cannot possibly make a difference, what difference do you think it will make if it is NOT exposed for what it is? Allowing it to stand unchallenged is to do nothing and allow evil to flourish. If you don't think that individual actions to reduce consumption are very helpful ("akin to removing a drop from a swelling tide that presages the tsunami"), how helpful do you think it is if people do NOT reduce their personal consumption? Do you think it is helpful to discourage people from reducing their personal consumption by telling them that it won't make much difference and attempting to get them to focus on overpopulation instead?

[BO]

Mark, no one is disagreeing with you about the western world's propensity for over-consumption. You keep creating argument where none exists.

What we are saying is that population levels do matter. That as long a we continue to consume at these levels, the world cannot support all of us.

If you want to parse an argument, why not spend your time parsing this one. I happen to be in total agreement with this fellow's point of view...

Overpopulation and Over-consumption: Where Should We Focus
By Michael G. Hanauer
March 1998

We Have So Many Choices

There are many pieces to our environmental puzzle, which when assembled can ensure that our planet and everything on it have a joyful ride now and into the indefinite future. We call that sustainability, and this is our work, our goal and our passion. But that sustainability can and must be achieved without each of us manipulating all of the puzzleâs pieces. Each of us must decide which pieces to focus on -- which ones we feel are overarching in their effect, which ones we as individuals and organizations can impact, and which are most overlooked. In science, there is a rule of thumb called the 20-80 rule which says that 20 percent of the underlying problems often cause 80 percent of the significant effects. To be successful in the longer term, an individual or organization needs to choose carefully.

Because the United States so severely aggravates so many of the world's environmental problems, because of our responsibility to set an example for the world, and because this is my home, I believe that we should place a significant emphasis on our domestic problems (but certainly not entirely). All solutions require support and action at the local level, whether you consider local to be a nation, or an individual community. "Think Globally, Act Locally" makes a lot of sense from any perspective.

Much of the environmental movement has chosen to pursue specific issues such as pollution, forests, global warming, species diversity or open space -- perhaps because these are the problems we each see in our own backyards. To those with a more overarching view, consumption and population issues stand out because they are largely local and because they are causal, that is they occur at a community level and tend to underlie or exacerbate many individual problems. Both of these pieces are important to our ride toward sustainability. Where should we place our emphasis and our resources?

How Do We Choose From the Causal Two?

There are many widely read books with titles like Fifty Easy Ways to Save the Earth. Almost all of these books approach issues from the point of view of reducing (over)consumption. We often hear how the U.S. has 5 percent of the world's population, yet consumes 25 percent of its resources. It's also true that the developed world, with 23 percent of the population, uses about 66 percent of the Earth's resources. Yes, it can sound like just a consumption problem, but the magnitude of this consumption actually makes population even more important to preserving our environment and quality of life!

In many environmental and population circles, the traditional thinking dictates that the problem in developing countries is overpopulation, while in the developed world the bulk of the problem is overconsumption. This oversimplification, that the U.S. has mainly a consumption problem, purveys easy, feel-good answers to many environmentally conscious individuals and organizations. Such feel-good answers are dangerous because they lead to incomplete actions by masking the enduring effects of population growth. Let's explore further.

In the developed world, per capita consumption levels are all within the same order of magnitude. Yes, in highly populated sections of Western Europe and Japan levels are somewhat lower than ours (often due to smaller and more expensive living spaces, higher energy costs, and fewer cars), but not vastly different. On the other hand, most third world consumption levels are between 0.5 and 5 percent of ours. This vast difference is not because these people recycle, use little plastic or don't drive a turbo-charged car -- it is because they have no car, no central heat, no refrigerator, and maybe no house at all!

It is this lack of the most basic items, items which most of us believe every human should be able to have, which make up most of the consumption difference between the haves and the have nots. In the developed world, even if every effort were made to cut frills and inefficient consumption, these basics still have us out consuming a third world citizen by a factor of five to fifty. Reasonable levels of consumption are not morally wrong, in fact most of us believe that they are desirable. We need to allow all of the world's citizens a reasonable lifestyle while at the same time heading toward sustainability. This will require a leap in consumption for developing countries, a practical and therefore smaller reduction in consumption for developed countries, and population stabilization or reduction for all. Population levels are critical to the dream and are too often overlooked.

What About the Effects of Conservation and Recycling?

In a broader sense, the idea of reducing consumption can and should incorporate the industrial processes that produce the goods and dispose of the pollutants, in addition to what and how much is consumed by individuals. Processes that will produce fewer waste byproducts, use more abundant or replaceable resources, or facilitate recycling can help to reduce environmental impact. In addition, affecting these kinds of changes may be done faster than changing population trends. But we must also recognize that with increasing population, gains from conservation and recycling are likely to be quickly overwhelmed. Still, such efforts are an important part of the solution.

Isn't Technology Our Ace in the Hole?

Frequently, we believe that technology can solve any problem. The inherent fallacy in this approach is that the greatest cause of new problems is techno-fix solutions to old problems. Even our present population growth was brought on by technology which prevented or cured disease and allowed large gains in food productivity (often by increased use of fertilizers and pesticides, and cruel treatment of farm animals). But, the most important implication here is that technology rarely produces lasting solutions, only additional difficult choices and tradeoffs. An example is the solar or electric automobile. The batteries are polluting in production and disposal. The solar panels are polluting to produce, the power generated to charge the vehicle usually requires power plants, and we still keep gaining more cars.

And what about the choices for those power plants? Burning fossil fuel uses (foreign) oil and contributes to the greenhouse effect, nuclear generation involves safety concerns and the problems of spent fuel disposal, hydroelectric plants and their associated dams spoil our rivers' natural beauty and harm wildlife -- and raise the question of just how many dams can be built? What about solar, fusion, and power too cheap to meter? Even if such methods can one day produce meaningful amounts of energy, what are the side effects and other tradeoffs?

Technology usually provides many options, each of which has different side effects. Making a choice often requires selecting the lesser of a number of evils. Today, because of higher population levels, the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome makes it nearly impossible to rationally choose -- often none are really acceptable. Almost every choice involves leaving something behind in somebody's backyard.


Population Size Matters Most to the Big Picture and Over the Longer Term

Even where new technology or reduced consumption might help, consider the following:

1. Population growth directly drives increasing overall consumption, but not vice versa. The existence of a person necessarily consumes resources, takes up space, and disposes of waste products. In the poorest regions of the world, localized destruction is taking place due primarily to overpopulation because per capita consumption is at subsistence levels. When we talk about the affluent U.S., consumption takes on even more significance. But, by accepting that "reasonable" levels of consumption are O.K., we must bring population into the formula since each additional person has a much more significant impact on the ecosystem. Overpopulation actually occurs at a lower point with a higher standard of living.

2. Population growth creates problems beyond the impacts of excess consumption. Will just decreasing consumption have an appreciable or lasting effect on reducing the crowds at our national parks or our loss of open space? Can just dealing with consumption halt the loss of personal freedoms, privacy, the loss of direct political representation, the inability to find solitude or the reduction of stress or crime? Can dealing with consumption alone reduce traffic or lines at the mall or supermarket, or will it just reduce the amount people buy per trip? Will just reducing consumption stop urban sprawl, or just alter the form and time it takes to happen? Will only reducing consumption keep our communities from raising taxes to continually provide more infrastructure, more services, and more schools?

3. Overpopulation has many additional social impacts as well. Wilderness, quiet, privacy and the need for occasional solitude are important to individuals in a civilized society. These are all things we lose as the population expands and takes up more habitat. More than simply concern for an excessive ãecological footprint,ä we need wild spaces and living space to nurture our spirit.

4. Pushing people together also perpetuates a loss of personal freedom. Just because we can live in a small cluster home, survive with more traffic, cope with more regulations or tolerate a government with a more diluted political representation, does not mean that we should. How long can our society tolerate ever increasing population? Don't we want a quality of life for ourselves and future generations that is much better than just tolerable?

5. Conflict and stresses are much more likely when people are pushed closer together. When we are in a denser environment, our neighbor's actions have a more adverse impact upon us. We are forced to limit our actions with respect to the rights of others, to put up with losing some rights, or having additional regulations to enforce our rights. This conundrum is further aggravated as resources become more scarce.

6. Just reducing consumption will do relatively little over the long term to save the 20 thousand species of plants and animals we are pushing off the planet each year. Habitat loss, probably the biggest direct problem, is impacted by our individual ecological footprints. While reducing consumption will reduce the size of that footprint, the total habitat loss will only grow if population continues to grow. Much of the world's habitat loss is greatly aggravated by U.S. population growth.

7. Like other discrete environmental issues, overconsumption has many components, each of which will need to be confronted with analysis, committees, bureaucratic agencies, standards, regulations and funding. Population stabilization (or eventual reduction), which will alleviate so many other underlying problems, is actually easier and less expensive to accomplish if we just acknowledge its impact and make the effort to do so.

Population is not getting the attention it should. There are many organizations with programs aimed at reducing consumption. Because many people choose to believe that dealing with consumption is the answer -- they often don't acknowledge that stopping population growth is a necessary component of the solution. While two countries (China and India) have larger populations than the U.S., from the point of view of global environmental impact it is the U.S. that is the most overpopulated. Many of the most intractable global environmental problems, such as the greenhouse effect and ocean pollution, are largely caused by the U.S. and the developed world. With per capita consumption levels likely to grow significantly worldwide, and likely to shrink only marginally here, the multiplier effect of each U.S. resident continually becomes ever more critical.


Population Matters Most to a Practical Solution


In a survey by Utne Reader of its own (very environmentally concerned) readers, only 21 percent said they would be willing to do without a car and only 13 percent would forgo their Quarter-Pounders with cheese. With a major effort we might be able to marginally lower U.S. consumption rates, but that reduction will be (and has been) overwhelmed by population increases. Between 1970 and 1990, 93 percent of the increase in U.S. energy use was due to population growth.

Meat, fish, low-yield vegetables, shrink wrap, paper, autos, and personal computers are not morally wrong. The higher the population, the more personal choices we must give up and the lower the resulting quality of life. Just reducing consumption here without bringing it to third-world levels will do little to lower our impact if population keeps growing. Those fifty, easy, feel-good ways to save the earth are worthwhile, and are even an important part of our total ride toward sustainability. But when those easy answers publicly mask the need to ask and resolve hard questions about our nationâs population growth, those answers become a problem in themselves.

U.S. population is now at 269 million. Census Bureau projections indicate that our population is likely to surpass one-half billion in the coming century. Important analysis and calculations from the biological and physical sciences support the contention that U.S. population is now at about double the sustainable level. Attainable reductions in consumption will not do the job if we do not also stop population growth. We all want a truly sustainable world which can support a reasonable standard of living with reasonable levels of consumption for all.

Population growth is important in itself, and in its effect on overall consumption growth. In the long term, stopping population growth is a necessary part of the sustainability equation. All environmental organizations need to incorporate the population connection into their programs or all will ultimately fail.

If population organizations and activists don't keep the population issue front and center, who will?

[Mark]

Here's where and why I disagree with Hanauer, BO, Hanauer in quotes, my responses in bold:

"...On the other hand, most third world consumption levels are between 0.5 and 5 percent of ours. This vast difference is not because these people recycle, use little plastic or don't drive a turbo-charged car -- it is because they have no car, no central heat, no refrigerator, and maybe no house at all!

It is this lack of the most basic items, items which most of us believe every human should be able to have..."

Hanauer excludes me, a U.S. born and raised, literate citizen, from "us." He also excludes most third world people from "us." He excludes most environmentalists from "us." In fact, what I understand him to be saying is that only auto manufacturers, oil companies, and capitalist consumers are "us." Having never had a car and only rarely having central heating or a refrigerator, and having lived many years among people who have never had a car, central heating or a refrigerator and do not aspire to having a car, central heating or a refrigerator, I do not believe that these are items "every human should be able to have," and I know for a fact that most of the world's population (the people you call overpopulated--remember them?) do not believe that these are items "every human should be able to have."

There are other ways, less damaging to the environment, to get around besides cars. There is mass transit, which can be supplemented by bicycles and horses, donkeys, or yaks. Mass transit is a lot less polluting than having each individual or family own a car, and can be run on fuels that do less permanent damage to the environment than petroleum, such as vegetable oil. The waste from animals is biodegradable and can be used as fertilizer and cooking fuel.

"Reasonable levels of consumption are not morally wrong, in fact most of us believe that they are desirable. We need to allow all of the world's citizens a reasonable lifestyle while at the same time heading toward sustainability."

While auto makers, oil companies, and first world consumers would like to think that a level of consumption that is threatening the survival of the planet isn't morally wrong and is actually desireable, most of the world's population (that overpopulated third world--remember them?) disagrees. Most of us believe that it is morally wrong to destroy the planet just so that capitalists can make a buck selling people stuff they don't need by convincing them they need it through advertising (do you know how many auto ads the average mass media channel runs during prime time and how much it costs to run those ads?), or when that fails, destroying public transit to create a need where none existed before.

"But we must also recognize that with increasing population, gains from conservation and recycling are likely to be quickly overwhelmed."

ONLY if the capitalists manage to impose a consumerist lifestyle on the third world.

"Population growth directly drives increasing overall consumption..."

Population growth drives only the types of consumption that do not cause irreparable harm to the ecosystem. The types of consumption that cause irreparable damage to the ecosystem are driven by capitalism, advertising, and the opening of "markets" by military force. Where we have not used our military to impose our "superior" lifestyle on the "poor savages," they don't want it and couldn't afford it if they did. There are many cases of individuals from primitive indigenous groups or undeveloped areas of the world, having had the opportunity to live and be educated in western countries, and instead of going home and telling everyone how great our lifestyle is, or remaining in the west to enjoy our superior lifestyle themselves, have returned home to warn their people or the horrors of civilization: the crime, the pollution, the alienation, the immorality, and the general unhappiness.

"Can just dealing with consumption halt the loss of personal freedoms, privacy, the loss of direct political representation, the inability to find solitude or the reduction of stress or crime?"

If consumption has done anything to halt the loss of those things, please let us know. I live in the United States, the world's greatest consumer society, and I not only see losses in personal freedoms, privacy, and political representation, accompanied by increases in stress and crime, but there appears to me to be a direct correlation between overconsumption and those losses. People seem willing to sacrifice all those things just so that they can have cars, central heating, and refrigerators.

"Overpopulation has many additional social impacts as well. Wilderness, quiet, privacy and the need for occasional solitude are important to individuals in a civilized society. These are all things we lose as the population expands and takes up more habitat. More than simply concern for an excessive ecological footprint,ä we need wild spaces and living space to nurture our spirit."

The people living on this continent before the European invasion numbered in the millions. But there was more wilderness, quiet, privacy, and solitude than there is now. The greatest threat to what little remaining "wilderness" we have (only 3% of our original old growth forest remain) is from cars and off road vehicles. When our government wants to preserve a portion of wilderness, it bans cars and only allows people to enter on foot.

"In a survey by Utne Reader of its own (very environmentally concerned) readers, only 21 percent said they would be willing to do without a car and only 13 percent would forgo their Quarter-Pounders with cheese. With a major effort we might be able to marginally lower U.S. consumption rates, but that reduction will be (and has been) overwhelmed by population increases. Between 1970 and 1990, 93 percent of the increase in U.S. energy use was due to population growth."

Utne Reader costs $6.99 on the newsstand. Only a small percent of yuppies would be willing to do without anything they're accustomed to, even if what they're accustomed to is destroying both the planet and their own health. It won't take a major effort to drastically reduce U.S. consumption--an economic collapse could accomplish that overnight with no effort whatsoever. Some people are prepared for that and some are not.

"Meat, fish, low-yield vegetables, shrink wrap, paper, autos, and personal computers are not morally wrong."

I think an argument could be made that in moderation, such things might not be morally wrong. If you don't eat more meat than you can either hunt or you can raise and kill, don't eat more fish than you can catch, don't import low yield vegetable from thousands of miles away, don't use paper when water will suffice, and only use library or communal computers, you probably won't contribute very much to the destruction of the planet. But shrink wrap is a petroleum product, it is not biodegradable, it contributes to the irreparable pollution of and therefore the imminent destruction of the planet, and I therefore believe that it is morally wrong. Personally, I do a lot of things that I know are morally wrong, but I don't pretend that they aren't. I think it is morally wrong to say that something isn't morally wrong when it is. But consumers don't seem to do anything in moderation, and feeding grain to cows when people are hungry, taking land away from indigenous people to use it for ranching, flying exotic foods thousands of miles for yuppies to indulge in, wiping our asses with paper made from old growth forests, and perpetrating genocide in the DRCongo to get the coltan so that people can have the latest model computers, is, in my opinion, and that of most environmentalists, morally wrong.

Consumption patterns in the United States are not driven by population, they are driven by income. The higher an individual or family's income, the more environmentally destructive stuff they consume. Since a billionaire with a private jet, a yacht, two mansions, several cars, and an opulent lifestyle is several hundred times as destructive of the environment and contributes much more to global warming than a person living below the poverty level in the U.S., you would have to eliminate a few hundred poor people to achieve the same effect as eliminating one rich person. So if there was to be a population control program, it should be based on income. The lower your income, the more children you should be allowed to have, as they will not have a very large footprint or do much environmental damage, and the higher your income, the fewer children you should be allowed, as each one will have an enormous footprint and do a huge amount of environmental damage.

Of course, as you've pointed out elsewhere, BO, it is difficult to reduce population when people have religious, cultural or other pressures to reproduce, and that sort of thing is quite common among the wealthy elites in the U.S.

You began your post by saying:"Mark, no one is disagreeing with you about the western world's propensity for over-consumption. You keep creating argument where none exists. What we are saying is that population levels do matter. That as long a we continue to consume at these levels, the world cannot support all of us."

Where we differ, BO, is that you and the population folks feel that it is necessary or desirable to continue to consume at these levels, and I do not. Most environmentalists do not. Even the big capitalists disagree. They know that third world people don't want our consumer lifestyle and that it has to be imposed on them. Multinational corporations, once our government has imposed free trade agreements on militarily weaker countries, spend fortunes on advertising and marketing to create a demand for their products. It doesn't happen with the wave of an invisible hand.

Population growth is not a part of the sustainability equation. For our planet to survive, we need to avoid causing dramatic climate change and avoid irreparably polluting our air, soil, and water. We have been enduring horrible overpopulation/die-off cycles for several thousand years now, but in no way did that threaten the survival of our ecosystem. Only the introduction of the widespread use of nonbiodegradable petroleum and nuclear products began to change the world in ways that could never be undone. We cannot put back the glaciers. Having fewer children will not restore the glaciers. Reducing our carbon footprint dramatically might save what is left of them, but what's gone is gone forever, or at least until the next ice age, and if that's what has to happen to get us to stop destroying the only habitat we have, I rather doubt that central heat will be much help.

If we're talking sustainability (I have a friend who is sick to death of that word), we can't talk about my sustainability, your sustainability, a family's or town's or city's sustainability, a country's sustainability, or even a continent's sustainability. The planet is an ecosystem. It supports what we call life by providing the necessities of life, i.e., air, water, food, shelter, and medicines. All these things are produced naturally. To talk sustainability, we have to ask if something is irreparably destroying the ecosystem that supports life on earth. Overpopulation is a real problem, and if you care about needless human suffering and unnecessary deaths, as I do, you'd oppose the subjugation of females that makes overpopulation inevitable. We humans have a very strong sex drive, so only when females can freely terminate accidental, unwanted, or unsupportable pregnancies, will population control be possible. The only other way to do it would be to castrate all males or sterilize all females, and I wouldn't find that an acceptable solution. Capitalism promotes overpopulation, not just to ensure cannon fodder for profitable wars, but because overpopulation drives down wages, drives up property values, and, with sufficient investments in marketing and advertising, can even provide markets for consumer goods.

But capitalism is concerned with short term profits and it is not concerned with sustainability. Capitalism is based on unlimited growth and unlimited growth is, by definition, not sustainable. So capitalism, just like an ecologically nonviable species, has growth and die-off cycles, but they're called bubbles. When the limits of growth are reached, the population dies off or the bubble bursts. Sustainability entails eliminating those cycles or bubbles, but that is not sufficient to preserve the ecosystem. To preserve the planet, we have to stop destroying it. We have to stop making chemical and nuclear messes we can't clean up because nobody's going to clean up after us. Mommy, mother nature, has been cleaning up after us for tens of thousands of years and we came to take it for granted. But the messes we're making now aren't biodegradable, so she can't pick up after us any more. We're going to have to grow up and stop fouling our own nest, or the game's over. Anything that isn't 100% recyclable, is 100% immoral.

Either everyone has the right to a car, central heat, and a refrigerator, or our grandchildren have the right to a planet that still has enough unpolluted soil, air, and water, and a moderate enough climate to support life. Having fewer grandkids won't cut it. Have you ever tried to have fewer grandkids, BO? I did, and what I found out was that I didn't have a say in the matter. Maybe you'll have better luck. ;)