Mordant Belle

Being “green”, environmentalism, and sustainability are all the rage these days, and I find it extremely annoying because of the blatant hypocrisy of it. It’s shameless.

It’s people standing around talking about changing their light bulbs or buying water bottles that use 30% less plastic or “organic” cotton shirts or using one of those crappy woven bags instead of the grocery store plastic ones.

When we’re still buying MILLIONS of dollars of water bottles in the first place. When instead of printing your “environmentally friendly” design on a brand new shirt, you could be buying old ones from the Salvation Army or Goodwill. When we drive instead of walk or bike, when we eat beyond our need and produce GALLONS of trash in one day and everything we do is just CONSUMING this planet. We are eating it alive, and we say we’re being helpful by changing our lightbulbs?!?!? Bulbs which we STILL don’t turn off when we leave the room?

Being green and sustainable and environmentally friendly is NOT about the collection of small details that do little to alter your overall lifestyle. That is the exact OPPOSITE of the point. In order to reverse the massive damage we’re doing, we have to completely uproot most of our current policies and practices, from state and federal laws to the way we run our businesses to the way we consume as individuals and families.

We’re talking reducing the number of cars on the road by 2/3rds at minimum. We’re talking forced electricity rations, walking/biking everywhere, reducing the amount of food we eat by half if not more, changing the packaging our food comes in so we don’t produce so much garbage, massively overhauling shipping so we don’t use so much fuel, and using things secondhand until they literally FALL APART. We’re talking BUYING LESS SHIT. Less of EVERYTHING. (This, THIS is the key: buying less less less of everything. It’s something none of us — including me — seems willing or able to do.) And America, land of instant self-gratification, the land of bloated overconsumption of everything from food to energy, is guilty of 25% of the harm done to this planet at least.

We are like millions of bug floating in the ocean on a piece of bread, and we just keep gnawing at it, and reproducing to make more mouths to gnaw at it, blissfully and willfully ignoring that it is the only thing keeping us afloat.

Is it possible to reverse the harm we’ve done? I think we could. Is it probable? I doubt it. We are too engorged with wealth, too used to living awash in plentiful resources ripped from so-called third world countries, too far removed from those countries and portions of society where frugality is not only a virtue but a necessity. And many of those portions of society are seeking to emulate the most overindulgent, because it seems so satisfying.

It’s not.

Who, among us, is satisfied? REALLY? Individually, collectively, and even scientifically speaking, only a fraction of us are really happy. When you search the depths of your soul, when you see what our economic policy and capitalist system has done to the only world we have — who among us has a clear conscience?

None. Me least of all, because I should know better.

I live in hope, but I also live in doubt. It is a strange, conflicting inner world, much like the outer one. I am not immune from hypocrisy myself; I, too, get distracted by the pretty designs, the colorful drinks, the promises of an easy answer and not a lot of bother.

But I know in my heart that’s not the way it works. How we can fix it, I don’t know. But the first step is destroying the illusion.

It’s been 25 years since this documentary by PBS’ Frontline has been aired. “Abortion Clinic” is one of Frontline’s most powerful documentaries, showcasing the reality of abortion back in 1983.

“Abortion Clinic” was filmed in the small town of Chester, Pennsylvania. It shows the abortions experienced by two young white women, Helen and Barbara, along with their explanation of what got them there in the first place. At the time, Chester had a 30% unemployment rate.

It doesn’t hold anything back - parts of the footage are graphic. At the same time, it’s important to have a filming of this procedure, so mysterious and fearful, characterized as so malicious. When I watch it, I’m less afraid (even though I probably will never go through the procedure of having an abortion, a function of privilege, luck, and a great support system unavailable to most). What’s known is always less scary than what your mind dreams up out of fear and lack of information.

This film serves as a powerful reminder of why we need to keep abortion safe, legal, and rare.

Frontine: “Abortion Clinic”, 1983 (requires Windows Media Player…sucks, I know, fellow Mac users)

The introduction to Helen’s story (Chapter 2) begins with some footage of a man claiming to be a “doctor” who is going over his various methods for trying to convince women seeking an abortion to change their minds. (I suspect, like many of the theological establishment, he isn’t necessarily lying about being a doctor, but exaggerating and/or not telling the whole truth. Probably has a doctorate of theology or something, but the point is when you tell people you’re a doctor, they assume you mean a medical doctor - a physician - unless you clarify, because that’s the layman’s usage.) He pulls out a “standard textbook” and a plastic model of a fetus he says is just 10 weeks along (proof that the anti-abortion protesters have been lying for many many years…no WAY is that only 10 weeks along), which he also claims has a fully developed brain and can think and feel pain, both claims which have been refuted by more recent medical literature.

If nothing else, watch the film to see the protesters in action. It’s sad, but I wish that protesters today were so mild as these, whom I can respectfully disagree with, even if they are deceiving women. At least they approach the women as beseeching rather than accusatory, and aren’t likely to kill anyone. Compare that to today’s climate, as seen in THINKFilmNY’s 2007 documentary, Lake of Fire:

Ah, the good old days of bigoted signs and fake plastic fetuses. Who would have thought they’d be missed?

In the spirit of Tax Day, where everyone begins to wonder where all their money goes…watch an introduction to a simple but excellent 20-minute movie on the sources and solutions to consumption and sustainability: The Story of Stuff!

It’s smart, funny, and informed; Annie clearly knows her stuff. [Horrible pun horribly intended. Ha!] I love it when smart women give us such smart material; we hear too much bullshit from overblown PR spokespeople. She explains both simply and intelligently (how many people successfully pull THAT off???) the historical, political, economic, and biological facts about consumption, as well as providing solutions to help keep us from…you know…sucking the life out of our planet.

Watch!

For me, at least, this is just an excellent explanation of everything that is so fucked up with capitalist/corporate America today. It is the first, but certainly not the last, in the “Dumb USA” category, reserved specifically for examples of uniquely American stupidity, self-centeredness, and greed.

You can view the whole movie and download it for free from storyofstuff.com, as well as see her blog, source material, and other resources.

Thanks to the amazingly hilarious blog, Stuff White People Like, for the lead to this most excellent video.