I’m not sure what kind of planet you wish to see, but if it means totalitarian control of women’s reproductive processes, that’s hardly consonant with human rights. You are likely the lone contributor here whose dissent consists of decrying reproductive rights as ‘ridiculous. I think you identify with plants and animals a bit too closely – let’s face it, humans can be good stewards or bad stewards, but we can’t pretend to be one with the non-human world – at least as long as we participate freely and enthusiastically with the very instruments that diminish that world – which is what you are doing.

So what we are presented with is global capitalism. Capitalists always need to expand the market to maintain the rate of profit so that means the effort to produce and to consume will continue to grow exponentially. Right now, most of the world consumes at a far smaller rate than you, Lichen, do. But the effort everywhere is to bring standards of living up to that which Lichen enjoys. With an expected 9 billion people on the planet by 2050, even a global average lifestyle such as found in South Africa (its mean standard, at any rate), is unsustainable. So acting on both population and consumption consistently and simultaneously is the key to long-term sustainability. This necessarily means the end of capitalism (even if Bozh does not want to talk about that). So population growth must be brought down. If it is brought down in the manner you advocate, then the future is bleak – we can hardly expect a society which control’s a woman’s uterus to be concerned with human rights in other ways.

Nonetheless, fertility rates are declining around the world – and have been for some time. In fact, we would have plenty more people on earth right now had they not declined. Demographers have had to lower their population estimates.

We don’t have to wait for the future for ‘vicious resource wars.’ Vicious resource wars are occurring even as we speak – Darfur for example. Yet, we in the first world have managed to scrape by. The wars and the ‘natural’ catastrophes will be coming ever closer with each passing year.

Children are not about keeping ones attention – they are the next generation – life is hopeless without a next generation – and remember, if there are not enough people on the planet, there will be no one to pick up after you. In the final analysis, the best thing one can do if one believes in a coercive reduction in population is to off oneself and get some compadres to join in.

Whatever the bread episode was, the point was likely lost on most people, so they moved on. When you make sense, whether I agree or disagree, I respond if I have the time and inclination. Don’t forget, we readers are all anonymous here, there’s nothing personal about it.

I have to commend you on the last post though – it was in standard English and to the point.

i am toying with the idea not to chat with you any longer because you are becoming disingenuous.
i think you are deliberately misunderstanding my posts. In addition, when i further explain what i mean in order to correct your probable misunderstanding, you do not acknowledge nor answer to my elucidations.

“But really – you’ve got to rethink the notion that other life has rights other than what humans bestow upon them.”

You have some proof that humans are the ultimate arbiters of what is a “right”?

You going to prove to me that you know precisely how the mind of an animal works? How an insect thinks? How a plant knows which way to grow?

You must be a deity, with all your omniscience.

“Government legislated the 40 hour work week not businesses.”

Uh, NOPE.

The 40-hour week was not legislated as mandatory. It was done as a part of setting minimum wage, not the length of the work week. It was done as a point of determining where minimum wage was no longer the minimum — once past 40 hours.

This doesn’t mean the Congress said 40 hours is what everyone must work.

Nobody has to work any more than they want to. People freely chose to be drones and wage slaves. The question is, why? Is it because they can’t imagine having responsibility for themselves, and must subjugate themselves to an employer for at least 40 hours each week?

I am living proof that the 40-hour week is not mandatory. I have not worked in a 40-hour, M-F 9-5 setting since June 2003. I don’t have anyone requiring me to work 40 hours. Nobody checks up on my hourly work.

One of the worst things Americans do is imagine their guesses and assumptions and “common wisdom” are accurate, factual and correct. FreeRad seems to think that he’s correct in his conclusion about the 40-hour week being “mandated” by the Congress. I’d want to know why he would assume he’s correct.

Bozh – The Christ story of multiplying loaves of bread and fish is apocryphal – or to be more precise – fiction.

We cannot all make the bread we need, so we likely have to buy it from a professional who does so. That raises questions regarding who is it we are buying from – after all, who wants to purchase goods from an ogre? In turn, that raises issues of social systems, labor, ownership, etc. – as we are, after all, a society. And we do want to organize our society ourselves, no? Rather than have it organized for us – I would think.

it is almost utterly useless to talk ab. capitalism, fascism, democracy, socialism or any ideology, including ‘religions’, and never enumerate what these do or promise/suggest to do.
and especially talking to young people who have been indocrinated. Young people seem to reify isms; i. e., evaluating them as objects.
And kids/adults, seems to me, can only learn from what they see, hear, taste, feel, and smell.
one can’t smell, etc., democracy; thus children are bored to death if they wld listen to anyone’s ‘explanation’ of any ideology, including pious ones.
tnx

Peace,
Melissa

I have to say that when people and society are ready to own women’s uterus again, we are in big trouble. On principle how is lichen’s proposal to own women any different than the “right wing reactionaries” lichen feels compelled to include in nearly every post?

Is liberal fascism the way to go? Really?

How about a public campaign to encourage the very sincere among us to off themselves -for their, and others’ own good, of course. That could really help things too, huh? And it could be their own choice, rather than a mandate from some angry and reactionary people who always claim to know what is best for everyone else. Lead by example, please.

Melissa

Rights on earth are what humans make them. There are no lichens – real lichens – on this website or any other proclaiming their rights. So if you want to speak for the lichens and fungus – then by all means. But don’t pretend they’ve exercised that right – that’s a human construction you’ve availed yourself of.

Can’t say the US does not cut down forests – vast swaths of forest across the globe have been cut down to feed the capitalist machine that views everything as a consumer item – or a waste item. Just remember, if you want to save the planet – start by not consuming computer equipment – it’s nasty for the environment.

Your policy of tube-tying women or sending them off to prison camp for bearing a second child is ghastly – and I don’t imagine you’ll be finding many followers outside of the Aryan Nation. And they’ll all be guys – from failed relationships.

But really – you’ve got to rethink the notion that other life has rights other than what humans bestow upon them. I mean, who are you kidding here on the ethernet? Talk about dating yourself – that’s so 1970s. Deep ecology? More like Deep Shit.

Actually, the more effective method is for women to decide for themselves if and when to have children. And to make unintended childbirth as rare as possible. The benefits of this will reach all. What the evidence suggests is that women want not more children but more assurance they can raise fewer children to healthy adulthood. With proper attention to women’s health, education, and prospects, they will collectively control population while acting on their own intentions. Family planning services must be safe, inexpensive, and available to all who seek them.

I’m not sure what you mean by a livable planet – it is already unlivable for the several billion who exist on less than a dollar a day. And as far as global climate change goes – that’s a done deal. While every effort should be made to mitigate it, I think we all have to admit that it’s too late to reverse what’s long in motion. That’s your capitalism at work.

Rather than the 1970s, my politics on this more likely date to 1994 when the UN (the same UN you refer to) rejected population control in favor of the approach I mention above – that of reproductive liberty. I’m not sure what year your politics dates to, but I can name a few places it originates in – Ceaucescu’s Romania, present-day China, and maybe the Taliban’s Afghanistan.

I’m more inclined to save entire ecosystems than the individual species tack you prefer but if you want to put pigeons and squirrels before women – hey, good luck with that!

Women are not a small section of society, they are more than half (except in those South Asian countries where women are held in virtual contempt) the world. Now maybe you can legislate gender neutral policies AFTER socialism arrives, (let’s pretend) but right now, the literacy rate for women around the world is woeful. And without literacy, few women have any semblance of control over their lives – never mind take leadership positions in the ‘socialist revolution. ‘

Whatever is coming down the pike, people’s positions have to be improved in the present.