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Show THE ZEPHYR/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2008 IF | WERE PREZ By Jim Stiles Jimmy Carter once opened an address to the nation with these words: “Tonight I have some unpleasant news for you.” His chances of re-election vanished soon after. And so, I dedicate this address to the 39th President of the United States...the last honest politician...JS As my mentor, Edward Abbey once said: “Throw a rock at Sonica big and glassy... what have you got to lose?” Imagine, if you will, that I could, with your help, win the presidency. And stretch your imagination even farther. Imagine that it could actually make a difference!’ Go wild and dream of a United States Congress that really wanted to make a difference as well, to affect change for the Common Good. My Fellow Americans, this nation has become a tragic eml t. Bae “American Dream” is a joke. A farce of a’sham of a mockery of a travesty. mo It has nothing todo with goodness or generosity or compassion orrearing! The Dream Toi inspire us! Here is how I see it and this is what Td do. is not about family and friends and sharing common goals for the common good. The Dream has to do with iPods and plasma screen tvs and Hummers and McMansions. And learning whatever dirty tricks and bad behavior is necessary to attain those sym- POPULATION & CONSUMPTION & GLOBAL WARMING Demographers say we have nothing to worry about. The world’s iasnaneie will “stabilize” at between nine and eleven billion, sometime in the second half of this century. As if that’s good news. What a relief... Clearly these people are insane. And what if they are right. The ever- bols of “The American Dream.” We are tv's “Survivor” gone national. It infects us all. The self-proclaimed Greedheads and the not so self-proclaimed. Greed knows no ideology or political affiliation. Greed knows no boundaries. It lies within all of us. Liberals and Conservatives. Republicans and Democrats. Gays and Straights. Does race, color, or creed make difference? Point of national origin? Makes no difference at all. Age? A taste of greed at expanding global free market economy demands an expanding population of consumers and cheap labor to make it three will remain in the mouth for eight or nine decades. work. What would happen if the world population DID stabilize and begin to fall? Capitalists everywhere would panic. _ As the world’s leading scientists forecast catastrophe on a global scale, we can look not only to population as the culprit. It’s the consumption, stupid! It’s 7 billion Planet Earth residents all trying to live And yet, we are mostly users, not sellers. Weare not a bad lot, just an indifferent one. We allow a small part of the populatidit to ‘define us. We sense the wrongness of it’all..;we realize that material wealth hardly ‘satisfies our longing for something genuine. We want something truly sustaining and meaningful. But we buy the stuff and watch the crap and we become what They want us to be. We are like sheep being led to slaughter and we pay for it with our overextended credit cards. like us. It cannot be done. Yet no one, even the “greenest” of the environmentalists, want to give up their stuff. They are an embarrassment to the cause of .conservation. But it is time we all began to live with- I also know that nothing said here will in our means. Forced to do so, we may find we prefer a lifestyle unencumbered make a difference. In the last half century, others have tried. All have failed. In 1968 Bobby Kennedy saw the America he by massive debt and piles of useless and meaningless toys. First we must put a stop to a world driven by credit, by money we do not have. loved drifting. He warned us to treasure the things in Life that truly matter, not the material accumulation of wealth as measured by our Gross National Product. He noted that the GNP “measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. It can tell us In the 90s we saw the collapse of the stock market bubble. In this decade we face an unprecedented mortgage crisis. We are all to blame—the lenders and the borrowers. Look next to the collapse of the credit card industry. When card users start pay- everything about America coset why we are proud we are America _He was murdered eight weeks later. ing 22% interest on the gas and groceries they bought last month, can disaster be far behind? So enough. This administration will impose restrictions on the credit card industry with two goals in mind. First we must reduce the personal . The last leader to show that kind of courage was Jimmy Carter. In 1979, he leveled with the American people as no president has done since. T want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I mental threat to American democracy. The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives debt of our citizens. This nation cannot oa continue to live a lifestyle based, in effect, on a lie. We have become slaves to our debt end it has diminished the quality of our lives. Second, by imposing strict limits on credit, we must learn to buy wisely. It will reduce frivolous spending and we will have to adapt. But since most of our purchases are for products we want but don’t need, it will help us redefine Happiness itself. And since almost all of the products we purchase are manufactured in Asia, the dramatic reduction in spending will have little effect on what's left of our own manufacturing base. China and India will have to take steps of their own to deal with reduced income. Hopefully they’ll make the same discoveries about Happiness and Simplicity. This government will also reign in the opulent and extravagant side of the housing market and will reward homeowners who choose to live in responsible, reasonably sized dwellings. I will provide tax incentives and subsidize local property taxes on new home construction that limits house size to 1500 square feet. It will impose such stiff penalties on oversized castles that even the most extravagant Rich Weasel will flinch at the costs want to talk to you ‘right now about a fundaIt is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that national will. We can see this crisis in the and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our Nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America. In.a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last genera- imposed on homes that exceed an appropriate size. As the square footage increases, so will the cost.. The government will also subsidize homeowners who choose to downsize. Reduce your living area and we will reward you. tion... He offered a way out for all this. He challenged pos invent their country. Carter believed there was still tim to work together, to re- As for population, we will set a limit ofTWO dependents for children for federal tax But his speech was met with derision and cynicism, ion Republicans and Democrats alike. When he stood for re-election a year later, Carter was handily defeated by Ronald Reagan. In 2008, can you imagine Obama or McCain repeating Carter’s warning or offering such honesty? ‘ Forget about it. purposes and will eliminate child tax credits as well. I would never have the right to tell a couple how many children they can have. BUT I have no problem insisting that if they choose to have a large family, THEY can pay for the expense. Still such actions are token at best. What will truly cause population reductions? The only decade in the 20th century that experienced almost negligible growth was the 1930s. It was the decade of the Great Depression. We may be forced to reduce our population because we simply cannot afford to feed a larger one. But we may also discover that economic hardships create opportunities to live the kind of life that we long for. BUT help is on the way. Over the years, I’ve been called a “negative,” “anti-everything,” the “Prophet of Doom and Gloom.” But I’ve been accused of being the ultimate rhetorical “Master of Disaster” by so many unimaginative, brain-dead, flat-lining, head-in-the-sand Zephyr critics... Wh I cannot imagine any other way. what's one more blunt assessment going to matter? 12 |