Sunday, November 30, 2008

Sarah: Symbol of a Sick State of Mind


I don't want to write about Sarah Palin on a personal level. After all, she's an attractive lady, has some pretty significant achievements to her credit and looks like she would be fun to be with.
What scares me, however, is her beliefs. Even more frightening is that a large number of Americans share her ideals. She is a symbol for moral derailment.
First, Ms Palin has five children and is opposed to abortion and family planning. Her championing of the sanctity of life is the ultimate contradiction. It appears Ms Palin hasn't learned about fish stocks being wiped out, coral reefs dying, oil shortages and food riots. She protects life today, but doesn't care one whit for future generations who, if we all followed the Palin doctrine, would live a nightmare, if they lived at all.
Ms Palin shrugs off her daughter's pregnancy, "Well, that's life. Teenagers will be teenagers." Nice try. Yes, teenagers do get pregnant, but it's wrong, wrong, wrong. Teenage pregnancies are a serious problem that reduces the quality of life for both mother and child and places a burden on society. Sex education, family planning and—listen up all you Ms Palins—parents providing good role models, are vitally needed.
Ms Palin does not believe global warming is caused by humans. Well, who the heck raised carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere from 280 ppm to 382 ppm since the industrial revolution started? God?
Ms Palin believes in creationism. I'm dumbfounded. Religious fanaticism is just a way of cowering behind a shield of ignorance, a means of justifying unacceptable behaviour (an example, extreme perhaps, is suicide bombers).
The globe is teetering on the brink and one big reason is that too many share the philosophy of Ms Palin. It's time to put ignorance and zealotry aside and turn to common sense, logic and caring about our neighbours and the common good. Good luck Obama.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's greed got to do with it?

Perhaps it is time for the same ol’ business-as-usual, pin-stripe-suited leaders, the ones who adamantly espouse and religiously exemplify an apostate’s creed of greed, to be replaced by new leadership.

Too many leaders of this patently unsustainable culture of avarice evidently define the culture’s efficacy by the endless accumulation of material possessions; by the unbounded acquisition of more money, money, money, money; by recklessly overconsuming and relentlessly hoarding limited resources. They demonstrably declare to all the world that greed is good.

Are we not members of a culture that worships consumerism? Are the products of greed nothing more or less than the objects of our idolatry?

Are the pin-striped suits, fleet of cars, chauffeur, private jets, McMansions, distant hideaways, secret handshakes and exclusive clubs...... all “signatures” of success in a culture promoted by the ‘goodness’ of greed?

Consider for a moment what perversity greed has wrought.

Anonymous said...

Are we suffering from amnesia about the value of the Earth and its environs? Have we been mesmerized by a Tower of Babel?

Perhaps we are forever forgetting about the environment because too many people, especially the economic powerbrokers, their bought-and-paid-for politicians and their minions in the mainstream media, are worshipping a "totem". At least to me, there appear to be many too many people for whom the economy, in and of itself, is the primary object of their idolatry. This behavior is observable, obvious and flagrant. In many instances, these worshippers make what they evidently believe are rational arguments that suggest manmade financial and economic systems are somehow essential to, and an integral part of, God's Creation; that indicate the growth of the global economy will occur from now on, even after the Creation is ravaged and its frangible climate destabilized by unbridled overproduction, unchecked overconsumption and unregulated overpopulation activities of the human species. Aside from the "Economic Colossus" nothing matters to them.

Today, it appears that the financial system of the economic powerbrokers is collapsing like a "house of cards" and the real economy of the family of humanity is threatened. Experts in political economy are saying internally inconsistent and contradictory things. Communications about financials and the economy are generally confused and in disarray. Confidence and trust in the operating systems of finance and the global economy have been undermined by the invention of dodgy financial instruments and unsustainable business models as well as by the promulgation of con games and Ponzi schemes. Transparency, accountability and honesty in business activities have been largely vanquished. A great economic system is being undone by con artists, gamblers and cheats. In such circumstances, does the manmade colossus we call the global political economy remind you in some ways of a modern Tower of Babel?

Sincerely,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176