Re: Rain

["Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky" <Gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

En relación a Re: Rain,
el 19 Nov 00, a las 9:16, Macdonald Stainsby dijo:

>
> WHY on (insert planet here) would the ruling class "make up" a series
> of scientific sounding predictions that lead to a neccessity for
> planned economic systems, the abolition of the private automobile and
> generally make unfettered growth 'seem' impossible if humanity is to
> continue on? Can anyone explain that?

I may give a hint, perhaps.

To begin with, I would clearly state that I personally believe that scientific
arguments are already proving that our planet is warming up, and that this 
warming
up is most probably originated in human action. So that what follows has little 
to
do with my convictions and there is a lot of speculation in what goes on.

The essential point, as Mac pointed out later on his posting and I am snipping 
here,
is that a gloomy mood is a good brewing broth for defeatism on the side of those
who, like us, are on the side of progress of humankind.  IF capitalism is 
accepted
as a "natural" thing, and Nature is a tremendously dangerous object whith the 
laws
of which we humans should not interfere, then capitalism is also not to be
interfered with.

In the Third World, this ideology not only may, but already _has_ served two
purposes:

(a) to provide justification to deindustrialization (cases such as the 
Argentine one
are quite typical), and

(b) deflect the attention of would-be progressives from the deformation 
generated by
imperialism to ethic issues related with the usual "moralism" of petty bourgeois
progressives. The "Humanist" party is a good example of what I mean.

In this sense, Russell Grinker has posted something quite reasonable from my 
point
of view, some time ago.

Of course, understanding of this ideological role of gloom as regards 
environment
does not rule out the fact that objective data display a trend of warming, and 
that
they also display a strong increase in carbon dioxide concentration since the
beginnings of the industrial revolution. Too much of a coincidence to blame 
chance.

Hugs,


Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx