Sunday, November 4, 2018

Election Eve Blues - an opinion

Tuesday is the midterm election.  It has been a fixation of mine for months (actually, two years).  We will finally get a reading on whether the dramatic lurch taken by the nation's leadership in 2016 is an accident or what "we" really wanted.  I hope "we" show up; turnout for the 2014 midterms was only about 35% of all eligible voters (citizens 18 and above), the lowest ever.  That might be about to change.  It could even be as high as the 60% who voted in 2016.  That would be unprecedented, but it would still mean that two out of five eligible voters don't vote.

Somehow, a situation that seems a lot like an emergency to many of us still doesn't engage a large minority.  Of course there are those who are ill or in some other way distracted or removed from the voter pool.  But there are also those like the nineteen-year old contacted by a fellow volunteer at a get-out-the-vote event I attended yesterday.  I could hear her pleading with him: "But you HAVE to vote!".  I was amazed by her willingness to take the time to try reaching this disengaged young man.  She ended the call with an agreement that they would talk again soon.  Maybe a thoughtful citizen is in the making, and one more voter has been recruited.

High turnout probably means that the Democrats will retake the House of Representatives.  fivethirtyeight.com puts the likelihood at six in seven.  A Democrat-controlled house would certainly constitute a check on the worst impulses of congress, though it would do nothing to arrest the continuing stream of hard-right judicial appointments.  For that, the senate would have to change hands, an eventuality Fivethirtyeight pegs at one in six.  Still, with record high turnout....

Suppose both houses of congress turn over.  I imagine I will exult on Tuesday evening, only to be overtaken by post-election tristesse the morning after.  What a huge hole we have to dig ourselves out of.  The rips in the political fabric will surely not be quickly healed, yet a Democratic victory is unlikely to help, and there is little time for it anyway, because the material fabric of society needs mending, too.  The nation's infrastructure is dilapidated and in desperate need of attention, to the tune of nearly $5 trillion, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers -- more than the entire annual U.S. budget.  Water and sewer mains, bridges, roads, railroads, airports all have been treated as a cash cow, leading to what John Michael Greer has termed "catabolic collapse"

The task of addressing the nation's deferred maintenance problems plays out against a backdrop of imbalanced budgets at the local, state, and national levels.  We currently have no appetite for taxation, even at a time when costs for things we do have an appetite for is soaring.  No party, nationally or in Connecticut, has exhibited fiscal discipline, and the chickens must eventually come home to roost.  The Federal government is buying time through its ability to conjure money.  Here in Connecticut, decades of failure to plan for a wave of state employee retirements have guaranteed us an increasing flow of red ink for many years into the future.

Talk about a rock and a hard place: if we increase taxes sufficiently to cover our obligations, current needs, and future aspirations, we risk driving many of those whose contributions we need to other states with lower tax rates.  If we fail to cover these obligations, needs, and wants, we risk creating a place where no one wants to live.  I don't see any of our politicians addressing this dilemma head-on, which is understandable since there is no win-win solution.  But an appreciation of the predicament must be the foundation on which any compromises and shared sacrifices would have to be based.

A look at the two statewide ballot questions tells of the misplaced priorities that stem from the incomplete narrative we, our media, and our politicians tell one another.  Ballot Question 1 asks us to create a "Transportation Lock Box" to protect monies nominally allocated for transportation (gas taxes, road tolls, etc.) from being "swept" into the general fund to cover other expenses.  Looked at one way, the "lock box" addresses one of the many deferred maintenance issues I just mentioned.

But this amendment to the state constitution only prioritizes transportation funds.  As the budget situation grows more dire, protection for transportation will put pressure on other budget items that arguably deserve as much or more protection from being "swept".  It will have consequences far beyond the transportation sector it privileges.

Permit me to zoom out for a moment.  It gets worse.  The growing global human footprint crisis continues to go barely addressed. It is true that the Paris Agreement has committed of the world's governments to dealing with the increasing disruption of the climate caused by greenhouse gas emissions.  But nations are not on track to keep those commitments, and the U.S. has even stated its desire to withdraw from the agreement.  But this is only one aspect of the crisis.  Have you ever heard of the Aichi Protocal?  I thought not.  Eight years ago, the world's governments agreed to arrest biodiversity loss through habitat conservation.  The U.S. did not participate.  The U.S. media do not cover the footprint crisis, but others do: "Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN".

In the U.S., conversations (if you can call them that) about abortion have overshadowed and framed the conversation about fertility control.  In particular, the U.S. has backed away from supporting the provision of fertility control to the rest of the world.  But the footprint crisis is ultimately a population crisis.  We can have X humans living comfortably amidst functioning ecosystems and a stable climate, or Y humans living in squalor, or a combination of the two.  But both limits are now visible only in the rear-view mirror, as we now have a human population that is propped up by steadily wearing away the environmental systems that make our lives possible in the first place.  The annual cost of the unmet global demand for contraception?  About $3.6 billion.  Annual U.S. military spending?  About $870 billion.  When will a major U.S. political party speak the truth to us?  How about a major U.S. media outlet?

Let's return to those ballot questions.  Question 1 attempts to prevent the use of funds earmarked for transportation to cover another budget line.  But what about the $175 million that was taken from energy efficiency programs?  The majority of this funding was paid by electric and gas utility ratepayers as a surcharge on our bills and advertised as earmarked for energy efficiency.  The Connecticut Energy Efficiency Board estimated that the result is an increase of 1.6 millions of oil burned annually and a net loss to individuals in fuel expenses significantly exceeding the savings to the state budget.  Energy retrofit contractors have been letting employees go.

The second ballot question proposes an amendment to require the state to hold hearings if it disposes of public land, as is customary in a conveyance bill at the end of each legislative session.  "Land swaps" and other sometimes questionable deals have made the news in recent years, and with all the budget pressure, it is no surprise.  How ironic that, when land protection must urgently be expanded to protect habitat and the climate, that we should be having this discussion.  But I have not seen this connection made.  It seems too remote from our immediate exigencies.  But unless we deal with the seemingly remote now, at some point, just dealing with the immediate will become all that is possible.  Then the possibility of planning for the future will disappear, and we will have to just let it wash over us.

Under the conditions we are creating for ourselves, the people of a state or a nation cannot thrive.  Divorce rates, the increased incidence of obesity and diabetes, mental health and substance abuse crises, and the surge in gun violence are all evidence of a stressed populace.  We are on track for making these things dramatically worse for ourselves.  The outcome of Tuesday's election will only determine the rate.

So whatever happens on Tuesday, and whether I am sorrowful or merely wistful on Wednesday, I mean to increase my efforts to understand for myself how we can best focus on the important challenges we face and bear in mind their interconnectedness.  If I learn anything I think useful, I will share it here.  I hope you will do the same.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brian and John/Jonah are right. Voting is everything. Please vote: no matter who you vote for. It's worth almost everything.

Michael Harris said...

Super blog post - I appreciate the adeptness displayed in discussing the intersectionality of issues. To intentionally mix metaphors; 'Rome is burning while we nibble at the edges.' While climate disruption continues to reside in the realm of abstract concepts - with perhaps the exception of severe weather events or catastrophic wildfires - diversity loss is described as the 'silent killer' that is probably too far gone by the time it is noticed. Ironic that there should be another issue as abstract as climate disruption, or more, and equally threatening to the viability of higher life forms on the planet. Meanwhile, some have noticed. While not enough, it begs the question; 'what can be done?'

There are those that speak of 'solutions'. But this only disregards the genuine intractability of the predicaments we describe. Two improvements would help: finding our 'bottom' by acknowledging the deep despair of the current moment and, learning to respond to that acknowledgement with open minds, hearts and eyes rather than investing in the 'hopium' of solutions that won't solve anything.

The death of the oceans is a powerfully emotional subset of diversity loss and, perhaps, having the most leveraged effect on all other living things. We witness an adjusting baseline with regard to the oceans and fail to notice that the immense diversity and sheer volume of life, of just a few hundred years ago and as chronicled by sea captains at the time - that this immensity is gone. Meanwhile, we experience the dearth of life in the oceans currently as 'normal'.

Similarly, despite any of the above, we experience politics as usual. Perhaps this is a result of the adjusting baseline that gives rise to the sense that old ways of thinking are capable of addressing what is, in effect, a new paradigm. In systems thinking, the intersectionality of issues leads to a phase change in which old ways lose their pertinence. From a systems perspective, everything must change; from our economic theories to our political beliefs, to our concepts of dominion and exceptualism, to our individual spiritual practices and ways in which we connect with the living matrix - including the rest of humanity - beyond our learned patriotism of family and country.

Michael Harris said...

(cont'd from previous)

But the political rhetoric remains mired in learned responses, parroted phrases and conversations that bound issues with the black and white of internalized bias and concepts while failing to recognize the wide range of possibility in between, among and outside of our limited understanding. Case(s) in point, the dreary references to 'socialism' as either a bane or a balm depending on your perspective, or the endless debate about raising/lowering taxes or big/small government.

Meanwhile we are subject to descriptions of 'solutions' that are intended to 'save' Connecticut by growing jobs regardless of that which is worked-at, as if making sure everyone has enough conjured money in their pocket will somehow substitute for clean air, clean water and nutritious food. It won't. But we can't talk about that (and get elected too). Yet the logic of this is thus: We must prioritize the economic well-being of everyone above the well-being of the living planet and we will do it by ramping up the very system that is doing the destruction. Implicit is the possibility that the destruction is eventually addressed - perhaps by that invisible hand of the ‘market’. Unfortunately, that 'hand' is energized by the worst traits of humanity - our self-serving - rather than the enormous potential we all have as collaborative and empathic beings. The invisible hand doesn't have a conscience, doesn't have a heart, doesn't have a soul. Whether implied or not, it's not going to happen without our intention.

After we’ve achieved the nirvana of widespread prosperity, maintaining the system is the focus regardless of its role in our own demise. Unfortunately, the rising tide that would lift all boats did not work out that way, as the ever increasing disparity between haves and have-nots testifies. Continued belief in this myth guarantees no progress and simply serves to distract from genuinely creative responses. If we change the design of the system to respond to our higher capacities, the root causes of planetary destruction can be mitigated.

So what I’ve learned is that it is not progress if it leads to extinction. But what can anyone do? It seems to come back to the question of how one will choose to be in this one wild life. The answer seems to hinge on continuing to develop an appreciation for being alive and all that that agency offers. If I could, I would divorce myself from these destructive systems. Yet that too would be a reflection of some accumulated privilege inside of the very system I seek to transcend. The reality is that I must work to survive in this system despite my knowledge of the broader effects of it. A conscious effort to align the soulful elements of peace, non-violence and respect for all of life yields a slow but insidious movement towards a life in which surviving and living/speaking sustainable ideals are compatible.

Thus, I'm grateful for the impetus of this post and the opportunity to leave this comment.