Futility, Immigration, Gun Control and Global Warming

[Lightning Rod]

http://www.etsu.edu/philos/classes/tudi ... syphus.jpg

Futility, Immigration, Gun Control and Global Warming
for release 04-24-07
Washington DC
by Lightning Rod


One of my least favorite things in life is futility. I get the chills when anyone even says 'Sisyphus.' Pointless or impossible work has always disturbed me. I don't have time.

Consider these facts:

1. We have something between 12 and 20 million undocumented immigrants in this country, depending upon whether you are listening to Lou Dobbs or the INS.

2. Eighty million Americans own guns. Many probably own several.

3. Every year we release about 7 billion tons of carbon emissions into our atmosphere.

Let's get real about these things.

Tens of millions of illegal immigrants aren't going to go back to Mexico where they can enjoy poverty and corruption and joblessness. It's not gonna happen. Neither are we equipped to deport them. And building a fence at the border is a classic case of closing the barn door after the horses are gone. Did someone say 'Sisyphus?'

We are not going to legislate our way out of gun violence. Can you imagine the logistical nightmare of confiscating perhaps a hundred million guns? It's not happening. Plus there is a minor thing called the Second Amendment.

And if global warming is a real thing, we are not going to cure it by recycling our plastic bags and driving hybrid vehicles whose manufacture requires belching out tons of CO2 per year. To imagine that we can reverse centuries of CO2 pollution which has led to the discernible increase in global temperatures, or the natural forces and cycles that our earth is subject to, is pure folly. Please, nobody say 'Sisyphus.'

I like Al Gore. Especially since he has gained weight. It makes him look cuddly and avuncular. He should grow the beard back. Maybe he would find himself in the back of the tour bus with Sheryl Crow. At least he wouldn't be a dummy like Karl Rove and tell Sheryl not to touch him. But Gore's Power Point Jeremiah act harkens me to 'Sisyphus, Sisyphus."

Back to reality. We are not going to stop burning fossil fuels, which are the primary source of CO2 emissions. It's not going to happen, folks. The population and industrialization of our world is growing exponentially. Even if we traded all the SUV's in the world for horse-drawn carriages or bicycles we can't stop burning things to stay warm and maintain our lives. Our transportation systems and our electrical power systems and our agricultural (translation: food) systems all depend on fossil fuels.
And nothing about that is going to change soon. And the people keep coming.

If, starting tomorrow, everybody had a zero emission car and got their power from a windmill and recycled all their plastic bags, nothing would change on a global scale for centuries. The damage is done. The horses are out of the barn.

Even if, starting tomorrow, we issued to every illegal immigrant a hybrid car in exchange for their handgun, we wouldn't solve these problems. They are Sisyphean.

The Poet's Eye hates to see futility. If you think that buying a product that comes in a green package and has 'environmentally friendly' on the label is going to save the earth, or if you think that carbon credits excuse your conspicuous consumption any more than a papal indulgence excused future sins in the Middle Ages, then I want you to meet a friend of mine. His name is Sisyphus.

Breaking rocks out here on the chain gang
Breaking rocks and serving my time
Breaking rocks out here on the chain gang
Because they done convicted me of crime
Hold it steady right there while I hit it
Well reckon that ought to get it
Been working and working
But I still got so terribly far to go
---Work Song, Nat Adderly

[stilltrucking]

The Myth Of Sisyphus--Camus

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

---Albert Camus


http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00 ... msysip.htm

Life Gets Tedious , Don't It?
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
The hands on the clock keep going round,
I just get up and it's time to lay down,
Life gets tedious, don't it?
My shoes untied but I don't care,
I was'nt figuring on going nowhere,
I'd have to wash and comb my hair,
And that's just wasted effort.
--Old Tex Ritter Song


You got any references for the global warming taking centuries to reverse?


Syphus is just alright with me Clay. He got a lot in comon with you I think.

If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this.

http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00 ... msysip.htm

[Lightning Rod]

wonderful expansion on the subject, truck

sounds like you have an acute understanding of futility

of course mssr. Camus comes in handy too

I don't have anything to support my assertion that we can't reverse centuries of damage in years or decades. But common sense tell me this. Or maybe it's just superstition like most of science.

[Arcadia]

They are Sisyphean, maybe.

[mnaz]

It's not about reversing these problems, as in eliminating them. It's about reversing or slowing the most problematic trends. I'm not sure the "horses are outta the barn" analogy is wholly accurate... more like, the horses are escaping through holes in the barn at an alarming rate, and we know where most of the gaping holes are, and how we might start to repair them to make them smaller.

It's not about taking away all the guns, or deporting 20 million people, or wiping perfectly clean the haze of the industrial revolution in a few political cycles. Of course not. It's about working on those gaping holes in the barn.

[mtmynd]

many mistake time for repairs as a loss of progress...

[Kreddible Trout]

Not fond of it. Not fond of the 'damage is done' cop out. Yes, the tokens are merely tokens and PR at this point, but to write off the effort as futility is just brazen chickenshitted, first world laziness. If there's a 'hundred years from now' to look back on us, I'd be proud to be looked back on as 'that silly idealistic generation with the blue boxes. My were they ever naive.'

I do a lot of street fundraising for Greenpeace and 'the damage is done' is the common response of the well off and complacent. I much rather hear the truth by those who plainly say that they don't give a shit. Them I can easily right off or hope they die off and their children may somehow get accidentally educated along the way.

Progress takes time as many underpaid black female executives will tell you. But we HAVE equal rights don't we? That's what it says on the package!
We're not there yet, but there has been progress.
You've bought into the 'there's no other option' scam. 'We HAVE TO burn fossil fuels'. WHY? Let's find OTHER WAYS. Humans adapt when they want to. They have to want to and it's coming to a time where we'll NEED to.

No. You're not going to see the results in your lifetime. But you can be a participant in the beginning of the change in the only way we know how yet. You can be the first guy in your neighborhood to free your slaves. Sure the people around you might call you a lunatic, they might say it's just a trend and won't you look silly when your ideals are proven wrong. As much as you may have second thoughts because you'll realize just how much EFFORT it takes, you might still let your morals guide you and strive on. Or you might succumb to common thought and give up.

In 100 years do you think might begin to heal?
If not then think of the amount of damage done in the last 100. Would that have been thought possible?
It's best to start somewhere.
When I was a kid all I was told was 'Give a HOOT, don't pollute'
And 'don't be a litter-bug.' That was it. No 'why'.
Now my nephews and nieces are learning about recycling in school. They're learning about composting. It's not the solution, but it's a step in the right direction. A part of the solution. We have a lot of very well thought out and expensive conditioning to wean ourselves off of and I see younger generations beginning to do just that.

It's a scary time in history, LRod, when the idealists become realists. Don't let em get'cha!

And Al Gore is a chicken. He posed a lot of problems but gave no real solutions. All he said was 'WE can change'. For the common folk who didn't even realize there was a problem until they were able to watch it on the big screen with a box of popcorn in their laps, they NEED TO BE SPOON FED some solid options for change. Gore failed at that. I hope he makes a sequel called 'Oh, And One Other Thing' focusing on real corporate emission caps and blue boxes and wind power and composting and solar power and bike riding and ecosystem based management and reduction and....

If Sisyphus had have given up, he'd have never made the books.

[Dave The Dov]

Just wait until all that "dinosaur blood" runs out. Then all those energy producing companies will switch over to those other sources and exploit the hell out of those too.
_________________
free grants

[Kreddible Trout]

there was a time in history, I'm sure there was (wasn't there?) when the challenge was sought over the status quo. instead of finding the next exploitable resource can't we humans (as clever as we claim to be) create or discover one that is inexhaustable? Sure there would be no money to be made, but that's another challenge to our way of being.

[Lightning Rod]

Trout,
This is a very honest and to-the-point rebuttal of the arch position that I expressed in my column. Of course my point was that there are things which are either not solvable, or at least not solvable in our lifetimes. I hope the message didn't come across that I think we should abandon any efforts to solve these problems.

I have always said that we don't have an energy crisis
we have an ingenuity crisis

[Kreddible Trout]

the futility frustrates me too. that's why i gits all riled up. I don't claim to 'know' you LR so who you are and how you do wha-cha-do is none of my beeswax, but I do very much respect (and have since... 2001?) your opinions and admire your insight & integrity. When I hear someone like you seemingly throwing in the towel it kills me. There really are very few out there who are willing to put up their dukes for an ideal. You are one. Futility should be the fuel that keeps us going.

there's a Pete Seeger quote about pouring sand on a scale with spoons that I'm trying desperately to remember to end this all profound-like... I can't think of it.

Let futility be our fuel. We can even fall it 'FUELTILITY'!

ha.

ha. ha.

I'm so tired.