What its About
I am often asked about my beliefs, and why I believe the things that I do, so I will try and outline it here to the best of my ability.
Politically, if I had to label myself, it would be fair to call me an eco-socialist, because I am a believer in the socialist philosophy, and I am deeply concerned with the state of our environment. I am not sure how others come to this particular movement, but a few of my friends with the same beliefs started as environmentalists. They could no longer believe in the ability of a capitalist system to put aside pure profit motives and work together to save the world from the environmental apocalypse that seems to be lurking just over the horizon. This was not really the case for me. While I have been a socialist for years, I was also an unpolitical environmentalist for many years, and the two did not come together for some time.
Why Socialism?
Politically, I was a socialist first. As an employment counsellor for a nonprofit organization, I have witnessed and experienced first hand the incredible injustices and tragedies that stem from the capitalist class structure. Working as a counsellor in an impoverished community, I dealt daily with the consequences of the cold calculus of profit margins and stock markets. People’s lives when treated as numbers on a profit and loss statement are easily forgettable, like an infantry man firing at an unseen enemy whose death is as unreal as it is unseen. Up close however, it is not so easy to witness the realities of the capitalist’s mathematical calculations.
In the capitalist system, people’s lives are reduced to dollars and percentages, the meat, bone and soul of the person at the other end is of no matter. The system functions on the psychosis of unrestrained greed, and is unaccustomed to the empathy required in a democratic society. As a result, our democracies are becoming the plaything of the multinational, which has more money and hence more leverage than the average person. They set the agenda through campaign funding and armies of lobbyists. Meanwhile, they see the masses as being pacified by the ability to vote, when more and more an election changes little more than the packaging of a puppet.
In my opinion, we are not well served by the cold profit based equations of the capitalist system, where unrestrained greed and financial power rule the day. Where the majority of citizens are seen as nothing more then a resource to be tapped and then cast off once their purpose has been served. Democracy cannot survive in a relationship with capitalism. As we speak, our poor gentle democracy is being beaten and battered by an unruly and selfish mate who demands her total submission to his will without question. Soon, her empathetic smile will be seen no more.
Why Eco-Socialism?
As I mentioned before, many people I know become eco-socialists after feeling a massive disconnect between capitalism and the need to change the way we interface with our environment. In a way, this could be true for me, but the two strands of this philosophy developed in parallel for me.
I grew up in a naturally beautiful village on the St. Lawrence River in the heart of what is known as the Thousand Islands. There was a time when you could not pay someone to live so far from the comforts of the big city, but now times have changed and wealthy Canadians and Americans consider it a perfect vacation spot where they can build multimillion dollar “cottages.” They have cleared out the trees, manicured their lawns with pesticides to make them look like their favourite golf courses and built docks for their massive multimillion dollar boats. Golf courses have now been built, clearing many more trees, spraying countless chemicals, and the dumps are forced to take increasing levels of industrial waste.
The once rustic, peaceful region has become a tourist destination with massive mansions all around the river, both on land and the islands. So many boats now travel the river that it is dangerous to canoe or sail or fish in anything smaller than an aircraft carrier. The water, while clear thanks to an infestation of zebra mussels, is full of thin streams of oil, gas and the contents of holding tanks floating about and many of fish are blistered and ulcerated from who-knows-what?
I always loved nature and animals, and I can still remember a time when there was no such thing as UV and smog warnings which are now a fact of summer in Eastern Ontario. But now, after witnessing the wholesale destruction of a once pristine environment through pollution and unrestricted construction, and having seen firsthand the results of clear-cutting, all forms of mining and the myriad of other modern industrial activities around Canada and the United States all in the name of greed, I know that I could no longer leave the fight to save the environment to others and I had to take my place among the environmentalists.
There are some who feel that capitalism will come to the rescue with some new invention or other to save the environment, and in some cases this might ring true. Wind farms are a good example of this, though, as in the case of bio-fuels, these inventions can come into direct conflict with the very causes they claim to support. Bio-fuels held promise in cutting emissions, though they are in direct competition with food production which has driven up the price of basic foods and put limits on overall food production as farmers change their crops to the more lucrative. In the end, because they are profit driven, the negative impact of the product is irrelevant, only the ongoing profits and stock dividends are of any real importance. The result is a further erosion of the environment and the lives of the poverty-stricken masses. For this reason, capitalism can only hinder or obstruct any efforts to save our environment, and will always be in direct opposition to any real meaningful change.
What Does it Mean to Me?
Like others in the eco-socialist movement, I am a firm believer in the facts behind climate change and firmly dismiss all the phony capitalist funded statistics and “research” that attempt to discredit the real science behind climate change. In my thirty-six years, I have witnessed the change in our environment, and have travelled extensively witnessing events like the erosion of the glaciers, the dissipation of the Great Lakes, clear-cutting, mining and aggressive development.
I believe that if we do not radically change the way we “do business” here on earth, we are at the very least creating a nightmare future for our offspring, and at most heading for the outright extinction of our species along with many others. The capitalist system is not capable of making the sacrifices required to save us, which is a fact the capitalists have proven again and again. As long as their is profit in activities that threaten the earth, they will not allow us to stop them. As long as they see personal short-term gains to be made, they will continue to spread lies and misinformation to placate the public.
We need a new system, capable of working for the betterment of us all, where we are all instruments in our own futures. We need a great equalization of the people, where we are all empowered equally, where we can build a society that truly benefits us all. A system where all the people have an equal say in the future of our world. Only then can we be free to build the sustainable future we need to survive as a species.
And so, I am an eco-socialist. I believe in the creation of a equalized society with a sense of social justice for all. A place where people are not simple wage slaves, but equal partners in their own futures. And I believe that such a society could build a truly sustainable future for their children and the rest of the world.
