Selfish... And Stupid, As Usual!

I like to make references to The Wiz as much as possible, so if you've memorized that movie as well as I have, you may note this.

But not only do I like to pay respect to great works of art - cinematic and otherwise - this entry title (and the scene from which it comes) actually applies to the subject of this post [unbelievable].

And now I'm going to give it all away...

In this scene, the Scarecrow (played by the eminent Michael Jackson) is up on his cross, lamenting his helplessness and oppression. The Crows, his quotidian torturers, are hanging around eating corn, dismissing poor Scarecrow's wishes "to get down."

I'm not going to get verbatim on your asses, but it goes a little bit like this:

Scare: Hey fellas, is today the day you're going to help me get down?
Crows: Get down?! Haven't we told you that you can't get down?
Scare: Just for a little while? Just to take a walk around?
Crows: Walk! You can't walk! You're just a straw paper dummy!
Scare: You're right fellas. I was just being selfish...
Crows: ...And stupid, as usual!

After the recitation of the Crow Commandments, and a funky Crow Anthem, Dorothy (over-played by the majestic, naturally-afroed and stunning Diana Ross) shows up. She scares away the Crows, and encourages Scarecrow to join her on a journey to the Wiz (the man behind this curtain is Richard Pryor!).

The first few steps are tentative, spastic and potentially hazardous, but the Scarecrow, with a little bit of help from his new friend, braves the trips and falls and eases his way down the road. [Cue brass]

The point I'm making is this: as long as we are convinced that the reduction of energy consumption, pollution and resource mismanagement is impossible, it will be.

Dorothy: You're just the product of some negative thinking.

The less support we provide for the market's natural inclination to innovate and solve these problems - coincidentally meeting the demands and preferences of consumers - the harder it will be to put in place the economic structures that a drastic change in our patterns of energy consumption will require in order to avoid an economic collapse.

Congress, as well as the Bush White House, have been talking a lot about how environmentally aware we are, how ethanol is the new oil (don't get me started on what a dramatic increase in the cost of corn will do to the economy), and how we have to set reachable, reasonable goals for industry. The record, however, is pathetic.

In the last presidential election, I didn't vote for Al Gore because I couldn't tell what his politics were. [that's kind of the disease of US politics, though, isn't it?] The only reason I would consider it now is that he finally seems to know what he's about - and has recognized that the only relevant issue in politics right now is energy - where it comes from, how it's used, how it's not used.

I'm not preaching Green, and I'm not advocating for Gore (even though he is a bit like Dorothy in this scenario). I'm saying that we can never get down off our collective cross (that of poverty, famine, property rights, gender and culture wars, etc) until we take those tentative steps towards collective empowerment. That means viewing the whole Earth as our home. Recognizing the finite nature of all resources, from the sun and water, to human souls. And, perhaps most importantly, taking responsibility for the systems we use to allocate value to those resources.

As in The Matrix, energy is power, and the control of energy translates into money, or ego, or material goods, or whatever. When we know that this lifeforce goes beyond simply gassing up the SUV and driving Damien and Patricia to tennis lessons, or even fighting to dictate the freedom-loving liberty of Democratic societies, it changes our focus from self-indulgence to self-recognition.

This is growth. And the future depends on it.