Beyond The Politics of Cancer Alone

[Liza Featherstone]

True but it's interesting how hard it is to promote this without the usual
pitfalls -- in which in typically American fashion it's all up to the
individual..One could also argue that the whole Green Consumerist thing, the
idea that you can save the world by your individual choices, carrying around
a mug instead of getting styofoam cups, etc (which even McDonald's tapped
into, using groovy brown bags instead of plastic. But I'm not obsessed with
McDonald's, honest!) has been very bad for environmentalism -- encouraging
the idea that pollution can be reversed through better lifestyle when most
of it probably can't -- most of it is on a very large scale and demands
political solutions. Most of which involve governments cracking down on
corporate polluters, I'd guess. the important thing to figure out about
lifestyle changes is how they can be about communities and whole cities and
therefore sustainable -- 100 things *You* Can Do To Save the Earth is a
formula for useless moral cleanliness. 

  
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>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Beyond The Politics of Cancer Alone
>Date: Thu, Jan 28, 1999, 11:50 AM
>


>William S. Lear wrote:
>
>>On Wed, January 27, 1999 at 15:26:44 (-0500) Doug Henwood writes:
>>>Paul Henry Rosenberg wrote:
>>>
>>>>First, "Chemicals Called Main Cause of Parkinson's Disease," which
>>>>points up the fact that cancer is not the only disease corporate
>>>>polluters are responsible for.
>>>
>>>Yeah, corps emit the toxins, but ordinary folks like you & me are the ones
>>>who use Saran Wrap, drive cars, run the a/c, etc. It's too easy just to
>>>blame the corps for the schmutz - it's the way we live our lives.
>>
>>I gotta object here: like we have a @!#$!@# choice?  The costs to
>>individuals even to organize with other folks is huge.  Consumer
>>choice in this country is just a fantasy.  Robin Hahnel's expositions
>>on the immense problems with externalities makes it clear, to me, that
>>market mechanisms practically *guarantee* a situation described above.
>
>Of course our choices are constrained. But if you really believe there's an
>ecological crisis - and here James Heartfield can tell us why there isn't
>one - then it's not enough to blame corporations for the problem. The
>entire American way of life is ecocidal - suburbs, SUVs, Wal-Marts, 5000 sq
>ft houses in the desert with central air, etc. People acting alone as
>individuals can't do much to change all that, but you can't just blame
>"corporate polluters" for the problem.
>
>Doug