From an interview in VT Commons,
The fundamental lie that Al Gore is telling comes from defining our problem as environmental -- in this case global warming, whereas our environmental problems -- as real and important as they are -- are but a symptom of the problem, not the problem. Gore defines our problem as "what." He is silent on "who."
For example, Gore does not ask or answer:
Who is doing this?
Who has been governing our planet this way and why?
Cui bono? Who benefits?
Who has suppressed alternative technologies resulting in our dependency on fossil fuels? Why?
Who has generated how much financial capital generated from this damage?
How did things get this bad without our changing?
How much was related to fear of and dirty tricks of those in charge?
How do we recapture resources that have been criminally drained and use them to invest in restoring environmental balance?
Utah Phillips once said, "The earth is not dying. It is being killed, and the people killing it have names and addresses." In one sentence, Utah Phillips told us more about global warming than Al Gore has told us in a lifetime of writing and speaking, let alone in An Inconvenient Truth.
Needless to say, Gore offers no names and addresses.
What is missing from Gore's timline:
the creation of the Federal Reserve:
the movement of currencies away from the gold standard:
the growth of non-accountable fiat currency systems:
the growth of consumer, mortgage and government debt;
the growth in the superior rights of corporations over people and living things;
the growth of "privatization" (which I call “piratization”);
the subversive and sometimes violent suppression of renewable energy, housing and transportation technologies and innovations;
the growth of the offshore financial system and the use of that system to launder and accumulate vast sums of pirated capital accumulated through the onshore destruction of communities.
Understanding the fundamental imbalance of the corporate model -- where enterprises have the rights of personhood, but not the finite existence of people or the legal responsibilities and liabilities -- and the corporate model's economic dependence on subsidy that drives up debt, economic warfare and the destruction of all living things is a critical piece to developing actions to reverse environmental damage.Al Gore is a man that has made money for corporations his entire life. He is a member in good standing of the Tapeworm and his current lifestyle and this documentary are rich with the resources that corporations can provide.
There is also no personal accountability.
Al Gore has not “come clean.”
Put Fitts on the tapeworm of the freemarket economy and its political and philanthropic hosts up against Lucy Bernholz on "aligned" foundation investing. I am afraid Lucy too is feeding the tapeworm, like Gore. Buying and selling stocks and bonds inside foundations is a weak lever for social change. Note that Gore's film was funded as a social venture by Jeff Skoll an arch-capitalist, and inventor of the world's biggest online fleamarket, a man whose hero apparently was once Ayn Rand.
Still, maybe we should align foundation assets with foundation mission - should not be hard since philanthropy is already so co-dependent with business as usual.
Well, yes, the simple fact that big philanthropy is a byproduct of capitalism run amuck is part of the problem. Want to know which hyperbolic mission statement drives me most crazy "We are the X Foundation and we're here to stamp out poverty."
Just another reason the 'right' aligns so simply and the 'left' is so complex.
Posted by: Lucy Bernholz | January 24, 2007 at 06:58 PM
Lucy, thanks, I wish you were here in person, to offer you a cup of coffee and ask you a few follow up questions. In particular, when it comes to social change, is "philanthropy" the most promising term, or would it be something more like creating social capital, developing weak ties, reinventing neighborliness, the commons, or social organizing, or even the arts and folk arts? I keep thinking, as Catholic trained person, that all these terms point to the promptings of the holy spirit towards faith, hope and charity, where charity means disinterested love within a consecrated community which is in some ways an antidote to the market, a way of pointing beyond what can be measured and managed and converted to coin, or lucre as it was once called.
Philanthropy, from a more elite tradition, via Aristotle, as "civic friendship" comes close to the same thought. "Friends," so runs a Greek proverb, "reiterated by Aristotle, "hold all in common."
If we ask how to support, nurture, cultivate grassroots communities of interest and excellence online and off, it seems that philanthropy or giving is part of that, but only a part, and maybe not the driving force.
Posted by: Phil | January 24, 2007 at 07:11 PM
Perhaps some wag will make a movie that is a sequel to two that have made some waves in the past few years ? Combine next eposudes of Gore's An Inconvenient Truth with The Corporation into a sequel and what do you get ?
Desperate Inconvenient Personalities ?
Fahrenheit 100 Million ?
Shut Up And Sign ?
,, just jokin' around of course. The market will always let us know what is most needed.
Posted by: JJ Commoner | January 24, 2007 at 11:20 PM
Right, the Market knows best. So, shut up and sign up. The market makers are losing patience with you.
Posted by: Phil | January 25, 2007 at 08:33 AM
Pretty spot on. Gotta say that I, like many, missed the "who" question in my excitement about what Gore has done to crash the logjam on global warming. But once you do, these are obvious questions.
Posted by: PhilanthroMedia | January 31, 2007 at 10:40 AM
The Fitts materials should be read slowly and with an open and judicious mind. They ask us to pay attention to the puppeteers, not the puppets, and they suggest that the puppeters are highly successful entrepreneurs who have built an empire through hard work, courage, and ruthless best business practices, from the grassroots up in towns and cities throughout the world, but most profitably in America. The business is drugs. As as with any business the successful people buy out or buy into their less successful adjacent businesses, invest heavily in lobbying, and are big into philanthropy. As the best families of Boston in the clipper ship era became "names" from the money made in the Chinese opium trade, so Fitts suggests that those we honor, vote for, court, and debate are as a class endebted to and responsive to the Free Market whose cash flows came and still come from drugs. Coming from a crank, I would pay not attention. Coming from a deal maker, educated at Penn and Wharton, who was a Director of Dillon Reid, Assistant head of Hud, and slated to a director of the Federal Reserve, Fitts has my full attention.
What has this got to do with philanthropy? What has philanthropy to do with reputation, influence, political power, and the washing of hands?
Posted by: Phil | January 31, 2007 at 11:35 AM