"You Pollute..."

[ Pic of a classic Hitchcock  

       ...1936-filmed, The Man Who Knew Too Much.]

" It seemed llke the final form of matter,  the most shapeless and the most shameful. I could only tell myself, from its shudderings, that it was something at least that such a monster could be miserable. And then it broke upon me that the bestial mountain  was shaking with a lonely laughter, and the laughter was at me. Do you ask me to forgive that? It is no small thing to be laughed at by something  at once lower and stringer than oneself."

; ...from 'The Man Who was Thursday: A Nightmare' (by G.K.Chesterton, 1874-1936)

” Pleased to meet you, 
hope you guess my name,
But what's puzzling you, 
is the nature of my game.”
; ...from 'Sympathy for the Devil' (song by the Rolling Stone)  

...Series of view-points on Commonwealth ; pt V.

; ...Of recently I happened read, ao, quite some pages on 1970s and the problems then popularly discussed, namely the lack from any (meaningful) environmental policy and the problem from human population growth. Latter (then said) from soon exceeding it's safe supportable limits. Noticed then on those pages, ao, the following statement - by the time already important noted problem...Even if the book maybe is by now (of slight) dated:

; ”Under the First Amendment of our Constitution, every man not only has the right to say what he believes but also to believe what he says. ... The right to be ignorant is as sacred as the right to be informed.”

; ”As we have seen, the health and social pathogens heaved into the environment by our 131 million registered motor vehicles include not only the fossil fuel pollutants they emit but also the two million people they have killed here since 1900, and the five million people they injure annually, and, among many other health-diminishing pollutants, the noises and non-fueldebris they spew into our ears, our air, and our water. The Nixon administration environmental programs have done nothing about reducing the present ratio of one motor vehicle to every 1.6 Americans; nothing about mandating and funding the alternate forms of safe, swift, and nonpollutive mass transportation that can save this nation from the present killing density of motor vehicles. Instead, by setting the possibly unattainable goal of 'cleaner' emissions from our burgeining population of cars and trucks, the environmental 'reforms' of the People Pollute school have completely obscured the clinical reality that the saturation of our air with pathogenic fossil fuel emissions is only one of many ways in which our present biologically unsupportable density of motor vehicles degrades the entire human environment.” ; Chase, The Legacy of Malthus (; p.510, 529-30)

; ...Chase's book (The Legacy of Malthus. The Social Costs of the New Scientific Racism. p. 1980) actually has at its focus the long-lasted shadow from the (maintained) social and economical inequalities, which well-late were been backed w. some 'pseudo-sciences' (as Chase describes it, the scientific racism) - ie racially and socially discrimative 'results' been conjured, w. the aid from falsicated data (stats, tests), and then defended by various auctoritets, also cultivated via phraseology. …et other similar 'methods', usually targeting the poorest.

But, what brought my attention to this, was that it also had the mention from those People Pollute-slogans, popular at 1970s, and which also were tied relating to those intentioned, purposeful practices from blaming of the (expected) catastrophes the peoples themselves. Also – mostly – the general aim from not to do anything on the actual problems. (Enshortened, as Chase puts that on some place, denial of having any concern on ”...management of the problem of child, family, and environmental health problems”.) Esp. apparent (said it was) commonly cultivated/was meant evoke the false guilt from the ever expanding human population growth (While it had actually stabilized by that time...at the Northern 'developed countries').

; ...We may now of course think that such 'population/pollution guilt'-agenda is as much an aged relic as appear those prejudiced mumble jumbles (non-scientific 'proofs') lot discussed and dismantled in the book (Meaning the 'scientific cheats', incl., fx, those renown misguiding Binet-IQ-'tests' of the early century, and the falsified (and, racialised) claims from the pellagra and hook-worm for diseases passing within genes, the 1924 immigration law, the infamous sterilization laws, ...etc, plus various other aspects book discusses) ; Also you might consider that any direct comparison btw such aged stories w. the todays misbeliefs might be quite insignificant and any similarities only seemingly noticeable. I agree (it is). But– unlike the common belief - History never repeats itself, but the false steps in fact are cumulative.

; Also, only by coincidence, I happened then glance yet another text about this, that one been written by Chesterton. As a contemporary from that early 1900s/the discriminative era, he fx begins his essay with following sentences: 

 ”The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. ...People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air.”  
(; on 'Eugenics and other evils', ...seems he published that on 1922, some two years before the actual passing from those tightened foreign policies at US, fx.) I'm not otherways referring on it, but I find it somewhat noteworthy an aspect, that it's precisely Chesterton, the most religious amongst any British novelist/writers of the 20^th century (...at least for my knowing), who should have taken strong opinions on that. 

 ; ...Becomes interesting from a view-point that these – shall we say – present consumerist attitudes on driving, have much in common w. the characteristics from that old 'eugenist cult', or the hereditarist quasi-sciences. Perhaps more than what meets the eye at first sight. There's certain similarity from creed on both ”cults”. Fx, (an exemplary of how are accepted and maintained some false beliefs): 'We want the cars, truckloads and all the evernew products. So let's remain in a good faith that it doesn't matter what the cost, or if the cost already has gone over the top.' ...Some bad way orthodoxy. (Our attitudes towards cars, vehicles, driving – Quite noticeable mostly rely, much, for a tradition.) Even more noticeably, there's much of a dogmatic thinking (on those attitudes). Fx even that, in the long-run, almost anything else actually would appear cheaper to the consumers and their surroundings, most societies still rely on an easiest choice (meaning the fuelled vehicles.) ...Actually, nothing but the same sort of a 'distant optimism' that Chesterton refers on what cited on above. It's some blindfold belief.

; ...Yet, maybe more directly relevant for the present days are, obviously, all the many side-effects from uses of cars and vehicles. It's not only those forever discussed emissions. Also, (the cars generate) fx noise, dust, the heat. Roadkills. And the spoiled landscapes. I think it actually nowadays, as much as before, proper say that people do pollute - even if it's stricktly said the motor vehicles making an actual direct cause to that pollution. (Whether or not you think it most appropriate putting the blame on shoulders of the common consumer, or, whether that would merely fall to some responsible from the business of it...). ; ...But, guess'll they think the modern eco-savy and more fuel-efficient vehicles now being developed, that would take care most of it. In fact, it's all (quite) minor ecologic advances in combined (While not unimportant, of course.) 

 ; Comes perhaps better understandable w. reminder from the wordly population count: Some 9 Bn peoples assumed the population amount ca at mid-century (...at least as it was the last time I glanced any forebodings). Ie, it's much more than that about some 6 Bn there now are. (Maybe, it might've yet have slowed down, as the projections seem often vary a bit, sometimes a lot...so maybe reaches only 7-8 by that time, but it's still the largest population amount in the whole recorded world history.) ...Traffic pollution tackled w. some eco-savy alterations and effectivity? No, it's the private cars you needed tackle for that to have any meaningful effect. And then, if you consider the production from steady new generations and models of the cars and vehicles, right out-from-the-factory, yearly. What the amount of an actual waste of material/resources that makes, indeed...

Quite the same is true, if this considered from a view-point of health (...I only mention that, as it's usually the sole reason people even choose from notice about the many disadvantages brought by driving.) Of course you can defend driving by saing it being nowadays quite impracticable to consider any return for some era prior the roads and traffic networks. Or, for the cartwheels and wagons. But, these modern alternative don't make any heavens either. (Quite unbelievable, but the public transport still remains relatively costly in comparison w. the driving.)

There's of course been all the said important restrictions/advancements on drive economics during the years; the lead-free gasolines, the more fuel-efficient cars, the recyclement practices. (So, they'd better have some effect, 'cause otherways they'll probably obliged put some limitations on the car-uses, after a few decades. And, oh gosh, how bad that would be for the business...) As well, it being so that usually is said the traffic making less from all the climatic stress, in combined – than what is caused by, fx, the vast expanded agricultural sector (The major causes; meat-o-markets and rainforests destruction, esp. during some preceded decades time...and other causes, in combined.)

'...and to Mock You, very very much...' ; However, what made me think about these things, more considerably, wasn't mainly due from those greatly distorted histories (on begins of this briefly referred), or even the various and somewhat questionable histories of the said 'people pollute'-campaigns on past 1970s. It was, in the first place, from that general inequality so inborn at our present thinkin' about the cars and our present human condition, what brought me to these views. The global inequality, more in particularly (If I consider my thinkin' from had any moral starting-point.) ; In essence, what a h.......t that usual speech from the blessings of the fuelled cars and vehicles. You pollute. I pollute. (The truth being said, no need pretending anything else about it.)

; The whole 'paradox' about, that human pollution and climatic burden, seems have a lot from logic of the dances macabres. (...It's like shaking the hip on edge from a huge deep, yellin' 'come on...join me'. But of course the grin from it soon becomes quite sad, inevitably.) People would do better if they stopped investing that much on the show, and paid a moment's though on how deep that gorge actually is. ...Almost, I can smell the brimstone, and the flames as well seem to reach for quite high.

; ...Of the very same reasons, I also have some distaste towards their repettance of that old mantra from worshipment of that golden pagan idolatry (sort of biblical metaphor, you may allow this...), so common and sacred at every modern society. Or - if you wish - that 'holy triangle' from the jobs, the economic growth, the constructions and builds. Actually, would be far better cast all those very false economics for the same trash-can from where they originated in the first place. Environmentally – and no less truth from any sustained economic view-point – only lasting solutions would appear the zero-growth. (...But has there ever been any any sustained economics, actually? I admit that I don't know, but I'm quite pessimistic of the human condition, presently...) ; And do you really believe that prices can rise endlessly? For everybody's benefit? I don't, and neither I care to pay for other people's greed, indifference, pollution. But, the reality is...all the silver clouds shining accross the picturesque sky beyond shoppin' mall, all the happy barns joggling in the Brand New fenced entertainment enclosure? - No, sooner or later comes around that man of a 'will and taste', and bye-bye for that happy facade... (So you should keep watch. Don't forget to your physical exercises either.) ; W-G.

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