The Hartal

The United States' Recession is now in it's 8th coincidental year.   While there are always ups and downs in an economy, the generalized trend toward dependence on foreign countries for basic necessities and even luxuries in life is an unsustainable model leading to this paradox:

How can we sustain an economy here if we borrow money to buy things produced in foreign countries as our basic practice of sustenance?

The answer, unfortunately, is to war with other countries, to ensure that their labor can always be exchanged at a better rate than our lenders give to us.  I don't mean always "literal warfare" but economic warfare.

Paying less money for something produced in a foreign country than a comparable product produced at home is fundamentally paradoxical as well - how can it be cheaper to produce something and then ship it to a destination than it is to produce it near where it is to be used.  Consider grapes.  If I have grapes in my back yard, they are free to me.  If they are down the street at a farm, I must pay for them, but can avoid shipping them by walking.  If I must ship them 10,000 miles, someone must pay for that shipping.  While there are occasionally products that simply can be produced better in another location because of geographical or climatic issues, in a country as large as the United States, it is obviously possible to produce anything needed or desired for the sustenance of life here in this country.  We have every climate and terrain available for us to use. 

The answer, again, is unfortunately war.  If we can borrow or force enough shipping costs, we can get what we want.  

But borrowing is not a sustainable method.

Is war?

The answer to that question is yes and no.

Jesus says "Whoever lives by the sword dies by the sword" and they have a saying in, we hear, India, a professional swimmer dies of drowning".  War is good for gun makers, less good for soldiers and families of the dead.  Many empires have lasted centuries on the basis of war-time economies, Rome of course comes to mind.

Was Rome sustainable?  The answer is "perhaps" but at the cost of the morality of its people.  Do we want to be a country that sustains itself by exacting taxes from foreign countries, enslaving them and conscripting our people to enforce our dominion?

I think the answer has to be the same as in the case of Rome.  It wasn't Rome's inability to persecute wars and enforce its will that made it unsustainable.  It was their inability to maintain their will in the face of the obvious moral dilemma -> how can you sustain a will to live by plundering other people if you have a moral sense that it's wrong?

Today, America has this choice.  We know it's wrong to kill people in foreign countries for oil.  We know it's wrong to rob people and take advantage of slave labor.  Yet we do it.  As a result, our country is suffering for our sins - our children die in wars, we all live in continual debt...

So I propose to end these problems once and for all with two simple actions of penance if you will for common sins as a country:

a) don't buy "unnecessary gas" -> if you need it to live, go for it -> if you can do something else, don't do it.  This means no delivery pizza unless the place delivers by bicycle....  Think this -> is the thing you're doing worth someone -potentially- being shot for?

b) take your money out of your bank and put it in a credit union.  Credit unions are, in general, mutual benefit corporations who are required to use their money democratically to benefit their members.  That is, as a member of the credit union, you are also an owner and your credit union is effectively working for your benefit.  The laws governing credit unions require them to be open and beneficial in their dealings rather than maximally profit-oriented.  

So think, when you deposit your money, is it worth your extra 2% per year to support a multi-national system of oppression and usury that enslaves other countries and peoples and doesn't invest in your home towns?

Hoping you will join me in abstaining from our countries joint sins,

Robert Lindauer