Issues: Policy & Power

We have to face it. Governmental policy is often determined not by the general population, but by the influential, the powerful, the wealthy. It is folly to expect national and state government policy to make the best decisions for all of us. The people in the government first serve the powerful people in any society and do not truly feel an obligation to provide good management.

Ordinary citizens can influence governmental decisions, but it takes a petition with the names of many many many ordinary citizens to equal the phone call of one oil company executive. The climate change crisis highlights this extreme discrepancy, this imbalance, as nothing ever has before.

The book "Disposable City" by Mario Alejandro Ariza relates the cynical carelessness in the field of real estate developers. He explains the dangerous situation very clearly with Miami as his prime example.

It is much simpler to bypass government policy by our careful conscious personal economic choices and in our local community decisions. Change is possible, but it is up to us.

"Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the natural world that supports all life." Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962.

Resources & Links

Devolution - Ethnic communities that wish self-determination.