Election review

JUST Books is planning to meet on the evening of November 6 to discuss the election results.

What members are reading

Although we aren't meeting this month, it doesn't mean we've stopped reading. Here's a list of books people mentioned at the last JUST Books meeting and some others that have been on my reading list this month:

The History of the American Empire, by Howard Zinn. This is a graphic novel illustrated by Mike Konopacki, based on Zinn's People's History of the United States. This should be required reading in every junior high/middle school. I learned some stuff from it.

Medussa and the Snail, by Louis Thomas
a book of 29 essays on biology. According to one reader,
"This is quite simply one of the best written books on biology that you'll ever read. If you are in the camp which believes that scientists use one side of their brain, and that writers use the other, be prepared for a big surprise."

The Right is Wrong, How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe, by Arianna Huffington. With her trademark passion, intelligence, and devastating wit, Huffington Post editor in chief Arianna Huffington tackles the issues that are crucial to this year’s presidential election and, even more so, to the fate of the country.

Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Movement In the World Came Into Being
and Why No One Saw it Coming
by Paul Hawken
A leading environmentalist and social activist's examination of the worldwide movement for social and environmental change

Paul Hawken has spent over a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice.
From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person dot.causes, these groups collectively comprise the largest movement on earth, a movement that has no name, leader, or location, and that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media. Like nature itself, it is organizing from the bottom up, in every city, town, and culture. and is emerging to be an extraordinary and creative expression of people's needs worldwide.

Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of the movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and hidden history, which date back many centuries. A culmination of Hawken's many years of leadership in the environmental and social justice fields, it will inspire and delight any and all who despair of the world's fate, and its conclusions will surprise even those within the movement itself. Fundamentally, it is a description of humanity's collective genius, and the unstoppable movement to reimagine our relationship to the environment and one another.

A Game as Old as Empire, various authors. This is a follow-up to John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Here, other economic hit men, journalists, and investigators join Perkins to reveal many more deeply disturbing stories of greed and international corruption. In gripping detail, they describe the schemes and subterfuges that multinational corporations, governments, powerful individuals, financial institutions, and quasi-governmental agencies use to line their pockets behind the facade of “foreign aid” and “international development.”

By the Ore Docks, A Working People's History of Duluth, by Richard Hudelson and Carl Ross. A history of the people who built Duluth and their fight for fair labor.

They Took My Father, Finnish Americans in Stalin's Russia, by Mayme Sevander. One immigrant's story of the pilgrimage of Utopian Finnish Americans to Bolshevik Russia and how Stalin destroyed their dreams.

Papermill, by Joseph Kalar. A book of poems and short essays written by a laborer in an International Fall papermill during the violent period of labor organizing in the early 20th Century.

Secession: How Vermont and all the other states can save themselves from the empire, by Thomas H. Naylor. This is the selection that we will be discussing on September 30. For more information, see the previous post, and/or go to http://www.vermontrepublic.org/

Secession

On Tuesday, September 30th, JUST Books will discuss the book...

Secession: How Vermont and All the Other States Can Save Themselves from the Empire by Thomas H. Naylor

Here's an article on the topic:
Vermont, Breaking Out of the Empire Box
By Greg Guma
August 21, 2008
Source: Maverick Media
ZNet

Three days after the 2008 presidential election, no matter which political
party takes the White House, a convention will be held in Vermont's
Statehouse to consider more radical solutions to the problems facing the
nation. The organizing group is the Second Vermont Republic, a citizens'
network that aims to dissolve the United States and, in particular, return
Vermont "to its status as an independent republic."

This may sound unlikely, if not impossible. Yet a recent Zogby poll
commissioned by the Middlebury Institute, a think tank studying
"separatism, secession, and self-determination," indicates that that 20
percent of Americans think "any state or region has the right to peaceably
secede from the United States and become an independent republic." More
than 18 percent told pollsters that they "would support a secessionist
effort in my state."

Could it happen? Frank Bryan, a political scientist who co-authored a 1989
book that called for restructuring Vermont democracy along decentralist
lines, has argued that "the cachet of secession would make the new
republic a magnet" and "people would obviously relish coming to the
Republic of Vermont, the Switzerland of North America." For Thomas Naylor,
the former Duke University professor who launched the movement in 2003,
the question isn't "if" but "when."

"Lincoln persuaded the public that secession was unconstitutional and
immoral," Naylor has noted. "It's one of the few things that the left and
right agree on. We say it's constitutional - and ultimately it is a
question of political will: the will of the people of Vermont versus the
will of the government to stop us."

As you might guess, there's no shortage of skeptics. According to Vermont
attorney and historian Paul Gillies, "It doesn't make economic sense, it
doesn't make political sense, it doesn't make historical sense. Other than
that, it's a good idea." Vermont archivist Gregory Sanford even claims
that some of the arguments for secession, in Vermont at least, are based
on "historical facts of dubious reputation." The State Archives often gets
requests for copies of an "escape claus e" in the Vermont Constitution,
which supposedly allows Vermont to withdraw from the US. "The truth, drawn
from documents, is less satisfying; there is no, nor has there ever been,
such an escape clause," he says.

But the underlying issue isn't whether there is legal authority, but why
millions of people across the country think it's a reasonable and
attractive idea. An answer worth considering is provided by Rob Williams,
editor of Vermont Commons, a newspaper that covers secession and related
issues. "The argument for secession is that the US has become an empire
that is essentially ungovernable - it's too big, it's too corrupt and it
no longer serves the needs of its citizens," he explains. "Congress and
the executive branch are being run by the multinationals. We have
electoral fraud, rampant corporate corruption, a culture of militarism and
war. If you care about democracy and self-governance and any kind of
representative system, the only constitutional way to preserve what's left
of the Republic is to peaceably take apart the empire."

Vermont has been fertile ground for such "outside the box" thinking in the
past. For example, the state didn't immediately join the new United States
after the War of Independence, remaining an independent state from 1 777
until 1791. Plus, half a century later it was the first state to elect an
Anti-Mason governor during a period when opposition to the secret society
was growing.

The Anti-Mason movement - which elected two governors and ran a candidate
for president in 1832 - lasted only a decade, and most of its political
leaders eventually joined either the short-lived Whig Party or the more
durable Republicans. Along the way, however, it pointed out the dangers of
elite groups and, on a practical level, initiated changes in the way
political parties operated. The Anti-Masonic Party wasn't only the first
third party in US national politics. It introduced the concept of
nominating conventions and the adoption of party platforms, reforms soon
embraced by the other parties.

This wasn't the only time a short-lived political movement produced
unexpected change. In 1912, the new Progressive Party, formed by Theodore
Roosevelt when he lost the Republican nomination to William Howard Taft,
led to the election of Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt soon left the Party, but
its work continued under the leadership of Robert La Follette. Although La
Follette's run for president in 1924 netted only 17 percent of the vote,
he won in his home state of Wisconsin, and successful reforms were
implemented=2 0there.

So, what can a campaign for secession accomplish, even if the goal isn't
achieved? To answer that, consider the basic agenda underpinning the
Second Vermont Republic: political independence, human scale,
sustainability, economic solidarity, power sharing, equal access, tension
reduction, and mutuality. Running through it all is a strong decentralist
thrust. Secession advocate Kirkpatrick Sale describes decentralism as a
"third way," already evident in bioregional movements, cooperative and
worker-owned businesses, land trusts, farmers markets, and a wide variety
of grassroots initiatives.

In a recent article assessing whether Vermont could "go it alone," Bill
McKibben argues, "Functional independence would be the proper first step,
and useful in its own right." He also provides a list of practical
projects to help create more food self-sufficiency, energy independence,
and local economic power. Although he thinks "any political independence
movement is going nowhere now" - the main reasons given are the hope
offered by Barack Obama and problems requiring global action - McKibben's
advice is to build some affection and trust in the meantime by sharing
information and making small but effective moves in t he right direction.

Naylor aims for the fences, calling secession a rebellion against empire
designed to retake control from big institutions, and help people care for
themselves and others by "decentralizing, downsizing, localizing,
demilitarizing, simplifying, and humanizing our lives." In some ways, the
movement is reminiscent of an earlier effort in Vermont to reframe the
debate.

In 1976, dissidents from the Democratic and Republican Parties attempted
to create a "third way" called the Decentralist League of Vermont. The
group was convened by Bob O'Brien, who had just lost the Democratic
primary for governor, and John McClaughry, a Republican scornful of his
Party's leadership. Each invited allies for a series of meetings to define
a joint agenda. Contrary to some accounts, left-wing leaders such as
Murray Bookchin and Bernie Sanders weren't involved, finding an alliance
with people on the political Right unappealing at the time.

Although the Decentralist League lasted only a few years, ultimately
disbanding when its Left wing opted for electoral politics and Right
signed on for the Reagan "revolution," it pointed to what might unite
people who find the current national and global order unsustainable and
dangerous. Taking a im at all forms of centralized power and wealth, the
League asserted that decentralism is the best way to preserve diversity,
increase self-sufficiency, and satisfy human needs.

"Decentralists believe in the progressive dismantling of bureaucratic
structures which stifle creativity and spontaneity, and of economic and
political institutions which diminish individual and community power,"
said the group's Statement of Principles. The political platform included
support for local citizen alliances; widespread ownership of industry by
employees; a viable and diverse agricultural base; a decent level of
income for all; education that stresses self-reliance, creativity, and a
combination of learning and work; technologies that increase energy
self-sufficiency; and mediation of disputes rather than reliance on
regulations and adversary proceedings.

On the other hand, the League's demise underlines the fragility of a
left-right alliance, which also has recently created difficulties for the
Second Vermont Republic. The controversy began when the Southern Poverty
Law Center accused Naylor and the group of talking to an allegedly racist
group, the League of the South. Critics pounced, and Seven Days, a liberal
weekly in Vermont that was distributing Vermont Commons as an insert,
decided to end the arrangement. Labor groups soon demanded the removal of
offensive web links on Second Vermont Republic's website, disassociation
from certain groups or individuals, and the release of a statement clearly
opposing racism, fascism, bigotry, and discrimination. Although there is
no evidence that Vermont secessionists condone such things, they've been
pressured to prove it.

Whether Vermont's secession movement can recover and grow, especially in
the face of demands to break ties with groups that don't embrace all
progressive principles, remains to be seen. In the meantime, however, the
Decentralist League and McKibben's project list may point toward a
platform with practical, short-term benefits.

Greg Guma writes about media and politics on his website, Maverick Media
(http://muckraker-gg.blogspot.com). The full text of the Decentralist
League's Statement of Principles can be found there.

On Civil Disobedience

Our next meeting will be Thursday July 24th at 6:30pm at Tutto Bene. If it's nice I'll reserve a table in the courtyard.
You may order dinner (but it's not required) or deserts and beverages so bring a little pocket money.

We will be discussing Henry David Thoreau's essay, "Civil Disobedience", and related topics, and unrelated topics too!!!

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For those of you who need more books: The Bemidji Public Library Book Sale is July 24/25, 10am -6pm, at the Bemidji Guard Armory.

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JUSTbooks will be taking the month of August as vacation, and we will reconvene in September.

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Harvey has chosen September's selection:

Secession: How Vermont and All the Other States Can Save Themselves from the Empire by Thomas H. Naylor
available in paperback, more about this book on thurs. See you all then!

Truth and Duty

Our book selection for May-June is Truth and Duty; The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power, by Mary Mapes. Our next meeting is on June 24. Contact justbooksbemidji@gmail.com for details.

Mapes was a Peabody Award-winning CBS News producer who broke the Bush National Guard and Abu Ghraib stories and was subsequently fired.

There Will Be Blood

Most of the members of JUST Books had seen this movie before the club met on Thursday. They said I should see it, so I borrowed a copy and watched it last night. I can't remember ever comparing a book and a movie without being terribly disappointed in the movie. My reaction to There Will Be Blood seems like an exaggeration of that trend.

It's a good movie. It's dark and grim. The music is eerie and sets your nerves on edge. The characters are unlovable; you can't begin to sympathize with them. I could hardly wait for it to finish. What seems to be its only redeeming quality is the fact that it may suck people into reading Oil! - just like a pool shark sucks in his marks. But, I think that's enough. Oil! is a good book. Oh, I should mention that some of the actors did a good job of portraying their gruesome characters.

The movie and the book are so different, I'm not sure whether someone who really likes the movie would like the book, and vice versa. I belong to the latter group. I think Hollywood revealed its dark, twisted, emotionally sick nature in this movie, for sure.

Rather than trying to identify how the movie differs from the book, I think it's easier to list their similarities:

1. The book is about a boy whose father is an oilman. The movie is about an oilman who has a son.
2. The book and the movie take place in California during the early 20th Century.
3. The father is surprised and/or disappointed in his son's interests and/or choices.

Considering all the people who were involved in the California oil rush of that period, Hollywood could have picked a totally different family to portray, that just happened to share a couple superficial similarities with the family in the book. Or, maybe Upton Sinclair (the author of Oil!) was just a sympathetic person who couldn't force himself to focus on the less savory aspects of an individual's nature. Hollywood certainly has no such sensitivity.

I think Sinclair would be pleased that interest in his novel has been revived. I think he would be very disappointed that his message is as relevant and important, today, as it was in 1926. (If his dreams of social reform had come true, contemporary society would be much different.) I don't think he would be a bit surprised that his message was totally omitted from the film - not even a hint of it was left in!

Oil! by Upton Sinclair

I feel like I owe Hollywood for this one. If the movie "There Will Be Blood" hadn't been made, I may not have been introduced to this remarkable novel.

Set in Southern California in the late 1910's and early 1920's, Sinclair uses a young idealist, Bunny, who grows up in a household consumed by 'new' oil money as a vehicle to examine two strata in society: working class socialists and upper class capitalists. People in both groups seem remarkably rational and human. I didn't get the feeling that there were any real heroes or villains in the story.

Familiar plot: One day, after I'd been reading this book for a while, I sat down to an episode of the sit-com "Dharma and Greg." Same plot! The TV show is funnier, but way less compelling. In Oil!, Sinclair actually mentions the story of Siddhartha (Buddha), which may well have been his model, brought up to date.

I found this book to illustrate the dilemma of middle class liberals. We enjoy a comfortable life, which sometimes creates conflicts with our ideals. Even those of us who live modestly by American standards have incomes in the top 5%, worldwide. American consumers shop for price, a practice that has sent most manufacturing jobs to Asia where environmental and labor restrictions are minimal or non-existent (but out of sight). We are the problem. We know it. Like Bunny, we protest, we contribute to just causes, but we are reluctant to take steps that will land us in jail or in a ghetto.

Like Bunny, we are distracted by Hollywood. He indulged in a love affair with a movie star. We indulge in movies and TV. I think Sinclair said something about the radio being one-way communication by which the listener is fed propaganda and is sedated. Sometimes I seriously wonder if TV has prevented a revolution in this country. I'll bet the Capitalists chuckle when they see news footage of people looting stores during riots and hauling away television sets! Rioters dousing their own flames!

It really seems hard to believe that this book was written in 1926, and not 80 years later. It seems like Oil! sets today's issues and concerns in another place and time, that we might observe them more objectively. The fighting between the Socialists and the Communists reflects the lack of cooperation among third parties, today. Business had such complete control over government in the early 20th Century that we have to believe our suspicions are well-founded that the situation remains unchanged. The western propaganda about conditions in Russia after the Bolshevik revolution (and before Stalin) mirrors that of conditions in contemporary Cuba and Venezuela. The reader is left with the impression that nothing has really changed in this country.

I especially enjoyed Sinclair's subtle sense of humor. It's a vital element in such an examination of our deep social problems. I've been trying to look for humor in today's presidential election campaigns. Indeed, that may be their only redeeming social value!

Oil! by Upton Sinclair

The book selected for reading this month is Oil! by Upton Sinclair. According to a review posted on Amazon. com:
From Library Journal
Sinclair's 1927 novel did for California's oil industry what The Jungle did for Chicago's meat-packing factories. The plot follows the clash between an oil developer and his son. Typical of Sinclair, there are undertones here of socialism and sympathy for the common working stiff.

A contemporary movie, There Will Be Blood, was loosely based on this book. Oil! and untold other topics will be discussed when we meet on May 22.

Looking ahead to June, we will be reading Mary Maeps' Truth and Duty, the Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power.

For more information on JUST Books and our next meeting, write to justbooksbemidji@gmail.com.

The Divine Right of Capital

JUST Books topic for March/April was capitalism and greed. Although we decided not to specify a single book to read, most readers picked Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. It sounds like an important book that I should read some time.

We had an interesting discussion when we met at a club member's home, last week. In addition to the chosen topic and the books we had read, we discussed local and national politics, the economy, and even the pope. Our host had made some posters, recounting some important people and events that have shaped our economic theories and institutions. He included consideration of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and Joseph Schumpeter. He led a discussion about booms and busts and the maldistribution of wealth. We debated whether people leave the land because they are attracted to the higher wages offered in the city or if they are driven from it. We talked about the practice of creating gated communities for the wealthy and building walls around the poor.

The book that I selected to read for March/April was The Divine Right of Capital, by Marjorie Kelly. It fit with the chosen topic and it was a book that I already had on my shelf. I had read it several years ago, but it was worth rereading and still very relevant.

Kelly's premise is that our corporation-centered capitalism is a remnant of the age of aristocracy. She constructed a reasonable and understandable comparison between the political enlightenment of the 18th Century and the economic enlightenment that we should be working toward in the 21st.

The major obstacle to achieving economic democracy is the mandate to maximize returns to shareholders. She says she doesn't have a problem with capitalism's supply and demand, competition, profit, self-interest, or wealth creation. Those are motivators that can work toward society's benefit. But shareholder primacy is a privilege that is an artifact of the aristocratic age, akin to the divine right of kings.

The stock market's function is to provide liquidity to corporations. Its dysfunctions are:
1] many bidders for a fixed amount of stock causes inflation, and
2] it causes decapitalization, that is, converting natural capital and labor capital to financial capital.

Stockholders should switch places with employees in the economic equation. If corporations maximized employee income, basing it on productivity, they would be more successful. Employees would take ownership in the well-being of the corporation and be motivated to produce more. Stockholders could negotiate for a return on their investment.

Kelly reveals the fact that stockholders seldom actually invest in a corporation when they buy stock. That only happens when the corporation makes an offering of new stock. New stock offerings represent only one percent of all stock exchange transactions. However, if you consider stock buy backs, the stock market operates at less than zero efficiency.

She suggests basing corporate finance on the following equation:
Employee income + retained corporate earnings = Revenue - (capital income + cost of materials)
Rather than treating employee income as a cost to be minimized, capital income (returns to shareholders) is a cost to be minimized.

The Divine Right of Capital is a very exciting book, presenting historical perspective, intelligent insight and a plan for changing a corrupt and dysfunctional system. It is a very dense read, loaded with thought provoking ideas and information. For me, it is a book to be read slowly and then reread.

Readings on capitalism

Rather than select a particular book for March, JUST Books is reading various books and watching films on the subject of capitalism and economics. Some of the suggested titles are:

A. Videos

1. The Bonfire Of The Vanities, with Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith. The movie is a dramatization of a book written by Tom Wolfe about a young, hugely successful bond trader on Wall Street who firmly believes that the laws, ethics and morality required of the common person do not apply to him. Set in New York City, the film shows with great humor how the character played by Tom Hanks has his life turned upside down.

2. Wall Street, with Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen and Daryl Hannah. The movie which is directed by Oliver Stone, shows through the character, Gordon Gekko, played by M. Douglas how the mighty barons of Wall Street are obsessed with power and greed. Bud fox, played by Charlie Sheen is moderately successful as a trader but desperately wants to get to the top and embarks on a strategy of forming a relationship with Gekko. As the movie unfolds Bud Fox must choose between family and fortune.

This picture has become a cult classic for the financial community.

3. Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room, a docudrama telling the story of the financial collapse of Enron and the consequences for investors and employees.

B. Books

The Conscience of a Liberal, written by Paul Krugman. This is a serious, but easy reading exposition outlining the causes of the decline of middle class prosperity in the United States since the mid 1970's. Professor Krugman asserts that if income due to productivity increases had been shared with the middle class since the mid '70's in the same way that they had been in the prior three decades, middle class income would be increased by 35%. The author does a methodical job of analyzing the causes of middle class decline, and recommending economic and political action to correct the decline.

Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein. Members who have read this book say they don't see any reason to read anything else! Available only in hardcover until fall.

"The Shock Doctrine aims its 10-foot-long middle finger at the Bush administration and the generations of neocons who've chosen profits over people in war and disaster; the effect is to provide intellectual armor for the now-mainstream anticorporatist crowd." - Lenora Todaro, Village Voice

Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, by John C. Bogle. How the financial system undermined social ideals, damaged trust in the markets, robbed investors of trillions, and what to do about it.

Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, by Benjamin Barber. Barber proves his theory that the market imperative has conditioned us to lap up the easy offerings and reject hard, complicated works. This lifelong study of the effects of capitalism and privatization reveals a pervasiveness of branding and homogenization from which there is seemingly no turning back. With the call to arms of grassroots resistance, he does offer a glimmer of hope.

The Divine Right of Capitalism, by Marjorie Kelly. Kelly argues on behalf of a particular version of economic democracy; what might be called a new “stakeholder” politics of the corporation and of society. She draws on the philosophical tradition represented by Jefferson, Paine, Lincoln, and even Adam Smith to make her case. Kelly proposes “Six Principles of Economic Democracy” to combat a polar set of principles of aristocratic power:

1. Enlightenment: Because all persons are created equal, the economic rights of employees and the community are equal to those of capital owners.

2. Equality: Under market principles, wealth does not legitimately belong only to stockholders. Corporate wealth belongs to those who create it, and community wealth belongs to all.

3. Public Good: As semipublic governments, public corporations are more than pieces of property or private contracts. They have a responsibility to the public good.

4. Democracy: The corporation is a human community, and like the larger community of which it is a part, it is best governed democratically.

5. Justice: In keeping with equal treatment of persons before the law, the wealthy may not claim greater rights than others, and corporations may not claim the rights of persons.

6. (r)Evolution: As it is the right of the people to alter or abolish government, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the corporations that now govern the world.

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory and L. Hunter Lovins. See an interview with Hunter Lovins at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzNTRwxlRKg

Our next meeting is scheduled for April 17, when we will discuss these or any other books people have read on this topic. For more information, contact justbooksbemidji@gmail.com.

Deep Economy

The Just Books selection for February was Deep Economy by Bill McKibben. The consensus of the club seemed positive during our discussion on March 6. I'll concede that the book proved its value by promoting a lively discussion of important topics.

We talked about the balance of community vs. individualism. We had driven 20 miles into the country to arrive at the home of a club member who had inherited the house and enjoys membership in several 'communities', including a close-knit church and a congenial book club. Would he be more involved if he lived in an urban neighborhood? Are those of us who live in urban neighborhoods really engaged with them? We all indulged in some self-examination.

We talked about hyperindividualism and how it inevitably threatens the commons. We talked about living simply: how consumerism is addictive, how living without fossil fuels would mean a lower standard of living, how reducing our carbon footprint is hard work. Two of us drive 5000 miles per year or less and grow a good amount of our own food, reacting to somewhat different motivators.

Other than stimulating a good discussion, I'm not too enthusiastic about Deep Economy. I appreciated McKibben's revelation that "money consistently buys happiness up to about $10,000 per capita income and after that the correlation disappears." (page 41) That wasn't news to me, but I don't mind being reminded. He also had a nice list of improvements that our society could work on in the second half of the book. Among them: the takeover of newspapers by local groups who are not constrained by a profit motive, community radio (like KAXE), human scaled architecture, smaller communities, conservation of energy through buying efficient appliances, insulating your house, etc, riding bikes and buses, cohousing, local currency, homegrown music (like my son's band "Sofa Kingdom"), home and charter schooling. I didn't read of any new ideas here, but it was a good list.

I felt like there was an elephant in the room that McKibben was ignoring: the addiction of consumerism. I have felt the little high that comes when I buy something new. A new car or house gives a big high, but it too wears off. If you get high often enough, you start to crave it. Some people get depressed and realize they need to go shopping. I try to avoid those highs, these days. After I started to break my addiction, my reaction to new things has been more like the feeling of eating too much sugar. I also have begun to put more value on things that have history.

Author Ken Wilber suggests that expanding one's consciousness is the answer to the materialist house of cards that capitalism is building, referring to a version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. McKibben offered no such suggestion. Instead, he seemed to be trying to scare the reader with a doomsday vision of our fates if we don't change our ways. Instead of being offered more of something else (ala Wilber), we are offered a choice of accepting much less or chaos (ala McKibben). I'm beginning to tire of what appears to be a standard structure for these books: a statement of the problem represented by the status quo, in which the author tries to reach the precarious balance between motivation and hopeless despair. This took over half the book. Then he finally gets around to suggesting how we can achieve salvation. I don't need anyone to tell me what a sad state the world is in. I've heard enough to be motivated. If I hear much new doomsday talk, I'm afraid I'll give up on the future.

On our trip back to town, we talked about today's cohousing movement and compared it to the communes of the 1960's. We dreamed of combining a cohousing project with a car co-op where participants pooled their vehicles and contracted with a mechanic/detail shop to maintain the motor pool. I wondered aloud whether the doomsday and salvation tone of Deep Economy had its origin in Christian culture, where behavior is governed by threats and guilt, rather than by natural rewards and self restraint. Maybe natural rewards and self restraint wouldn't be enough to control the hyperindividuals, but are threats and guilt effective? And, the great majority of people don't seem ready to expand their consciousness, but maybe that's a cultural thing that could be changed.

After arriving at the home of the owner of the car we traveled in, I had a two-mile bike ride at a cleansing minus 18 degree temperature to get home, which provided balance to the mental exertion of the evening.

February book selection: Deep Economy

On March 6, JUST Books will discuss Bill McKibben's Deep Economy at a location to be determined. For more information, contact justbooksbemidji@gmail.com

The following is from the book jacket:

The bestselling author of The End of Nature issues an impassioned call to arms for an economy that creates community and ennobles our lives.

In this powerful and provocative manifesto, Bill McKibben offers the biggest challenge in a generation to the prevailing view of our economy. For the first time in human history, he observes, "more" is no longer synonymous with "better"—indeed, for many of us, they have become almost opposites. McKibben puts forward a new way to think about the things we buy, the food we eat, the energy we use, and the money that pays for it all. Our purchases, he says, need not be at odds with the things we truly value.

McKibben's animating idea is that we need to move beyond "growth" as the paramount economic ideal and pursue prosperity in a more local direction, with cities, suburbs, and regions producing more of their own food, generating more of their own energy, and even creating more of their own culture and entertainment. He shows this concept blossoming around the world with striking results, from the burgeoning economies of India and China to the more mature societies of Europe and New England. For those who worry about environmental threats, he offers a route out of the worst of those problems; for those who wonder if there isn't something more to life than buying, he provides the insight to think about one's life as an individual and as a member of a larger community.

McKibben offers a realistic, if challenging, scenario for a hopeful future. As he so eloquently shows, the more we nurture the essential humanity of our economy, the more we will recapture our own.

The China Study

The China Study

Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health

T. Colin Campbell, PhD & Thomas M. Campbell II

This book isn’t on the reading list for JUST Books, but I did mention it at the last meeting. I’m including it in this blog because I think it’s too important to keep quiet about.

A few months ago, my friend Lou stopped me on my way home from work. I was riding my bike on the bike trail along Paul Bunyan Drive. He drove by, heading in the same direction and made a U-turn and stopped near me. Lou jumped out of his Volkswagen and ran over, very excited about a book he had been reading. He said it was The China Study and that I really should read it.

Lou is a vegetarian who has elderly parents. A few years ago, he got his parents to switch to a vegetarian diet. It was inspiring to hear his account of their improving health. Chronic disease symptoms they had learned to live with were just slipping away. His message was that the human body really wants to repair itself, even at an advanced age.

Despite Lou’s enthusiastic recommendation, I was busy reading at least two other books, and didn’t get around to checking out The China Study. A few weeks later, I bumped into Lou at Harmony Natural Foods Co-op. He was excited. He said he had become a vegan, and he couldn’t believe how good it felt. Again, he mentioned The China Study and urged me to read it.

I stopped at Book World that day and looked at The China Study, not sure I was in the market for another self-help book. After a quick scan, I decided to give it a read. Partly, the decision was based on a recommendation by Dean Ornish, MD, on the cover (who I’ve referred to as my cardiologist, although I’ve only read his books, never seen him during office hours) and the forward by John Robbins.

The China Study is further documentation of observations like Lou’s experience with his parents. It explores the ‘constitutional nature of disease,’ the result of multiple systems throughout the body breaking down. The ‘breakdowns’ are diseases of affluence, such as heart disease; obesity; Type 2 diabetes; cancer; autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, Type 1 diabetes, and multiple sclerosis; osteoporosis; kidney stones and Alzheimer’s disease. Such ailments, which are common in the US, are uncommon in rural counties in China where people live on whole foods from plant sources.

The authors, a father and son team, delve deep into the science of the human body, but are able to do it in a very easy reading style. I enjoy knowing about life’s functions, but I appreciate even more when I can understand about them. The authors create that understanding. As I read, I came to regard this book as an owner’s manual for the human body.

The China Study offers convincing arguments that cancer, heart disease, and most other chronic illnesses can be prevented, stopped and reversed with a diet of whole foods from common plant sources. Equally enlightening are their explanations of how the nature of most medical science, food and drug industries and the government mislead us about nutrition, vitamins and drugs.

I thought I knew all of this stuff. I’ve carefully watched my diet for twenty years and have been a vegetarian for most of that time. Now, I realize that I was duped by the drug industry into wasting hundreds of dollars a year on useless supplemental vitamins and minerals. The China Study has convinced me to trust food, whole foods from plant sources. Like Lou, I’m excited about making a few changes in my diet. Also like Lou, as I read this book, I kept thinking of people I want to tell about this book and wishing I had more copies of it to lend out.

The China Study’s message is one that you won’t get from your doctor, from school, from the government, or from any food industry promotion board. Unlike the messages you get from those sources, I think this one contains the truth. It could save your life.

Books we have read

2006 Reading List:

February

What’s the Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank (How the Republican ‘values’ party captured the Midwest.)

Confessions of An Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (American corporatocracy of

countries that can’t repay their burdensome loans.)

March / April

Blue Gold by Maude Barlow & Tony Clarke (Researching the crisis and corporatization of the world’s water supply.)

May

Chavez, Venezuela and the New Latin America. An Interview with Hugo Chavez by Alieda Guevara (daughter of Che)

Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution by Richard Gott

June

Film presentation: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (documentary on the attempted 2002 coup to remove Hugo Chavez from office.)

July

Continued discussion on the Latin American Socialist Movement

August

Plan B 2.0 Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble by Lester R. Brown (Effective management solutions offered for the current global economic path that is environmentally unsustainable.)

September /October

Last Child in the Woods, Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv (Making a case for linking ADHD with our disconnect from nature.)

November

Topic for discussion: Electronic Voting Machines / Election Fraud

December

Jimmy Carter, choice of books:

Non-fiction; Our Endangered Values, Hour Before Daylight, Talking Peace, Keeping Faith, Blood of Abraham

Fiction; Hornet’s Nest

2007 Reading List

January

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (blue collar job seeking reality)

Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich (white collar job seeking reality)

February

Bill Moyers, any and all books, essays, and speeches.

March

Film presentation: Loose Change (was 9/11 an inside job?)

April/May

American Dynasty by Kevin Phillips (Bush family)

American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips (influence of the religious right)

June

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962 bestseller about our ravaged environment)

Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert (today’s environmental account)

July

Earth Democracy by Vandana Shiva (a perspective on justice, sustainability, and peace by one of India’s leading physicists and environmental activists)

August

Film presentation: !Salud! (Cuba’s health care system)

September

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman (the story of a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures)

Mountains beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (the quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, an American doctor, his life and mission in Haiti)

Summer issue of Yes! Magazine.

October

Continued discussion of Health Care Systems

November

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (one man’s mission to promote peace, one school at a time, in Pakistan)

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, (a novel, coming of age in Afghanastan)

December

Film: Charlie Wilson’s War (1980’s U.S. Congressman orchestrates covert funding of the mujahedin in Afghanistan)

2008 Reading List

January

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver (a family’s journey away from the industrial food pipeline to a rural life of growing and buying local food)

February

Deep Economy, The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Bill McKibben (exploring the consequences of economic growth, more no longer equals better)

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver

This is the book that brought the local food diet into the public spotlight.

It is a memoir of a family who moves from Tucson to Appalachia, from a city life where even the water is brought in from somewhere else to a rural one where most of their food comes from their own land and labor. Fortunately for us, at least one member of that family is a talented writer.

Barbara Kingsolver has a way with words. She seems to always find just the right phrase, the right analogy. She is smooth. The reader makes a transition from anecdote to documentary, to commentary and on to another anecdote without feeling preached to or losing the feeling that they are being entertained. I keep thinking, “Why can’t I write like that?”

She is also sentimental. Her family’s life on the farm seems idyllic. Her tenderness often had me chuckling with tears in my eyes.

This book is motivating. Before I finished, I’d made up my mind to try to be more like them, at least in some ways. I already grow most of our own vegetables and shop where I can identify the origin of the rest of the produce we buy. But, I’d like to eat less food that comes from a box or a can. I’d like to gather more wild foods and preserve them for use through the winter. I’d like to buy Minnesota or Wisconsin apples and dry them or make applesauce, rather than eat apples from the west coast (which keep better) in the off-season. I’m no longer content buying organic malted barley for ale making that starts out in Wisconsin, gets shipped to California, and then back to me in Minnesota. I’m going to find a way to eliminate the California connection.

I don’t plan to follow Kingsolver in her transition from vegetarian to omnivore, however. Her family had been vegetarian for humanitarian reasons. They had decided if the only meat they could find was from factory farms and feedlots, they wouldn’t eat meat at all. I commend them for that. I became a vegetarian for exactly those reasons when I was a teenager. It only lasted a few years for me, too.

Kingsolver’s arguments for a return to meat eating were unconvincing. Sure, anyone who has tended a garden will admit that lives are sacrificed for a vegetarian’s benefit. Even if you decide to take your losses and let the Colorado beetles have your potato plants, you can’t avoid the occasional worm that gets sliced by the hoe. That was one of my arguments, too, for a return to the meat that I craved in my youth.

Some of her arguments reminded me of an old lumberjack that I cared for in the nursing home. He told me that he would like to give up chewing Copenhagen, but there are a lot of poor people working for the United States Tobacco Company who would lose their jobs if everyone quit. The lumberjack and I both knew he was bullshitting. Kingsolver is serious. Somehow, I can’t imagine the world being overrun by beggar cows and pigs if we gradually stopped eating them.

She has a valid argument that human life would be impossible without meat consumption in many environments. The Inuit of the far north and Nepali communities at high elevations rely on animals to garner what nutrition they can from the stark landscape and concentrate it for human consumption. I don’t live there. I appreciate the luxury of living in a temperate climate where vegetarianism is possible.

However, Kingsolver doesn’t dwell on the fact that owning as much land as they do is also a luxury that few can afford. She doesn’t mention the fact that many experts agree animal husbandry and meat consumption is the greatest factor in global warming. Raising your own animals the way she does is much closer to carbon neutral than feed lots, but again, that luxury is not afforded to us all. All meat eaters cannot raise their own livestock and are not able to form a relationship with a farmer so they can be assured they are getting totally grass-fed beef and free range chickens.

A tighter argument could be made for harvesting wild game that, due to land use patterns, is destroying its own habitat and eliminating other native species in the bargain. Harvesting deer can be beneficial to the environment in many ways, provided you don’t use an SUV and an ATV and you don’t travel thousands of miles per year in that quest.

My reasons for vegetarianism, today, are based on health concerns, although I enjoy not having to be concerned with the environmental and ethical considerations of meat consumption. Kingsolver is either unaware or has chosen to ignore the health hazards of her diet. She should read The China Study.

Another reader remarked with admiration about how small this family’s carbon footprint must be. Perhaps he hadn’t yet read the chapter about driving their hybrid car to Canada or the one about their trip to Italy. If that is a sample of their annual travel budget, they are indulging in luxuries we can’t all afford, financially or environmentally.

Nobody expects us to reduce our carbon footprints to that of Somalian peasants while living in middle class America. Making the necessary changes so that human life can persist on this planet can hopefully take place in an incremental fashion. Kingsolver is helping to lead the way. Matching the accomplishments of this family will provide personal challenges for most of us. In the spirit of American competitiveness, let’s not use her shortcomings as justification for permitting extravagance in our lives, though. Let’s see if we can surpass her example of living in tune with nature.

This is a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable book. Her story about the mating habits of turkeys (or lack thereof) is a hilarious and poignant illustration of how our food industry has distorted even the most basic natural functions. I heartily recommend Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.