Ed. note: Since we're dealing with archives, this makes sense. Two weeks after I wrote the column published online yesterday, I had a change of heart, and published this in response to myself. Kovel's book moved me, but I am not sure that I still would conclude the same, but it's worth a read, particularly Kovel's argument on Bhopal.

 

Yes, I stand corrected, but moreso, inspired to take greater action.

 

Since I wrote two weeks ago that riding my bike and working in a community garden will create the change I want to see, I have learned that pedaling and planting by themselves are inadequate, and must join with a greater struggle to overcome our societal ills.

 

My affinity for veggies and velos are “voluntarism,” according to Joel Kovel, in his 2002 book “The Enemy of Nature.” These actions, “arise from good intention,” he says, and are “taken primarily on moral or aesthetic grounds.” But, “Such actions, lists of which can be found in mass-marketed literature of the ‘xx things you can do to save the planet’ type, stand as much chance of overcoming the ecological crisis as handing out spare change on the subway does of overcoming poverty.”

 

What ecological crisis? The one spurred by capitalism’s never satiated desire for growth. Hartford’s brownfields, high asthma rate and landfills play minor roles in capital’s global tragedy.

 

Kovel argues not only the standard Marxist grounds that capital separates us from our labor, as we see in Hartford’s miserable poverty. But capitalism is the efficient cause of global warming and the destruction of the world.

 

Bluntly, it’s either capitalism or us, Kovel says.

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Ed. note: Sometimes I read these archives and think I'm a little melodramatic. Three years later, Matt Blood no longer lives in Hartford, and the trees we planted in this one have been since ripped up by the Mayor, but the writing here still stands. And this one has a follow-up column I'll post tomorrow.

 

What do you want? Matt Blood asked me recently.

 

“I want to live in a place I am not ashamed of,” I said. My country, as great as it is, makes me sad. We endure lives of automobile-based alienation, maintain suicidal facades of arrogance and ignorance, disregard the people around us who suffer poverty and oppression.

 

I want to live in a pretty city, prospering on its own sense of pride, justice and effort. I want to spend time with people who feed, clothe and educate themselves, who have respect for the planet which sustains all our existences.

 

I feel I can be a part of building my ideal world by doing activities that promote this vision. Matt got me thinking. Gandhi said “Become the change you want to see.” Wherever I can, I want to heed those words. It takes discipline and courage, but I recently saw a quote that exhorted me, whenever I feel weak, to turn to my vision for strength.

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