Better to promote life and sustainable living

Dear Editor:

Your editorial of August 7 described the hopes of newly installed Freeman Moore in reviving the hopes of the provincial Tories in Annapolis County. This, along with the heavy attention to highway paving in the most densely populated areas of the county and more highway renewal promised for the 201, holds some promise for the party in power.

After all, (Greg) Kerr and (former Premier John) Buchanan showed that paving was a winning tactic even as the keystone jobs base in the county was mismanaged and collapsing. It's been a long time since highways got the wall-to-wall attention they got in that heyday. Now that it seems every other house in the county is up for sale and the young folk are buying only one way tickets to Ontario and Alberta, perhaps paving will save the bacon for the hapless parties who have misruled the county for ever. Paving has been a loss leader, an exit strategy rather than a helping hand.

Rather than follow the notions forwarded by Mr. (Rodney) MacDonald in his recent columns, perhaps we should re-visit the notion of growth for growth’s sake and its sorry bed-fellow capital investment. As explained below, both factors are contrary-indicated in a world in which we have used up our natural capital beyond our capacity to replenish it, and are set on a course which is rapidly depleting remaining resources.

The paradigm shift to consider, is one which takes us away from money-based yearnings, to one in which we place at least equal emphasis on factors which promote life and sustainable living. All goods, including the commons, have been commercialized into commodities, and assigned a monetary value. Everything that stands in the way of that wave of destruction will have corporate-led law written against it.

On the other hand, the shift in emphasis has to cater to an economy of living in harmony with nature. By cutting back on globalized trade but still allowing for fair trade, we diminish many of those factors which are pulling us down. Our planet is a self-governing system, which when left alone is capable of sustaining us well into future generations. We have within our means, the knowledge and ability to reverse the trends which are not sustainable and restore those which are.

To help mother Earth to survive, we must decide to abandon unregulated growth, we must clean up our act, we must cater to all of our people and not just to the rich elites, we must undo corporate citizenship, we must make corporate political contributions illegal, and end corporate welfare and subsidies. Only then can the pendulum swing back into a balanced rhythm which benefits all.

Calum MacKenzie

Middleton