Re: GBlist: Whose Globalization?

[FUnger@aol.com]

Mary,

    I'll chip in here as someone who spent a lot of my life protesting 
nuclear power about twenty-five years ago. I now find myself accused of being 
a raper and pillager of the planet due to my efforts to create an 
environmentally responsible housing development. (In the simplistic world 
view all new houses are bad and all developers are evil)

    Over time, I've come to realize that in the real world the answers are 
never simple, the choices never perfect. Those that try to approach a very 
gray world as black and white, often cause more harm than good, despite their 
clearly noble intentions. 

    Even worse is when cynics twist the efforts that well intentioned people 
start and use the same rhetoric to thwart things that the original idealists 
would favor. I can imagine your arguments against the current forestry 
certification efforts being carefully analyzed in public relations and 
lobbying firms in Washington right now to find plenty of justification for 
doing nothing at all.

    On a personal level I realized that the protests I was involved in, 
though quite effective, had me engaged full time in a negative focus. I 
wasn't really doing anything positive or making a real contribution to the 
world, despite my naive rhetoric about solar energy. My life as a protester 
revolved around merely preventing a negative rather than actually creating 
something I favored. Eventually I decided that, despite my intentions and my 
rhetoric, if I weren't an effective part of creating solutions, I was simply 
part of the problem. Building concrete real life solutions to environmental 
problems, though not nearly as grand and glamorous, has been far more 
rewarding than my time spent in protest. 

    Several of us that question your hostility to the forestry certification 
folks have been through the kinds of things you are doing, on issues equally 
or more urgent than your own. We now work in the much more challenging 
efforts of attempting to implement real solutions in a less than perfect 
world.

    I honor and appreciate the work you are doing as a protester. I expect 
that those that are certifying sustainable forestry practices also appreciate 
your efforts and the attention you have called to their work. I would hope 
you could have equal respect for those folks that are trying hard in the very 
difficult efforts to actually implement achievable solutions to the problems 
you are publicizing. It's not nearly as fun and easy as what you are doing. 
In the long run it will be far more important. In fact, if they aren't 
successful, your efforts will be wasted.

    There's an old adage that holding out for perfection assures that nothing 
good ever gets accomplished. In a democracy, the one thing that is absolutely 
certain is that you will never achieve a perfect solution to a political 
problem. 

    No matter what our individual work may be, we all have to be a bit 
introspective at times. If our goals aren't realistic and achievable, we may 
actually do more harm than good with our efforts.

    Fred
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