A Seven Part Series on the Destruction of America

"In the end our society will be defined not only for what we create, but what we refuse to destroy"

John Sawhill.

All though John Sawhill was talking about the environment, the same could be true for the following: Society, Community, Politics, Justice, Corporations, and Government within the United States.

In Comparison to the environment, in my opinion all these other things are even more devastated and destroyed. They are in danger of being totally eliminated or totally dysfunctional to whom they were supposed to serve.

In this seven part series, I will be taking a close look at each of these categories in depth including the environment.

Series One - The Environment:

It is no surprise during the Bush administration that the environment would take some hits. Is it greed that is helping destroy our environment? I can't see how it could be anything else. In my opinion greed and selfishness walk a similar path, one can make an argument that greed is a selfish act.

The biggest factor and threat to the environment is not global warming, it isn't oil drilling or leaks, chemical waste, destruction of forest, or the end of endangered species. The biggest threat to the environment is special interest groups and lobby money. Because of lobby money, all these other things are jeopardized. With lobby money, where the underline factor is greed, things like more oil drilling, oil spills happen. Air pollution and deforestation continues.

In the 1970's in response to the threat of depletion upon our environment, Richard Nixon helped pass a new regulatory department in hopes to protect the environment. This department became known as the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). This agency was designed to make sure companies met the guidelines set by legislation and the EPA to help protect the environment. Over the years like so many agencies that grew, the EPA became less efficient. They began creating loopholes in their policies to benefit companies. EPA Lawyers found ways of not enforcing the regulations set in order to prevent them from taking a company to court. At the EPA assembly of attorney's, I was able to sneak into the assembly were I witnessed talk about this very thing.

Companies also spend millions of dollars in attempt to banish protection laws or alter them. They spend money to make sure new laws are not created, they spend millions more in order to have new laws applied that help them in order to make more profit. A prime example of this is the drilling on public land owned by our government, this even includes National Parks. Before the Bush administration; companies were required to give the government a certain percentage (10%) of the profit created from it, this not only included oil drilling, but also mining along with natural gas. This law was eventually abolished under the Bush administration and no longer are companies required to pay any percentage to the government. The only cost associated to the companies is the clean up after they have finished, however even for these greedy companies that is too much. They have attempted several times to have legislation passed that would require only the government to pay and clean up brown fields left over from companies once they are finished with the land, luckily so far all these attempts have failed.

If all these things weren't enough, when mining companies buy public lands they are only paying forty-five dollars per acre under the United States Mining Act.

The United States have taken steps to make the global warming situation worse, we rejected the Kyoto Protocol; stating "It doesn't exist" Companies created false specialist in order to bring doubt that global warming exist. Companies spend millions of dollars promoting these so called specialist ideas.

Companies that feel the need to increase profits even more; often move many of their operations overseas, places like Mexico, Brazil, and Costa Rica are seeing more pollution, contaminated water, and deforestation. Countries like Romania and Turkey have lost drinking water because of mining contamination of the water supply. In India Coca Cola was producing soft drinks with contaminated water. American producers moved production plants overseas not only to pay lower wages to employees, but to avoid environment laws that are illegal in the United States, this includes for example moving many production plants to China, which helps contribute to the pollution problem China already has. Many of these companies receive huge tax breaks from the United States government in doing so.

American Companies have taken part in paying governments and rebels to remove people from land that the company desires, if the movement is met with any resistance, those resisting are often killed.

We continue to allow more and more movement into urban areas inside the United States, which causes devastation to forest, and animal specie loss. What was soil now became asphalt, which may contribute to flooding problems taking place. We have allowed big box stores moving into these areas and often giving them tax breaks in doing so. Companies like Weyerhaeuser are now selling land that use to be forest to developers in order to make more money and nobody is stopping them.

If we want change, it will require not only Americans to seek change in their Government and Corporations, but it must also include the world as a whole to seek change in theirs as well, only than can true change happen.