Well, Love Canal is back in the news. I remember the stories and the buy out of the residents. I remember the promises that the site would be cleaned up. You can't really fault the people who bought in the area with assurances that the site had been either cleaned up or contained. But I think it underlines the concerns I have about our modern industrial economy. We create a lot of waste, haven't even considered how that waste will affect people and the environment, and we have never really held those who generate the waste accountable for the clean up. And when the companies fail to clean up their mess (or escape through legal loopholes) the government (meaning tax payers in general) has to come up with a solution. I haven't heard of a single attempt, government led or private effort, to rectify such a situation that has succeeded in fully restore land and make it safe.
This Pocket Paradigm from Undernews is an accurate statement of our current circumstances. I had a similar thought over two decades ago when I read The Revolt of the Elites by Christopher Lasch. We had similar thoughts with all of the discussions of globalization and the disappearance of manufacturing jobs here. Most of our elites have no roots in any geographical area any more. They move where ever they wish for what ever reason but they don't relate to or have any empathy for the local people. Companies who earn their money from a global market have no economic reason to treat their local workforce as anything more than an expendable and replaceable component. I often wonder about this rootlessness and its consequences for both society and individuals.
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