Un Vuelo Loco

Thursday morning was unexpectadly quite an eventful morning. A professor from UVM, Azur, came to town on wednesday afternoon with a professor from Costa Rica and his wife, a Nicaraguan scholar/activist, and a retired pilot who was volunteering us his services. Since the Costa Rican professor´s wife had gotten sick on wednesday´s flight, I got to step up into her spot and take part in Thursday morning´s flight. I woke up at 5am, before the sun rose, and walked to their hotel where we were picked up by a cab. We arrived at this tiny little airstrip where there was the smallest plane i´ve ever seen, with barely room for five people. I believe it was called a cessna.
We took off and circled the surrounding area for about two hours, flying along the winding rivers, out to the ocean and back again. The point was to photograph the landscape to show just what parts were being destroyed, and what parts were still reasonably intact. We circled a shrimp farm several times, flying way too low for my comfort, to get a closer view of this particularly harmful operation. About halfway through I thought I was going to yack, but I managed to hold it down. The flight was absolutely spectacular, but I was glad to have my feet back on the ground by the time it was over.
Things in Sierpe are moving slowly and consistently onward. I am glad to have the internet at my fingertips, which I will be leaving behind along with Sierpe for a month on monday, when I move on to my next stop. This will my a day long journey north to a chocolate farm just south of Puriscal. At this farm they grow and make their own chocolate, and also supposedly have daily soccer games, which should be just swell. This morning I taught english to the son of the restaurant/internet owner for about an hour. This was pretty funny, as he struggled with sounds like ¨r¨and ¨th¨. I have unfortunately not seen any more crocodiles in the river, after seeing two on the very first day I was here. I have a kind of decent picture that I will try to post along with this entry.
Otherwise, I miss you all and I´m looking forward to being home with friends and family again. Until then, pura vida.

paz y amor

Sierpe

By most all accounts, Sierpe is a very small town. It´s own residents describe it as calm, easygoing, ¨tranquilo¨. There is certainly an influence of tourism here, yet the town seems to retain much of its cultural identity. There are a few bars, at least one of which seems to be only inhabited by locals. Even in the central tourist spot, ¨Las Vegas¨, the bar is rarely inhabited by more foreigners than locals. There is the man from Canada who has taken an early retirement and 60% of his pension to live out the rest of his days here in Costa Rica. He fondly pats the bartop and declares it home, yet he seems to be much more an outlier than the rule. In the face of overwhelming cultural influence from abroad, it is refreshing to see a town in Central America, especially one that exists on the water, that seems to have resisted transformation from external forces.
However, the town is far from unexploited. As you drive in on the main road, you can see signs hanging over huge vacant lots advertising for their sale. It isn´t hard to realize that it isn´t the Costa Ricans that are selling these lots, and they certainly don´t stand to profit from their sale.
Don Jorge, the owner of ¨Las Vegas¨the central bar, restaurant, and ecotourism outlet is a local, and he seems to look after many of Sierpe´s inhabitants, with a watchful eye and a caring heart. This afternoon I will begin teaching english lessons to his children.
The town seems very safe, the locals proudly proclaim that no crime ever transpires here, and I have seen a police officer but once in the four days since I arrived. The greatest danger seems to be the crocodiles that inhabit the river in hordes, prohibiting recreational swimming, yet I am told that they don´t attack humans anyway. At night, most everything seems closed by 10 o´clock, with the exception being the bar inhabited by what appears to be only the local youth. This stands in stark contrast with some of the other Central American towns I have observed that seem to exist only to entertain those from far away, with countless bars, restaurants, and entertainment open at all hours of the night, trying to lure in the foreign capital. The town of Sierpe truly seems to embody the spanish ideal, ¨tranquilo¨.
All of this stands to change, however, as there are plans to build Central America´s largest airport just ten minutes from Sierpe. This airport is planned to be an international hub, and would flood Sierpe with more people and movement than it has ever known. Speaking with outsiders from the city of Alejuela, which borders the capital San Jose, are skeptical of the prospect of this airport. An older friend, Juan, tells me that there already exists many smaller airports in the area surrounding Sierpe, and that there is really no need to build a large airport here. He tells me that the airport will never be built.
The locals, on the other hand, are much more optimistic. They speak with enthusiasm of the boon the airport will bring to Sierpe´s tourist industry. Susan, the owner of the local internet cafe, which boasts two computers with very slow service, agrees to sit with me and discuss the prospect of the airport. At first she has only positive things to say about the possibility of more money, more people, more activity in her small and tranquil town. As I press her to imagine what the affects might be on her life and her family her tone begins to change. She begins to speak of the benefits the autonomy of Sierpe bring, she feels safe here, she feels safe raising her children here, she doesn´t worry about crime or juvenile delinquency. The more she ponders the prospect of a massive increase in the population of her town, she begins to worry about the increased crime and delinquincy this will bring. By the time we are finished talking, her tone has changed almost completely, and she is speaking of why Sierpe is a good and calm place just the way it is. I am not sure whether she is still in favor of the airport, but it is clear that she had initially supported the idea of increased capital flow without considering the other affects the airport would have on her town.
I feel that this is indicative of the mindset of not just many Costa Ricans, but many Americans as well. If there is a prospect of increased monetary gain, we embrace it at once, content to think about the side affects of this monetary gain later. This philosophy of the primacy of monetary accumulation in our lives has existed for quite some time, yet as Susan´s case shows us, it may be important to take on a more skeptical view of this philosophy, and begin considering the social, environmental, and communal affects of the different actions taken to grow money.

Inauguration

I´m not sure what empassioned words I am supposed to exclaim afer seeing the inauguration. This new president of our seems like a good guy, he seems to be saying all of the right things, yet so much of it seems like such common sense. Maybe I haven´t been around long enoughto understand the significance of Obama´s declaration that we can no longer consume the earth´s resources without regard to affect, or that we can no longer turn a blind eye to the suffering of those beyond our borders, or that we must confront the reality of an ever warming planet. Surely these are all imperative things for the President of the United States to be professing, but it´s almost sad that it´s such an event for such basic truths to be accepted by probably the most powerful position in the world.

It´s kind of ironic for me to have been here at the inauguration at this point in my life. I feel like most alll of my academic influences are very critical of the United States, so it is funny to be in the midst of such passionate patriotism. Still, when our leaders bemoan the US no longer holding a position of global dominance, I wonder who gave this country the right to dominate the world in the first place. If we truly have moved beyond the era of imperialism and neo imperialism, and i´m sure we´d like to think that we have, why are we still so intent on global primacy?
This brings me to Inauguration day, where after reading Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Bill Mckibben, and a bundle of Marxists, I found myself being swept along in a sea of patriotism. Swarms of people rejoicing our supposed savior. The celebration is certainly merited, on many different levels, although I am wary of the dangers of over celebrating. We, as a nation, cannot afford to put our hopes on Obama´s shoulders and expect him to take action and make the necessary changes. He sits in office only because of the collective action of millions of Americans, and his election is only the first step of many that we the people of this country need to take. I truly hope that he will be the catalyst for the cultural revolution that this country is so desperately in need of. A shift away from overwhelming consumption and limitless expansion of capital markets, and a reversion towards community centered commerce and relations.

Other thoughts... I was appalled by the minister who spoke at the inauguration saying that everything was created by and god and that everything that we do is for god. I did appreciate Obama speaking of our nation of ¨christians and muslisms, jews and hindus, and non-believers¨ That respectful acknowledgement of those of us who don´t see god as being the most important thing in our lives was very important to me. And I´m sure my father, who turned 58 on that day, appreciated hearing that as well.

So while Jan 20 was surely a great day, there is still so far that we have to go, so much that needs to be radically changed. Still, it is foolish of me to bemoan how long it took to come only this far, instead of embracing the progress that our government and our nation seems to be making. I suppose only time will tell what the real affects of this inauguration will be.

Inauguration Photos

Musings from an Irritated Student

With my third and most enlightening University semester completed, I have had some time this winter break to reflect on the themes that I learned about, explore the horrifying (Israel) and inspiring (Obama's appointments) in the news, and read Howard Zinn's graphic adaptation of A Peoples History of American Empire. It was the simple watching of the Celtics on TV that invoked this particular stream of thoughts. It all started with a pepsi commercial, where a blue and red colored ball bounces around the screen joining buzz words such as "change", made so popular in the Obama presidential run. For most of the ad, I am reminded of Obama as pepsi's new logo resembles it so closely. After taking a moment to look, I discover that the Super Bowl XLIII logo is also eerily similar to Obama's logo. It is no secret that the future president has captured the nation's heart, but it was more surprising to see how blatantly his success has been commodified, with companies vying to sap some of his appeal through their marketing techniques. This just served to remind me of how anything that can garner public support is exploited for the purpose of capital accumulation, no mater how contradictory the commodification is to the movement itself. Nowhere is this more evident than in the environmental movement, where "green" surely is the new black... just the trendiest thing. What does this actually lead to though? Surely it is absolutely imperative that mainstream American culture has a dramatic shift in both its attitude and behavior towards the environment, but I question how much this explosion in the trendiness of (i.e. the marketing directed towards) being "green" actually does for the environmental movement. When the only way most Americans experience the environmental movement is through the heavy bias of capitalist advertisments, there is no space to learn about environmentalism, as advertisements serve no purpose but to coerce people to spend their money, honesty, responsibility, sustainability be damned. Thus, while what the environment really needs is a dramatic shift away from the ever increasing rates of consumption, the public is told that the best way to be "green" is to buy a 20mpg Cadillac Escalade Hybrid or a "eco friendly" Poland Spring Water Bottle that saves 70% of plastic. So how much plastic does that save compared to simply reusing a water bottle? And how much money could be saved? - don't tell me its a luxury to be environmentally conscious. The fact is, someone had to convince us that our tap water isn't good enough, even when we have the blessing of living in a country where the tap water is largely the same as the bottled water. We were convinced of this because the fact of the matter remains that the loudest voices in the ears of the American public are those of the vendors, the retailers, those vying to capture the consumers within us. These capitalist interests have no stake in environmental preservation, as environemntal degradation takes nothing from their "bottom line." The neoclassical consensus on business, which is bening forced beyond our borders through the imperialist World Bank and IMF, teaches that if more capital profit can be gained trhough the clear cutting of a forest, the erosion of a once fertile plain, the pollution of a watershed, or the shipping of comparable foods/products huge distances than through the environmentally conscious alternative methods, the damaging behavior is to be encouraged. No one makes money for being environmentally friendly - and if you don't exploit where you can, someone else will -probably putting you out of business in the process.

Thus, the neoclassical consensus on free market fanatacism cannot be leaned upon to guide public policy - capital accumulation must come second to environmental preservation. This requires another force to make businesses feel the cost of polluting enough to make the environmental alternative more profitable. This force must be a governmental one, as the government is the only institution that enjoys a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. This kind of governmental regulation of the market flies directly in the face of the dominant rhetoric of this country, encapsulated in the Cold War by the Red Scare and McCarthy's communist witch hunt. This fear of all things communist or socialist was deeply engrained in the minds of a generation, and is still reflected today in a powerful fear of big government coupled with an embrace of free markets. Thus, a political climate was born in which restricting pollution or dare I say decreasing the production of more unecessary consumer goods is like an act of a terrorist taking away our freedom. Since when has freedom of being been equated to freedom of capital? If we can subsidize the hell out of the fast food industry through the agrobusiness lobby, why can't we discourage environmentally and socially irresponsible behavior through a similarly sizable yet sustainably sensible allocation of capital? Already I read about Obama's huge economic stimulus package including large provisions for the construction and increased production of factories. I wonder if these factories are going to be more of the same governmental investment in short term economic growth at the expense of environmental or social concerns that has been so prevelant in our recent history. Why can't the money be spent developing a thorough and affordable public transportation system instead of revamping the production of more automobiles? Is the production and consumption of autos just that much better for the overall growt of our GNP, no matter what the social and environmental costs are? Wouldn't both our social fabric and social equality be that much stronger if we could learn to subsidize local farming (urban gardens, farmers markets) instead of factory farming and public transportation instead of increased auto production. We could build community while sharing both transportation and food production. When Josh Farley tells us that we should be taxing environmental bads (pollution, erosion, clear cutting) and subsidizing goods (the alternatives without these externalities like farming organically or building with recycled materials) it seems so simple, yet what is getting in the way of this becoming a reality. Is it the power of the wealthy lobbies that profit from the status quo? Is it the fear of big government? Is it the shortsightedness of the leading economists?

What are Obama's real goals? Does he realy want to radically shift towards a sustainable scale and just distribution of goods, and is he attempting to do this in the most politically feasible way? Is it possible to take some power away from the market as the driver of governmental policy without killing any hopes of reelection? Would the lobbies he upsets by changing the status quo be powerful enough to ensure he is not reelected?

If anyone has answers, or even some thoughts, I would love to hear them.