Venezuela's Bigger Problem

[Catherina]

5. Does anyone really need bananas or diamonds?

That's the whole modern industrial cycle of exploitation that relies on importing-exporting resources that Derrick Jensen denounces in his books, especially Endgame, as destructively unsustainable. All that energy to import/export. All the capital involved and then needing to protect that capital and exploiting so that capital doesn't lose value. Why? If I had my way, we'd all be living in sustainable villages, growing our own food, weaving our own clothes indigenous-style but I know it's not something that will happen until it's forced on us by catastrophes we caused. 50-80 years on this earth is what we get, do we really need to see what the Italians are wearing this season, or what an artist in India is doing? I know it's *fun* and all but do we really need to? Does it provide any real quality of life? Does it mean anything at the end when you're lying in a box staring at your 10 toes for all eternity? Will it matter that you were able to fly to Paris in 3 hours instead of 8? We're killing this earth and killing ourselves while we're at it. Why? It doesn't even matter to ask you these things because no matter what you answer, or even if you laugh, the best we can hope for right now is what you wrote

- taking care of internal needs ought to come first, no matter which nation is under discussion.

- And those internal needs should be satisfied as "greenly" as possible.