It's the system, stupid, or is it the stupid system?

Before there was the internets, before there was social media, was the world as crazy as it is these days and we just didn't know about it? Although I can't prove it, I'm dubious. The lines of fracture used to be more limited, I believe. During my younger days, there was the civil rights movement (1954 — 1968), followed by the anti-vietnam war movement (1964 — early 1970s), followed by the environmental movement (1970 — present).

Taking a look at today's headlines, it's clear none of these movements actually resolved the issues they were intended to address. It's also clear that there's been a lot of cross-linkages among once relatively disparate issues. Many, many years ago I was introduced to the concept of multi-objective multi-purpose optimization while developing plans to address land use and water quality issues. I wonder if either our legislators or our public sector executives are familiar with the process.

What we're seeing in the case of the Chauvin trial is an individual being tried. What we also need is the ability to put an entire law enforcement system on trial. Recently I've seen several references to not one bad apple but a bad barrel or a bad tree. That's a pretty clear description of a systemic problem.

William Beebe quotation, International Crane Foundation

Photo by J. Harrington

We have such systemic problems creating global weirding; abusive and racist policing; unhealthy food systems that create excess waste and fail to feed those who would benefit from discarded, but edible, food. We grow corn to produce ethanol and consume more energy than the process and product yields, or so I've read.

I'm pretty much reached my limit supporting dysfunctional systems that don't solve today's complex problems. If someone wants to call for a worldwide general strike, sign me up!

13 Questions for the Next Economy

Susan Briante

On the side of the road, white cardboard in the shape of a man,
     	     illegible script. A signpost with scrawl: Will pay cash for 
              diabetes strips.
 
A system under the system with its black box.                    	Disability hearing?
a billboard reads. Trouble with Social Security? Where does the riot begin?
 
Spark of dry grass, Russian thistle in flames, or butterflies bobbing
as if pulled by unseen strings            	  through the alleyway.
        	
My mother’s riot would have been peace. A bicycle wheel
              chained to a concrete planter. What metaphor
 
              can I use to describe the children sleeping in cages in 
                  detention
centers? Birds pushed fenceward by a breeze? A train of brake lights
 
extending? Mesquite pods mill under our feet
on a rainless sidewalk. What revolution            will my daughter feed?
 
A break-the-state twig-quick snap or a long divining       	    as if
for water? A cotton silence? A death?          	      Who will read this
 
in the next economy, the one that comes after the one that kills us?
What lessons will we take from the side of the road? A wooden crucifix,
 
a white bicycle, a pinwheel, a poem
waiting to be redacted:                         Which would you cross out?

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