Communitarian Ideology in Going Green

"The Alaskan Trailer, common dwelling in the 1960s"
part of the green lifestyles series

As per yesterday's article: I'd like to stress the fact that I did not mean to imply that I don't believe Darren Weeks is telling the truth about Nancy Levant. He did send me a phone number for the farm she was on many months ago, but I've been waiting for her to email me, something we both could always seem to afford to do. I also heard from William Lewis who is sorry I'm having doubts and doesn't want me to drag the Bridgestone Media group into my "fight."

We've been noticing how popular the terms Going Green have become lately. Our Gertee falls easily into the green category and I was curious to see how closely it's associated with communitarianism. A keyword search for "going green" returns about 27 million, one hundred thousand hits. Add the word "communitarian" to the search and it drops to about 110,000.

'Crunchy cons' unite: Moving right by going green

By The Hill Staff

Posted: 03/16/06

"The strain of conservatism to which Dreher adheres is peculiar today, basically a pre-Reagan, even pre-Goldwater outlook.

His views date back to the communitarian school, a midcentury group that includes such thinkers as Russell Kirk, Robert Nisbet and Richard Weaver, who concerned themselves with the “little platoons” of society — civic organizations, churches and informal associations of neighbors that provide the glue for order and continuity in society.

“The liberty we enjoy in America today is certainly worth prizing and defending, but it is insufficient to produce virtue, stability or happiness,” Dreher writes.

Dreher’s critics on the right have of late called him a Christian Marxist. That’s unfair.

Rather, it’s a case of Dreher’s devout Catholicism informing his conservatism. Call it traditional Catholic social justice, viewed through the prism of the Laffer Curve and small government."

http://thehill.com/bookshelf/crunchy-cons-unite-moving-right-by-going-green-2006-03-16.html

Here's a Green contractor in DC:

"Chris VanArsdale runs GBO Construction, a DC construction-management firm specializing in “green” building techniques that conserve energy and natural resources. He’s getting lots more questions about energy conservation since fuel prices shot up in 2005. More than half his clients are choosing conservation options even though up-front costs are high. “The rest look at the payback periods and decide to wait,” he says. VanArsdale says many residential clients go green for the environmental benefits alone: “There is a communitarian sense that we shouldn’t be polluting the atmosphere and increasing greenhouse-gas emissions.”"
http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/homegarden/3055.html

What the heck is a "communitarian sense?" Most people I read assume it means a committment to the common good, a values based decisionmaking process, and a broader inclusion of the common people in decisions that affect their everyday life. According to the Communitarian Constitution author Beau Breslin, communitarian sense is "responsibility, shared values and accomplishment, along with the more 'liberal' feelings of individual freedom and personal independence." This is some of the best doublespeak they offer. Unless you have a feeling about what this responsiblity is TO, have an inkling of what these shared values ARE, and know what a communitarian accomplishment IS, then you'd naturally quickly skip past that part and focus on the last line, one you recognise, the one that reassures you communitarian "feelings" somehow support your notion of what individual freedom and personal independence translates to in everyday life.

There are businesses filled with the communitarian sense:
http://www.escolar.com/NewsArchives/16/16k/archivo-o4927_esen.shtml

After reading this Canadian's blog, I think I know why William Lewis calls anti communitarianism my fight:

Communitarian vs Independence

"As I make my way around the sundry web logs that pop up while searching the word communitarian I am constantly struck by the rancour the word seems to arouse in some sectors. I suppose to the extent that I believe that most people are in fact independent communitarians who want to preserve some measure of their independence while working towards the common good I knew that separating the terms created two solitudes, and that like all solitudes, they breed distrust and distaste of the other.

"I suppose it's no accident that most of the rancour that I find comes from American blogs that keep the terms firmly divided into irreconcilable political camps. I go back to my belief that Americans hate one another so viscerally that they can barely contain their contempt for each other. It's nation so deeply divided that I can't imagine anyone ever uniting it." http://independentcommunitarian.blogspot.com/2007/03/communitarian-vs-independence.html

I agree our nation is deeply divided. After 150 years of constant and unwavering dialectical conflicts, we are perfectly poised to accept the communitarian synthesis. It doesn't matter that it was UK/Israeli/USSR facilitators who introduced Hegelian conflicts into the USA. It's of no signifigance that the communitarian "ideology" was never a movement that arose naturally out of U.S. society.

I do not agree that we hate each other so viscerally that we can barely contain our contempt for one another. I believe, and my experience tells me, that once we peel away the dialectically driven arguments between us, there is only one "issue" left on the table for ALL Americans. The only real choice we need to make is between communitarian law and our national law, and that is the one choice we will never be asked to make. If there was a legally proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution to adopt the Supremacy of Communitarian Law, and it passed by 3/4 of the elected state legislatures, I would accept that as the legitimate law of our land. My point has always been that our people are being duped into adopting a code of law they don't understand. Our citizens are not even aware of their having accepted it already.

Thousands of new websites appear online every day to bring us the "real" news. They tell us in detail that our "rights" are being whittled away and that our government has become a nest of traitors. But how often do they tell you why?

Why do the Americans who oppose the North American Union ignore the supremacy of communirian law clause required in the European Union's failed treaties?

Why do the Americans who oppose the UN ignore the supremacy of communitarian law implicit in all UN Local Agenda 21 suggestions for datagathering and enforcement?

Why do the Americans who oppose the War on Terror, the Fed, the CFR, the TC, the IRS, Sustainable Development and congressional legislation like the Patriot Acts ignore or play down (or completely ignore) the core ideology driving all of these wars, organizations and bills?

Why don't global anti NWO whistleblowers explain that communitarianism is the philosophy, the law, and the religion of the emerging global synthesis?

I'll tell you why. The communitarian synthesis is so perfect it gives rise to NO antithesis. Americans are "allowed" to scream about anything from 9/11 to impeach Bush for war crimes to the "coming police state." Americans can write about the illegal tax structure, the SPP, the PNAC, U.S. government violations of "civil liberty," Chemtrails, the Illuminatti, the Bilderberg, the G-8, etc, etc, etc. But the REASON for the existence of all these things, naw, just forget about it. The dialectical conflicts are so much more digestable than the driving philosophy.

My oldest sister thinks I should concentrate more on my miniatures because they're divine. I love making my minis and encouragement works for me! Thanks Susan!