On Doing What You Can

I read this blog.

I don't really know how I found it, but it is written by a person who is sort of my polar opposite.

She is 27 years old, she's been married since she was 21.  She has 2 kids.  She and her husband are very well off, they live on a golf course in Texas.  They have a large house that has been professionally decorated by a person with a tanker truck full of French Provincial and a fire hose.  Although she is educated, she is a stay at home mom who spends her days shopping and playing with her kids.  She calls herself a "retro housewife".  She is a conservative, Bible beating Christian who refers to the President by his last name only and who hates all things which she had determined are "liberal".

I read her blog out of morbid fascination. 

I think she's a little twit and her attitude is one that can be had only if nothing bad has ever happened to you.  She firmly believes that she has pulled herself up by her own bootstraps but it is clear that her path has been bulldozed by wealthy parents who have given her every advantage and opportunity.  It's not hard to do well under those conditions. 

Despite her proselytization, it does not appear that she has any love, empathy or sympathy for those who are less fortunate than she is.  She speaks openly of her many blessings, but her selfishness is staggering.  Her scorn for those with less than she has is unbelievable.  Despite her firm "pro-life" stance, I'm sure she'd be OK with the babies of illegal Mexicans dying in the streets because they don't "deserve" the benefits of American health care or education.   Apparently, God only loves the lives of American fetuses and babies.  Everybody else should "go back to where they came from" and let "their own people" take care of them.

Can you imagine Christ saying that to the masses who came out to see him?  "I'll need to see your passports, first.  If you're here illegally, you'll have to go back to where you came from."

But I digress.   

Yesterday she posted a blog about her absolute refusal to embrace anything "green". 

In the past she has railed against the movement.  She thinks global warming is a lie.  She thinks we have nothing to worry about.  She thinks it is all a "liberal" smokescreen.  She has bragged about how she and her husband went out and purchased the two largest, most gas guzzling SUVs they could find because they can afford them and they don't care about emissions.  Yesterday she blogged about how she refuses to recycle, that it's just not "her".  She just cannot be bothered with something so tiresome, so pointless, so liberal.  She called her city and asked them to come and get the city issued recycling bin because she doesn't want it wasting space in her garage.  It's all a big joke and she refuses to be pushed by a liberal government to do something that she finds ridiculous. 

Now, I'm not the "greenest" person in the world.  I don't compost.  I don't wear organic makeup or buy organic sheets or worry about VOC's in my paint.  I don't think that I, alone, can make much of a difference.  But I do think that I can do what I can do.  I can throw the diet coke bottles and the beer bottles and the old magazines into the recycling bin.  I can turn off a light.  I can buy a fuel efficient car because, ultimately, it saves me money.  If my clothes are clean and my dishes are clean and my bathroom is clean, why does it matter that they got that way with earth friendly products?  It's just as easy to buy them as it is to buy the harmful ones.  I know that I can't change the world, but I can do what I can do.

Which brings me back to the Little Miss Twit (which I will call her for lack of a better name).  Why wouldn't she do what she can do?  What would be the harm?  And how can you be so self-involved that you don't care to lift a finger for a better world?

I grew up in Southern West Virginia.  I know what pollution looks like.  I have seen garbage in the streets and the streams and the ditches.  I've seen the harm of chemicals and smoke and corporate negligence.  I know what communities look like when no one there gives a shit.  I know what the garbage dump looks like, even if she doesn't. 

And having seen what a community of do-nothings amounts to, I have also seen what an involved community can accomplish.  I guess I think our individual contributions matter more that we might think they do.  

It makes me sad that this person who could help, won't.  That this person who could use her advantages for good, doesn't.   And it bugs the crap out of me that she carries out her life believing that invoking the name of God makes her unassailable.  I can't help but think that He would be so disappointed. 

But then, what do I know?  I'm just a big ol' pinko commie liberal. 

Image:  The World's a Bubble by Green Island Studios.