Let’s have a mind and raise flowers.

Michigan–Hutaree members are scrambling more than just eggs today as they scramble to fill a five minute slot reserved for Palin’s scheduled key note address: “Mavericking: A Christian Message About Reloading To Target Socialists Who Are Taking Over Our Country And/Or Who Pal Around With Terrorists”.

Sarah Palin, slated as the headliner at Hutaree’s Annual Pancake Breakfast and Inbreed-A-Thon, has canceled her appearance last minute citing “A previous engagement I made at the whatcha call it? Hockey Moms for White Kids Fundraiser. Guess I double booked doncha know? Shucksy darn.”

Palin’s Public Relations manager Chester Drew Mews stated at a press conference this morning that Palin’s five minute speech “would have been an amazing feat of human genius. It was written in all caps on her hand and even used a four syllable word.” The four syllable word said Mews was “hopey changey”, a word he said Palin believes is French for ‘Marxist’.

Hutaree member and chaplain Lem Jessup Kerwalter sent an email to the other 6 members of the group reading “Jesus end-times PANCAKES sirup rightous End of DAys Christ Pancakes Ephesians Sara Palin JESUS I love PANcakes.”

The Breakfast’s opening act Michele Bachmann has said that she will be going forward with her planned “staring blankly while repeating sentiments posted in the comment threads of Fox news’ website.”

I hereby propose a federal holiday of remembrance, an annual dinner to tell the story of slavery in the US.  It could perhaps be held on September 22nd, the date of Lincoln’s first Emancipation Proclamation, although perhaps the date shouldn’t honor a white man.

Lets tell the story of slavery and racism in America every year so we’ll never forget.

“The future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed.” –William Gibson

The unequal access to cutting edge technologies and the disparities present in technologies’ distribution across lines of class, race, and geography is commonly referred to as the ‘digital divide’. As a social justice issue, it has taken on a life of its own as the focus of academic writing, social justice work, and technophobic handwringing.

Mindflowers has written on the digital divide and its implications to ethics, societies, and religions here:
http://mindflowers.net/2009/05/09/a-religious-reading-of-pop-cultre-technoscience/

Between voices who descry grave trends of injustice and even future threats of technocratic oppression of people of a lower ‘silicon quotient’ and those who ascribe to a evenly distributed tech-future as though it is assured by divine teleological mandate, I wish to very briefly bring the prescient issues to the fore with justice and human dignity as highest values. 

Andy Carvin who previously helmed the Digital Divide Network, a community of over 10,ooo social justice activists engaged in solutions to closing the digital gap, wrote a piece in 2006 titled “The Gap” where he argues that at that time in America the digital divide was a rarely addressed issue and threat to America’s ”economic competitiveness, our civil rights, and our national creed of equal opportunity (Carvin).”

What I do like about Carvin is his focus on how disparities of technology access effect communities along ethnic and racial distinctions in America–this should be a concern to all Americans who desire an environment of opportunity, mutual sharing, and justice. There is a truth to the maxim that any chain is only as strong as its weakest link and each community and nation would do well to encourage young brain power and talents to tackle the pressing questions and challenges that face us all.

Carvin includes table which breaks down the distribution of internet users.
(U.S. Bureau of Census, Current Population Survey supplements, Sept. 2001, Oct 2003)
The biggest gap of internet users was between High School dropouts and graduates of advanced degrees.
The next largest indictator of internet use gap was family income.
Next indictator of gap was ‘race/ethnicity’. In 2003, 65.1% of Whites were online where only 38.2% of Hispanics were.

What I believe this table can be interpreted as messaging is that the digital divide is just one of many symptoms of a class struggle in America where there exist, to borrow Kozol’s language, savage inequalities in terms of race. To speak of the digital divide, one must face the larger realities of white privilege and patterns of European marginalization that still occur as holdovers from centuries of imperial agenda.

Enter Ejovi Nuwere, author of “Hacker Cracker”, culture analyst, entrepenuer, advisor to the Japan Times and CEO of the Land Rush Group, an online content monetizing, marketing, and content partnering site. Nuwere has called the digital divide a ‘myth’. The divide he says is part of a larger system of inequities which boils down to an issue not of technology, but finance and economy.

Nuwere brings a couple of excellent points to the table and I’ll start with one that can slip by some…

1) Technologies of the contemporary Western consumerist culture are not always seen as or experienced as a boon to other communities and cultures. Nuwere hints at this writing, “If there is a digital divide then there is also a banking and investing divide, an expensive pets and watches divide and an aviation hobbyist divide (Nuwere).” Justice minded people who are concerned with increasing the level of compassion and human dignity in the world have always faced the challenge of falling into a ‘prescriptive stance’. This can happen where outsiders wishing to aid and support another community may overtime actually create more problems than they ‘solve’. This has been the modus operandi of many ‘liberal’ social justice movements in the past. Many movements know are better addressing white privilege, arrogance, salvation through ‘progress’ narratives, and service/missions tasks that mimic colonial strategies.
What people do not need is for good hearted but naive activists to begin distributing “Stuff White People Like” around the world. I remember clearly a story told to me about a very poor rural school: the teachers were given wish list by an organization for new supplies with a generous amount of funds available. The teachers came back requesting chalk and slateboards. For their community, this was what the wise determined would best serve their classes at the time. In addressing the ‘digital divide’, we must be mindful that the devices so desired on American college campuses are not equally valuable to others. A commitment to deep relationship and humble partnership is

2) Nuwere brings a helpful critique to examining the digital divide in not only its origin and character as a symptom of larger injustices, but in its solution. Simply put, justice seekers cannot just throw computers at the problem.  The disparity called ‘digital divide’ has much more to do with race, class, and broader economic systems than ‘who has an iPhone or not?’. Nuwere writes that solutions to the digital divide must include equal emphasis on business, infrastructure, and longterm community investment.
While information technologies have a huge impact on community, connection, and commerce, other technologies such as roads, and reliable sustainable public transit. The internet superhighway allows distances to be eliminated in many ways, but it is also integral that our nation’s working forces have fast, cheap, and non-pollutive public transit to get to their workplace. 
While up-to-date computers and high level computer skills are essential in our high schools, it is equally important that there are jobs waiting to hire our black and latina students as they exit high school. I am excited to work towards the day where urban and disenfranchised schools are tech hubs with career programs supported by businesses in the sci/tech sector with Green Tech/Urban Renewal jobs and internships at the ready for graduates. 

Bringing the lenses of social hegemonies and structures of power withholding including class, race, and gender are absolutely necessary in examining the digital divide. The reason for that is that strictly speaking, the digital divide can be shown to be shrinking in many ways but that does not necessarily reflect other markers of a healthy democracy or just civic environment.

Take for example the Department of Commerce’s 2004 report “A Nation Online: Entering The Broadband Age”. Standing alone, it could serve as a source of great hope for the state of our nation’s leveling of ‘gaps’. One must consider however that the bottom line “who’s online” does not mean that other gaps are closing. Economically, not much needs to change for the poor since information technology is notorious for plummeting prices in second generation gadgets.

Sonia Arrinson, director at the Center for Technology Studies complexified the closing digital divide, writing in a 2002 CNET News article, “Technology is not a silver bullet that will solve all social and economic problems (Arrison).” She writes that technology unaccompanied by education is powerless to effect the real change that marginalized communities need. “Unless people can read and understand what they find on the Internet…computers…won’t be of much use (Arrison).”

I would counter Arrison by saying that it is most likely that literacy will most likely become unnecessary in the near future as all text will be able to be rendered into speech and more and more online content will be immersive, interactive, and video enabled. What is important for knowledgable and impactful internet use is not literacy per se, but critical thinking skills, the ability to make connections between ideas, form concise questions and search phrases, and skeptically ingest huge amounts of varying narratives. These are the skills that will be necessary for our young people to become informed voters and active participants in civic discourse and the global economy.   

While I will emphasize and rely on the class, race, and gender critique of Nuwere (and many others alongside him) I would be at fault to not raise to light the great advantages even simple technologies can bring to disadvantaged communities.

In terms of gender analysis, Cherie Blair recently wrote of the current exacerbated gap of access to technology experienced by the world’s women. Blair writes, “Women are 23 percent less likely than men to own a mobile phone than men in Africa, 24 percent less likely in the Middle East, and 37 percent less likely in South Asia (Blair).” In her article, she adds that women who have gained access to cell phones in areas without landline report feeling safer, more independent, are more likely to encourage their daughters to go to higher education, and 41% report increases to their income (Blair).

How could it be that a cell phone achieve financial success to these women in often rural and agricultural areas? As all information technology, cell phone diminish distance which means that more women have access to larger “marketplace”. Women are able to check up-to-the-minute costs for various products, goods, and harvested commodities while also enabling direct sales to wholesalers cutting out reliance on money absorbing small dealers (Blair).

The good news is this: “it took about a half century for the late-nineteenth-century invention of the telephone to reach significant levels of usage…In comparison, the late-twentieth-century adoption of the cell phone took only a decade (Kurzweil).”

That exponential growth of cell phone use has to do with the technology itself–not reliant on landlines placed in huge expanses of rural and rough terrain, and the feature of information technologies’ quickly diminishing prices.

This trend of quickening distribution of technologies across communities once distanced because of geography and/or economics has no signs of slowing, given the historical trends of price reduction and ease of dispersal into any location. Ray Kurzweil, futurist, inventor, and advisor to governmental agencies and private corporations sees great hopes for technologies like cell phones to get into the hands of more women the world over.

To nay-sayers who say that the digital divide is worsening, he responds, “I know that people keep saying that, but how can that possibly be true? The number of humans is growing only very slowly. The number of digitally connected humans, no matter how you measure it, is growing rapidly (Kurzweil).”

In connection to the earlier point made of education being a key component to righting previous societal injustices, Kurzweil writes “Access to education will no longer be restricted by the lack of availability of trained teachers in each town and village (Kurzweil).” All that a ‘village’ would need would be one individual with access to the internet to facilitate a top-notch education by any standard. Before, individuals would need months of training, travel to a teacher’s school, and numerous teaching aids including expensive books and materials. All that is now available through a low-cost WiFi connection and bottom shelf laptop.

It is exciting to see projects such as Google Fiber bringing fast broadband access to more areas of America. I am currently watching with hopes that my hometown of Duluth Minnesota be chosen as a launching site.

As justice minded activists, we can be encouraged by statistics and trends of cell phone and internet distribution, but we must never forget that some of the most basic technologies can make the biggest leaps towards human dignity and betterment of health and life. These include technologies to bring potable water to people, septic, sewer, and lavatory technologies, and not to mention shoes and mosquito netting.

We look to see our fellow brothers and sisters as of March 29, 2010 still in dire predicaments:
millions of women spend hours each day just collecting clean water and 2.6 billion people lack basic sanitation, a leading cause in preventable sickness and death. http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

And as we do, we need not be overcome by the sadness or immensity of it all. There is no time for shirking in the face of great challenge, and the cost of trepidation or worse apathy is the loss of our own humanity.

We can look to the technologies around us as opportunities to enrich the lives of all people, starting with the most in need first.

I return to the quote from William Gibson from the top of this article:
“The future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed.”
I take that not to mean the distribution of ‘futuristic’ technologies.
I take that to mean that the future goes the way of the courageous of spirit.
Only those of compassionate and daring hearts will write the stories and create the legacies of our future generations.
To begin the revolution one does not require silicon at all. One need only to say ‘yes’ to hope and begin enacting their highest values.

Andy Carvin:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andycarvin

Al Franken Supporting Google Fiber for The Twin Ports:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2i_piWVXuc
Works Cited:

Arrison, Sonia. “What Digital Divide?” http://news.cnet.com/2010-1071-858537.html

Blair, Cherie. “How Cell Phones Change Lives” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-24/how-cell-phones-change-lives/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsR6

Carvin, Andy. “There is A Digital Divide” Technology and Society David Haugen and Susan Musser eds. (New York: Thomson Gale. 2007)

Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Penguin Books. 2005) 

Nuwere, Ejovi. “There is No Digital Divide” Technology and Society David Haugen and Susan Musser eds. (New York: Thomson Gale. 2007)

Listen to the style that I flow as I let it go. Mad drama on the scene and mean muggin’ straight doggin’ Uly’s lean.
Peeps all in drama and it was nasty, wacky, from the werewolves to the fuzzies, doggz lookin’ attacky.
The apple of gold had its hold and hubris mad spread like mold and Athena was lookin’ to get rolled.
Aphrodite was all up in the mix lookin’ to send some haters ‘cross the river Styx and Hera was mo’ def’ puttin’ in her licks.
A trifecta of drama held the three mamas and Boy George’s cameleon was colored karma as each lady fronted her charma and Uly was like “sound an alarma!”
Eris was laughin’, str8 up ROTFL pointin’ and cacklin’ her teeth chatterin’ like Rice Krispies Snap Crackle and Poppin’
while HR Pufnstuf was puffin’ a torch and grubbin’ a muffin.
It was frantic on the stage, Emus were hectic, enraged and Opus the penguin punched a Puffin.
This was not the dawnin’ of the Age of Aquarius, it was more like the Rage of Ares, a Red Dawn for fairy and fawn
and the caterer was like
“Salvage as much of the canapies as you can!
Save the lunch and the canopies, man!”

It was outRAGEous! That Apple of Discord.
This is the way of gold, of want, of greed, and ego.
“To The Fairest” 3 words that led to the ending of the wedding,
from a place of peace to a sea of mean,
a scene of scream.

Ulysses pushed through the crowd yelling out loud:
“Penny! My Queen!”
She heard him but thought him a fiend, not friend. Thought she of he:
Had he not boldly told me as though to scold me
that he was joined my his “Plus One”?
Of my love to make fun and call our love done?
If our love be forfeit, I’ll quit his shit, for of his ribald and bald faced lies
I’ve had my fill and of his flouncy flaunting I’ve filled my eyes!

Ulysses had been duped and not fully grasped the scoop.
Eris had had the last laugh, and laughed she still.
By Ulysses’ schemes and by through devious means had he misled Eris by purloiningly
making her languished in the grips of a postal error and abject letterlessness. 
And now he was the butt of the joke, the ass of the ball, the biggest butthole of all:
His love lost, and in loss head downcast, thinking a thought he thought his last:
My life is not but naughty without my lady
And what I thought bright is only now shady
seen in the light of my life’s love lost. 
What cost!
Would there be but a way that I could prove myself in love to the hilt
to get rid of my guilt, a boat I’d have built and I’d do anything to show
that a life without love is no place to at all, only strife to grow.
Oh! Discord! Oh general assholery.

Eris sat down on down, the feathers of a phoenix that lay nearby and watched the show.
Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite were hitting each other with mushy marshmallows and popped popcorn while hurling some less than kind words. 
This, she wished could be blamed on her. While true incited by her inception of gate crashing the wedding reception, it was really not the fruit of her labor.
The Golden Apple was but a door for the vain to walk through into their own shame. 

“Oh, the madness of mortals. It is equaled only by the cruel minds of Gods.” says she as she reclined and pined for a day when she would rule again over all worlds and afterworlds. 
“Until that day I will sit and watch, unemployed. The work of discord well attended to by pious humanity and their almighty gods.”

VATICAN CITY — Pedophiles around the world were shocked this week amidst revelations that Crowned Pimp Joseph Ratzinger, AKA “Sweet Lap” may have taken part in Catholic rites and rituals over the past decades.

Said an anonymous source within the Global Network of Pedophiles and Miscreants (GNPM) “We are currently investigating a number of leads regarding these accusations. We take very seriously the charges that our beloved Pimp reportedly has participated in Mass, blessed crowds, and prayed in St. Paul’s cathedral.”

Joseph “Sweet Lap” Ratzinger has secluded himself away from the media spotlight in his rundown warehouse hideout outside of Houston, Texas. His team of lawyers were quick in trying to quell the firestorm surrounding this week’s allegations.

At a press conference held on Wednesday, chief defense lawyer Gus “Scarface” Loomis read from an official statement: “Sweet Lap is not now and has never been a Catholic. When would the leader of a worldwide network of sexual perverts and demented criminals find time to bless wine and pronounce theological edicts? This is absolute nonsense.”

When asked if Sweet Lap Ratzinger would appear in court to answer to accusations of being a Pope, Loomis answered: “We pimps answer to a higher authority. The law of the street. We’ll settle this amongst ourselves.”

This week’s shocking allegations of Popery come just after the GNPM celebrated halting the investigation of a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys and an event in Italy, where 67 deaf men and women accused two dozen pedophiles of raping and molesting children for years.

Said Tim “Father Tim” Brooks, a pedophile from Dayton Ohio, “We pedophiles denounce this concerted campaign to smear Sweet Lap Ratzinger for a problem that isn’t even unique to pedophiles. There are many people in the world who are Catholic, and I’m sure there’s lots of guys who have been Pope. Even if Ratzinger dabbled as a Pope…And I’m not saying he did…but if he did, what’s the big deal?”

Growing evidence, including the sworn testimonies of millions of individuals, is being compiled by police agencies throughout Italy that so far points in the direction of Ratzinger indeed secretly being Pope. Whether the evidence will ever be seen in a criminal court or convince his diehard pedophiliac fanbase remains to be seen.

In the minds of those present, the party was going well. Which is to say that in truth, the party was not going well.
Conversation had transformed as though run through the digestive system of a turkey to become a loud and nitrogen rich scream-til-you’re-hoarse innuendo fit.
Hula hooping was occurring on the lawn and there was a man in a pink leotard on the roof screaming something about the TV show Alf.

Ulysses S. Groan muttered into the ear of a synth-woman from Rhodes as Queen Penelope went to powder her nose.
Centaurs sheepishly eyed the fawns who dogged their hounding advances thinking them wolves in sheeps clothing.
The centaurs wished they hadn’t worn wool sweaters becuase it was really an unseasonably warm evening.
When Penelope returned from the powder room her husband was nowhere to be found–unless one was to look in the boathouse, where they would find him performing a sex act badly on a bored looking synth-woman who was thinking about Paris, the beautiful shepherd boy.
Outside at the bottom of the hill, peasants lay hunched on the ground capturing beer run-off that had trickled through the garden. Some gathered precious drops in cotton balls to bring home to their loved ones to enact the best of romantic events–the surprising celebration for no real reason.

Ulysses stepped from the boathouse and patted his himself on the shoulder.
“Satisfied are ye?”
Ulysses wrenched his neck with a start. “Gah! Who?”
Before him stood a cloaked figure, a lank snuffed candle outlined by koi pond.
“Such a look as ye give follows on the tail of sin as sure one side of a page the other.”
“Sin’s not so much my cup of tea. Tea isn’t even my cup of tea. I’m more of a drinking man. And any drunk worth their salt or salty snacks isn’t capable of sin.”
“From inside an oil well may one see the coffee stain on their tie? Or the lipstick on their collar?”
Ulysses glanced down and wiped frantically at a shock of Apple Red lipstick like a comet’s tail scorching his starched shirt.
“Who do I have the great pleasure of making kind conversation?”
“My name…is…Mypluss Won.” said Eris from inside the dark shadows of her cloak.
Just then Penelope came sweeping down the lawn on a Segway scooter. “There you are Uly. And who’s this?”
“This is Mypluss Won.”
“Oh! Well, I’m sorry to interrupt.” White with embarrassment and anger she zipped off with a gentle lean forward.
“I’ll use that as segue…Do you love your wife Ulysses S. Groan?”
“How did….yes of course I love the Queen!”
“How do you expect anyone to believe the words of a man who claims to have no sin?”
“Huh?”
“I only make friends of sinners. If I’m going to play with snakes, I’d rather they know they’re snakes and not imagine they’re teddy bears.” Eris turned down the walk way.
“Look, Obi-Wan–”
“Mypluss Won.”
“Look, I’m not perfect. No one is. Believe me humility or the aire thereof is a key component in effective politicking. Its just that I don’t believe in sin.” said the King like a king.
“I understand how a child can talk themself out of believing that there isn’t a monster under their bed. But when the monster convinces themself that there isn’t a child in bed, that’s monstrously childish thinking.”
Ulysses stooped to pick up a stone.
“I don’t believe in a God to sin against.”
“Oh, I don’t either. I was talking about sin. Who said anything about a God?”
At that moment Athena walked by and the two bowed deeply.

They walked in silence towards the bandshell where Peleus and Thetis were gathering partiers for a toast.
Eris, Goddess of Discort, Chaos, and General Assholery whispered in King Ulysses’ ear:

Meaningless! Meaningless!
that’s the sum of all this cachaphonous phonyness .
Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.
To prove my point, watch an hour of cable television.

What does a person gain from all their labor
at which they might  toil under the sun?
I mean, besides a tasty meal including delicious wine.
Just….hard work never pays off. That’s the point.

Generations come and generations go,
and no one ever understands teenagers. That’s the one thing teenagers get right: no one gets them.
And who’d want to? Have you heard the music they listen to nowadays?

The sun rises, the wind blows, and rivers run to the sea.
Big whoop.

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
I mean, you’ve read Nietzsche right?

Is there anything of which one can say,
‘Look! This is something new’!
All the stories that are told basically follow like the same five plots.
Guy goes to war and tries to get back home to his loving and doting wife.
What bullshit.

“Well you certainly are a pleasant dinner guest.” said Ulysses.
“And King Ulysses! Thank you for joining us!” Thetis stood on a table pointing and the crowd turned to recognize the Ithacan King.
“Hey.”
“King,” said Peleus, “Please introduce us to your hooded figure…I mean friend.”
“This is Mypluss Won.”
A pregnant pause hung over the crowd before being broken by a pregnant woman falling down the flight of patio stairs. Another pregnant pause.

“Welcome one and all to the wedding party of Peleus and Thetis!” Zeus’ strong voice shook the yard. “In just moment we will bind these two lovers in holy matrimony, and….”
The sound of a soft knock as a bright golden apple bounced off Zeus’ forehead. The Father of the Gods lifted it from the ground to find that it had a weathered parchment strung to its emerald stem.
Reading from the paper Zeus announced: “To The Fartist.”
Ulysses farted loudly and grabbed it from his hands.

Zeus: Okay, that was weird. And really smelly. Ulysses are you okay? Do you need to change?
Uly: No. I’ll be okay. I just stand with my legs far apart. It’ll dry.
Zeus: Okay so where was I? Uh holy matrimony…”
Eris: Wait! Read the paper again! Please.
Uly: To The Fairest. Oh. (he hands the apple back to Zeus)

And this my friends is what is called a cliffhanger.

So what is the current House health care bill?  Why are people chanting ‘kill the bill’?

Let’s look at what the bill does:

a. will cover 32 million Americans currently uninsured.

e.  in four years those who have retired early and are not yet qualified for Medicare will be covered.

f. the bill assures cash rebates and discounts up to 50% on medications for recepients of Medicare.

g. by 2014 families will be able to comparison shop through the opening of state insurance exchanges.

The bill is a start at reforming the greed of huge corporations who are making multimillion dollar profits off working families’ illnesses. Is the bill perfect? No, it is far from it. But it is a step towards bringing a better and healthier future to our nation.

What isn’t in the bill?
There is no public option. No one will ever come between a patient and their health care provider. No one dictates or limits service.

It has been illuminative to watch the process of the health care bill(s) because it has proven to me how often Americans can be convinced of lies–in this case lies about the the health care bills repeated by some politicians in what can only be a concerted effort to mislead the public. No matter what edition of the Senate or House bill, there has been a heavy dose of noise but little solid information coming from some sectors of the TV media and self serving politicians.

Why would politicians and media moguls want to mislead people?
Follow the money.
In this bills case, who is being helped? Hard working families.
Who is being held accountable? Big insurance companies.

Look again at the bill:

a. insurance companies won’t be able to dump you once you get sick.

c. employers will have to offer insurance to their employees.

Since the bill reduces deficit, protects workers, creates competition, and makes certain that those who need insurance get it regardless of what the insurance companies say, why would a politician reject this bill? Follow the money.

How do the rich seem to continue to win policy debates in America?
They defuse debate. When there is screaming, buzzwords, and high emotions, no one wins. Democracy depends on an informed and educated public and Aristocracy feeds of moralizing, confusion, and division. In the middle of a world shaking economic depression, many are still handing big profits to the greedy rich though they may not even know it.

Ultimately, we need single payer and I believe that in the future we’ll have it. A public option would also have been much better to include. We have seen this bill watered down to just about nothing due to politicians who put money before Americans and media spin. But it still is going in the right direction.
We need as a country to take a step toward greater justice and this bill, though imperfect, is just that step.

I respect Bill McKibben’s desire to create a healthy, enjoyable, and just environment for humans and other life to flourish within. I do however find that he should perhaps stick to his talking points of carbon emission reduction and corporate responsibility because in his essay “Designer Genes” he makes little positive headway and in the process confuses and trivializes the issue of germline genetic engineering. Furthermore, he offloads hurtful and smallminded ideas and postures as though they are his opponents and worst yet, he misquotes an opponent to make his own case appear stronger. In the end, the general reader is left misinformed and distanced from the pertinent debatable issues of germline engineering.

First to my title: I desire that readers of McKibben would question whether he has travelled a rigorous argument and if his conclusion is a worthy endpoint of discussion at all. I would forward that he has not. We must go past his rhetoric which is but a surface attempt to stir fear and moral antipathy towards germline engineering. Secondly, this issue concerns all of our children and our families’ children. We deserve more than smoke screens that obfuscate. 

And to the the title of McKibben’s “Designer Genes” article. We get it. The double meaning that hints at ‘designer’ meaning chic jeans, overpriced and unnecessary goods that flaunt class and prestige. This is a word-game that has been played before and unfairly so. We don’t look down with derision towards those who have artificial limbs or cochlear implants. There are literally hundreds of body modifying medical procedures that are ‘engineered’, and though unfortunately often expensive and out of reach for many around the world we do not see them as capricious or excessive. They’re simply the best that medical knowledge has to offer towards the improvement of health.

And that is what we should be focused on. The health of our children, our families and loved ones’ children. The future belongs to them and they will not only out last us, they will humble us in retrospect with their triumphs. They deserve the best we can give them. So rather than ‘designer genes’, ‘designer babies’, or ‘engineered genes’, I feel that we should focus on and use the language of ‘children in the best health’. This is not eugenics. This is about not smoking during pregnancy. This is not about a new genetic ‘arms race’ of some imagined dystopia. This is about valuing the lives we are choosing to bring into the world and raise in our world community. 

McKibben in this article takes issue with what is called ‘germline engineering’. This is the process whereby a fertilized embryo at about the first week would have a cell isolated and some of its genes modified, added to, or removed. The cell then replaces the egg nucleus before implantation in a uterus. This is a step beyond the increasingly common procedure of preimplantation genetic diagnosis or embryo screening where genetic disorders and diseases can largely be screened out through genetic testing of an embryo.

So what dangers lie there? What should the public be aware of or consider in this issue? How should prospective mothers judge this increasingly fine tuned procedure? McKibben says a mother may want to hold out because she may think that it “might be dangerous, or presumptuous, or icky”. So taking those three in reverse order: I may think that colonoscopys are ‘icky’ should I decline them and talk others out of them? Is it presumptuous? This may go along the lines of the ‘playing God’ reasoning but I would counter that this process is much more sophisticated than the route any deity seems to have chosen through Darwinian evolution, which is arguably quite slow and frought with a lot of death and extinction.

McKibben says the mother may feel it is dangerous. Would she be right? If he feels so, he does say. Can we assume that he has no evidence that germline would pose unseen and drastic (or even minor) negative consequences? Yes, we can.
We can assume that there are no real objective drawbacks because McKibben only goes on to write how not only will germline engineering work, it will work consistently well and with amazing results. So he just leaves the reader with the image of an uninformed or moralizing mother who may feel “icky” to sell his argument. Pardon me, but I think that there will always be those who will reject medical procedures and those whose consciences or religious tenets require them to do so, God bless them. For the rest of us, however, we should be permitted (and I will argue aided and subsidized) to perform germline engineering.

Throughout, McKibben seems particularly afraid of the effects to engineered childrens’ IQs in relation to those other children whose genes have not been aided. He depicts a world where super intelligent engineered youth far surpass ‘normal’ youth. He pictures a genetic ‘arms race’ where students are pitted in a battle of the species writing:
“the problem about arms races is that you never really get anywhere. If everyone’s adding thirty IQ points, then having an IQ of one dundred fifty won’t get you any closer to Stanford than you were at the outset.”
To me, this reasoning sounds very short sighted and quite a bit selfish and narcissistic. Does McKibben really wish us to believe that increasing the number of geniuses in our world population would not really “get [us] anywhere”? Is his biggest worry that a young person won’t get into Stanford? It seems McKibben is not concerned with the world’s problems that could be solved and the works of beauty that could be achieved by geniuses of any stripe. Can we expect that competition will increase in education and the workforce if we can promote ‘genius’ genes? Yes. Should we allow that to stand in the way of our children’s best interests? No.

The competition might be so steep, says McKibben, that parents could begin to envision their child
“as a nearly useless copy of Windows 95″ and that “should make parents fight like hell to make sure we never get started down this path [of germline engineering].”
Is McKibben expecting us to believe that any loving parent would see their child as ‘nearly useless’, like an outdated computer program? This would be a vile event, for each and every child deserves the full love and support of its community and deserves to be treated with dignity. I dare to wonder what McKibben would say to a parent of a child born with developmental delays. Would he assume that the parent sees their child as ‘nearly useless’ because of challenges they may face in the future?

McKibben seems to be from the old school of ‘biology determines destiny’. He writes of a child whose parents engineered their embryo,
“You cannot rebel against the production of that protein. Perhaps you can still do everything in your power to defeat the wishes of your parents, but that protein will nonetheless be pumped out relentless into your system, defining who you are…”
That is a bleak and incorrect portrayal of the way genes and our human lives work. Rather genes, no matter how engineered, occur in an embodied, diachronic, social being. Our environments and genes work together, influence each other, and feedback on each other over time.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720163723.htm

McKibben calls germline a genie in the bottle not yet released. But, he says, it can be stopped and the unfortunate demise of humanity averted. To protect our children and our future, he rallies us to his call:
“It will have to be a political choice–that is, one we make not as parents but as citizens, not as individuals but as a whole, thinking not only about our own offspring but about everyone.”
If it is worthy in McKibben’s eyes that parents be legally shut out from giving their children the best, I have to wonder if McKibben would stand behind criminalizing drinking and smoking either while pregnant or around newborns. How much political might should we invest in mother’s nutrition and breastfeeding education? We know that everyday thousands of children are born in America who are unwanted, whose mothers have experienced domestic abuse, whose mothers live in toxic environments where lead and mercury are dumped by pollutive corporations. We know that there are many instances of preventable genetic and developmental damage is done to our next generations–and often with mothers of marginalized communities and exploited classes being affected also. Why is it that McKibben is rallying us to Luddite and irrational fears when horrors occur each day hidden in our communities behind a veil of damned silence?

When I read through McKibben’s article the first time, I was taken aback by a quote of McKibben’s perceived adversary Lee M. Silver, famous advocate for germline engineering and Princeton University professor. I read over it again because I felt it couldn’t be right–the words didn’t seem true to what Silver has said in other arenas. It didn’t feel right because Silver didn’t say it. McKibben misquotes Silver in his article to the result that McKibben’s argument appears stronger. Whether or not McKibben did this knowingly I cannot say. Either it is sloppy research or an outright fabricated smoke screen. The quote McKibben cites from Silver is this saying that an engineer sees a child as a ‘product’ and:
“With reprogenetics, parents can gain complete control over their destiny, with the ability to guide and enhance the characteristics of their children, and their children’s children as well.”
What is should read is:
….”gain complete control over their genetic destiny….”
That is the way the cited quote appears in Silver’s “Reprogenetics: How Reproductive and Genetic Technologies Will be Combined to Provide New Opportunities for People to reach their Reproductive Goals”.

And that quote makes sense. Biology is not destiny. Silver knows that. The only control is over the genes. How the genes’ engineering would come to fruition in the life of a child is not even a betting person’s gamble.

What could germline accomplish? It could effectively eliminate Sickle Cell, Cystic Fibrosis, and Tay-Sachs to name a few benefits. Writes Nick Bostrom, 
“genetic engineering holds great potential for alleviating unnecessary human suffering. Every day that the introduction of effective human genetic enhancement is delayed is a day of lost individual and cultural potential, an a day of torment for many unfortunate sufferers of diseases that could have been prevented. Seen in this light, proponents of a ban or a moratorium on human genetic modification must take on a heavy burden of proof in order to have the balance of reason tilt in their favor.” –Nick Bostrom, Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 37, no. 4, 2003

Bill McKibben has failed that burden of proof, and even more to his and his argument’s discredit, he has misportrayed an opponent through misquoting.

I empathize with McKibben’s worry that a ’genetic divide’ would be created between classes and further marginalizing those mothers who may not have access to germline engineering. I counter that in this case as in all, we people of good faith and conscience who are moved to work greater justice in the world would support subsidized or free treatment for any and all mothers who so cared to participate. Just as we today work to ensure that mothers of the world receive fair wages for their work, are free from sexual and labor exploitation, are given access to clean drinking water and housing for themselves and their families. 

Our children deserve the best health, the best potential, and the best gifts we can give them. Let us not entertain weak moralizing and fearful naivete but rather go forward with social justice, health, and excellence as our banners.

Ryan McGivern 

Bill McKibben’s Full Article of “Designer Genes” at Orion Magazine’s site:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/119/

McKibben’s original hard copy of the article:
Bill McKibben “Designer Genes,” Orion May-June 2003. Copyright 2003 The Orion Society.

trestle

gin prickled pine
needled cold skin
drawn tight ‘round
ribby chests
vertebrae knotched
all         the        way      down
fleshed out boys their  
cast off clothes
on wrought rail
sun warmed wood
opens pores smells
of age old
train grease       embers
cigarettes on the rocks
with the older boys
the boys who
can drive to trestles       rebel
drown occasionally
to assure someone’s
watching
the water smells
of ore is
a thousand broken
Sunkist bottles
one and again one    last      breath
not looking down
not thinking
those boys who
have not kissed
have not lost
see no further than later tonight
fall like faux pearls
reappearing downriver
like white dying tapeworms

there’s a farm missing in terra haute indiana

we see the seasons felled
into each other like
female              origami
the ‘v’s of southing geese
auctions on saturdays near
the hulks of burnt silos  
while fathers vie for bids
on Hills Brothers cans
filled with ten penny nails