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Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

A stupid economic system; what old hippies talk about; and playing at Ribfest….

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

I know there are some things that I tend to write about quite a bit. They are hot button issues for me. They are usually issues that I find frustrating in the extreme. And one of them is the global economy. I watched a documentary on the meltdown of American banking giant Lehman Brothers the other night and it revealed a world economic system that cannot function without growth. If the world economy doesn’t grow, it withers and dies and takes all of us down with it. And this penchant for unending economic growth is unsustainable no matter how you look at it. We’ve got a rapidly growing population living on a planet with limited resources. Dah……what’s wrong with the picture of unlimited growth? Most of the people who are involved in the global economic environment are generally considered to be smart people – I could say men because in the Lehman Brothers documentary, there were simply no women represented. But I keep seeing every sign that they are not really all that smart…or they’d be doing a little long term planning to make sure the planet keeps running for future generations. No, I’ve often argued that we needed a system based on economic growth and greed to get us where we are. But now that we’re here, we need to take a step back and put something sustainable in place. We need to make sure we can feed all the people on the planet, and supply them with some form of health care. We need some type of global education system so that people can have the knowledge to understand the world they live in. Me, I’m pretty tired of hearing Stephen Harper and Barack Obama and Gordon Brown and whoever else talking about all this great economic growth. It’s not that great, folks, because it’s using up our resources really fast and they can’t be replaced. These days, I feel like a voice in the wilderness talking about this stuff, but we won’t be safe until everybody gets on board…..and you likely didn’t read that here first.

Got talking to another oldtimer about the Sixties the other day….seems a common topic when a couple of old hippies get together. And usually the discussion turns around what went wrong during the Sixties to create the global mess we’ve got now. Somehow, a movement that was basically communal in nature and had peace and harmony at its base really got ugly during the Seventies when people got into the “Me Generation” where about all that mattered was the individual self. And we in the West now live in a world that is almost purely hedonistic in nature. Just like Professor Fred Vaughn said back in 1980 in a seminar on the work of Jean Jaques Rousseau, the great French philosopher. I often think back to Dr. Vaughn’s class and wonder how he could see so clearly what was happening. And today we live in a world of cruising, golfing, gambling, big screen TVs, fancy option-laden cars, giant houses. If you’ve got money today in Western society, chances are you live a lifestyle that could be described as opulent and decadent. And the reason this is so scary is because this type of lifestyle is held in high esteem on the planet. It’s what the billions and billions of poor people want out of life as soon as they hit it rich. Interesting how the whole world has bought into the so-called American dream. Everybody just waiting for the goose that laid the golden egg to find them and everything will be fine…..wrong….Those of us in the Western world with our relatively high level of education and knowledge should be acting as role models for people on the rest of the planet. Right now, the only thing we teach people in the developing world is how to spend money and waste resources. Not really the best type of lesson to teach…..’Nough of my whining….

Had an emotional night on Saturday, playing bass for the Hoodoo Band at Sunrise Rotary’s big ribfest in Tecumseh Park in Chatham. Estimates put the crowd at around 7,000 for headliner Kim Mitchell and most people were in their seats when we took the stage as the opener for the headliner. That makes it the biggest crowd I’ve played in front of in a 44-year career on the bass. We played really well and it turned out to be a great night. But I was so emotional that at the instant we played our final note, I broke out into uncontrollable tears and could just feel the emotion draining away. It was a great night and thanks to frontman Darren Wrightman, guitarist Bill Morrow and drummer Jerry Gregson for letting me continue to make music at my ripe old age….

Out of time for another week. Surely have a lot of you checking out my podcast these days. Remember, take care and “Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may.”



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.