They Don't Hate Us For Our Freedom

Ever since W uttered his absurd, but famous speech about how the terrorists “hate us for our freedom”, I have sought a way to make my opposition to that sentiment clear even to those who continue insist that he was right.

I have written about it in this blog before. A couple of years ago, I even tried to get the point across in a song, “Bob Dylan Revisited” –

“They don’t hate us for our freedom, they’d just like to have their own.
They don’t hate us for our riches though they know we’re sonsabitches,
They just don’t want us stealing it from them.”

Then yesterday my friend Phil Carlson who lives in Minneapolis sent a lengthy email that included the art of Chris Jordan of Seattle, Washington. Jordan uses articles like soda cans to out together huge works of art depicting the magnitude of our wasteful ways from polluting the planet with plastic bags to murdering our own children through lax gun laws.

What I did for today’s blog was copy and insert the headings from all the pictures Phil sent me of Jordan’s work. The articles named are items Jordan used in the work the heading referred to. The explanatory line under each item tells how many of each article Jordan used to create the work and explains why Jordan finds this level of use objectionable.

I think this list states as clearly as anything else I could say why so many folks around the world are down on Americans. The final lines of my song said it, too –

“ ‘Cause we use it for our pleasure and don’t pay them in fair measure
And we sit and eat our popcorn while they starve.” –

but the compilation below and especially Jordan’s art (To see it go to http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=7 (It is well worth the cybertrip.) say it starkly and graphically.

Handguns, 2007
29,569 handguns, equal to the number of gun-related deaths in the US in 2004.

Plastic Bags, 2007
60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds.

Office Paper, 2007
30,000 reams of office paper, or 15 million sheets, equal to the amount of office paper used in the US every five minutes.

Valve Caps, 2006
3.6 million tire valve caps, one for each new SUV sold in the US in 2004.

Ben Franklin, 2007
125,000 one-hundred dollar bills ($12.5 million), the amount our government spends every hour on the war in Iraq.

Energizer, 2007
170,000 disposable Energizer batteries, equal to fifteen minutes of Energizer battery production.

Shipping Containers, 2007
38,000 shipping containers, the number of containers processed through American ports every twelve hours.

Pain Killers, 2007
213,000 Vicodin pills, equal to the number of emergency room visits yearly in the US related to misuse or abuse of prescription pain killers.

Denali Denial, 2006
24,000 logos from the GMC Yukon Denali, equal to six weeks of sales of that model SUV in 2004.

Building Blocks, 2007
Nine million wooden ABC blocks, equal to the number of American children with no health insurance coverage in 2007.

Cigarettes, 2007
65,000 cigarettes, equal to the number of American teenagers under age eighteen who become addicted to cigarettes every month.

Prison Uniforms, 2007
2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005.

Paper Cups, 2008
410,000 paper cups, equal to the number of disposable hot-beverage paper cups used in the US every fifteen minutes.

Cans Seurat, 2007
106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.

Paper Bags, 2007
1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags, the number used in the US every hour.

Cell Phones, 2007
426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day.

Jet Trails, 2007
11,000 jet trails, equal to the number of commercial flights in the US every eight hours.

Toothpicks, 2007
8 million toothpicks, equal to the number of trees harvested in the US every month to make the paper for mail order catalogs.

Skull With Cigarette, 2007 [based on a painting by Van Gogh]
200,000 packs of cigarettes, equal to the number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking every six months.

Plastic Cups, 2008
one million plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the US every six hours.


I believe that each of us owes the world the courtesy of at least trying to cut down on our personal impact through more careful use, re-use and consumption of its resources. What do you believe? And, more importantly, what do you do about it?


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle