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e-culture: Films on Consumerism and Sustainability, Striking Janitors, Community Advocate
November 15, 2006
IN THIS ISSUE
-Texas Community Advocate Debut
-Striking Janitors Information Session
-Consumerism and Sustainability Films
-Additional Resources / Colonias Images
-About this Email Newsletter
As the holiday season nears, retail businesses prepare for price wars to compete for holiday shoppers. Our economy will be measured by their success. The media will report as business executives forecast the potential downturn in the U.S. economy, but the American consumers will come through strong, making record purchases in the final shopping days before Christmas.
Benevolent organizations will serve holiday meals for tens of thousands of poor and homeless citizens across the nation and churches will deliver blankets and clothing to needy families. Organizations, including Houston Institute for Culture, will deliver charitable aid to the US-Mexico border, or to New Orleans. Groups like Music Beyond Borders will collect toys for children who live in homeless shelters.
For those who will see it, the wealth of the nation is severely out of balance as more Americans are affected by poverty and debt than ever before. The imbalance is not only experienced by Americans, but by people in other nations that are feeling the pressure to adopt stronger consumer practices and experiencing growing personal debt, as well as soaring trade deficits by their governments.
Narrow ownership of highly successful and profitable businesses that aren't restricted by national borders is one of the main identifiable causes of growing economic imbalances. Influences on consumers are being strategically narrowed. But consumers with consciousness for broad interests and greater knowledge of the benefits of local ownership in communities have the ability to raise standards in their communities.
Houston Institute for Culture will initiate a new Center for Localism with a program of statewide public service messages called Texas Community Advocate to improve Texas communities through consumer education about local solutions.
Texans who would like to see their actions have a more beneficial impact on the world by supporting Texas Community Advocate should have hope; raising standards in one community by increasing local ownership has the ability to positively affect opportunities in neighboring communities as well. Even a small but sustained effort to make a local community successful by each member can resolve some very large issues in distant places.
Learn more at: http://www.texasculture.org
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Striking Janitors
The United States has produced many companies that have succeeded based on invention, innovation and utilization of modern developments in communication and transportation. But today there are businesses that succeed almost solely based on their willingness to exploit workers and provide cheap labor services to their even bigger business customers.
Labor abuse is most likely to occur in a situation where economic standards and prospects to improve are extremely out of balance. The nationwide immigration debate and the local janitors strike are evidence of the current condition. In fact, the two are related symptoms of the larger problem of extreme inequality; where competition at the top strictly depends on the competitors' ability to find the cheapest possible labor sources. The process draws more and more people to the United States, particularly from Latin America, for the very purpose of their exploitation.
Some of the striking janitors we spoke with are recent immigrants from Mexico's northern border states. Working for a little more than $5 per hour in Houston will earn them about eight to ten times the amount they can earn in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas ($20 to $40 per day for janitorial work in Houston compared with $2 to $5 per day for industrial work and recycling on the border). The higher pay in the United States looks much better to them than in Mexico, where many prices for food and clothing are roughly the same as U.S. discount retailers (i.e. milk is about $1.50 per half gallon; a child's generic t-shirt costs $6; adult jeans are $20). But for the part-time pay of only a little more than $20, the workers find they can not live decently in the United States due to housing, health care, and other costs which are much higher.
Inevitably, exploited workers recognize that they must raise their status in order to survive.
Information Session
Striking janitors and representatives of their union, SEIU, will be present during "Janitors on Strike: An Information Session" at Rice University this Wednesday.
The event will feature: Rice university professor and labor historian Alex Lichtenstein; and, Harris County AFL-CIO officer Richard Shaw
Wednesday, November 15, 7:00pm
Humanities Building, Room 118
Rice University
http://www.rice.edu
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Community Solutions
The appetite for building greater wealth by some of the most powerful banks, manufacturers, retailers and service industries is unsustainable for many American communities and people around the world. Excessive consumerism has created extreme division between rich and poor, while excessive consumption of resources has raised questions about the sustainability of our high standard of living.
It is in the best interest of every person to be concerned with these issues. This week, as Americans prepare for Thanksgiving feasts, the annual frenzy of holiday shopping and an avalanche of advertising, Houston Institute for Culture will present a series of films to explore different aspects of consumerism and sustainability.
Affluenza
Thursday, November 16, 2006
The End of Suburbia - Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream
Friday, November 17, 2006
The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Films begin at 7:00pm; Free and open to the public
Havens Center, 1827 W. Alabama Street, Houston, Texas 77098
http://www.houstonculture.org/film
Film descriptions:
Affluenza
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Produced by John de Graaf and Vivia Boe; Hosted by Scott Simon
"Affluenza" is a groundbreaking film that diagnoses a serious social disease - caused by consumerism, commercialism and rampant materialism - that is having a devastating impact on our families, communities, and the environment. We have more stuff, but less time, and our quality of life seems to be deteriorating. By using personal stories, expert commentary, hilarious old film clips, and "uncommercial" breaks to illuminate the nature and extent of the disease, "Affluenza" has appealed to widely diverse audiences: from freshmen orientation programs to consumer credit counseling, and from religious congregations to marketing classes.
With the help of historians and archival film, "Affluenza" reveals the forces that have dramatically transformed us from a nation that prized thriftiness - with strong beliefs in "plain living and high thinking" - into the ultimate consumer society.
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The End of Suburbia - Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream
Friday, November 17, 2006
Directed by Gregory Greene; Produced by Barry Silverthorn.
Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too has the suburban way of life become embedded in the American consciousness. Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream.
But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary. The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket in the coming years, how will the populations of suburbia react to the collapse of their dream?
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The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Directed by Faith Morgan; Written and Produced by Faith Morgan, Eugene "Pat" Murphy and Megan Quinn
The independent documentary was inspired when Faith Morgan and Pat Murphy took a trip to Cuba through Global Exchange in August, 2003. That year Pat had begun studying and speaking about worldwide peak oil production. In May, Pat and Faith attended the second meeting of The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, a European group of oil geologists and scientists, which predicted that mankind was perilously close to having used up half of the world's oil resources. When they learned that Cuba underwent the loss of over half of its oil imports and survived, after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, the couple wanted to see for themselves how Cuba had done this.
During their first trip to Cuba, in the summer of 2003, they found what Cubans call "The Special Period" astounding and Cuban's responses very moving. Faith found herself wanting to document on film Cuba's successes so that what they had done wouldn't be lost. Both of them wanted to learn more about Cuba's transition from large farms and plantations, and reliance on fossil-fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers, to small organic farms and urban gardens. Cuba was undergoing a transition from a highly industrial society to a sustainable one. Cuba became, for them, a living example of how a country can successfully traverse what we all will have to deal with sooner or later, the reduction and loss of finite fossil fuel resources.
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Additional Resources
Kilian Sweeney of Disclexington Records interviewed me for his blog [http://disclexington.blogspot.com] on some very timely subjects as we debut of Texas Community Advocate website and public service messages. The interview is linked on our front page as the current photo feature: http://www.houstonculture.org
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Conditions in the Colonias
You can view photos documenting a medical mission to Reynosa, which is organized by Houston doctors and pharmacists. The video slide shows are linked on our front page under News:
http://www.houstonculture.org
You will need Window Media Player or similar program to view the images. Download the files to your computer by right clicking the link and choose Save Target As, and save the files to your desktop for better viewing.
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About this Email Newsletter
The e-culture newsletter is provided to community members who have requested it, as well as Houston Institute for Culture volunteers and collaborators on beneficial programs. The newsletter features Houston Institute for Culture events and activities, as well as community and cultural activities throughout the region. We attempt to highlight events and organizations that resemble the educational mission of Houston Institute for Culture, as well as promote diverse interests.
If you would like to be added to the list. please send an email to info@houstonculture.org. To be removed from the list, please reply or send a message saying "remove" or "unsubscribe".
Thank you for supporting great educational and cultural awareness activities.
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M a r k @houstonculture.org
Houston Institute for Culture
Havens Center
1827 W. Alabama Street
Houston, Texas 77098
HOUSTON INSTITUTE FOR CULTURE SEARCH info@houstonculture.org