Heh Galen, Horace (how pretentious can one get with a moniker) has certainly garnered quite a reputation here on CD. Morales comes across as a smart, honest, balanced human beign with a profound sense of cultural identity. If anyone else where proposing that the world community officially and legally bestow personhood on Mother Earth , I'd suspect that his/her real intent was to symbolically piss on the five f**king fascist (remember-they are are all part of a right wing, Catholic Cabala) judges on the US Supreme Court of the US for declaring corporations persons. Morales is much too genteel a person to be so motivated.

Having destroyed quite a few species already, the diversity wouldn't be exactly the same, but yep. Thing is, Western civilisation seems to strive for a world that is completely, totally controlled by a single system and way of thought and morals. Its ideal world is a huge Earth-size machine, with people as cogs. Or maybe totally without people. My biggest fear is that we will be able to achieve this goal.

"IF MANKIND WERE TO VANISH FROM THE EARTH, THE EARTH WOULD REVERT TO THAT RICH DIVERSITY THAT EXISTED 10,000 YEARS AGO."

Probably untrue. The damage we've already done to the climate may be enough to wipe out insects.

Hmm, South American shamans on the one hand, Ann Coulters on the other . . . remember this little gem?

"The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet — it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars — that's the Biblical view."

(Ann Coulter, in Townhall, 12 October 2000)

This nonbeliever will side with the shamans, thank you very much.

I think this is outrageous and stupid - but not nearly as outrageous and stupid as the current dominant way of thought, and my hunch is that we probably need outrageous stuff like this :-/

It's not really "monstrous", as it can't be anything but a symbolic gesture and will have no real world effect. I mean, bombing people is "monstrous", turning corn into ethanol to feed cars is may be monstrous, but saying that a tree has the same rights as a human being is at worst stupid, because, you know, trees have no egos and no ways to represent their own interests so they'll never be part of any decision making group. I think what you're saying is a bit silly, considering, you know, reality.

Yes, that's what the US does. But they're probably aiming for Hugo Chavez first. Can't do 'em all in at once, you know, especially not with the incompetent thugs we've got running the security show.

It's better than nothing, and the floor debate at the UN will be, shall we say, illuminating.

Yes, there's a difference! We're the only species largely unaware of the interconnectedness of all of life. Our ignorance of this principle is essential to maintaining our hubris.
Bravo, Bolivia!

"Not commenting on the issue itself, but doesn't it seem strange that one of the big things we are fighting is corporate personhood now we want to extend that to the earth and all the trees and plants there on?"

Well it's not the same, because the interests of "Mother Earth" can never be enclosed in a simple artificial structure like a business entity can. The danger would be in the institutionalisation of this personhood because that institution would in a very short time be hijacked by concentrations of power.

"I really believe in being responsible to earth and the other plants and critters here, and don't think humans are necessarily indispensable or better, but there is a difference between every other species and us and I really don't think that by extending rights because we think other species and things need them is the way to build a civil society where laws and ethics between people mean something."

I agree. On the other hand, wouldn't this be very much worthy of debate? I mean, wouldn't it be nice if this issue was discussed openly and more people took part in that discussion? Maybe the original idea itself isn't very sophisticated, but it extends the range of articulated opinion. I mean, if the leader of a country thinks the "health of the Earth" is so important, and if a lot of people in his country, and other countries agree with him, that says that the way of only looking at Earth as something unimportant and only to be exploited for business gains is not universal.

The main problem with Western Civilisation, as it is, imo, is that it's so totalitarian. It cannot allow alternatives. We want a single universal set of laws, a single universal science, a single economic structure and one way of doing productive work. We don't like, for example, gypsies because they can't integrate into our way of life and we only consider them leeches on OUR property who don't do things the way they should be done. We can't let people do subsistence farming, because it's a different economic system etc etc. Of course there's a good reason for this: our proudest achievement, the system of natural sciences is quite like this, on a superficial level at least - which is the reason every totalitarian structure claims to be "scientific" - from "scientific socialism" to "scientific management" to "the science of races" and so on. But this is a false parallel, because a society is not something we can only know, it's something that we can also create. It cannot be "optimised" (other than some technical parameters), because this "optimisation" would depend on the way you define values, which is not scientific.

The only way the conditions of life will be protected is to make Nature central to building "a civil society where laws and ethics between people mean something."

Without Nature's centrality, your laws and ethics will be very short-lived.

Not to mention Mr. Potato Head, the Jolly Green Giant, the Killer Tomatoes, and Carrot Top.

This will change society almost as much as the Emancipation Proclamation!

Now we can count on the formation of PETV: People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables. Count me in, man. I say we eat dirt and rocks from now on, just like the cavemen did.

Wait a minute, the proposed resolution also includes protections for dirt and rocks. Darn! I guess we'll have to eat nothing from now on. It'll be good for us--it builds character. Just go ask you neighborhood homeless population, and they will be happy to explain the weight-loss benefits of this revolutionary diet.

Bone appetit!

North Star, ho.

DC: Great post. I hope the embed, Shoe-Thrower, can read it and actually understand its message!

ATOMSK: You weave a few decent insights into a long post that otherwise reinforces some highly suspicious memes. What's all this talk of what "WE" want? It makes sense to deconstruct the "we" context from centuries of conditioning along Christian lines that see nature as a thing, something to dominate, "God-forsaken," etc. The modern view of technology repeats the lie that whatever is done with machines = progress. The state of nature, the incredible loss of species, does not figure into the moral or fiscal calculus. Loss has been EXPONENTIAL! It's ecocide on a blinding scale and must be stopped!

ANY legislation that begins to take the sanctity of life--from Mother Nature's perspective--into account HAS to be a good thing. Or do you think more wounds in the nature of the Gulf BP disaster, or that of Japan's latest nuclear "Hiroshima" deserve to be repeated?

Decisions that rape the planet's resources are made by small elites who have never met a resource, including that of human life, they couldn't stick a price tag on. Once a living being is rendered into a commodity, anything can happen. At this juncture in human evolution elites have created laws that protect PREDATION over preservation. In other words, their version of "law" is effectively a death sentence to countless species, and very likely our own.

Anyone who doesn't see the BEAUTY of Evo Morales' holistic, spiritually/ecologically enlightened position, and either uses words to make such efforts farcical, or otherwise ties THEM to totalitarian "laws," definitely has an agenda OR a twisted mindset. Perhaps camping under the stars and taking in the magnificence will cure you...