Must we choose between saving Democracy and Saving the Earth?

Culture, image and nature a response to Robert Reich:

Thankyou for your voice and all of the work that goes into all of this. Your previous post today was about the stock market. Unfortunately I do not have any skin in the game though I have friends that do. As an ex pat living abroad in a country which still has public healthcare (not sure for how long) and still has a culture of caring for one another. I want to write HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH? Most lawmakers are at least millionaires and some in the hundreds of millions. I dont think its about greed or conspicuous consumption or even class any more - its about fear and running away from "everyone else" as fast as possible before the party is over. Its about building huge bunker houses in Hawaii and New Zealand. For me this is at the heart of things. This is the reckoning for America, leader of the free world. I grew up in one of the wealthiest suburbs in the US. Our next door neighbour was John Reed the CEO of the bank Citicorp. I remember when he retired and wrote about a time when bankers were part of the community and that they provided a service and that this was what mattered. This was the "us". This was the "we". The issue here is American culture. Its not written about or spoken about nearly enough outside of comedians that dare to dip their toe in this water. American culture - what it really is "to make it" - the big gaudy mcmansions on the hills, the ridiculous yachts pulling into Cannes, the men who dont know how to be men anymore and women with augmented lips breasts and rear ends - 70 and 80 year olds thinking their hair style or their tan actually matters... and its all for the cameras because lets face it - its "the image that rules" the almighty photo, in present day America. There is an ongoing violence against nature in this culture - a violence towards inside ourselves and towards the natural world that surrounds us and make no mistake, its all in service of the image.....and the beauty, the actual beauty, the beauty that surrounds us and the beauty that is inside, the beauty that is inside all of us, gets more difficult to touch and farther and farther away. American culture has got to change. American culture has got to take all this on. American culture needs to grow up and start to become wise.