Wendell Berry for President

Seriously. He's only two years older than John McCain... And a life full of thinking and farming has got to be healthier than all that politicking.  Plus, although as an organic farmer he's surely shoveled his share of ... manure, it can't be anything close to the amount piling up around the election campaign.

A few "sound bites" from a recent interview in The Sun (but go read the whole thing!):

"Greed is a part of human nature, and greed is the root cause of these [environmental] disasters. Once you have greed and the means of exploitation, the high-toned rationalizations — in other words, the excuses — follow as a matter of course. A real culture functions to limit greed. Our culture functions to increase it, because, we are repeatedly told, it’s profitable to do so, though the majority of the profits go to only a few people."

"...I’m not going to subscribe to anybody’s excuse for coldblooded killing. There’s no such thing as a “just” war anymore, if there ever was. You can’t defend bombing children and innocent people. It isn’t right to teach people how to torture and kill each other. Wars never end, really. The Crusades aren’t quite over yet. Our Civil War certainly isn’t over yet. I don’t think we can afford this kind of behavior anymore. Nobody’s talking about the ecological damage of war."

"I did make up my mind at some time that instead of trying to serve my purposes by rhetorical artifice or personal attacks, I would try to make as much sense as I could. If your cause doesn’t make sense, why defend it?"

Can you imagine having a president who thinks like this?  Me either.

But one can dream...  And maybe give Obama a try.

Comments

[Sheila B.]

Kelli,
What an awesome post! Thank you for sharing it during this intense election season.

Sheila

[Ben]

Thanks for posting this article, Kelli! I don't know what Wendell Berry would would say but I'm posting it on facebook too!

[becky]

kelli, thank you for sharing the link to the sun interview with wendell berry. his thoughts on love synchronised nicely with colin beavan's post today on his no impact man blog.