Living in Greenwich Village means receiving tons of mailings from democratic politicians.

For years I’ve contacted people and companies that spam me with paper mail. I’ve gotten it to near zero, except political mail. Any time there’s an election, they send me tons of their polluting, depleting mailings, unsolicited, unwanted. I don’t know how to stop it because it’s different people each time.

Here are a few pieces of pollution from my mailbox yesterday. Similar amounts have been showing up for years, none solicited.

It’s tempting to say it’s just a piece of paper here and there. They chose to pollute and deplete. They are in their behavior opposing sustainability.

They are exposing the actual problem: they feel what they are doing is worth the pollution and depletion, if they don’t do it someone else will, and other legitimizing myths. You know who else feels and acts that way? Everyone and every organization that pollutes and depletes, from Exxon to Aramco to people who litter. Everyone believes in the moment they do things that pollute and deplete that what they are doing is good and right.

They are not leaders. They are the opposite of leaders. They aren’t followers because they are hurting the communities they purport to be parts of. In my upcoming book I tell stories of Benedict Arnold and John C. Calhoun, whom they more resemble.

I see them as failures, at least as far as sustainability is concerned, also integrity and credibility.

• ← Colonized doesn’t mean Indigenous. Being there when colonizers arrived doesn’t mean there first.