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We live in the most astonishing of times, politically speaking.
And I don't mean that as a compliment.
There is so much I would hate to try to have explain to an alien about our politics. Same with a human five centuries from now - it's just that I'm not so sure there'll be any.
In America, a regressive majority of one on the Supreme Court disappears a whole clause from the Second Amendment in order to interpret it favorably for an industry merchandizing mass quantities of small death machines. Thirty or forty thousand of us are swept away every year by these killers, but few find the coincidence of that fact with their ubiquitous presence - by some estimates, there is nearly one gun for every American nowadays - somehow noteworthy.
One president has oral sex in a private consensual relationship and lies about it, so right-wing freaks spend $40 million to investigate this most heinous of crimes and bring impeachment charges against a president for only the second time in American history. Meanwhile, one of their own admits to trashing the Constitution at every turn and isn't even investigated, let alone impeached, let alone removed from office.
This same president plunges the world into war on the basis of non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but couldn't be less concerned when North Korea actually goes nuclear on his watch. This president goes to war to bring democracy to the Arab world, but can't even be bothered to pressure Egypt or Saudi Arabia to move a tad in that direction. This president uses an attack on the US to justify international belligerence and mass human rights violations, but doesn't seem very interested in even attacking, let alone vanquishing, the supposed perpetrator.
The list of these political out-of-body experiences is as endless as it is absurd. I may not speak Martian very well, but even I can tell you what the look on the face of that little green feller with the antennae means. He's thinking, "Wow, you humans are the strangest freaks in the galaxy, man!"
Well, actually, it's not so much the entire species, but mostly just us especially twisted sisters manning the bridge over here in the, uh, world's only superpower. Bad coincidence, eh? Even we wacky Gringos know that weapons and criminals make a bad combination, as do weapons and lunatics. So, what fool handed us the keys to this planetary oil tanker? Shouldn't, like, um, the Swedes or the Norwegians be the world's superpower? They seem harmless enough.
Yep, we could go on and on detailing the ludicrous inanities of American politics in the age of Bush (himself Exhibit A), but really my favorite has to be the case of global warming. In a society devoted like no other to the politics of fear, we have somehow managed to forget the one thing we should probably fear most.
Imagine if there was a meteor headed toward our one and only planet, with the potential to do devastating and possibly lethal damage to the planet. Imagine that we had the technological capability to divert the course of this weapon of the massiest mass destruction, and all we needed was the will to do so. And imagine that we chose to focus our society's energies instead on ... gay marriage. Or illegal immigration. Or premarital sex.
Not only would we screw up all of those policy areas, but we be toast anyhow, along with all our unmarried gays, undocumented workers and 'virgin' teenagers (who, have you seen, just become experts at anal and oral sex in order to avoid the forbidden standard kind?). Good lord, this is a society which desperately needs medication! Or maybe that's the problem, and we desperately need to ditch all the brain-benders of every sort that we imbibe like candy.
Remember Dick Cheney's 'one percent doctrine'? He argued that if there's even a one percent chance of a terrorist attack, you have to go on the offensive. Of course, reality external to the Vice President's secret location tends to be a bit more nuanced than that, but that's why everyone calls him Dick, I guess. Anyhow, there's this little thing called cost-benefit analysis that seems to have gone sorely missing over the last, er, eight years or so. It was last seen flowing down the sewers of Baghdad. It would argue, for example, that yes, you should take threats seriously, but that if the solution to a one percent probability of danger that could threaten the lives of a thousand people is to adopt a policy which definitely kills 100 million of your own citizens, that's probably a bad plan. Costs and benefits, you see. I mean, people can differ on this, of course, but I'd vote to take the one percent risk in such a case. At a minimum I'd certainly argue that we ought to weight the costs along with the benefits every once in a while. Admittedly, though, that's not so helpful when you're in the middle of trying to scare the hell out of people so they'll vote for you, or acquiesce to your destructive policies.
But I digress. There is a monstrous catastrophe not only headed our way, but actually already here. I'm not a climatologist, but my sense from paying attention to media reporting on this issue over the last two decades is that there is not only a one percent chance that global warming is both real and anthropogenic, but rather a ninety-five percent chance. Perhaps ninety-nine. Yep, sure, there are a few scientists out there still making the opposite argument. Probably some of them even aren't on oil company payrolls! But the vast majority of reputable climate scientists now agree that this is happening, that we are making it happen, and that the results will be catastrophic. This, after ten and twenty years of a (somewhat) healthy scientific skepticism about those claims, which only further underscores the validity of the findings.
So what will they say about us five centuries from now - those very few, very toasty, remaining humans, living on mountain tops, the only dry land to be found? What they'll say is probably unprintable in any family newspaper, that's for sure. But in-between the expletives I think you'd be likely to find words like ... "unconscionable" ... "breathtakingly stupid" ... "astonishingly selfish" ... and, "If you weren't already dead I'd kill you!"
Last week we had James Hansen reminding Congress, twenty years after originally doing so, of the gravity of this situation. One of the top scientists from one of America's premier science agencies - who was told, by the way, to shut the hell up by the Bush administration - was reminding us yet again that we are facing mass species extinctions and ecosystem collapse among the lovely perils awaiting us if we continue in the current direction. Assuming, that is, that it isn't already far too late to turn it around now.
Think about that for a second: Mass extinction. Ecosystem collapse. Meteor. Ninety-five or better percent chance.
Gay marriage.
Takes your breath right away, doesn't it? There are certainly few better ways to underscore the full scope of the regressive nightmare haunting a country that likes to think of itself as the last, best hope of humanity. Fat chance of that. Indeed, we - or at least some of us - half-deserve this fate for choosing the likes of Nixon, Reagan, Bush, DeLay, Scalia and the rest these last decades. It's the rest of the world I feel especially sorry for. Last, best hope? Jeez, the mercury had already burst out squirting from the top of my irony thermometer seven years ago. Somehow I don't think so. Well, maybe the 'last' part...
And what's especially killer about this particular issue is the degree to which the multiple maladies and solutions all line up so neatly. Sometimes the cosmos sends you a message in very subtle ways. Other times it beats you over the head with a two-by-four. Occasionally, it detonates a small nuclear device in your backyard swimming pool to get your attention.
We're very much in the latter category right now. You don't exactly have to do a full and complete inventory to figure this one out. Here, just take this pop quiz. Quick, now: What factor do all of the following items have in common: massive environmental devastation, skyrocketing transportation and food prices, a declining middle-class with disappearing jobs, and a war-prone and constant calamity-threatening Middle East continually sucking in American military involvement and nightmarishly distorting our foreign policy? (If you're somehow still struggling with this, you may want to consider spending a little more time catching up with current events. Meanwhile, though, here's a bonus hint for you: Alan Greenspan described this as the real reason America went to war in Iraq.)
Did you get it?!?! Okay! A+ for you! Now flip it on it's head. What would be a way in which our society could address the massive threats of global warming, a sinking middle class with lousy jobs, poverty-inducing energy costs and military nightmares in the Middle East, all at once? How about if we made it a giant national priority to wean ourselves off carbon-based energy sources through a variety of policies mixing incentives and regulations, and a huge national effort to develop alternative fuel sources, with all the industrial development and good-paying jobs associated with launching such industries? You know. What did Jimmy Carter call it, thirty freakin' years ago? "The moral equivalent of war", wasn't it? Too bad he was a failed president, though. Hardly invaded any other countries. What could he possibly have known?
Seriously, though, here's a chance to go from the all-wrong scenario of environmental destruction / energy dependence / Middle East war / horrific gas prices / recession / middle class decline, over to the all-right scenario of sustainability / energy independence / peace / reasonable energy costs / economic development / prosperity - all in one fell swoop. I mean, I know that regressives have a problem with any policies that actually make sense, and I know that Americans are just about the dumbest branch of the homo politicus family tree, but isn't this a no-brainer so obvious that even people who actually have no brains could figure it out?
So, last week James Hansen reminded us that we are headed for such joyous 'lifestyle changes' as mass extinction and ecosystem collapse. Of course, most regressives continued to pooh-pooh such warnings as some sort of liberal conspiracy to undermine capitalism. I must say, these people blow me away with their unflinching and robotic dogmatism. I mean, I get why they insist on the Earth being only 6,000 years old and anything having to do with sex being a major sin. They're incredibly frightened, and these beliefs bring the existential comfort of order to an otherwise messy and capricious universe. But what's up with middle class fools ardently supporting tax cuts for the wealthy? Or any human being in the whole world denying the near unanimous testimony of scientific experts regarding a planetary threat, because oil companies told them to do so? Do climatologists seriously strike anybody as crypto-anarchists masquerading as scientists in order to destroy capitalism? (Listen to some regressive kooks talk about global warming and you could easily think so.) And, if that was really their goal, wouldn't there be a lot easier ways to crash the system than to go spend years getting a PhD, do a bunch of boring research for low pay, and grade a million mind-numbing term papers written by a million grammatically-challenged college sophomores?
Then there's that pesky little problem of evidence. Every week there's more, though hardly any quite as egregious as what you could have seen on CNN.com just a few days ago: "North Pole Could Be Ice-Free This Summer, Scientists Say". Woo-hoo. No worries there, eh? Now if Adam and Steve get married in California or Massachusetts, that's something to get worked up about. But the destruction of the Arctic ice cap? We've already got polar bears in zoos, so what's the big damn deal? Prolly it'll be easier to get to the oil up there without all that ice in the way, anyhow.
What will they say - assuming there are any they left to be saying - in five centuries about us nice folks who managed to bequeath the solar system a second Mercury where a green and fertile planet once stood, just so we could party a little longer? I'm not sure, but I don't think it will be pretty. And I don't think it will be, "Well, sure, they weren't perfect. And, true, they wrecked the whole planet. But at least they kept boys from marrying other boys."
These regressive fools and their pre-/anti-scientific religious superstitions just kill me.
And that's just the problem. They're killing all of us.
Praise the lord.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (mailto:dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
41 Comments so far
Show AllDAVE ERIQAT: Sorry, the Supremes didn't uphold the 2nd Amendment. Instead, as usual when the crucial document doesn't suit their masters, a slim majority in the person of Scalia wrote a new 2nd Amendment in which the condition of private gun ownership in the original, the maintenance of a well ordered militia, is made into a grammatical and logical dangler. There is no legal precedent for this NRA inspired interpretation. That the militia is a condition is clearer in the version circulated and ratified by the States. (Thanks LOBSTER for the Wikipedia reference.) Some familiarity with 18th century English helps as well. But with God on your side, why bother learning anything you don't already think you know? Scalia, Roberts, Thomas and Alioto are all Humpty-Dumpties with language; unfortunately they have yet to meet his fate. On the other hand, their playing fast and loose with the Constitution may give those of us with some foresight a chance to get and learn to use a firearm so we'll be ready when their useless ilk comes begging for food and a refuge from the storm they worked so assiduously to conjure. Payback's a bitch, but triage is a bitch and a half.
DMG: Well, you did it again: left me fuming, screaming, crying, seeing red, and laughing like hell all at the same time. I'd ask if there's a school where you can learn to do your tricks, but I know that any school would boot anyone, even a legacy, for being anti-social if they could do all those tricks. My friends and I have taken to calling the interlocking and mutually reinforcing climate, economic, energy, food, water, ecological, and too damned many humans crises the Perfect Storm. Used to think my grandkids would get hit with it, but now it looks like I'm gonna get hit. My only hope is that the folks more concerned with who is doing what with whom are too busy saving our morals to bother getting themselves a decent umbrella and a good pair of galoshes.
Environmental destruction? I've seen plenty of wind farms and a commercial solar collector. You could substitute oil/gas pumps for the turbines and the panels and the land wouldn't look any different. It would be scraped bare, sterile and next-to-lifeless.
And guns, my friends, are tools not unlike cresent wrenches, hammers or screwdrivers. There's been a big shift in America's perception of guns starting in the late 1970's when urban/suburban kids learned to handle weapons from watching TV and movies, when the news switched from presenting facts to selling fear. Even the language of guns changed. The thought of "blowing someone away" is abhorent. All of us ranch kids, boys and girls, learned to handle guns, to respect guns and to shoot only when necessary to protect our animals from predators and our loved ones from harm. Guns were not the Great Equalizers they are today. They didn't make the weak, strong; the small, tall; the poor, rich; the outcasts, cool; the rejected, loved; or play any roll in a person's psycho-social status whatsoever. The thought of most Americans owning guns.... Now there's a really scary thought!
Hard to believe, after reading this highly persuasive article, that there would still be people arguing for the other side of the issues!
The absurdity of the arguments constantly confounds me... that climatologists are fomenting a private war against capitolism and oil companies for example... or that fossils and carbon dating only exist because God wants to FOOL us about the age of the Earth??? WHAT'S THE POINT?
On the other hand, those people who stood most to lose from having Bush & his cronies in power are exactly the ones who rallied to Bush's side at election time and most of them STILL don't get it despite the fact that they are being repeatedly sodomized by their heroes!
Frankly, I thank my lucky stars that there are a few people like Professor green out there to occasionally remind me that it really ISN'T me that has lost touch on sanity and reality... it really IS the rest of the world!
DaveEriqat July 4th, 2008 1:21 pm
I agree.
willybill July 4th, 2008 2:15 pm
Then you are cheerfully aiding DD beer boycott in that case. I know he appreciates it.
.................................................
The American people are not nearly as stupid as some would like.
Global warming deniers deserve to be treated like Holocaust deniers in the EU... Kick those lying stooges all the way to jail!
The temperature change between 1988 and 2008 has been about 1.1°C (about 2°F) over land areas.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/twenty-years-later-tippin_b_108766.html
The chart is available in full color here (notice that the scale on the left goes from 0°C to 1.5°C--not 3.5°C as you stated).
http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200604/viewpoint.cfm
If you post here, you do need to be entirely truthful at all times (although humor is allowed). Contrary to the above post, Hansen predicted, in three possible scenarios, an increase of up to approximately 1°C, plus or minus 10 percent, between 1988 and 2008. Keep in mind that the temperature increase over land is much greater than over the oceans, and is measurable and significant (about 1.1°C over land areas). I understand that it is human nature to avoid the inevitable when the inevitable is inconceivable, but please don't do so in a manner that doesn't rely on the actual sources, which may be found at the following PDF file:
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Environment/documents/2008/06/23/ClimateChangeHearing1988.pdf
The chart is available in full color here (notice that the scale on the left goes from 0°C to 1.5°C--not 3.5°C as you stated).
Nice psyops piece.
Jim Hansen predicted in 1988 that global warming would cause an increase of temperature of 3.5 deg C within a decade. Turned out to be 0.11 deg C.
Thats the problem, the global warming "hypothesis" (not even a theory) has yet to develop a model that can actually predict how much warming will occur to any degree of accuracy.
Let the models predict the temperature in 20 years, and if accurate, we can act accordingly. The models are untested and have not predicted anything on the order of 20-30 years yet, and the data the models uses stinks and riddled with uncertainties, especially past 50 years. The data is also repeatedly adjusted and manipulated, much like the CPI that says gas prices went down.
But the political scientists of the world tell us to have faith in the climate scientists predictions, when the scientists themselves have not reached a consensus on the degree of warming that will occur.
Remember the Eugenics movement in the early 20th century?. Of course not since this has been whitewashed from popular history after Hitler adopted the science, with a little help from our Eugenic funders (Carnegie and Rockefller Foundations). But like Global Warming, the political and social scientists all adopted it and anyone who spoke out against it was called ignorant, a denialist or blind to reality. Global warming is just a clever way to get people to accept their eugenics program. Making energy more expensive, makes food more expensive, and kills people via starvation and/or heat/cold, who can not afford it. Politicized science is dangerous.
Listen to the retired professors and those no longer seeking grants or having to get papers published to advance their careers. In the real world, science gets influenced by politics as well as corporate interests.
Scientists realize that the dollars they receive for their research are hoping for a particular outcome. Those who deliver the results, receive the dollars for more research. Big Oil has their interests, but the political interests that are selling Global Warming for social control purposes is obvious. The truth is likely in the middle, man is causing some warming, but warming that is more beneficial than disasterous.
Well in Tibeten form of Buddhism aren't we all God in a way? In all things they should be approached, whether scrubbing the floor or running up a mountain, as it all is done with gladness and a sense of accomplishment? just learning bits of this, so forgive my ineptitude in regards to Buddhism.
Yes, humanity is in some depth of doo-doo, whether we believe it or not.
In many eastern "ways of liberation" - such as Buddhism and Sanatana Dharma...
(now usually referred to as "Hinduism" and representing one of the oldest spiritual traditions known to humanity)
...it is believed that The Supreme Intelligence very naturally calls forth an embodiment of Itself whenever humans (or humanoid species) are really on the verge of blowing it. Such beings always come, compassionately, to restore the Sacred Balance upon which all life depends.
Be that as it may, there is a Great Soul (in Sanskrit: Mahatma) who is currently on the last leg of her North American tour. Known as Amma (Mother) she is The Most evolved human I have ever encountered.
Having received multiple awards from organizations including the UN, for her humanitarian activities, Amma is truly a phenomenon. She appears to truly be a clear window through which the Grace of the Infinite continuously shines forth.
Don't take my word for it. If curious, you can check her out for yourself at Amma.org
Her tour dates are:
Chicago 7.05 - 7.06
New York 7.08 - 7.10
Washington DC 7.12 - 7.13
Boston 7.15 - 7.18
Toronto 7.20 - 7.23
(All public programs are free).
Checked out the FireWorks this eve....
Shock And Awe, Baby!
Ashes lingered in the air throughout the jubilant display --- USA! USA!
But the focus was not the ashes, but the beyond Brilliant Booms.
I wonder how we'd feel attending such celebrations if we were the one's who had recently been targeted by bombs, artillary, etc.
I can dig that it's a time party - nothing wrong with that - at the right time and place.
The fireworks and sychronized music - 1812 Overture etc - so rousing, militaristic and full of Yankee-Doodle can do optimism (ignoring all the death, dying, and maiming,going on "over there," of course).
In America we're taught it's not OK to feel pain or hurt. That's for Losers. And for men, doubly true. Yet, it is grief and mourning that is now crucial; We are stuck. To move forward it is imperative that we allow ourselves to feel the vulnerable feelings reminding us of the underside of being an Amerikan.
Robert Bly talks about the "descent into the ashes" as part of that process: a dark night of the soul. It is at the end of That tunnel we can experience a breakthrough....as light finally dawns amidst apt remorse.
No matter how cynical you are you just can't keep up. (was this Lilly Tomlin?)
Willybill, interesting link! Thanks.
After reading all of the information/artices and looking up a few of the cases presented in said article, I do indeed feel like a slave. It's utterly amazing that the information given isn't understood by most. I just wonder what would happen if this were taught as a standard part of history, not only American, but world history? Probably nothing.
Have a great fourth!
Now that people have all the information at their fingertips, will they be guided by science and logic to save the planet, therefore improving their lives, or by superstition and ignorance to plunder, killing the planet and themselves in hopes of a better world in a hereafter?
No, we just got shocked and awed, and we don't know what to do. It looks like we couldn't organize a card party, much less a massive (impossible for the media to ignore) march on the White House, taking back what is ours. Maybe part of it is that, for the past quarter century, we've been so focused on pitting US against THEM (whomever your "us" and "them" are), each of us growing more isolated every day, that our distrust makes it impossible to unite. As independent as we are supposed to believe we are, a movement without leaders just swims around in pointless circles. I don't have the answer, either.
"what's up with middle class fools ardently supporting tax cuts for the wealthy?"
The US middle class has a special relationship with the wealthy. The wealthy blazes the "good life" trail, with their mansions, cars and boats in the Hollywood media. The middle class follow along, enslaving themselves to pushing the wealthy's gravy train, while the wealthy reach out the back of the train to give a boost up to a select few of the most energetic middle class wannabe-wealthy to replace attiritioned wealthies. Middle classers supporting tax cuts for the wealthy is part of the kissing up. And they all stand on the backs of the lesser classes of course. Maybe it's more like a human pyramid, ehh? Now the same thing would happen to any nation, any race, if their socialist culture is crushed under the iron heel of capitalism. God Bless the United States of America!
David is wrong when he prognosticates that the Earth will become another Mercury. I doubt that that all life on the planet will become extinct. A lot of species including our own will dwindle or disappear, but the Earth will recover, as it did after the dinosaurs. Good for the Earth, too bad for us, humans...
and you've only seen the tip of the BizarroBerg heading our way.
P.S. I have been here for a little over sixty years.
Astonishing is a very good and appropriate description for the past decade; but the term that I have found myself using way too much in that time frame, is bizarre. I think that I probably used the term more in the first year or two of the Bush/Corporate administration, than I did in my entire life prior to their ascension.
Anyone ever wonder how many democrats and liberals have guns, as opposed to the number of republicans and conservatives?
I've long had the feeling that those with a real passion for guns, and so determined to keep any kind of controls on them from happening - not those who might own one gun for protection, would probably be found in the latter group.
Just a quickie on the gun thing:
"Thirty or forty thousand of us are swept away every year by these killers..."
Actually, according the the FBI, the number hovers around 11,000 per/year, (not counting suicides,) the vast majority of which are either criminal/criminal or one-off crimes of passion.
"...by some estimates, there is nearly one gun for every American nowadays..."
And, as noted, there are about 11,000 firearm murders per year. There is also nearly one vehicle for every American nowadays, and over 40,000 are killed on the roads per year, with another 1,000,000 injured.
The facts are clear: vehicles are way, way more dangerous. So why aren't the "anti-gunners" raising hell about the "weapon" most of us will be actually be a victim of sooner or later? Where's the cry for super-safe cars, and super-intense pre-license training?
Guess more would have their priorities straight if The Right To Drive Without Ability was in the Constitution, too...
I've just started reading Jim Kuntsler's fictional piece 'World Made by Hand'.
Given how unforgivably ignorant the average 'Murican is about world affairs and science, technology and the environment in general, it is reading thus far as a viable game plan...
(For those not in the know, 'World Made By Hand' is the story of a small New York state town and it's tribulations after the collapse of the worldwide oil-based economy. As with the other books of Mr. Kuntsler's I have read, he is spookily accurate.)
willybill - me too!
cryptopathocracy July 4th, 2008 2:35 pm ..Have no idea!
Dave, Dave, Dave, when The Constitution was written, every able bodied man, 15 to 50 years of age was to meet at the court house WITH HIS OWN GUN. Times have changed; today we provide them with guns, ammunition, and everything they need (supposedly.)
Actually, an English teacher would fail a student who wrote a sentence similar to the Second Amendment as passed by the House and Senate. (See Wikipedia on the "Second Amendment."
Hey, we're at ..... ahem ..... "WAR" aren't we?
Doesn't that give the Chimp, little Dick and their thugs the right to run amuck?
Isn't it remarkable that we're at "war" with a country (actually two) that was no threat to us? As for N Korea, it's poor in natural resources, i.e. no oil, so they're safe even if they went nuclear.
willybill - my apologies dude, you appear to be on an Uber-Natural High. Good 4th to you as well! -Sc2@c%r&3P8*g# ... know what I mean?
fargokant - Just when did we ever have a democracy? Both parties and their front men answer to the same puppet-masters behind the Curtain... the ones with the real power and money. When you have two (?parties?) feeding from a common trough, it should tell you something. Remember, the Soviet system also offered options: Commie tool #1 and Commie tool #2. We have exactly the same system... We just call it democracy... doesn't change the basic charade.
I was about five years old when I started observing how stupid our species is (that was about 1950). It has been a downward spiral since then. I feel so bad for all sentient beings for what our incredibly stupid species has done, and I feel like I am in a surreal play - we just can't be THIS stupid!
cryptopathocracy July 4th, 2008 1:54 pm ...Sorry my friend...I do not do drugs and don't even drink. reality is a bitch, eh? Have a great 4th!
David Green once again richly and entertainingly describes his sheer amazement at the thought processes of those both wittingly and unwittingly destroying America. I too believe that you can never underestimate the stupidity of the American people. This is why, even with polls showing that Obama is favored in the upcoming election, I firmly believe that McCain has an excellent chance of becoming our next president. I couldn't believe it when Bush beat Kerry, but it happened. Perhaps this is the definition of democracy: one vote, one person - whether you are stupid or smart, a killer at heart or a saint, a sheep or a human being. However, only Republicans nurture stupidity for selfish gain. The rest of us sit around, like Green, wondering what the hell is going on.
Is there something in the air today???
willybill - I see the new crop of peyote is a kicker!!
The gun ruling now spreads to those who want their gun-babies in airports and at work.
Gun 'accidents' and more murder will escalate the elimination of the human species as the
planet takes its revenge quickly and forcefully.
In 500 years, new species, if they are smart, won't speak of us at all.
How about this artificial distinction.
Environmental vs Ecology:
The former is about keeping a clean yard and aesthetic issues like Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. Easy to understand and relate to, and don't require any major sacrifice.
The latter has to do with metrics about the health of the Earth, are harder to conceptualize, and require more sacrifice--a hard sell in any era and especially this one.
http://www.fourwinds10.com./siterun_data/bellringers_corner/people_of_the_lie/news.php?q=1206983637
Happy Independence Day to all Usanians!
As we commemorate the independence of the third largest state in the world and the world's second-largest democracy, people of all nations would do well to contemplate the wisdom of their ancestors:
"So likewise a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."
George Washington
"Unless a nation's life faces peril, war is murder."
Ataturk
DMG: you just ain't spending enough time at the Mall.
www.StudentsForTheEarth.org
I take issue with your condemnation of the Supreme Court's decision regarding the Second Amendment. I applaud its ruling! It's one of the few times lately that a portion of the Constitution has been defended. We should be grateful any time a part of that sacred document is upheld.
The Second Amendment reads:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The only part of the Second Amendment that's ambiguous is the meaning of "a well regulated militia." However, in reading the sentence, the formation of a well regulated militia flows from the right of people to bear arms. In other words, the right to bear arms is what's paramount, not the need to form militias.
In any case, there was a citizen-led movement to organize into militias that peaked in the 1990s. It was thanks to the efforts of the Clinton Administration and the suspect Oklahoma City bombing that militias became demonized and have since largely disbanded. I believe those citizen-organized militias were what the authors of the Second Amendment had in mind. After all, the Second Amendment could not refer to a standing army intended to protect the nation from external threats since the authors of the Constitution, in fact, were wary of maintaining standing armies as a threat to freedom. It must have been intended to empower citizens to arm themselves primarily for the purpose of protecting themselves from the government should it ever become a tyranny!
Many years ago I used to say that "liberals" would someday be grateful that America is a gun-toting nation, as those guns are the only thing standing in the way of a totalitarian tyranny. After reading this article I'm not so sure I was right. Perhaps ignorant "liberals" and "progressives" do prefer to happily march into concentration camps, secure in the knowledge that it's for their own good and that their government cares about them.
Trite as it sounds, guns may facilitate killing, but it's people who are responsible. After we confiscate everyone's guns will we then confiscate all of their other instruments of murder? How about the lads in England who were collectively stabbed some 250 times with knives? Should we confiscate everyone's knives now? Then baseball bats? Then lead pipes? How about automobiles? They've been used to commit murder. Ropes with nooses attached?
As for what motivates this administration, although many have complained that we appear to live in Bizarro World today, the actions of this administration are quite easy to understand, once one recognizes that the people in office seek only power and money for themselves and their cronies. They are not the least bit interested in what happens to the world, the environment, the nation or its people, nor do they even pretend to be. Perhaps the lack of feigned concern is what irritates people the most. In fact, today's crop of politicians is not so different from yesterday's. It's just that yesterday's politicians were a little better at hiding their malevolent intentions and pretending to be concerned about the "little" people. Today's politicians are brazen sociopaths. Unfortunately, Americans, in particular, have become so inured to vile programming (double meaning) vomited by the mainstream media that they can no longer even recognize pathological personalities that pass for politicians today.
Just to show that I don't totally disagree with you, I strongly agree that we ought to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. It astonishes me that mainstream pundits discuss every possible explanation for rising energy and food prices, but never seem to suggest reducing consumption. And just so you know I'm not a hypocrite, I follow my own advice in that regard. I drive my car once a week on average and have not used my house air conditioner once this summer. In fact, I'm trying to get through the entire summer without using it. And I do this not because I believe in "global warming" – I do not – but because it just makes sense to reduce waste and have a minimal impact on the environment.
Dave
So many people accept all news as usual business. We are heading to ruin and fascism. Complacency administered with new age pleasantries is not going to help us. Yes, keep love in your heart, but recognize that there are many in power who lack the ability to even contemplate love.