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The Evolution Is Ours
Dec 06, 2002
Fresh out of college I worked at a facility for developmentally disabled adults. There was one endearing woman, Adele, who was sixty and brain damaged. Adele had some things together and many others not - her gait, her speech, her ability to comprehend why she was at this facility instead of with her family were all significantly compromised. I asked the keeper of records what had happened to her because in some ways she seemed to be close to regular functioning but still far enough away to make her life confused and troubled. I was told that Adele's brain damage happened at birth. A nurse, insisting that a doctor be present for the delivery, pushed the head of the baby back up the birth canal until the doctor arrived. This nurse, either intimidated or brainwashed or both, defied the powerful pressure of inevitable birth and corrupted the event and the creation. I believe we are living a version of Adele's birth.
The steady evolution of our country and technology is under arrest. The evolution of both belongs to us and is our birthright and yet we are suffering a terrible and invisible blockade. What deranged hands are holding back the birth process? They must be identified and relieved of their custody before they're allowed do anymore damage.
I remember a college professor in the seventies telling us that World War III will erupt over a substance that ruins our environment and destroys our health. His prediction is taking shape. Our evolution has been commandeered and the birth process of new technologies is being postponed to damaging effects. Our hope for not only survival but for some kind of transcendent living is to surf the wave of natural givens. The sun, the wind, the tide, the heat of the earth's core, the flow of water can't be metered and sold. They, like our evolution, are birthrights. Technology that harnesses and interprets those forces can be made and sold and that will forge a new kind of economy that will be less neurotic and volatile. But like the nurse with her hand on the head of an emerging newborn, the people holding the reins of power want to preserve the neurotic and volatile. They are content to spend our money to make more weapons to kill more people to protect the flow of the thing that will pollute our lungs, skin and shores, which in turn increases the rage that targets us which supposedly then makes it necessary to allocate more money to make more weapons. That's the logic - that's the thinking of Adele's nurse and the illegitimate president.
The actual, provable or suspected interference with the dissemination of new alternative energy needs to be addressed. National security and the common good are interwoven with wind, solar, geothermal, tides, biomass and whatever yet undiscovered forms of energy that "surf the waves of natural givens." The rebuilt Ground Zero should be powered by everything but the fossil fuel that created it. It should literally be the point of embarkation for the energy that will move us away from the black hole that is pulling us to its center.
The explosive fuel that has secured criminal profits out of criminal agendas needs to be retired. Let it and the people on the land under which it bubbles, rest. They have a right to their political evolution without interference from the world's unhealthy and now pathological appetite for a substance they happen to have been born on top of.
The pursuit and demand for alternative non-combustible energy is sane, moral, healthy, exciting, fun and essential. What is the national budget for research into the development of alternative energy? What is the cost of a B1 bomber? What are B1 bombers protecting? Not us. They protect the profits of transnational corporations who put the people in office who will continue to funnel funds to the same irrational and deadly cycle of bombing to protect "national interests" or "national security" or "the American people" or "our freedom" or...and the numbing litany goes on. We have to create a government that knows our security, interest and freedom rests in our claiming our evolution and either our representatives are part of that evolution or they must be asked to leave the birthing room.
Representatives should be nominated and elected based on their vision for renewable, progressive and sustainable energy. Companies domestic and foreign that develop this new world order should earn our investment. Incentives and government subsidization should be insisted upon. The government should collaborate with our houses and cars to help them become part of the new millennium rather than fossils of a toxic past. Our greatest natural resource is our genius for invention - our passion for initiative and ingenuity. The technological evolution is ours and if we allow the mad midwives that have occupied the process to push back the birth of a new era, the damage will be real and lasting.
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Bill C. Davis
Bill C. Davis was a playwright, writer, actor, and political activist. He has been a contributor to Common Dreams since 2001. Bill died on February 26, 2021, at age 69, after a battle with COVID-19. Bill's Broadway debut -- "Mass Appeal," earned two Tony nominations and became a staple of community theater. Bill wrote the screenplay for the 1984 film adaptation of "Mass Appeal," starring Jack Lemmon and Zeljko Ivanek.
Fresh out of college I worked at a facility for developmentally disabled adults. There was one endearing woman, Adele, who was sixty and brain damaged. Adele had some things together and many others not - her gait, her speech, her ability to comprehend why she was at this facility instead of with her family were all significantly compromised. I asked the keeper of records what had happened to her because in some ways she seemed to be close to regular functioning but still far enough away to make her life confused and troubled. I was told that Adele's brain damage happened at birth. A nurse, insisting that a doctor be present for the delivery, pushed the head of the baby back up the birth canal until the doctor arrived. This nurse, either intimidated or brainwashed or both, defied the powerful pressure of inevitable birth and corrupted the event and the creation. I believe we are living a version of Adele's birth.
The steady evolution of our country and technology is under arrest. The evolution of both belongs to us and is our birthright and yet we are suffering a terrible and invisible blockade. What deranged hands are holding back the birth process? They must be identified and relieved of their custody before they're allowed do anymore damage.
I remember a college professor in the seventies telling us that World War III will erupt over a substance that ruins our environment and destroys our health. His prediction is taking shape. Our evolution has been commandeered and the birth process of new technologies is being postponed to damaging effects. Our hope for not only survival but for some kind of transcendent living is to surf the wave of natural givens. The sun, the wind, the tide, the heat of the earth's core, the flow of water can't be metered and sold. They, like our evolution, are birthrights. Technology that harnesses and interprets those forces can be made and sold and that will forge a new kind of economy that will be less neurotic and volatile. But like the nurse with her hand on the head of an emerging newborn, the people holding the reins of power want to preserve the neurotic and volatile. They are content to spend our money to make more weapons to kill more people to protect the flow of the thing that will pollute our lungs, skin and shores, which in turn increases the rage that targets us which supposedly then makes it necessary to allocate more money to make more weapons. That's the logic - that's the thinking of Adele's nurse and the illegitimate president.
The actual, provable or suspected interference with the dissemination of new alternative energy needs to be addressed. National security and the common good are interwoven with wind, solar, geothermal, tides, biomass and whatever yet undiscovered forms of energy that "surf the waves of natural givens." The rebuilt Ground Zero should be powered by everything but the fossil fuel that created it. It should literally be the point of embarkation for the energy that will move us away from the black hole that is pulling us to its center.
The explosive fuel that has secured criminal profits out of criminal agendas needs to be retired. Let it and the people on the land under which it bubbles, rest. They have a right to their political evolution without interference from the world's unhealthy and now pathological appetite for a substance they happen to have been born on top of.
The pursuit and demand for alternative non-combustible energy is sane, moral, healthy, exciting, fun and essential. What is the national budget for research into the development of alternative energy? What is the cost of a B1 bomber? What are B1 bombers protecting? Not us. They protect the profits of transnational corporations who put the people in office who will continue to funnel funds to the same irrational and deadly cycle of bombing to protect "national interests" or "national security" or "the American people" or "our freedom" or...and the numbing litany goes on. We have to create a government that knows our security, interest and freedom rests in our claiming our evolution and either our representatives are part of that evolution or they must be asked to leave the birthing room.
Representatives should be nominated and elected based on their vision for renewable, progressive and sustainable energy. Companies domestic and foreign that develop this new world order should earn our investment. Incentives and government subsidization should be insisted upon. The government should collaborate with our houses and cars to help them become part of the new millennium rather than fossils of a toxic past. Our greatest natural resource is our genius for invention - our passion for initiative and ingenuity. The technological evolution is ours and if we allow the mad midwives that have occupied the process to push back the birth of a new era, the damage will be real and lasting.
Bill C. Davis
Bill C. Davis was a playwright, writer, actor, and political activist. He has been a contributor to Common Dreams since 2001. Bill died on February 26, 2021, at age 69, after a battle with COVID-19. Bill's Broadway debut -- "Mass Appeal," earned two Tony nominations and became a staple of community theater. Bill wrote the screenplay for the 1984 film adaptation of "Mass Appeal," starring Jack Lemmon and Zeljko Ivanek.
Fresh out of college I worked at a facility for developmentally disabled adults. There was one endearing woman, Adele, who was sixty and brain damaged. Adele had some things together and many others not - her gait, her speech, her ability to comprehend why she was at this facility instead of with her family were all significantly compromised. I asked the keeper of records what had happened to her because in some ways she seemed to be close to regular functioning but still far enough away to make her life confused and troubled. I was told that Adele's brain damage happened at birth. A nurse, insisting that a doctor be present for the delivery, pushed the head of the baby back up the birth canal until the doctor arrived. This nurse, either intimidated or brainwashed or both, defied the powerful pressure of inevitable birth and corrupted the event and the creation. I believe we are living a version of Adele's birth.
The steady evolution of our country and technology is under arrest. The evolution of both belongs to us and is our birthright and yet we are suffering a terrible and invisible blockade. What deranged hands are holding back the birth process? They must be identified and relieved of their custody before they're allowed do anymore damage.
I remember a college professor in the seventies telling us that World War III will erupt over a substance that ruins our environment and destroys our health. His prediction is taking shape. Our evolution has been commandeered and the birth process of new technologies is being postponed to damaging effects. Our hope for not only survival but for some kind of transcendent living is to surf the wave of natural givens. The sun, the wind, the tide, the heat of the earth's core, the flow of water can't be metered and sold. They, like our evolution, are birthrights. Technology that harnesses and interprets those forces can be made and sold and that will forge a new kind of economy that will be less neurotic and volatile. But like the nurse with her hand on the head of an emerging newborn, the people holding the reins of power want to preserve the neurotic and volatile. They are content to spend our money to make more weapons to kill more people to protect the flow of the thing that will pollute our lungs, skin and shores, which in turn increases the rage that targets us which supposedly then makes it necessary to allocate more money to make more weapons. That's the logic - that's the thinking of Adele's nurse and the illegitimate president.
The actual, provable or suspected interference with the dissemination of new alternative energy needs to be addressed. National security and the common good are interwoven with wind, solar, geothermal, tides, biomass and whatever yet undiscovered forms of energy that "surf the waves of natural givens." The rebuilt Ground Zero should be powered by everything but the fossil fuel that created it. It should literally be the point of embarkation for the energy that will move us away from the black hole that is pulling us to its center.
The explosive fuel that has secured criminal profits out of criminal agendas needs to be retired. Let it and the people on the land under which it bubbles, rest. They have a right to their political evolution without interference from the world's unhealthy and now pathological appetite for a substance they happen to have been born on top of.
The pursuit and demand for alternative non-combustible energy is sane, moral, healthy, exciting, fun and essential. What is the national budget for research into the development of alternative energy? What is the cost of a B1 bomber? What are B1 bombers protecting? Not us. They protect the profits of transnational corporations who put the people in office who will continue to funnel funds to the same irrational and deadly cycle of bombing to protect "national interests" or "national security" or "the American people" or "our freedom" or...and the numbing litany goes on. We have to create a government that knows our security, interest and freedom rests in our claiming our evolution and either our representatives are part of that evolution or they must be asked to leave the birthing room.
Representatives should be nominated and elected based on their vision for renewable, progressive and sustainable energy. Companies domestic and foreign that develop this new world order should earn our investment. Incentives and government subsidization should be insisted upon. The government should collaborate with our houses and cars to help them become part of the new millennium rather than fossils of a toxic past. Our greatest natural resource is our genius for invention - our passion for initiative and ingenuity. The technological evolution is ours and if we allow the mad midwives that have occupied the process to push back the birth of a new era, the damage will be real and lasting.
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