Today is Election Day and I’m full of dread. I want to say that I’m optimistic and trust in the innate wisdom of the American People. I don’t.
There is a line from Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel Dune. It is one of the self-control teachings the hero learns from his mother. “Fear Is the Mind Killer.” This election is an unambiguous demonstration of that truth.
A couple of nights ago, I couldn’t sleep. Worries and aches and pains made it impossible to find a comfortable position. My head was like a Dodgem Cars rink. Ideas whirled about, spitting sparks and stinking of ozone.
I got up and went into my office, sat in the darkness, and mediated. The moon shown with the cold, crystalline light of the void. I studied its craters and mare, contemplating time and the immensity of existence. I felt the same awe that I had felt as a kid when I stared into the night sky. Sometimes, I would feel as if I were falling into the starry night.
I felt a sense of completeness. All my sparking-stinking concerns ran out of juice and ground to a halt. My fears were reduced to husks. Emptied of their energy, they could no longer grow and fester. My apprehensions withered, transformed into fossils that I could examine and demystify.
In the morning, reality, authentic and imagined, re-imposed itself. However, impressions of the moonlight reminded me of what I felt and understood.
Tonight, as I listen to the election returns, I will visualize the moonlight and calm. I will examine my curiosities and continue planning for a more humane future.
Regardless of the outcome of this election, nothing changes, unless we change it.
Ukraine Fights for Its Life NATO totters towards Putin’s Plan B
Is Europe, with the acquiescence of Biden, about to cave before Russian aggression?
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine approaches it’s 4th month of slaughter, some NATO members are talking about pushing Ukraine to give up a portion of its occupied land to provide Putin a face-saving out. The fear is that Putin will employ nuclear weapons and that he may spread his invasion into other vulnerable nations like Finland, the Baltic States, Georgia and Moldova. He can keep the area he’s captured, in return for peace. By sacrificing 20% of Ukraine perhaps everyone else will be safe. Chamberlain would be proud.
This is playing into Putin’s Plan B. If he can’t take his objectives by force, he can secure them through threats and brutal attacks against civilians. And, as we’ve had seen, Putin’s word is worth nothing. He can not be trusted. So why base the future on an agreement with a man you know you can’t trust and who has a history of bloody aggression.
History is replete with examples of how the US and Europe have failed to answer the cries for help by other people fighting for their freedom; Hungary – 1956, Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring – 1968, the betrayal of the Kurds – 2019, and others. Is the US and NATO about to try to force Ukraine to surrender its territory because they (we) don’t have the stomach to do what is necessary?
Simple Truth Anything short of defeating the Russians in Ukraine and liberating the areas currently occupied, including Crimea, is a defeat for the West and only sets the stage for another conflict in a few years.
I think Henry Kissinger was one of the first to suggest Ukraine should conceded land for peace. A close look at Kissinger’s career should warn all of us. His Machiavellian Politik is worn out and belongs on the dump pile of history.
So, if I were speaking directly to Biden and NATO I would say, “You have a moral obligation to ensure Ukraine defeats Russia. Being willing to sacrifice Ukraine to shield ourselves is cowardice. What is needed is a rapid rearmament and resupply. Quit clutching your pearls and kick our bureaucratic system in the butt. Get the Ukrainians what they need, including long-range artillery and missiles.”
As for Putin, “NATO and the US have no intention of setting foot on Russian soil or demanding regime change. We are and will continue to provide all the weapons Ukraine needs to defend itself and recapture land occupied by Russian forces. “
“If Russia uses chemical and/or biological weapons, the US and NATO will launch counter strikes with powerful conventional weapons on Russian positions in Ukraine and in Russia along its border with Ukraine. NATO and the US will not use nuclear weapons unless Russia uses them first. In which case, we will respond in kind. Period. ”
I have come to the conclusion that Humanity is too stupid to live. Every day is chock-full of examples, both by individuals and groups, of short-sighted, self-serving, decisions that are clearly self-destructive. Gun control is one example.
Twenty-one bullets. Cost per round, less than $1.00. 21 lives = $21. Life in the United States is cheap.
Good Guys With Guns?
It’s been weeks and I’m still struggling to write something about the massacre of innocents in Uvalde Texas. However my anger and frustration make it difficult. There are so many things I want to say but they would be redundant after better minds than mine have spoken out.
Facts and figures do not carry weight with about 20% of Americans. These “normal Americans” are victims of the steady flood of propaganda from Fox News, Trump, Republicans, Christian White Nationalists and Russian provocateurs. Their minds have been poisoned and they are now an undeniable threat to our freedoms and nation.
I’m tired of trying to cajole, convince, educate, “see their side”, etc in an effort to reason with a rabid minority and their cowardly politicians. In my opinion, any politician that obstructs comprehensive gun reform is an accomplice to murder for every gun death that now occurs. And the average “everyday day” Americans who support them are guilty of reckless endangerment and manslaughter. Actions have consequences.
As for all the slippery slope and 2nd Amendment arguments; that’s all fiction. Bottom-line, we need much tighter gun regulations that reflect the real anger these devices pose when in the hands of an American. We need tight controls because a large segment of Americans can’t be trusted with a gun. As for the Good Guys with guns, they’re good only until they go bad. The mere presence of a gun in a house increases the likelihood of injury and death by accident, domestic violence and suicide.
As for all those who identify themselves as Good Guys and then parade around armed at demonstrations and political activities, I’ve got news: The act of displaying a firearm is a threat and the belligerent attitude often shown towards others is a threat. Good Guys don’t go around threatening people. Bad Guys do. That is why we need tighter controls. You’re part of the problem.
Photo: M-1 carbine magazine with 30 cal. rounds. Circa WWII.
Today is the 52nd Earth Day. It is the largest annual secular event in the world with over one billion participants since its start. The first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, marks the beginning of the modern, global environmental movement. It’s been a long journey.
In 1962 Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring. It was and remains a must read for two reasons. First, it brought the environmental issue of the use of pesticides and the devastation they caused to the public’s attention, like no one else had. The United States has tradition of authors who write about Humanity’s relationship with Nature and Wilderness. These writers, such as Henry David Thoreau (1854), John Muir (1911) and Aldo Leopold (1949), slowly moved the public’s environmental awareness forward. But it was Silent Spring that fired the public’s imagination by vividly describing the links between pollution, its impact on wildlife and public health. The book sold 500,000 copies world-wide.
The second reason is that Carson and her book were attacked mercilessly in a way that became the blueprint for future assaults by corporations against their enemies, such as auto safety, tobacco’s addictive and poisonous nature, climate change with its existential threat to humanity, and anything else that threatens the status quo and profits. The strategy is familiar and effective.
It began by claiming the book was full of inaccuracies, then effort to discredit the Carson in an attempt to destroy her career and confuse the public by claiming that the observations and evidence were not conclusive. The chemical companies who made the pesticides argued that there was a legitimate disagreement in the scientific community as to whether or not these chemicals were dangerous. Even though the science had been verified time and again. It was a campaign of lies and misdirection. Today we see the same arguments used to delay effective action on climate change and, in politics, the claims of voter fraud and a stolen election.
In spite of this relentless wind of deception, Silent Spring’s spark ignited a fire. Public awareness grew, particularly among members of the counterculture and college students. The astronauts’ powerful photos of Earth as seen from the moon reinforced the growing realization that Earth was not limitless and needed to be protected. The tipping point was an oil spill offshore of Santa Barbara, California. At the time it was the largest spill in US history. Today it ranks third behind the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound, Alaska (1989) and the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico (2010).
On January 28, 1969, a blowout on a drilling platform began hemorrhaging crude oil. Within 24 hours an oil slick covering 50 square miles had formed. It gushed until February 7 and then continued to leak until April, releasing 100,000 barrels, about 500,000 gallons of oil. The results were devastating. In some areas, beaches were covered in six inches of the gelatinous poison. The fouling of the coast with the gruesome deaths of up to 9,000 sea birds. The disturbing photos of the dying birds was a grim counterpoint to the astronauts’ blue marble images of Earth. The American public was sickened. This with other recent pollution events and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring triggered what was to happen next.
Two visitors to the spill, President Richard Nixon and Senator Gaylord Nelson, would be instrumental in creating the environmental movement we are familiar with today. Nixon, an owner of California beach front property, stated that, “The Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.” Nixon would then go on to establish the Environmental Protection Agency in December 1970. In December of 1970, Nixon signed the Clean Air Act, and the EPA began enforcement a few months later in 1971. The American public demanded action and they got it.
Note: The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), January 01, 1970, is often overlooked for its importance. NEPA holds federal agencies accountable for the environmental impact their actions may have. Actions such as, how permit applications are decided, the adoption of land management decisions, and the environmental impact of the construction of government facilities, including highways. NEPA provides the authority and procedures necessary to ensure that government entities are true to the law and spirit of environmental legislation. Recently, President Biden announced that he would roll back certain Trump orders that were used to hobble the NEPA, permitting looser interpretations that favored business over the environment and public health.
Senator Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin who was active in the environmental movement, also visited the disaster. After witnessing the carnage, Nelson left Santa Barbara to go speak at a Vietnam anti-war teach-in. He was pondering how to further engage the public in the fight against pollution’s environmental impact. At the time, American support was growing but was disorganized. What was needed was a way to pull everyone together. Senator Nelson realized that teach-ins were the answer. The teach-ins would inform the public, build relationships between groups through dialog, and provide a framework for coordinated action.
Initially, Nelson had planned Earth Day as a peaceful national demonstration with the goal of showing the nation and DC the depth of support for the evolving environmental movement. He later recalled, “While I was confident that a nationwide peaceful demonstration of concern would be impressive, I was not quite prepared for the overwhelming response that occurred on that day. Two thousand colleges and universities, ten thousand high schools and grade schools, and several thousand communities in all, more than twenty million Americans participated in one of the most exciting and significant grassroots efforts in the history of this country.”
In the decade that followed the first Earth Day numerous laws were passed, creating the foundation of environmental rules and regulations we take for granted today. They are,
the Clean Air Act,
the Water Quality Improvement Act,
the Water Pollution and Control Act Amendments,
the Resource Recovery Act,
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act,
the Toxic Substances Control Act,
the Occupational Safety and Health Act,
the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act,
the Endangered Species Act,
the Safe Drinking Water Act,
the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and
the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act.
It is important to note that these laws and many others were passed with bipartisan votes and signed into law by both Democrat and Republican Presidents. Today’s fractured legislature and its relationship with the President is dramatically different.
However, even by 1980, the public’ environmental concerns and political dynamics were changing. The importance of Earth Day would grow both as a demonstration of the public’s awareness of the environmental crisis and as a marker for the progress that was and was not made.
PART 2 picks up with the continuing growth of the Environmental Movement and the rise of corporate aggression against it.
Resources
EarthDay.Org Even when it isn’t April 22, it’s still an earth day. EarthDay.Org is the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, working with more than 150,000 partners in over 192 countries to drive positive action for our planet. A good source of info and opportunities to get involved.
Earth Day ’70: What It Meant, Gaylord Nelson, 04/1980, EPA Journal, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, reflects on what led up to the first Earth Day, what it accomplished, and the challenges that still existed in 1980 (and continue now).
Medical Training for Ukrainian Defense Volunteers, Small Village Outside Kyiv
The image above is from a recently posted video from a small village outside of Kyiv. Provided through Radio Free Europe, Liberty Radio, there are many more on YouTube and other media. In this video you see regular citizens who have picked up weapons, volunteered for the defense forces and are fighting. In this clip, a squad of volunteers is receiving instructions on how to apply a tourniquet.
What caught my eye, was the soldier in the grey hoodie with the message, Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon. There, amidst the clamor of battle, is a faint echo of home. Our world is tightly bound together by media. We have an evolving, shared 21st Century Culture, global economy, and desire for democracy and rule of law.
The idea that we can hunker down in the USA, letting the rest of the world fend for itself, died in 1914 with the start of World War One. Like it or not, every nation is bound to every other and when one suffers, it’s effects ripple out across the world. The the impact isn’t always immediate or obvious. But, like the Sahara desert’s dust that is blown over the Atlantic and fertilizes the Amazon rain forest, it is real and, in the long-term, consequential. No matter where it occurs, war, injustice, famine, disease, and climate change, it eventually touches us all. It requires that we all act together to stop oppression, end human misery, and cease murdering our planet. The world’s response to Ukraine’s tragedy demonstrates we have the capability to unify and act in each other’s behalf.
So, there stands some guy, sworn to defend his homeland, wearing a hoodie with the name of a Minnesota company that develops and manufactures pacemakers. A device that, two weeks ago, was inserted into my chest. Who is this warrior? Is his connection with the Twin Cities intimate or circumstantial? Did he run in the TC Marathon? Does he have family or friends here? Or, perhaps the hoodie was part of a package of supplies gathered here and sent there?
Regardless, I send him my greetings and prayers that he and his comrades make it through these dark days and be victorious in defending Ukraine.
It Must Be True, I Saw It On The Internet
Part of my daily news collection, I check out a variety of international news sources; Alazeera, BBC News, France24, and US news CNN and MSNBC. I also read the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, Inside Climate News and a variety of other sources.
The videos coming from Ukraine deserve critical analysis as to who is providing them and why. Often, clips from the same event are presented multiple times with different titles and claims. If you watch enough of these grim glimpses into the invasion of Ukraine and compare to other known sources, it’s possible to begin to identify what is reasonably credible, considering their intent. Radio Free Europe / Liberty Radio, is one. It’s an independent US government information organization associated diplomatic efforts. It’s parent agency is the U.S. Agency for Global Media, whose mission is,”vital to US national interests”, and to “inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.” My experience has been that RFE/LR has been accurate. Another important source is Voice of America, VOA, which is the USA’s official international news broadcast system.
