It was great to hear, from the mouth of Congressional savant Gerry Connolly, (D-VA) that substantive Democratic actions confronting climate change are “aspirational goals”. It makes survival sound like such an elective pleasure: as in should I order the hardtack or the filet mignon? Can I afford to survive? What will this do to my credit rating? The next generation will have to solve our mess.
This member of the so-called Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalitionpronounced that political expediency and political reality dictate only feeble incremental window dressing actions on the part of Democratic lawmakers, leaving the bulk of decision making to the whims of our flatulent Administration’s minions and the seemingly irresistible rolling momentum of our capitalist Behemoth. A Behemoth that suckles those who feed it best, while it organizes itself for a final push to eat the world.
Now, I can understand that any real action directed at actually doing anything to ‘save the world and lose our precious spot in our hegemonic comfort zone’ might piss off GOP (that’s Gosh Offal Politicos) and Dumbo-cratic mainliners and give the shrilly bleating pundit class plenty to yatter about, to worry and peck at a lot of skeptical folks ears… especially since it would disrupt our collective myopic view of reality…BUT!
How could anyone with the intelligence of a fruit fly, (sorry, fruit flys. It’s not personal) or even just 2 linked neurons, fail to perceive the short circuiting of ambition such blather imposes on us? Almost everyone on Earth except the MSM knows the world is getting hotter and changing in unexpected ways, at a rate freighted with enough pervasive insidiousness to rival ANYTHING the human world has experienced, ever. Hello weird plagues, giant storms and social disruption! Goodbye frogs! Goodbye bugs! Goodbye ice! Hey! Goodbye winter! Goodbye food. Goodbye humans…
My personal ‘aspirational goals’ begin with being able to enjoy the “other” aspiration: continuing to draw breath. Hopefully for more than a little while, and in some kind of safe comfort. Just like all of us!
Probably not the same thing Mr. Connolly was talking about.
Yet the warnings are afoot. The shape of things to come loom in a smoky dusty haze, and it ain’t radioactive muslim immigrant zombies.
If we are to even half believe IPPC reports positing a ‘worst case scenario’ window of maybe 12 years to MITIGATE, (no longer avoid) really extremely radical climate change, its time to shake out the vermin, spear the brain of the vampire squid, and start afresh. Really afresh.
Tick, tick, tick, tick…..
And by the way, Gerry. I have to ask. What exactly will put a fire in your belly? Besides an all habanero taco? Realizing in a few-too-late years that your grandkids will live in a world you personally surely wouldn’t want to? Realizing in retirement that your constituents were counting on you to do what’s best for all of them (US) in the long term, from a position of influence, knowledge and power they bestowed on you which you pissed away?
Tick, tick, tick, tick…..
Options: Global strike. Crash the banks. De-mob the military. Zero dollars for the Department of Offence. We can’t bomb our way out of this one! Shut down chemical agriculture. Make paid lobbying a federal crime. Scrap the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and rewrite them to exclude special preference for property and anti-democratic back doors. Dump the Electoral College and the Senate and the Fed. If corporations are “people”, make them subject to the same laws as we of flesh & bone. And tax them accordingly. Take over the means of media production and distribution. Form local coalitions to produce food and maintain safety. Build distributed wind and solar energy networks with some of the spending freed up by shrinking the military. Require Medicare for All so there is a healthy populace to rebuild the damage done by extractive and toxic industries. And of course there is so much more…some to keep, much to change.
Make friends with or at least behave respectfully toward the entire human race and the Planet Mother we profess to love? Why not? For a change, choose Life.
You and yours might be pleasantly surprised.