The Ghosts of America

I have become totally disenchanted with politics and politicians. It seems that our representatives on both sides of the aisle spend all of their time kowtowing to corporate lobbyists, posturing, and grandstanding -- the name of the game is no longer 'what is best for America?' but 'how low can I go?' When Marco Rubio ran for the US Senate here in Florida, I was convinced that he was no better than the rest. His ads were nothing more than clichéd sound bites and his capacity for thought seemed to be limited to bumper sticker slogans. So I was pleasantly surprised and unexpectedly impressed by an interview he did with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. Who'da thunk a junior senator and a comedian could hold such an intelligent and thoughtful conversation on such wide-ranging issues?

Senator Rubio struck me with his apparent sincerity. He seems to genuinely want what is best for our country, not just what is best for his career. And he seems more interested in doing what is right than what will get him re-elected. I admire his heart and spirit even while I disagree with him on virtually everything.

Rubio bases his ideas on what are, in my opinion, false assumptions and misinformation. He is right when he says that only economic growth can pay down our deficit, but his assumption that growth is still possible is both naïve and unfounded. I could go into the whole ‘the delusion of limitless growth in a finite world’ argument, but I’ve been there and done that already. That delusion is troubling in and of itself, but when he said that ‘with all the new discoveries, America can become energy independent in a matter of years,' I felt as if a bucket of ice water had just been dumped over my head. When it comes to the energy situation, the senator is not only badly misinformed, but dangerously misguided. Set aside for now the spurious claims of the fossil fuel industry that we could ever drill and blast and frack our way to energy independence and consider instead the catastrophic environmental costs of attempting to do so. He has no idea.

I woke up this morning wishing that I could do for Marco Rubio what the ghosts of Christmas did for Ebenezer Scrooge. I wish I could take him back to America Past, when the forests and mountains and prairies were still intact and unpolluted. Then I would take him to America Present and let him see for himself the mountains being blown apart, the wild places being cracked open and injected with a chemical soup, the poisoning of our earth, air, and waters, the degrading of our landscapes, the dead and dying zones in our oceans, the destruction of our communities, the accelerated extermination of entire species. I would take him to Canada to see the total devastation of the boreal forests and the toxic wastelands that are the legacy of our consumptive greed. Then I would take him to America Future to see what would be left of our country as our grandchildren struggle in a denuded, toxic land to battle the extremes of climate chaos while trying to provide for the bare necessities -- food enough to stave off starvation, water clean enough to drink and plentiful enough to share with plants and animals, and shelter strong enough to withstand floods, wildfires, and mega storms.

America Future doesn’t have to be that way, any more than Christmas Future was pre-ordained for Mr. Scrooge. But it is the future we will get if we don’t change course now. Senator Rubio, I believe you do want the best for our country, but you are dangerously ignorant and misinformed. Please re-evaluate your assumptions, Sir. Go beyond bumper sticker slogans; take the time to understand the complexity and limits of the real world. Wake up, look around, and do what is right.

With Love from Me to You

Yesterday, I watched a video by Guy McPherson, The Myth of Sustainability. It's long, but well-worth the time. McPherson talks about the challenges we face in terms of climate change, peak oil, and other apex moments. I haven't kept up with the latest in the climate change department, so this video came as a real shock -- it brought home to me just how dire things really are. The models that predict how hot the world is going to get and how soon have changed dramatically in the past couple of years -- while they were originally predicting 2 degrees by 2100, they are now saying we could heat up to something like 6 degrees by 2050. I may not have the numbers right, but the risk of human extinction is alive and well and growing exponentially. That reality, if the predictions are correct, puts anything I personally might do into the context of futile, or so it might seem. So I am hoping with all the hope that’s in me that the mystics are right and that we will experience an evolutionary jump this year -- a jump that enables us to heal the wounds we have created.

Last night as I channeled Reiki through my heart chakra, I thought about the challenges our world faces. If an evolutionary jump is our only real hope, then what is my role in all of this? Why am I even here? The answer that came to me was, "To aid in the transition by raising your own vibrations." “And how does one do that?” I wondered in frustration. And the response was immediate and clear, “Through love. Love is the higher vibration you seek. Focus on love. Send love to your children and your grandchildren. Send love to the trees and the mountains. Send love to the people who are so ignorant and misguided that they do not understand the damage they do. Send love to the people who are being sacrificed in the name of industrialism and progress. Send love to the politicians who are sleep-walking our world into chaos. Send love to the dirty, polluted places of earth. And send love to the beautiful, pristine places that remind you of what a fantastically wonderful planet you are fortunate enough to live upon.”

Send love.

Pitchforks

I haven’t been posting for some time now -- I had really said everything I had to say, and what I still wanted to share with the world, I’ve been sharing on Facebook. But today I turned on my computer and was hit with a tsunami of bad news that has left me literally shaking.

First of all, there is the devastating earthquake and tsunami that have devoured parts of Japan and sent ripples all across the Pacific, some ripples big enough to swamp entire islands. That in itself is bad news, very bad news. But it is a natural disaster, and natural disasters do happen, though they seem to be happening more often of late -- beginning with the Indonesian tsunami in 2004. 2010 brought us killer earthquakes in places like Haiti and Chile, a volcanic eruption in Iceland from a volcano that had been dormant for 200 years, and in October, a deadly trio of earthquake, tsunami and volcanic eruption that rocked Indonesia over a 24 hour period. I’m not talking now about weather related disasters that might be attributed, at least in part, to anthropological global climate weirding -- such as Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar back in 2008, or more recently, the deadly flooding of Pakistan, the wild fires in Russia and Australia, or the blizzards and flooding here in our own U S of A. Nor am I referring to man-made disasters such as the BP oil spill. I'm talking about geological disasters, those that can only be attributed to a restless Mother Gaia. These disasters do happen. Unfortunate, and while tragic, not in our power to prevent. No paradigm shift.

Until . . . a chance remark on Facebook sent me back into research mode. It turns out that we cannot blame Mother Gaia for all the seismic activity after all. It seems there is a link between anthropogenic climate weirding and geological disasters. As glaciers melt and sea levels rise, the pressure points on our earth change -- which may contribute to shifts in tectonic plates and the rise of magma to the surface. The bottom line -- generations yet unborn are likely to endure more natural disasters of all kinds and human activity is more to blame than I ever imagined possible.

But the bad news tsunami was not over. A bill has just passed both houses of legislature in Michigan.

In an outrageous power grab, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and the Republican-dominated state Senate passed, and sent back to the House, legislation today that allows Snyder to declare a local city to be in a financial emergency and appoint an emergency manager. That manager can, without anyone else’s approval, cancel contracts, including collective bargaining agreements, force consolidation of schools, townships, cities and counties and, unbelievably, unilaterally remove local elected officials.

. . . Unbelievably, the bill even allows Snyder to appoint a corporation as the emergency manager. . . Even more outrageous is the fact that Snyder’s budget creates the crisis by eliminating most of the state financial aid from local schools and local governments that many of them will be in dire straits. So, then, as [Rachel] Maddow points out, the governor who created the crisis can declare an emergency and decide what’s best for an entire town. No one can question it because the emergency manager can suspend the elected officials and even remove the town’s incorporation all together.

The state Senate passed the bill by a 26-12 margin today. The legislation now returns to the House, which already had passed it, to approve minor changes made by the Senate.

To recap, the governor has the power to withdraw state funds from town budgets, leaving towns in financial crisis. The governor may then declare the town in financial emergency and single-handedly appoint a crisis manager for the town. The crisis manager, be it person or firm, will be given the power to cancel existing contracts and agreements, award new contracts in any way he sees fit, and dismiss duly elected officials.

Are we still living in America, or have we traveled through some warped time machine to pre-WWII Germany with Hitler rising? Is there any bigger threat to democracy than the power to dismiss duly elected officials??

As global warming, peak everything, and financial melt-down begin to affect our lives in direct and measurable ways, we will face one crisis after another. It is how we face these crises that will determine whether we live out our lives in honor and grace or whether we descend into some kind of nightmarish replay of history's worst moments. So I ask myself, is this how America is going to meet the challenges that are now inevitable??? My only hope is that this move in Michigan is sooooo egregious that these new American fascists will be seen for what they are.

And if there is anyone out there who still thinks we are not going to be challenged again and again by the changes that have already been set in motion, try spending a few hours researching it yourself -- this site contains a wealth of information -- factual, real stuff, not the 'stay positive' wishful thinking that ignores reality. Then go buy yourself a pitch fork. You might want to try your hand at growing your own food . . . and you might need it when the zombies come.