From Bad To Worse

From Bad To Worse

(late edition.  Came across this documentary on the life of Pete Seeger and thought:  "This guy sees the world pretty much the way I do."  It's a documentary on his life with the discussion of some good ideas not often entertained in the Mainstream Media, but they are ideas which are useful to us at this time in our experience.)

It has slowly dawned on me that America is not on the mend. It's this climate change / break-down that is shaking the world and has woken me up.

Now, finally now, it is evident that the way of life chosen by industrial nations is responsible for this current blitzkrieg of climate revenge. We had declared war on nature, but eventually it was determined we were outmatched.

In other words we have been engaged in killing the planet and ourselves for a long time but we didn't know it. However now we do know. It's way past time to avert the calamity we as a species have produced. Nature, our opponent of choice, has chosen to react. But it is not too late to change our minds. 

I knew this before in an intellectual way. I had poetry published for the very first Earth Day in 1970. 

To the right is a photo
taken of the pages of
the Nickel Review which was 
published in Syracuse, N.Y. in the late 1960's and early 70's. 
It's not really a great poem.


This plight of the environment is an issue I've been aware of for a long time.  I've always spoken against poisoning the environment. However I think in the back of my mind I felt sooner or later people will see what they are doing, come to their senses and stop doing it. So far I was wrong.

Now I understand the attack on the environment as being a personal attack on every individual on the planet. Already 7 million human beings die prematurely every year from effects related to air pollution. You see, environmental pollution IS a violent physical attack on your well-being!  We all live 'downstream' of the pollution, so to speak. We all breathe the same poisoned air.

I consider those doing this kind of harm to the general living space of humanity to be eco-terrorists. However the ones trying to stop them from doing it are being arrested as criminals. The Corporate Media reports it as if the polluters are in the right. If the Corporate Media reported all the details the people who consume that information would make the attack on the earth stop. You would, wouldn't you? Such is the failure of the Corporate Media.

It is time to recognize that those political decision makers who have made the most primary decisions regarding the welfare of life on the planet have utterly failed those people who drink water and breathe air. However they have served Corporate People who do not need air and water with the greatest of faithfulness.

The failure they have produced is evident today in the condition of the environment. They have done it in support of the health of the economy which is defined by the prosperity of Wall Street and not by the ability of the planet to support life or for your ability to enjoy life.

This dereliction of duty by those in control has not gone completely unnoticed. Thanks to the Alternative Media such as Democracy Now, and the work of Chris Hedges and many others, this dereliction of duty has been explained in a way sure to appeal to those accustomed to making rational decisions based on humanist values.

However on the other hand there is the Corporate Media which functions as an information outlet for the State, (status quo) promoting the nation's wars and identifying its alleged enemies and providing topics for political wrangling to consume the mental energies of the populace. 

I regard the Corporate Media mainly as a means of misinforming the general public with the purpose of getting folk to think and talk about the same meaningless political topics which are designed to alienate one group from another.

It was corporate policy to build a pipeline which is destined to bring about the death rattle of Mother Earth. It has been the policy of the Corporate Media to explain to the viewer that those opposed to the pipeline were criminals. This has just played itself out and is still playing itself out. Just imagine if a flood takes out one of those tar sands pipelines, or a wild fire! Take a look around you.  Are you in a flood, a wildfire? Somebody is burning down the proverbial house out here on the West Coast. I suspect the dangers of a possible occurrence will not have much airtime in the Corporate Media until a couple of days after the disaster. But today we have big floods and large fires where before there were none.  It's happening in Houston, it can happen in a town near you too.

It is the Alternative Media which tackles these topics. The status quo is willing for you to bicker between left and right and Russia and emails and corruption in political places. But you get the feeling that the impending devastation of the planet by the products of manmade climate disruption isn't worth much time and space to the Corporate Media.  It seems they wish to keep political discussion at the 'panty raid' level.  And it seems to be working.

Which, again, is why the Alternative Media's role is so important. The Corporate Media has completely washed its hands of encouraging a serious discussion on the human caused environmental calamity which is upon us. The momentum in favor of proceeding on with climate devastation could be abated if the amount of time spent on Donald Trump's pomposity was substituted for in-depth rational appeals to abate climate death, and biocide. But don't hold your breath!

A society which will take away the quality of life on the planet in exchange for wealth is a spiritually dead society. To engage in such activity is the greatest disrespect that can be shown to the Creator. In the words of Alex Grey's World Spirit "America, you have sold your soul for a little capital."

Men have been told to fear the wrath of God and have imagined a fire breathing angry man in the sky hurling lightning bolts. And so they laugh at the idea. But the wrath of God is more like Karma. It's something we do to ourselves in defiance of the Creator; things like poisoning our air, food and water while burning the planet down around us or some other such foolishness. It is our presently chosen way of life which requires us to behave like this.  We're waist deep in the big muddy once again. The big fool is still saying to push on.

I made the video below in response to the corporate assault on the planet.