Historical Perspective
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the grey, misty, cooling island of Nantucket! Great to be with you and yours on this Friday morning, the 9th day of March, 2012, a cool start to the day after record temperatures were set yesterday in many regions of New England– Boston seeing highs in the upper 60’s, with northern Maine, a state that normally has two feet of snow on the ground in early march, getting in the mix with highs in the upper 50’s…so much for winter. Hats off to the Obama administration and those in congress with some BACKBONE yesterday for standing up to big oil and the horrible Keystone XL pipeline proposed to run from Alberta, Canada all the way down to Texas. That’s right folks, that nasty, filthy tar sands crude, now with three times the carbon dioxide!, will, according to EVERY expert in the field of climatology (stating, ‘…if this pipeline goes through, it WILL spell lights out for the environment’) spell doom for future generations. This whole ridiculous debate is not about our ‘energy future’, rather, it is about keeping the oil and gas companies profitable. Most republicans in the House, as well as many in the Senate, are in bed with big oil/gas/chemical companies, companies that don’t give a rat’s a$$ about said, ad naseum, ‘the American People’ (credit Mitch McConnell, R-KY), they only care about the profit. Keep in mind one thing, if the republican party, the way it is today, keeps pushing for something like this profit center that only serves to enrich big oil (crude that wouldn’t be developed for many years after it’s completion), are they really on the side of the American people? Really? Especially when we all KNOW that oil will be sold on the international market to the highest bidder, thus killing the argument put out by republicans that this pipeline will help to ’solve’ our dependence on foreign oil from the Middle East. Rule of thumb, if someone like the Speaker of the House, Mr. John Boehner is moving his lips, he is LYING, oh, I’m sorry, he is simply a puppet pushing for a profit over people pipeline, implying it will ‘create’ millions of American jobs, a claim initially made by the oil and gas industry per that horrible advertisement put together by Madison Avenue wizards, a claim that is flat out WRONG and should be called out as such. Most experts agree that the pipeline will create between 2500-5000 temporary jobs, that number being very generous, as many simultaneously state the numbers won’t even be that high. Why are energy company jobs sacrosanct? When the very few ‘jobs’ the pipeline may create will destroy vast areas of pristine wildlife, aquifers, boreal forests and most importantly lock us all into a dirty energy future, dependent on fossil fuels, while the rest of the world, China, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Norway, the list goes on and on, make that SHIFT to clean, renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind and geothermal? When our children and grandchildren look back at this segment of American history they are either going to be elated that WE, as a country, finally saw the light, or, they will, God forbid, look in great alarm to the rising seas, the horrific droughts, the out of control wild fires, the rising temperatures, the vanishing wilderness and all of the beautiful creatures who LIVE in said wilderness, depending on it for LIFE itself–not to mention living a polluted, filthy country chalk full of ‘natural’ gas wells (poisoning our water and air with 596 deadly chemicals used in the fracking process, chemicals that are so secret the EPA can’t even take a look at what is going on), pipelines and ticking time bombs like off shore oil rigs, contaminating our fresh, clean drinking water, our AIR and our land, crying out, “…what the hell were they thinking, and who the hell was this John Boehner fella anyhow?”. More tomorrow on that cancerous pipeline, as it is a whole lot more important than what these pure free market Ostriches with a little ‘r’ next to their name have to say on the old campaign trail, offering up no vision for the future, certainly not for African-Americans, women, Latinos, poor elderly folks, students and poorest of the poor, you know, what Jesus referred to as ‘the least among us’, to which he stated, ‘what you do to those least among US, you do unto ME.’ I guess evangelicals and Mormons, not to mention conservative Catholics, have a selective memory problem, choosing to ignore what the man they claim to worship said over 2012 years ago, while claiming the mantle of ‘hypocrites that are holier than though’. A dangerous road to hoe, for they will someday have to square their ACTIONS with the man who also said this as a warning–‘I will come back like a thief in the night’. Food for thought as you watch the non-stop coverage of ‘Decision 2012′, a campaign that could not offer a more clear cut choice for who is on the side of MOST Americans and who is clearly for only a handful, those lucky enough to be in the .001 percent, a brash attempt to hijack this country forever, taking it out of the democratic column and replacing it with a new plutocratic philosophy, where the wealthy ‘Robber Barons’ of this generation continue to run rough shod over our people and it’s environment all in the name of that which they truly WORSHIP–the Almighty dollar. Good luck with that ‘eye of the needle’ thing boys, you are going to need it! Speaking of the eye of the needle, that EXTENSION of the historic 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, Bloody Sunday–where police viciously attacked peaceful protesters, killing some, sparking a national outcry, which led to the passing of the ‘Voting Rights Act’ of that same year, finally giving African-Americans the right to vote, a little over 100 years after the Civil War was won by then President Abraham Lincoln, arguably one of our greatest, if not greatest Presidents–concludes today on the steps of that great states’ capitol Montgomery, finishing up at high noon with a big rally. Check it out, for it is truly living history in the making. The march, led in part by our friend Reverend Al Sharpton (host of must sea “Politics Nation”, week nights, six sharp, only on MSNBC), is, again, an extension of that famous march, as it calls to LIGHT the Machiavellian move by republican law makers, in the year 2012, to disenfranchise those same African-Americans 47 years later. 34 states have now either adopted or are about to adopt tough new voter ID laws aimed at making it difficult or even impossible for many in this country to vote on November 2nd of this year. Justified by the three, count them three (in a country of 311 million people), voter fraud cases, two of which were republican, the other being a BLACK LAB! The goal of this growing puppet brigade is to shave off as many points as they can in this pivotal election for the highest office in the land, a no brainer that is for anyone in America today paying ATTENTION to what is really going down, at least those with a conscience. The few redeeming qualities the republican party once stood for are fading fast, as the march is also addressing the insane immigration policies today in the U.S., as well as the attack on union/worker rights in general-a move we all witnessed that played out in the great state of Wisconsin a little over a year ago! God speed to all at the march today, culminating in that aforementioned rally at the state capitol of Montgomery at noon, rallying around the immortal words of Martin Luther King, Jr., words engraved on a monument created in his name–“…until JUSTICE rolls down like waters, and Righteousness like a mighty stream.” Have a wonderful week end folks and please keep in mind the only constant in this life is change, for change brings new life, new growth and new opportunities. PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
