Imagine, Chatham
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this Monday morning, the seventh day of March, 2011, a cloudy and fairly warm morning, relatively, here on this little sand bar created 11,500 years ago by the Last Great Ice Age and I pray that you and yours are safe and warm wherever this ‘message in a bottle’ may be reaching you this morning… I hope you had a nice week end and as I turned on the ‘tv’ to watch the pundits and politicians speak to and around the TRUTH as to what is transpiring in Libya, along with the rest of this country, as it looks as if an all out civil war may be brewing, with a whole lot of “loose talk” (credit Secretary of Defense Robert Gates) regarding a possible military intervention in the way of a ‘no fly zone’ that would entail ‘taking out’ key air strips and the like, not to mention the stalemate of logic and resolve to truly tackle our growing debt and joblessness crisis in this nation, I thought I might turn to what I watched on Sunday evening, namely the venerated HBO series, “REAL TIME, with Bill Maher” who had, as his first guest, T.C. Boyle, a professor at USC and ‘friend to Mother Earth’, not to mention the author of many books including his new one, “When the killing is done,” who is effectively ‘charting our collision course in environmental catastrophe.’ Bill sat down with Mr. Boyle at the onset of broadcast, and as hard as it is to listen to, or read as the case may be, truisms that are not ‘convenient’, I implore you to heed some of these words, for not only are they TRUE and accurate, but they are also the seeds of KNOWLEDGE that is the engine, combined with intelligent action, for the very real HOPE that comes in the form of concrete CHANGE. If something radical is not done to alter OUR course in the way we treat our environment, not to mention how we treat each other, along with the plant and animal kingdoms, that all share this miracle of LIFE on this little blue rock I call earth, then WE, the human race as a whole, lead, primarily by the United States of America as the self professed ‘leader of the free world’, will be responsible for the demise of said miracle, along with the beauty and bounty supplied by infinite creative intelligence that is self sustaining, by design, unless it is altered by mankind, a species that has proven, “time” and “time” again, that it is ‘too smart’ for it’s own good–choosing the path of arrogance over the path of altruism every time, so much so that you can set your Swiss “time” pieces by it…enjoy. AND ACTION! Maher: “I’ve been wanting to meet you for quite a while, I think for many you are considered this generation’s ‘great writer’.” T.C.: “Thank you”. M: “So let’s talk about the environment, it’s what your book is about, and I know when you listen to people like Al Gore, they say it’s not too late. But, you know, I always think, he’s still a politician, he has to say that…” T.C.: “Yeah, I’m sorry, it’s too late. Maher: “That’s what I was going to ask, are we toast already?” T.C.: “You know, back in 2000, when I wrote, “A friend of the Earth”, to explore all of this, and the hero of that is an eco-saboteur, and he says to be a friend of the earth, you have to be an enemy of the people, and of course there is our problem, over population. Of course, I admit to it, I have procreated, but I couldn’t help it.” and cut, print and wrap. Obviously not concurring with that premise on a number of different levels, T.C., a professor at the great school, the University of Southern California, albeit a bit radical when expressing anything that has to do with the word and subsequent action of the word ‘eco-saboteur’, strikes me as a writer who does care enough about the environment to spend “time” alone in the wilderness, hence having a little ’skin’ in the game if you will. “It’s nice to know something else is alive,” T.C. said when describing a moment he had with a rare California Catamount, or cougar, he encountered in the mountains of southern California, as he witnessed the great cat lapping water from a nearby stream with the aid of his giant paw, with his wife responding, “will you stop harassing that poor animal!” I simply want to say this to the good professor–I pray that it is NOT too late for this planet to see the error of it’s ways, for as everything seems to be speeding up, spinning ever closer to the celestial alignment of our ‘collective lifetimes’ as a human race on planet earth, with the sun forecasted to rise, on December 21, 2012, the winter solstice, directly into the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which we are a part of, a tiny, tiny, part of, we may be in for much more than we bargained for. When the earth’s magnetic field has been weakening, with no explanation, and as countless credible scientists have deep questions as to the consequences of this phenomenon, combined with the fact that the ancient Mayan calendar expires on that day aforementioned, one must take pause and look a little harder at the ‘big picture’. Combine all of this celestial and very real man made carbon pollution, with the ever increasing speed of technological breakthroughs, that will only go up exponentially, we may yet, hopefully, add a little human compassion, intelligence and resolve to the mix regarding those same human beings coming together to solve such monumental planetary problems such as global warming, and therefore, we may just still have a chance. For united, as a species, in search for a solution to our ever warming planet is PARAMOUNT to all of our survival, let alone our kids and our grand kids. The days of the puppets and their evil puppeteers are nearing an end as we all witness what the consumption and emission of fossil fuels, by way of releasing carbon dioxide and methane gases into our fragile and amazing atmosphere is really doing to ALL of US–an atmosphere that shields us from deadly solar flares, regulates temperature, thus, providing the northern and southern hemispheres with ’seasons’ and brings harmony and balance, the philosophical, biological and chemical building blocks that sustain LIFE as we currently know and LOVE it, allowing us to thrive every wonderful day here on this little blue rock we all call home for the moment, the precious PRESENT. On that same show, Gloria Steinem, a member of Bill’s ‘panel’ spoke to the politics of reproduction and conception. Happy Women’s History month to all! She spoke to the inequality that is really going on in this country and the fact that a few powerful people, the puppeteers, wish to control the population in this country by way of crazy religious reasons, white haired, grumpy old men thumping the western bible, controlling the way women are able to make decisions regarding their own bodies–it is shameful, backwards and a complete waste of our valuable “time” when there are so many other issues to deal with. Couple that with equal pay for equal work, or the lack therein, where 70 percent of the work done in this country is done by women who, for their efforts, receive 10 percent of the salaries, with a great example being my favorite corporate monster, well one of them, there are so many to choose from, Walmart, who is being sued by 1 million women who claim discriminatory practices by that corporation for years, as they claim they are paid far less than their male managers, who make big money by keeping wages low. 3 percent of the owners of Fortune 500 companies are women, and these big budget cuts, proposed by the republican puppet party, will similarly effect mostly women in this nation, with a great example being the proposed cuts to planned parenthood, not to mention the three house bills that have already been submitted by the culture warrior mentality of the corporate, Koch Brother’s fake grass roots tea party movement, “American’s for Prosperity”, again, a corporate owned and operated republican tea party movement aimed squarely at what Gloria was speaking about, “reproduction and conception management”, really, really BIG government in other words, while they slash and burn nutrition programs for poor mothers in urban areas, pull the plug on home heating oil for the poor and the elderly, and any other morsel on the lean bone of the 12 percent of the budget called “discretionary spending”. Never once considering the possibility of rich people in this nation paying their fair share of being part of one of the greatest nations to ever exist on planet earth, until recently of course. Is this all a coincidence? I think not. For as Gloria Steinem said, this IS a culture war–against women, poor women, minority women, a war against gays, against intellectuals, against scientific fact, against social programs for the poor, against the unions, and ultimately against anyone who has a real VOICE, and has the guts to express it. It was never about jobs for these republicans, for if it were, the first three items on the docket for the newly elected tea party nut jobs would not have included those aforementioned H.B. Anti-abortion bills that were brought with such gusto and urgency–as if the world were about to end if a woman’s right to her own body was not taken off the table in their very first vote in the House of Representatives, assembling together for the first time in this 112th congress of the United States of America. Make no mistake about it, this is not only a culture war, as republicans go after the power to control reproduction and conception, as well as contraception, but it is a war of controlling the masses, for as the nation embodies the GRAND CANYON itself, the ever widening gap between the haves and the have nots, the republicans will be in a better position to control that ever poorer segment of our society, a society that once had a “middle class”. This rare insight, that I too have dared to write extensively about, shows US all what the ‘end goal’ is–a PLUTOCRACY run by the top one tenth of the top one percent, or 300,000 people, and that plutocracy, or oligarchy if you prefer, needs it’s slaves–like a loophole for wealthy families to hire “illegals” while putting business owners in jail if they hire any. They need soldiers and other servants to maintain the ever growing ‘military industrial complex’ that is now mostly privatized by mercenaries like Xe, the softer side of “BLACKWATER”, turning this country into a military state, who will protect the established new status quo with the same ferocity that Moammar Gaddafi is currently using against his own people, as the masses in this country fight over scraps of food, and ever searching for clean drinking water as most of the water in this country has already been tainted by KOCH industries and their ’special sauce’ of over 596 tasty and deadly chemicals–who, by the way, just bought power plants in Wisconsin via ‘no bid contracts’, all created by head puppet, Wisconsin Governor Scott, “screw you Wisconsin”, Walker. So, keep the poor procreating, keep them underfed, undereducated, and limit their access to ‘free thinkin’ tree huggin’ liberal pinko commie faggots’. Oh, and by all means continue the ‘dumbing down of America’, by encouraging them all to be fat, drunk and stupid, for in this sick paternalistic society gone awry, we don’t need any independent “thinkers” out there. I mean, “the American people”, as the likes of Mitch, “the mouse”, McConnell (R-KY) so often refers to in his asinine daily remarks, have already been dumbed down starting with the ‘re-writing’ of American history books by the Texas Board of “Education”, taking out the facts and adding the fiction “they” want you to believe and ultimately OBEY, as you combine this with the endless corporate carnivals designed to “entertain” and “occupy the minds of” said, ad nauseum, “the American People” (such as the NFL and major sporting events, reality television shows, local ‘news’ stations, and movies like Transformers V– just to name of few of the countless forms of distracting ‘carnivals’ out there). Take all of that and add it with the ever present brainwashing mechanism, not to mention mind numbing, problem of 21st century television, coming in the form of a propaganda bullhorn, a noise and visually confusing piece of machinery, like FOX NEWS, and the likes of carnival clowns such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, just to name a few, take all of that, combining it together, and you can see why we can’t ’see’ anymore. With their ever present message and perfect segway culminating into their ultimate weapon of choice–fear, hatred, wicked paranoia, raw violence and the art of ‘divide and conquer’, an age old method of pitting brother against brother in a war that is being waged by certifiable mad men who have clearly lost their minds, along with any sense of jingoism they once may have had, if they had any to begin with, and it is no wonder we, the real people who make up the United States of America, are in big trouble. For they, “men” like McConnell and Boehner, and their employers, their puppeteers, the “man behind the curtain”, have sold us down the river, without a paddle, a river they profited on and polluted with the KOCH brother’s and their friends at Halliburton’s deadly mix of 596 chemicals used in the ‘fracking’ process, in over 37 states now, to attain “natural gas”–destroying our clean water drinking supply for generations to come. “FRACKING”… what an appropriate word for these monsters. Have a good day folks and GOD’S Continued speed to the WISCONSIN 14! Your efforts are being monitored all over this great country and beyond! Thank you. PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
