We salute you!
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the once again sunny, cool and delightful island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this Tuesday morning, the 11th day of November, 2014–a spectacular day on the Hyannis/Hyannis Port Waterfront–as the nation celebrates the service and sacrifices of OUR American veterans, alive and dead…
This nation’s wars have mostly been fought in the interest of preserving OUR democracy, a sacred public TRUST that no one should be able to tamper with. And as the never ending war footing seems like it is ‘back on track’ in Iraq, ‘fightin’ ‘em over there so we don’t have to fight them here’, a sentiment that is all well and good by most in Washington D.C., perhaps we should pause and check just to make sure we are not going down another rabbit hole. Wondering aloud if our 2014 military vision lacks the fundamental insight of former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and his remarks to ‘the American People in 1960–
“…we must safeguard our selves against the military industrial complex.”
For now that the U.S. Congress intends to spend the rest of it’s days left in office this year threatening the president over any ‘executive action’ regarding our badly broken immigration policies, and then, when it comes back as the ‘new’ and more vicious 114th Congress, setting it’s sights on the man himself–the very fine 44th U.S. President Barack Obama–attempting to impeach him while they force his hand in signing a deal with the devil, namely the passage of the Keystone XL pipeline, yes, indeed, now that WE all have that to look forward to…
A move that WILL push the climate over the edge via digging up more than five times the carbon, hence emissions, the earth can handle, effectively raising the earth’s average temperature by more than the 2 degree Celsius threshold EVERY country, including this one, agreed would be the MOST this planet could handle.
Just so we are clear, if the all of the Alberta tar sands are unleashed into the atmosphere, and if all the other oil and gas companies, as well as the coal companies, use their ’stockpiles’, rather ‘weapons of mass destruction’–they will be releasing five times more carbon than the earth can literally breathe in. Just the carbon released today–into an already damaged and at capacity atmosphere screaming ‘no mas’, ‘no mas’–the parts per million (scientific stuff, you know, the way them ’scientists’ count carbon dioxide in the air; see…) level has now hit 400 and it is only trending higher by the second, a number representing and correlating with that 2 degree Celsius ceiling (red line), so if the carbon levels are parallel with the temperature levels, well…
The last time Carbon dioxide levels were this high range from 800,000 years ago to 15 billion, therefore, there were no humans. The hundred plus years of the fallout from the Industrial Revolution is already causing mass migrations, deep droughts, rising seas, stronger storms and higher temperatures, yet the mantra on the idiot sixth grade level intelligence on the right keeps screaming, “…drill baby, drill!”.
I don’t know what else to tell you.
Save this… The earth’s atmosphere just cannot handle what the oil and gas industry wish to dig up, e.g. Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada (Keystone XL pipeline though American heartland; for PROFIT only), and if anyone tells you any different is either willfully ignorant, stupid, masochistic or simply brainwashed, oh, or just don’t give a $hit about the natural world and the natural order of things. These polluting giants cannot continue polluting at WILL without some kind of REASON applied and a real dialogue with the rest of HUMANITY!
You and I can’t just throw litter in the street, empty our garbage can out into the roadways and expect to get away with it! Why should the big oil and gas conglomerates? Further, why are WE, the American tax payer, SUBSIDIZING these guys? Doesn’t that tell you something? It spells doom for democracy and doom for the environment if WE don’t wake up and smell the roses soon.
Our brave men and women in uniform deserve our respect, gratitude and Love on this day and so be it. I just hope the wars they fight in the future are not all about a sticky black substance, rather a vigilance and fight against tyranny of any kind, both foreign and domestic–ever protecting the ideal and reality of a true democracy that serves ALL of her people, not just ‘the chosen few…’
PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
