SO IT BEGINS
Pacific Ocean: Wednesday September 9
Oregon, Washington and California are all under assault from a wildfire season of historic proportions, with the firefighting effort compounded by the coronavirus pandemic and misinformation online. Already, California has seen more than 3.1 million acres go up in flames, about 26 times as much as had burned at this point last year, and officials warn that more fires are likely.
NY Times 09/12/20
The West is on fire. As I sit here on a gloomy socked-in September afternoon, epic fires burn north, south and east of me.The air quality index shows us deep into the Red zone (Unhealthy) one notch below Friday's Purple Haze reading (Extremely Unhealthy). It seems we have now finally entered the Climate Crisis for real – and decades early. As I write this, here in the Bay Area we are hunkered down indoors not only due to Covid19 but also because our air is essentially un-breathable. And in the Southeast yet another hurricane bears down on Louisiana . Global Warming starting to begin really show its teeth – droughts, fires, weird lightning storms, more and bigger hurricanes, super cell driven tornadoes out of season. And then of course there is the Pandemic killing thousands daily, another story of environmental carnage. This time the ongoing habitat invasion has resulted in the transmission to humans of to a new brand ' novel virus' and a mass human die-off. The ongoing expansion of human population into areas previously undisturbed has lead to consumption of animals never before eaten by humans in turn introducing a slew of new and highly contagious viruses – like Ebola, SARS, Avian Flu and now Covid19 technically known as SARs-CoV-2. Pandemics are just another deleterious effect of our heedless exploitation of our planet's myriad life forms. We are getting what we so richly deserve.
All of this would have occurred in some form regardless of what happened here in the USA. But unfortunately our particularly version of democracy has made it worse for us. Our two political parties at some point had ceased to reflect real alternatives, both presenting versions of the same thing, but with branding that tried to portray choice. In time the false binary mutated from some kind of limited class differentiation into what has become cultural warfare. The result was by 2016 a crucial the sector of the working class did not see much difference on the ground between either party and participated in the voting process (those that did) in a half-hearted, ill informed way. Many had gravitated to a political party that was diametrically opposed to their class interests but re-enforced their tribal proclivities. And in 2016 they chose what they saw as a wealthy likable rogue who offered emotionally appealing politically incorrect racist and xenophobic answers to complex problems capitalizing on divisive cultural issues above all else. In other words they fell for a demagogue, and furthermore one devoid of any governing experience or any identifiable political-economical philosophy. The result has been the disaster named Donald Trump.
That said, this round the clock Trump hate-a-thon really does not really move the needle. The cottage industry of insider disclosures from those who were unlucky to have to interact with the Orange One makes for fine nightly entertainment. But the audience needing to be targeted, undecided voters in 'swing states', probably does regularly tune into the ongoing Trumpian expose on MSNBC and CNN every night - only liberal and left political junkies who already abhor Trump. We already knew that Donald Trump was a first class swine and greedhead. That was all readily apparent going back to his New York City days of multiple bankruptcies and playboy shenanigans – all boring and easily ignored. It is to our eternal shame that we as a people and members political parties across the political spectrum allowed this renown fore flusher and upper class grifter to commandeer the highest political office in the land.
The media needs to drone on less about the never ending exposes of Trumpian vitriol past and present and instead concentrate their journalistic horsepower on cataloging the damage his administration has done to our governmental institutions. There must be hundreds of mid level managers within the vast government bureaucracies who are sitting on a treasure trove of pertinent material that could be anonymously disclosed. What tales they must have to tell of the destruction, corruption and mismanagement of essential popular programs. For instance where is OSHA when we need them to protect our workforce from Covid19 in the workplace. What studies, research and oversight responsibilities have now been eliminated from Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Energy, Dept of Interior, etc?. What devastation and personnel carnage has occurred in agencies like EPA or FDA? Michael Lewis's excellent 2017 book The Fifth Risk just scratches the surface and what a surface it was.
After all as the election approaches
the real target audience, as always is the un-committed voter in the
so-called battleground states. Wouldn't these voters be interested in
the shambles that these programs have become? Enough preaching to the
converted. Whether Trump's manifold failure as a leader is due to his
supreme ineptness or simply a crude monarchical quest for power, is
beside the point. We are stuck with him for at least 3 1/2 more
months. That is if he can be democratically ejected when his party
the corrupt and complicit GOP controls much of our electoral
machinery, and it's in the midst of a pandemic in which voting by
mail is necessary but the USPS is being crippled.In fact that is now crucial question.
But there is the hope that these voting obstacles can be overcome and removal of Trump can be affected leading to a major rebuild of everything – better, fairer and environmentally sustainable.
