The ever-extending anthology of disaster-porn books and movies leads one to believe that life imitates art, but it’s more like art anticipates life. In a world in which the putative leaders are held hostage by the blood-for-diamonds ethos that keeps the lights on, at least until we run out of blood, the need to own up to our petro-piracy and rapidly change our course remains merely a thought exercise at G-7 meetings and Davos conferences. Ted has talked himself out.
So it’s a foregone conclusion that a titanic iceberg of our own making—a floating sub-continent of Antarctic revenge—is waiting in our path, too big to avoid, and we can’t even slow down, for heaven’s sake. No, that would be bad for business.
Does anyone in the corporate constellation realize that what’s bad for business is a world gone haywire, all because of a discomforting reality that is vigorously dismissed as some eco-terrorist wet dream?
The real eco-terrorists are the corporations and their handmaiden politicians. The Republicans, not a true party anymore, but more like a drunken father with a bad temper, will break conventions of civic decency like empty beer bottles against the wall, while Democrats quake in the corner like the wife who claims he’s so sweet when he’s sober. This marriage is not merely in trouble; it needs to end now.
No more compromising with planet abusers. We must save ourselves to save the world, and stop hoping we can change them. They are what they are, and they are dragging us all down to a miserable end.
JEFFREY HOBBS, Springfield, Ill.
On March 28 President Biden proposed a $813 billion Pentagon budget — a $31 billion increase over last year’s astronomical and record breaking bloat. This historic and unprecedented war budget proposal should make every global civilian shudder. First – we need to publicly shred the notion that this staggering sum was anything to do with “defense.” Quite the contrary, if approved this historic give-away to US war making and militarism may well push the planet over the precipice and point of no return regarding global climate catastrophe. The number one contribution to global climate catastrophe is the US military juggernaut.
We need to as a species come to terms with the stark realities of global climate change. We have four years to stem and turn around the human-caused cases of climate change that threaten civilization and the planet. We get no extensions. There are no options. There is no Plan B or Planet B. Approving and sanctioning an $813 billion war planning budget in the midst of the greatest challenge to survival that humanity has ever faced is obscene. Our choices are stark and clear. We can choose to minimize the true environmental impact globally of US militarism and its unholy alliance with apocalyptic climate destruction or we can embrace science and reason and with immediacy meet head on the challenges that if left unchecked will end life on Earth as we know it.
JIM SAWYER, Edmonds, Wash.
In 2021, President Biden successfully promoted, and Congressional Democrats passed, the American Rescue Plan, which put cash into nearly everyone’s bank account. While stores, offices and factories were shutting down due to COVID, Biden’s plan covered our lack of paychecks. Unfortunately, boosting consumer demand while production was down has caused inflation. But the alternative of people having no money for food and losing their homes would have been far worse.
Yes, the cost of gasoline is too high, thanks in part to price gouging by oil companies and Russia’s war in Ukraine, but Americans should stop whining about inflation and appreciate how Biden saved us from a COVID disaster that would have been far worse without his Rescue Plan.
Republicans continue to criticize without offering a positive alternative, while Democrats are working to solve our problems despite Republican obstruction.
BRUCE JOFFE, Piedmont, Calif.
American right-wing extremists have been currently confronted with a baffling dilemma. Now that Mr. Putin has designated his war and genocide in Ukraine as some sort of a state action against neo-Nazis, what are actual neo-Nazis in America to make of their status and just what is truthful and just what their goals and objectives should be. It is one thing for pandering politicians to run their mouths to get votes while attending coke fueled orgies behind the scenes. It is another thing for the rank and file to train militias and await orders. The chaps on that side of the fence may well take time to think out just what American style democracy means and how it should work without tearing it down.
STEVEN Z. ROSENZWEIG, Brooklyn, N.Y.
David Quintero, in his letter of 4/15/22, picks out some particularly horrific accounts in the Old Testament (Ezekiel 23, Judges 19 and Genesis 19) and seems to thing things recounted here are meant by God to be things, examples, we should follow! Granted, the tales are graphic, but that is to point out to the reader how horrible are the acts, not to say “Go and do thou likewise”! There are many, many accounts like this because things like this happen — or did — and people need to know that God, too, is horrified and totally disapproves of them.
The Bible is God’s Word and His Truths. Of course, such stories are for adults, but the lessons are for all people. It shows exactly that which God does not approve. There is no other way to put it — or God would have.
At the very least, anyone reading the entire Bible will understand these things. God does not sugar-coat.
But He also comforts, forgives, loves us and wants all good things for us. That’s there, too. Which is why the Bible is so realistic. And people who read it entirely will see this.
CHERYL LOVELY, Presque Island, Maine
I challenge you to come up with anything—ANYTHING—more outrageous than the “powerful head of the Russian Orthodox Church” vigorously promoting Putin’s campaign of genocidal killing of innocent Ukrainian women and children. Research the doctrines of EVERY faith that professes the following of God’s will and I have no doubt that nowhere is Putin’s inhumanity in any way condoned. Some religious groups are already calling him out for this “heresy,” but every leader of every faith needs to condemn him in the most powerful way; such action acts to discredit every faith that is promoting the will of our Creator!
LEE KNOHL, Evanston Ill.
From The Progressive Populist, May 15, 2022
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