Your Independent Journal from the Heartland
If it’s a day ending with y, Donald Dumpster finds new ways to bully the country and the world. An Aug. 27 New York Times article said that the Orange Oligarch is pressuring other countries, promising to punish them with tariffs, visa restrictions and port fees, if they vote for a global agreement to slash greenhouse gas emissions from shipping. According to MIT Climate Portal, up to 8% of greenhouse gases are emitted every year by global shipping, and that could double by 2050.
Days later, the Times said, Humpty Trumpty joined with Saudi Arabia and other oil producers to oppose limiting petroleum-based plastics, which make a massive mess of our oceans, lakes and rivers. The plastic particles don’t degrade or disappear, instead breaking down as microscopic infiltrations into human and animal brains and bloodstreams all over the world. Non-oil-based biodegradable plastics are widely available but little-used due to the stranglehold petroleum producers have on plastics.
Such antagonistic actions and attitudes reveal an antipathy toward the Earth’s ecological equilibrium. In a word, it’s terracide – war on the world, plunder of the planet. To be sure, abuse of nature is nothing new, but now Trumpty’s tribe is attacking worse than ever. There has never before been such vicious vandals dedicated to gut our good green Gaia.
Has gratitude gone out of style? How about appreciation for all the bounty and beauty bestowed upon us by nature’s fertile philanthropy?
Unfortunately for us, when we cause Mother Nature’s balance to go out of whack, She goes whack on us. Her Highness throws a fit with hurricanes, fires, floods, droughts, tornadoes — which occurs when Her wires get crossed. Her diagnosis could be a chemical imbalance, shrinks might say, but She will require more than medication to solve and salve the catastrophe caused by her PTSD (Planetary Trauma Suffering Dysfunction).
Among humans, since suffrage is suppressed, suffering surges. And as authoritarianism abounds, democracy declines. About 72% of the Earth’s humans live under dictatorships, according to Human Rights Foundation (www.hrf.org), which tracks this issue. That figure could jump a couple points now that we have the fascist fathead commandeering our country. Here in America, where allegedly freedom rings, soldiers stand on city streets, ready to repress our rights.
As for nature’s rights, tyrants take complete control of the planet’s plentiful production. In extreme extractive mode, with no sense of sustainability, dictators doom our climate to chaos. A grim update is that on Sept. 2, an appalling ruling by a U.S. Appeals Court allowed Dump’s EPA to cancel $16 billion in grants to non-profits fighting climate change.
But here’s some hope. According to the Institute for Public Integrity, Dump’s administration has failed at least 92% of the time when its agency actions have been challenged in court. Surprisingly, that’s been the case many times when the presiding judge is a Dump appointee. And even the Supreme Extremes have restrained him in some issues, after the miles-long leash they allowed him for impunity in presidential deportment.
It’s also fortunate that friends of the constitution are fighting for proper use of the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits most deployments of federal troops against American citizens, even as Donald Dump flagrantly violates that law. With dedicated groups on guard, we do stand a chance of staving off our slide down the slippery slope of tyranny.
Our union, our country consisting of cooperation and compliance, is at its worst risk since the Civil War 160 years ago. Let’s defend our democracy, for our own sakes as citizens of a civilized society, and as grateful guardians helping the Earth to heal from humans’ harm.
Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.”
Email: lingofrank@gmail.com.
See his website: Greenbeat.world
