As the year winds down, we approach the day of universal love and peace, I offer a Christmas meditation.
To begin, stop what you are doing and go outside.
Turn off your cell phone and stand silently.
Absorb the world around you: its colors, smells, and sounds.
And think about this:
As you grieve for slaughtered innocents and worry about raising the tax rate on 2% of our citizens by 4%, the world around you, our world, is dying.
We live in a society in which, according to the LA Times, there have been 29 mass shootings since 1991. 19 have occurred since 2005 with 6 in 2012. This year alone 65 people have been killed and 71 wounded. On average, 11,000 Americans die each year from gun violence: murder and suicide. Another way to look at it, since 9/11 there have been 33 Americans, non-military, killed by Islamic terrorists while at the same time 150,000 Americans have been killed by guns. I've heard the argument that that drunk drivers kill many more people than guns. Which is true, however the drunk does not intend to harm or kill others while the person with the gun most certainly does. Cars aren't designed to kill but guns are. Question - How many acts of self defense with a gun were there in 2012 compared to the number of homicides? How often do you hear of the legitimate use of a gun in self defence? Is our right to defend ourselves worth the slaughter?
It is a world in which species of animals are dying out faster than at any other time since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. Think about when you were a child and ask yourself: when was the last time you saw fireflies in your backyard or honey bees in the flowers?
We ignore the climatic calamity that is all about us and refuse to do anything to lessen the disaster. We stand like Butterball turkeys in a rainstorm: heads tilted back, inhaling the rain, drowning, unable to stop ourselves.
We are greedily gobbling up the last of the oil and natural gas reserves within the United States and the rest of the world. The idea of Peak Oil is forgotten even as we drain the planet. This intensifies the catastrophe and, within a few short years, will plunge us into a global energy crisis for which we are not remotely prepared.
The seas are over-fished, rising, warming, and acidifying, yet we go to Red Lobster for all the seafood we can eat.
We demand that others make sacrifices yet we feel put upon if asked to give up our comfort and consumption. We want everything cheap no matter what the cost to our fellow human beings or the planet. What we consider comfortable, what we want, are learned reflexes not immutable forces of nature or the will of God.
We are a cancerous organism that is eating our world.
Into our pouting, spoiled child’s mouths we stuff the beauty and diversity of our world. We cram the clean air-water-land and the resources that our children, grandchildren and future generations will need into our slobbering pie holes. We are Pavlovian dogs trained to consume until we burst.
At the other end through our obese ass cheeks we crap out an ever increasing stream toxic refuse, poisoning lands and oceans.
Can it be that despite our ingenuity and industriousness, we are, at the heart of it, too stupid to live?
What will it take for us to step back from this consumer Hell we are in and do something noble? We must act, if not for us, then for those that we claim to love, our kids and our home world.
It is time to do something for future generations, all the other living things and our Mother Earth. We need to clear our minds and agendas. We need to focus on the real threats and opportunities. Here are some suggestions.
- Accept that me, you, the folks down the street, all of us are responsible for this mess. Nothing will change unless I and you change. The enemy that threatens us, our children and grandchildren isn’t a Jihadist in Afghanistan, it is us.
- Demand a World War II style mobilization of our society to confront the real problems that face us.
The intellectual challenge to solve our problems can drive the complete revitalization of our educational system from bottom to top. Reduction of greenhouse gas pollution and the development of a reduced energy consumption society will create jobs at all levels of society. High employment will create tax revenues that will offset some of the cost of our social revolution.
- Endorse raising taxes on EVERYONE.
In the past we lived just fine under higher taxes. Taxes are chimera and mean NOTHING! Taxes won't kill us but climate change already has. Taxes won't make us sick but breathing foul air and drinking contaminated water already does.
- Demand universal healthcare.
This eliminates the issue of Medicare and Medicaid. Mental health services, which could have reduced the likelihood of the slaughter at Sandy Hook, Aurora and everywhere else have been steadily cut the last 30 years to save money and improve insurance company profits. With universal care can expand services while economy of scale and technology will make per capita healthcare costs drop. Negotiating prices for drugs will make a significant difference. In addition, universal care takes some of the burden off of business and removes profit from the healthcare model - profit siphons off needed resources and drives healthcare cost inflation.
- Demand a significant cut military spending.
Military spending is a non-productive use of money (what can you do with a bomb except keep it on the shelf or use it to destroy something?) In essence all the energy, raw materials, and human effort used to make military hardware and ordinance is WASTED! Not to mention all those people that are killed or maimed and the emotional and financial toll that inflicts.
- Support an end of all subsidies to the carbon-based energy industry: coal, gas, oil.
This will help end the artificially low cost of energy and help prioritize how to use these precious resources. These industries have been consistently profitable since the advent of the car. Why do we need to bribe these companies? Are they incapable of running profitable businesses even though they sit on incredible wealth? Perhaps these industries are outmoded and need re-organization.
- Support a comprehensive Energy Policy.
We need a comprehensive energy policy that would involve the creation of truly energy efficient power grids and alternative energy production. This would include much stricter energy efficiency standards for all construction, vehicles, and appliances.
- Freeze all development, commercial and agricultural, that damages wetlands and wilderness.
For example: today, farmers in the Upper Midwest are in the process of expanding production by obliterating the unique wetland habitats called Prairie Potholes. These potholes are an indispensable part of the wild bird migration route from Mexico to Canada. The vast majority of U.S. water fowl rely on these potholes. In addition, the potholes are key feature of the water cycle of the region. Yet now farmers are turning them into fields. A similar thing happened in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s in the southern Midwest. Farmers put all their land under cultivation, used poor farming practices (which are now being used in the Upper Midwest) and created an environmental disaster called the Dust Bowl.
We are the wealthiest nation on Earth and one of the most fearful. We hold onto our wealth and power as if we expect thieves to come in the night and steal it away. If that is what we believe, then that is what will happen.
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY
As you stand outside and meditate on our sad, ailing world, I suggest that you think carefully about the authentic messages of this season: good will towards all, reach out to help the needy, cherish all of our children, and celebrate Peace. Try to envision a world where we give up all the shadow play and we join together to make the future a place where all of our children can live, be happy and healthy, grow old and wise.