Does not the first generation who must endure the changes to a new world have the hardest time living through it? Will there be any free space left to sit on the ground “and tell sad stories of the death of kings?”
Have you not heard the lament of our resident philosopher, Spinoza? The call to action from our resident documentarian, Chris Pratt? Is this site created by Chris Grotke and Lise LePage as much for the future as it is for the past and present?
What is it about the future we seem to fear so much? Will we all end by “dining on ashes” paralyzed like lumps of coal on a fire?
We have to start somewhere.
Yet, the time is at hand and we do not have what it takes to coalesce our minds and spirit into a reckoning force that cannot be ignored.
But the night is young. In the darkest hours only those who are the bravest will rush in “where angels fear to tread.” Let’s hope that we have not grown so old and inflexible that we who really care caves to our fears and by doing so have outlived our usefulness.
Shall we go “once more into the breach dear friends?” Do we not all belong to the ages?
How long will we “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war” before we understand what Abraham Lincoln firmly believed to be true.
Lincoln understood that your two greatest sources of power were polar opposites. Lincoln’s exercise of executive privilege is well documented. And, he was not afraid to use it. But when it came time for him to tell the world, that who among us were his equals, he didn’t choose the judiciary. He did not recognize the legislative branch. Instead, he made a beautifully simple statement that could never be misunderstood by anyone, to wit: a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”
Here in our northern kingdom, our borders are narrow. Our people are few. Yet we stretch from the Commonwealth at our southern border to the “Her Majesty’s Government” to our north.
Oddly enough, by not being encumbered by population numbers, we few in this singular republic have a greater chance to express collective interests that pioneers change for the many, an interesting communate not shared by many other states.
We have to steer our people of state into the high winds; steady ourselves to turn our bow into the highest waves. There’s no easy way out of this.
Now, you can turn away and abdicate your responsibilities to a higher authority if it makes you feel better.
But what Lincoln was trying say is that we need to turn to ourselves, and, in turning to ourselves, we mean to seek the greater good for the most people.
Lincoln didn’t intend to say that we can form a perfect union.
But what Lincoln did understand is that without “We The People” we the people are left with nothing but the cruelty and injustice of tyranny.
Vidda Crochetta resides in the Wantastiquet River Basin in spirit when not there in the flesh. He is a writer who spends his time thinking about the people, places, words and things tangible to his life’s experiences in a time that matters the most to all living things: real space and time in the sentient organic world.
What is it about the future we seem to fear so much?
That begs the question, when is the future?
A favorite quote (by ??) – “You are now living in what used to be the future.”
The future used to be the year 2000, but now that is the past.
The future?
A simple, nonscientific answer would be from one moment to the next.
A view towards our children’s future is nicely expressed in the Constitution of the Iroquois Nations: “The Great Binding Law.”
“In all of your deliberations in the Confederate Council, in your efforts at law making, in all your official acts, self-interest shall be cast into oblivion. Cast not over your shoulder behind you the warnings of the nephews and nieces should they chide you for any error or wrong you may do, but return to the way of the Great Law which is just and right. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground – the unborn of the future Nation.”
Seven generation sustainability is an ecological concept that urges the current generation of humans to live sustainably and work for the benefit of the seventh generation into the future.[citation needed] It originated with the Iroquois – Great Law of the Iroquois – which holds appropriate to think seven generations ahead (about 140 years into the future) and decide whether the decisions they make today would benefit their children seven generations into the future.
{Wikipedia}
Absolution Blues
A read it and weep link that’s been going around lately:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/01/belief-in-end-times-stifling-climate-change-action-in-u-s-study/
Too many of these types of stories to keep track of.
And for the record, I like good news as much as the next guy, would rather not be dwelling on trouble ahead. But.. failing decisive action, there’s at least some solace in the company of those who refuse to go down hoodwinked.
No Wonder We're In Deep Sh....
Starting text from the link Spinoza provides above:
“”The United States has failed to take action to mitigate climate change thanks in part to the large number of religious Americans who believe the world has a set expiration date.
Research by David C. Barker of the University of Pittsburgh and David H. Bearce of the University of Colorado uncovered that belief in the biblical end-times was a motivating factor behind resistance to curbing climate change.
“[T]he fact that such an overwhelming percentage of Republican citizens profess a belief in the Second Coming (76 percent in 2006, according to our sample) suggests that governmental attempts to curb greenhouse emissions would encounter stiff resistance even if every Democrat in the country wanted to curb them,” Barker and Bearce wrote in their study, which will be published in the June issue of Political Science Quarterly.””
Jesus is coming back, & he's going to be ticked ..
.. if there’s anything left! This is not new; remember James Watt, Reagan’s Interior secretary? Pat Oliphant drew a number of good cartoons about that beauty, including my favorite (11/20/1981). A smiling bear, talking to his pals: ‘Surely’, says I, ‘Not THE James Watt, folk-hero and famous wilderness rapist!’ ‘That’s me,’ says he. And I says, ‘Not the renowned despoiler of our precious national heritage!’ ‘Right,’ says he. So I ate him.
I have never understood why christians, who presumably were taught the parable of the good steward, think that God wants us to trash the joint by the time Jesus returns. There is no such statement in scripture. Not that this is the only perversion of the bible by the “more Christian than thou” crowd.
Shall Not Perish From The Earth
http://www.vtcommons.org/blog/paralyzed-lumps-coal-fire
Tick tick tick
In related news, The Guardian is doing a special feature on Newtok, Alaska, the first US community to likely become climate refugees. “The village is sinking…”
And, we passed the 400 parts per million mark recently with greenhouse gasses. “…this level has not been seen on Earth for 3-5 million years..” says the article.
Worst Enemies - a cancer of this planet
In addition to being our worst enemies, we, humans, are the worst nightmare of life on this planet. One of the aliens in the movie “Matrix” is trying to explain the problem with humans as he sees it, from the outside looking in…. ::
“I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.”