Fight for our beliefs. It is what humans are born and bred throughout life to do. It’s the basis of America’s two-party political system. We do it unconsciously and consciously. We learn at an early age to slap labels on the other side of our public (and private) issues rather than dig for common understanding and resolution that benefits both sides. We almost never ask whether there is a more holistic, consensus-based approach to resolving such things. That usually comes after the damage has been done.
We learn to debate and entrench, not necessarily to resolve, our common issues. And the entrenched political debate is tellingly inefficient at producing tangible results, such as reducing our dependence on imported oil, or even more tellingly, reducing our national debt. We have learned to be exquisitely stubborn. We have also learned to ignore the elephant in the room of all public discourse in this country: the truth.
Choose any public issue. The war in Iraq. The price of gasoline. Guns, abortion rights, freedom of speech, the environment. What does it all come down to? Your opinion. My opinion. Right, left, red, blue, Democrat, Republican, atheists, neocons, etc. Money and power. Most issues come down to the pitting of one faction against another as the best way to move forward. Whichever group has the strongest argument (replete with means of funding) wins. And as a result of this outrageously expensive and wasteful political sideshow, we’re not moving forward. On the contrary our country is moving backward because we’re not practicing anything more than how to be good team members in whatever games we’re currently playing.
Polemic and polarity is no longer enough. It’s not a game with two sides.
Why do our politicians divide universal issues, such as the environment, into parts? Why do you? Do tree huggers and real estate developers have anything in common? We all breathe the air, and we all want to ensure that our progeny will be able to breathe the air (and drink the water) in fifty years. Instead, this country pays lip service to the global environment even as it wages a war to ensure that it continues to lead the world in per capita energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. actually increased its output of gases 2 percent this year, according to the government’s latest report.
Bottom line: we’re all hypocrites because the numbers don’t lie.
Our soldiers are dying in Iraq for oil, to implement democracy, and to ensure that Americans continue squandering the very substance that threatens to poison our beautiful country and the entire planet. The USA is setting a particularly tragic example for India and China, which have both, along with USA, opted out of Kyoto Treaty protocols. So we have nearly half the world’s population committed politically to endorsing and protecting their short-term interests on one “side” of the environmental issues facing all of humanity.
It is a dangerous game that cannot be won by any amount of partisan politics and cultural denial. This is a game we will all lose. The environment we are collectively destroying today all but assures a bleak future in which succeeding generations will pay with their lives for our heedless abnegation of moral responsibility.
We’re Not Number 1: We’re Better Than That
Why does the US government have 8 trillion dollars in debt? How does being in hock up to our ears benefit America in world affairs or at home? Does anyone really believe that our crushing debt doesn’t matter because it will be offset by ‘growth’ in our GNP? I would happily write a check for the $28,000 dollars representing my portion of the national debt if I thought it was a good investment. Would you write a similar check?
My fellow Americans, might we try to practice our worst skills for a change? Don’t leap to judgement, suspend it. Don’t slice and dice the issues and focus on your side of the big story, focus on the whole solution. Don’t practice being right or “first” at all costs. Practice self-doubt, real soul searching, and compromise with the world around you for the good of all. Don’t wait for our leaders to lead. Develop sustainable lifestyles in which “less” is actually “more.” Practice happiness through equanimity. If you can get through this letter to the editor, and fully understand the word equanimity, you’ll be well on your way.
The Truth Is Not a Football, Sis Boom Bah
Still equate economic progress with taking everything good and whole in this world and cutting it into parts? Just keep doing what you’re doing and watch what happens in coming years.
When a sufficient amount of this beautiful blue and green planet is burned to cinders and riven into cutlets, it will be game over. No side will win. There won’t be a Hail Mary, 4th-down conversion that saves the day either way. The teams, fans, and cheerleaders on all sides will fail to avert a disastrous outcome by having done nothing, either politically or personally, to change the course of future events while there was a fighting chance. The NFL, the NBA, and NASCAR Nation will all be no longer because humanity will be no longer.
Perish the thought.
Some things are better off viewed from all angles but left alone and appreciated intact. Like rattlesnakes, grizzly bears and frogs. Like the truth in all things big and small.
- Happy Holidaze from your pal in the pines…
