The start of a new year and a new decade: 2020 will prove to be a crucial turning point in human history. The challenges humanity faces are immense and rapidly approaching. As a species we face three intertwined inexorable forces that cannot be rationalized, minimized or ignored. This trifecta of human extinction if you will consists of climate catastrophe-environmental collapse, the growing risks of nuclear weapons use, and the global encroachment and impact of US militarism.
That these three challenges to human life are intertwined and dependent on each other is beyond dispute. Regarding environmental catastrophe we are currently in the midst of the “6th great extinction”— over 80 species of animals go extinct every day. The unifying point that climate scientists enjoy consensus on is this- climate catastrophe is occurring now with a rapidity that makes what were once dire predictions seem like optimistic forecasts. Regarding nuclear weapons, the US under the vast umbrella of its “nuclear modernization plan” is introducing the “W76-2” – a strategic “low yield” nuclear weapon that is designed and sanctioned for first use in cases such as global cyber attacks, just to list one. Perhaps the purest obscurity in human language is the term “nuclear war.” “War” implies that there will be a victor, a winner, a party or nation that wins some sort of strategic advantage over a vanquished foe. With modernized nuclear weapons we need to be clear and acknowledge the realities of nuclear extinction or annihilation. There will be no “war,” any nuclear exchange will inevitably lead to human extinction; an apocalypse where, as Khrushchev told us, “the living will envy the dead.”
Regarding US militarism, the House and Senate just approved a staggering $578 billion 2020 military budget. Militarism has encroached and invaded and is now interwoven in every facet of American culture. US military spending is the single greatest cause of environmental catastrophe world wide. Three percent of US military spending would end world hunger. The US has over 1,000 military bases on the planet. You cannot find one senator, one member of Congress who can, with any accuracy, tell you where these foreign military bases are even located. And it is under the protective umbrella of US military spending and militarism where the US nuclear priesthood is allowed to nurture and conceive nuclear “modernization” and sanctioned first strike use strategies. “Militarism” has absolutely nothing to do with protecting the nation.
Climate catastrophe and environmental collapse will create climate refugees that number in the tens of millions. This has already begun. The climate refugee crisis will spur endless international conflicts, confrontations and war which increase dramatically the likelihood of nuclear weapon use. The global havoc wreaked by climate catastrophe and the endless wars inherent will be the rationale utilized by US military planners to feed our ever increasing military budgets that will include even more nuclear modernization. It is not hyperbole or hysteria to acknowledge the obvious – the forces of the apocalypse have been set free and are rapidly approaching humanity and our sacred planet Earth.
The one hope we have is a sustained citizens movement globally that refutes and challenges this entrenched status quo that leads inevitably to extinction. These are not issues of “conservative” vs “liberal” or “Republican” vs “Democrat.” These are issues of survival that warrant, mandate and demand a unified world response. It is not yet too late but our window of opportunity is rapidly closing. The only force powerful enough to stop this juggernaut is a sustained global democracy. Swedish school children have taught us all that such changes are possible. We need to follow their lead.
JIM SAWYER, Edmonds, Wash.
While we worry about the little things, like Fire, flood and starvation, the “chosen one” has bigger things in mind. He thinks he can get closer to Heaven with Space Force. Or at least out of the poisonous atmosphere.
By bypassing our crumbling infrastructure and pretending not to believe in global warming, his intent is to get out of here. As Giuliani yells, “I’ve got insurance,” it’s no doubt for all of the baggage. Since Mitch seems to ditch all the bills on his desk since they’re not green, he may be accompanying the other two amigos
While Trump looks for greener pastures on which to putt his balls, no doubt Putin will put in his two kopecks to accelerate the space race and ignore the polar bears coming inland.
Pre-historic man could never have envisioned today. We-historic man can never envision tomorrow, when Uranus is the next Ukraine.
FLORA ORMSBY SMITH, Marblehead, Mass.
Our Constitution is wholly secular and there are no mentions of Jesus Christ and of God. (We are one up on many Middle-East countries.) This is exactly what the Framers intended — we are definitely not a Christian country. in the meanwhile, the Christian nationalist would want a Christian country. The Attorney General (William Barr) in his address at Notre Dame on Oct. 11 repeated again and again that we are “straying” and all the problems facing the nation would disappear if we follow the Christian philosophy. Mr. Barr made a “tacit endorsement of theocracy.” (Was he not appointed by President Trump?)
G.M. CHANDU, Flushing, N.Y.
These two regulatory sentences, if adopted, have the ability to protect the health and well being of those who live, work, and study, in proximity to hog confinements.
Our proposed legislative/regulatory language: “All hog confinement excreta and its constituent parts must be retained in the confinement between disposal events. No excreta, or its constituent parts, may leave the hog confinement either through the water pollution avenue, or the air pollution avenue, between disposal events.” To be effective, this language should not be changed.
We have worked with both Democrats and Republicans over the years on this issue. Please introduce this language, or ask that your group’s membership regardless of party affiliation introduce this language, as a plank in your/their county platform. Also, please take part, or ask your group’s membership to take part, in this grassroots campaign by talking with and trying to elect legislators who would be willing to introduce and adopt this language.
This is a trans-political effort at being decent human beings. The human health and environmental impacts of air pollution from hog confinements have been documented by hundreds of studies. Many of those studies and their relevance are discussed in chapter 1 of our book at www.civandinc.com and click on NEW Hog Confinement eBook; there are 867 studies in chapter 2. Chapter 3 contains this legislative/regulatory language.
We will be giving our book to all legislators at the Capitol once they are back in session. We will include this document along with the book.
BOB WATSON, Decorah, Iowa
LARRY STONE, Elkader, Iowa
DICK JANSON, Decorah, Iowa
“For the steady, rational Washington, demagogue was a forensic term that described a class of political actors, well known since Greek and Roman times, who obtain power through emotional appeals to prejudice, distrust, and fear.
“The framers did not view the exercise of this remedy to be an anti-democratic act of nullifying elections. On the contrary, they provided the people and their representatives with these emergency powers for the specific purpose of rescuing our democracy and Constitution from harm and destruction at the hands of demagogues.” — Philadelphia Inquirer
It is totally obvious that Donald Trump is the very reason for impeachment. Bill Clinton was no demagogue, Trump is. It is now the duty of all our citizens to see that Trump is removed.
LEE KNOHL, Evanston Ill.
This might surprise you, but in 1999 Donald Trump proposed the passage of a “National Wealth Tax” of 14.25% on all individuals who have a net-worth and net-wealth of $10 million and higher. You can look it up online. Wealth differs from income.
He wanted the money generated from it to pay off the entire national debt with the remainder being placed into the Social Security Trust Fund to make it more solvent for additional years.
That is NOT something that conservative-Republicans believe in.
USA Today newspaper loves the idea.
So do I.
So should all “liberal/progressive” Democrats as well as many “moderates” and “centrists” and “independents.”
Right?
Take from the rich and give to help everyone else.
It is like “Robin Hood.”
It is part of my own political platform and agenda.
So why is Elizabeth Warren the only national Democrat who supports any version of it?
It is the ONLY way to pay for the new social programs that people like AOC want.
The ONLY way to raise enough money to help people.
Why is a political NOBODY like me the only person pointing this out?
Why are the “compassionate” and “caring” liberal/progressive Democrats totally silent and mute?
STEWART B. EPSTEIN, Rochester, N.Y.
Re “Beware of Mike Pence” [by Connie Schultz, 1/1-15/20 TPP]: Many people think that morality and their religion are the same — and that the more pious they display themselves, the more they will appear as a paragon of virtue.
But they are wrong. How often, after all, has religion served as a charlatan’s mightiest fortress? And how many believers have sunk to the lowest depths of immorality, camouflaged by religion’s respectability?
When most Americans finally learn that religion and morality are not synonymous, and that religion itself often hinders morality, they’ll run like hell when they come across a politician who flaunts his or her faith like a shameless exhibitionist.
DAVID QUINTERO, Monrovia, Calif.
The N.R.A. has convinced us: Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Specifically, people with trigger fingers kill people.
Since the 2nd Amendment is untouchably sacred, what we must deal
with are the trigger fingers.
I offer a Modest Proposal, a way to do it with one simple mandate:
When a baby is born, we summon a man with a sharp instrument.
He says a few sacramental words, then clips off the infant’s trigger finger.
With that rite, the dangerous part is gone but the sacred 2nd Amendment isn’t circumcised (oops, I mean circumscribed).
Removing middle fingers also might help.
JAMES ALEXANDER THOM, Bloomington, Ind.
From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2020
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