The truth is being avoided because our society is steeped in various degrees of denial. But, truth about the state of the natural world must be addressed.
If corporations continue to spew out climate pollution, raze rainforests, empty our oceans of life, and trash the planet with plastics, one million species could be extinct — gone forever — within a decade. Our planet’s natural world is facing the largest mass extinction event since the dinosaurs.
We could lose many great creatures, like elephants, whales, tigers, turtles, rhinos and many weird and wonderful creatures from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and everywhere in between, and from the darkest depths of the sea to the highest mountain peaks found anywhere on Earth.
Companies can try and “greenwash” it all they want, but the bald truth is that corporate greed is killing the planet; it is responsible for deforestation, degradation and exploitation of nature. And let’s be perfectly clear — extractive industries — from fossil fuels to industrial agriculture - are responsible for all this misery. Corporations have no heart and soul. They are all about stockholders and all about money.
But, of course, we are not innocent. The vast majority of us are reckless consumers and obsessed. with acquiring things — cannibalizing the Earth.
In addition, so many of us are media zombies, controlled and addicted to tech devices, and, of course, the “almighty” phone. Staring at screens, watching others and being only concerned with their group, fills the hours of the day far removed from Earth’s gifts and wonders.
Regain your self respect and cease being owned by a machine, and mired in passivity, and in accepting the role of spectator!
We need to come alive, get our hearts and souls active and return to being part of nature. Mother Earth needs each one of us to care, preserve and protect and get involved and support organizations that are active in expressing love for the gifts of life.
I know a ware and caring souls who feel a strong sense of urgency, and are alarmed by the rapid decline of the Earth they respect and love. I love nature ... what’s not to love?
I offer this from “Earth Blessing’’ by Jack Mahno:
‘’May our grandchildren’s grandchildren share legends of when we brought about the end of the time of arrogance and waste. May they toss stones from shores hearing our names echo in the ripples.”
CHUCK GOYETTE, Red Lake Falls, Minn.
Re: “He may not get away this time,” by Joe Conason [9/15/22 TPP]
I’m so enraged about the despicable “pussy grabber” who became president, that I almost forgot my antipathy against Ronald Reagan who should have been impeached for his contempt of the Congressional Boland Amendment, which prohibited supporting “directly or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua.”
Yes, in 1986 Reagan commissioned a small group of men to conduct Central American foreign policy in secret, away from the scrutiny of public opinion. That action, which resulted in the further erosion of our democracy, is known as the “Iran-Contra Scandal,” which will forever remain a blemish on our government’s Executive Office.
Amazingly, however, Reagan’s minions (including the mainline press) convinced the nation that he was blameless because he was unaware of what was taking place. Imagine! The Great Communicator evaded impeachment with that outrageous excuse!
Well, at least CBS’s Brian Healy made a valid judgment when he said: “This is the first time that dumbness, that lack of control, that disorganization, that stupidity, that naivete, were defenses for a president in trouble.”
I wonder what defenses Trump will use in his attempt to escape punishment for his crimes?
DAVID QUINTERO, Monrovia, CA
In 1929, my mother almost died from an abortion. Her first child weighed 13 pounds and a Caesarian operation was not an option. The doctor said they could save Mother’s life or the baby’s life; they could not save both lives. A Roman Catholic priest admonished Father that under no circumstances must the baby be hurt. Father chose Mother’s life and the baby was born dead.
Later, Mother went on to have four other healthy children. Had Father obeyed the Roman Catholic priest, I would not be able to have written this letter.
GILBERT A. RUBIO, San Diego, Calif.
Dave Zirin’s article about Serena [“Why Serena Williams Has the Greatest Career in Sports History,” 9/15/22 TPP] was very well written, moved me. Ted Rall on the other hand seems to be a Russian Propagandist [“In Actual Russia, No Sign of Sanctions]. Sitting in his hotel room in Moscow talking about everything going swimmingly. My favorite part was when the broken clock congratulates himself for being right twice a day in his last paragraph.
ROBERT PITTACK, Caldwell, Idaho
As regards Ted Rall’s column in the 9/15/22 TPP: It is littered with falsehoods. The most egregious example being “never mind the 70% [of US weapons] that Zelensky’s wildly corrupt government sells on the black market and the Javelin missile systems that wind up for sale on the dark web.” US advisers are training the Ukrainians on the weapon systems and they are not reporting missing stuff. UK intelligence is all over the country and they are not reporting missing stuff.
As for St. Petersburg, if everything is so great why did 15 politicians just get arrested for calling for Putin to be impeached?
If Rall thinks we should fix problems here that’s fine, but he should not use alternative facts to do so.
PAUL MITRO, Jeffersonville, Vt.
Thank you for the quotes from Medea Benjamin and your comments [“Stand Up for Ukraine]. It clears the air.
You cannot resist framing her concise description of that reality with a short introductory paragraph with two nuggets of nonsense. The first “Ukrainians,” as if they were not a deeply divided people in the midst of an eight-year civil war incentivized by the West. The second, the snide “in promises made by Russians.”. Man, that is breathtakingly bogus, as if our own breaking promises didn’t go all the way back to “white man speak with forked tongue”.
And then you follow up her exact map to what is happening by ignoring her ideas, after flipping off her economic point. You wander into the same “saved the world by giving up its nukes” thing we have already heard, while NATO howls at the entire northern and western border of our favorite fake adversary. NATO is fighting on the ground in Ukraine now.
You’re not a fair-weather progressive? It is so easy (forgive me I’m guessing) to publish things that most everybody believes in, while they follow the puppet masters anyway. Much, much different when the Blitzkreig of media convinces 99% of people in one week that there is a, drop everything, beast on the horizon. Suddenly McCarthy Era. Can’t question the new narrative, must subtly support it, live to fight another day.
The problem is, starting to believe one’s own words. Every single idea that progressives struggle for is directly threatened by the same forces that confront Russia at this moment. If you believe yourself, that some idea of sovereignty, of broken promises, of Ukrainian gumption, somehow justifies this proxy war, then I just have to stand here openmouthed. I’d like to go through your piece line by line to show that you can’t write a sentence without needless prejudice (the truth is so much more interesting!) but I’m old and wearing out.
Please keep publishing the few voices urging sanity in this bizarre and dangerous time. These events are very promising for our future, even ours, after the death of the hegemon.
BOB CUMMINGS, Potter Valley, Calif.
Editor Replies: There is no evidence NATO troops are fighting in Ukraine, Russian claims notwithstanding. NATO member countries have provided weaponry and logistical support, but insist they aren’t sending troops into Ukraine, which is not a member of the alliance. However, foreign fighters have independently joined Ukrainian military units. Only one side is threatening use of nuclear weapons, and it isn’t Ukraine or NATO.
After reading Jim Hightower’s brilliant article of 8/1/22 [“From Lame President to Lame Duck”], we all know, without a doubt, that HE should be our next president. I am about to be 100 years old in a few short months. I can have any damned old fantasy I want — and that is what I want.
Bravo to all of you!
CORRINE SUTILA, Los Angeles, Calif.
Went into town today. Ran into the Deacon’s wife in one of the few stores in the area. Bound to happen. I asked her if she had gotten the COVID and she said she had not, and that she had; here she raised her hand toward her face and made a swath gesture in the mask area as she spoke and said she had avoded (made the gesture) until she absolutely had to.
At this point, I said, “This is how I saw the masking and the distancing and all the rest: We all know the story of the old man on the roof during a flood and people come along in a boat and say, ‘Get in the boat. Get in the boat.’ And the old man says, ‘I’m waiting for the Lord to save me.’” Here I cut the story short and say, “So the old guy falls off the roof and drowns and when he gets to Heaven he asks God, ‘Why didn’t you save me, Lord?’ And God says, ‘Well, I sent you a boat …’”
Well, that’s how I viewed the masking and all the rest. The boat God sent.
XAVIER SMALL, Linn County, Ore.
Perhaps in Twenty-Twenty-Four
We shall witness — as never before —
A spirited presidential race
Of elderly gentlemen taking place.
Should statecraft be for the young,
the clever and poetic tongue?
Only for those of tender years,
too eager, wet behind the ears?
Let old incumbents try once more
for the Oval Office door!
May the better geezer win
And gain the geriatric grin.
Verily poetically thine,
WILLIAM DAUENHAUER, Willowick, Ohio
From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2022
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