Earth Day
2012. I recall the first Earth Day. We’ve done precious little to improve
things.
We’ve filled
the Pacific Ocean with so much trash that we’ve created a floating island of plastic
and other trash that covers more surface area than Texas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
We’ve
overfished the oceans for commercially important seafood while simultaneously
killing immense numbers of less desirable species by means of our fishing
techniques.
Our submarine
drilling procedures and practices have polluted vast areas of ocean due to
leaks of oil at wellheads. The scope of
the BP leak in the Gulf of Mexico has still to be determined. Clean-up after that disaster consists of far
more than policing up tar on the beach and spending millions in advertising BP’s
continued commitment to the clean up and recovery.
Coal
companies in the U.S. are busily denuding and removing mountaintops in order to
obtain coal with fewer employees than are required by other techniques. These processes destroy watersheds, forests, wildlife,
and ultimately contribute to increased downstream pollution and flooding.
Our federal
and state legislators are firmly in thrall to energy companies that are ruining
the aquifers that many people depend upon for potable water wells by means of “fracking.”
One of our two
major political parties is conspiring with corporate sponsors to remove any
social safety nets that have previously been enacted; and with the Christian evangelicals
and other religious fanatics to bring about a repressive theocracy that will
push our cultural and social traditions and practices back to Colonial
days. Our government would then be
essentially equivalent to the Taliban when they controlled Afghanistan.
The other
major political party is so self-engaged in maintaining re-elections that it is
unable to carry out its own function.
Its members of Congress and Senators are virtually paralyzed and
powerless to oppose the other party and its corporate owners.
Even the
definition of a “person” is now uncertain.
The Supreme Court, in a massive payoff maneuver for the Bush II administration,
has equated corporations with humans.
Meanwhile, the Evangelicals are intent upon assigning “personhood”
status to every fertilized human egg.
This anti-family planning campaign is intended to strip the last 100
years of social and medical progress from American women.
If the
GOP/teavangelists have their way, the only human voters will be white males who
own property and who belong to the finally approved Christian cult that wins official
status as the 1st Amendment is stripped away from the Constitution. Minorities of all sorts will be
disenfranchised and many will be deported.
Corporations will cast most votes.
We will
continue to breed as if the planet was not already over-populated. We will brandish the club of “American Exceptionalism”
to justify our continued rape of the earth and its resources, even as we slide
rapidly into third-world nation status.
Did I mention
that today is Earth Day?
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