Non Illigitemi Carborundum
I am very tired, these days.
I am worn out by the constant, abrasive, endless stream of bad news.
Bad news about the machinations of a right wing movement that wants to undermine or destroy many of the things that we really desperately need as a country, while turning a blind eye to the misdeeds of the corporate bastards who sign checks for them. About the fraying of the American social fabric, about governance by dishonest subjugation and rigging the system (often for failure) rather than by open debate, compromise, and a desire to discover the truth.
Endless, unceasingly bad news about the tightening spiral of climate change, the steady, irreversible death-march of countless species towards extinction, and the looming collapse of ecosystems on which we are utterly dependent.
Every year, every day when we don't take positive action to deal with these things the future gets a little darker. We have to deal with the corrosive influence of our heedless consumerism on our culture, with the drift towards plutocratic corporatism and outright fascism on our democracy; with the unnecessarily destructive force of industry, and our long dependence of fossil energy.
And I don't see us doing it. I'm not sure it's possible, anymore.
And by the time things get bad enough that people will realize action is necessary, it will likely be far, far too late. I desperately want to be wrong about all this, of course. I want us to pull out the amazingly last minute reversal, the spectacular drive towards the goal that made America the envy of the world in the 20th century. It could simply be that I am too tired to see it, too worn down by negativity to have much hope. But my inner skeptic doubts that's the case.
I used to live for the bright possibility of the future.
Now... now I don't want to know. All I see ahead of us is darkness.
I am worn out by the constant, abrasive, endless stream of bad news.
Bad news about the machinations of a right wing movement that wants to undermine or destroy many of the things that we really desperately need as a country, while turning a blind eye to the misdeeds of the corporate bastards who sign checks for them. About the fraying of the American social fabric, about governance by dishonest subjugation and rigging the system (often for failure) rather than by open debate, compromise, and a desire to discover the truth.
Endless, unceasingly bad news about the tightening spiral of climate change, the steady, irreversible death-march of countless species towards extinction, and the looming collapse of ecosystems on which we are utterly dependent.
Every year, every day when we don't take positive action to deal with these things the future gets a little darker. We have to deal with the corrosive influence of our heedless consumerism on our culture, with the drift towards plutocratic corporatism and outright fascism on our democracy; with the unnecessarily destructive force of industry, and our long dependence of fossil energy.
And I don't see us doing it. I'm not sure it's possible, anymore.
And by the time things get bad enough that people will realize action is necessary, it will likely be far, far too late. I desperately want to be wrong about all this, of course. I want us to pull out the amazingly last minute reversal, the spectacular drive towards the goal that made America the envy of the world in the 20th century. It could simply be that I am too tired to see it, too worn down by negativity to have much hope. But my inner skeptic doubts that's the case.
I used to live for the bright possibility of the future.
Now... now I don't want to know. All I see ahead of us is darkness.