macska moksha press

Navigation

Do we need a dictatorship to respond to Climate Change?

by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

MLK: "Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals."
Collage by the author

Globally, June 2019 was the hottest June on record. Though it is tricky to attribute any particular event to anthropogenic climate change, scientists estimate that the likelihood of the month’s extreme heat was made five times more likely by human contributions.

This heat is no anomaly. The top ten hottest years on record globally have all occurred since 1998. This list includes every year since 2013, which is to say, 2012 was the last year that was not one of the ten hottest recorded. (See “The 10 Hottest Global Years on Record.”) Because 2019 is an El Niño year, when temperatures tend to be higher, some are already predicting that it will end up being the hottest year on record.

In India, people are running out of water. In the US Midwest, farmers are having difficulty planting crops. Greenland ice is melting at unprecedented levels. Drastic events continue to happen “sooner than predicted.”

This list of dire events could go on and on, but so could the list of measures we should be taking but are not.


Read More…

Reflections on Technology & Culture at my Half-Century Mark

by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

1969 penny

1969 penny [photo by author]

Today—if a document from a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, is to believed—is my 50th birthday.

Some people say age is just a number. Of course in many ways that’s totally true. As far as I’ve seen, anyway, length of time on this planet has no bearing on intelligence, maturity, creativity, sensitivity or perspicacity. My whole life I have kept company with people across a broad age range and I’ve known a good many older people who were clueless, puerile and undiscerning and a good many younger ones who were sharp, capable and clear. (I’ve met nearly no one who could be described as “wise,” but then I haven’t gotten out of the US much.)

Nonetheless, I have remained intrigued about age as it relates to history. So, I value the experiences of people ten to twenty years older than me who have clear memories of the Sixties and early Seventies, and I am interested in the views of those twenty to thirty years younger who never knew the world without the internet.

Read More…

Forgiving Debt to Invest in Environmental Healing

by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Fir seedling, in author's hand [photo by author]

Fir seedling, in author’s hand [photo by author]

“I want you to act as if the house is on fire. Because it is.” —Greta Thunberg

The US economy is awash in debt.

  • As of the fourth quarter of 2018, household debt in the US totaled $13.54 trillion. The largest portion of this is mortgage debt, which totalled $9.12 trillion. [source]
  • As of March 2019, total credit card debt is $1.057 trillion, which is an average of $8,286 per household. The average debt per card-holding adult is $5,839. Much of it is incurred to pay healthcare costs. [source]
  • As of February 2019, student loan debt is $1.56 trillion. This is held by 44.7 million people, with an average debt of $29,800 and average monthly payment of $393. $101 billion of it is in default. [source]
  • In the first quarter of 2019, auto loans totaled $1.28 trillion. About 6.5% of these loans were 90 days or more delinquent in February of this year. That’s around 7 million people. [source]

This explosion in personal debt is not normal or healthy and is hobbling an increasing number of people. A state of de facto peonage is emerging. The levels of inequality in the US today are literally medieval (though peasants had it better when it came to days off: “Altogether there were about 80 days of complete rest with over 70 partial holidays, that is, about three months of rest spread over the year” [source]).

More and more people are struggling financially. According to National Payroll Week’s 2018 “Getting Paid in America” survey, 38% of respondents would find it “very difficult” to “meet [their] current financial obligations if [their] next paycheck were delayed for a week” and 31% would find it “somewhat difficult.” Those who answered “not very” or “not at all” difficult totaled 28 1/2% together. If this situation is not yet “dire,” it sure is headed in that direction.

When securing necessities becomes so arduous, then stress, anger and depression result, and from these, conflict, violence and self-harm.

Just at a time when we need to come together and work collectively for change, more and more of us are distracted by mere survival and, failing at even that, are sliding into addiction, disease and dysfunction. At some point, society reaches a breaking point, and under such circumstances is unlikely to instantly evolve into, say, an enlightened socialist utopia. Not without first passing through a brutal period of ramped-up state authoritarianism, anyway, and I, for one, ain’t gonna wish for that.

The pressure needs to be released. Space must be made for something new. One thing we have to do is to forgive all the debts.
Read More…

Assange Indictments are not about Assange: Democrats Need to Drop their Hate and Support him

by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

“The Department of Justice just declared war––not on WikiLeaks, but on journalism itself. This is no longer about Julian Assange: This case will decide the future of media.” —Edward Snowden*

“For the first time in the history of our country, the government has brought criminal charges against a publisher for the publication of truthful information. This is an extraordinary escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on journalism, and a direct assault on the First Amendment. It establishes a dangerous precedent that can be used to target all news organizations that hold the government accountable by publishing its secrets.” —Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union

“No matter your thoughts on Julian Assange, the latest indictments—under the outdated Espionage Act—are a disgrace. If you support the indictments out of hate for him, you’re giving Trump a weapon to restrict the press. The charges should be dropped and the Espionage Act repealed.” —Sen. Mike Gravel

We are at a pivotal moment in history. With the Assange espionage indictments, we are within spitting distance of naked fascism. How will we choose to act?
Read More…

Chelsea Manning is Showing Us What Real Resistance Looks Like

by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Chelsea Manning

Chelsea Manning (photo courtesy sparrowmedia.net)

Throughout history, human civilization has been cursed by tyranny. Time and again, power is concentrated in institutions that rule by coercion and force. Humans have suffered through totalitarianism, dictatorships, and fascism repeatedly. Untold suffering and death have occurred.

But such times have always been marked by resistance. Courageous individuals and movements have fought back with a variety of tactics from open revolt to furtive sabotage. The rate of success in overthrowing particular tyrannical institutions has been mixed (though none of them ever last forever anyway of course) but that is not the only way to weigh the value of freedom fighters. Is it not worthy, in and of itself, to strive on behalf of life?

Here in the USA, we are living through a time of increasing tyranny. Certainly, the entire experiment has been tyrannical from the start, given the genocide and slavery that founded the nation, and the brutal militarism that wrought its imperium; however, the last few decades have seen a ramping up of assaults against our individual rights and collective liberties that seriously contradict the idea of a “free country.” Under the auspices of fighting “terror,” the amendments in the Bill of Rights have been getting crossed out like items on a grocery list. Since the ascendancy of Trump to the White House, these trends have accelerated. What was once characterized as “creeping” fascism is now “leaping” and it’s a bipartisan affair. The attacks on leftist journalism since the 2016 election, for example, have been coordinated more by Democrats and their allies than by Republicans. (See my “Cowardly New World: Alternative Media Under Attack by Algorithms.”)

This is definitely a moment when we need resistance. And I mean real resistance, not the faux hashtag Resistance(TM) of Democratic partisans who, had Hillary been the winner, would “be at brunch now.”

What does “real” resistance look like?

Chelsea Manning just showed us.
Read More…

Our problems are deeper than “capitalism” (and “socialism” alone can’t solve them)

by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Plowing a field

Plowing a field

Complaints about “capitalism” have become more common the last few years in the United States. This has been a welcome development. Anytime the collective perspective is widened, it’s beneficial to at least some degree. In a complementary way, calls for “socialism” have also become more frequent.

We can credit these trends to social conditions. First, as such conditions have worsened by several measures — such as those that track economic factors and health statistics — more people have been willing to question the status quo. As the system falters, the number of folks no longer willing to play along goes up.

Secondly, some credit is due to the activists, scholars, artists, etc., who have kept fringe ideas alive through the times that were leaner philosophically (though wealthier financially). Occasional eruptions of activity have provided necessary exercise for these ideas, such as the turn of the century Anti-Globalization movement, and Occupy.

However, I put “capitalism” and “socialism” in quotation marks for a reason. The main issues that have been raised — income inequality (including falling wages and rising executive compensation) and a disintegrating social safety net (like lack of access to affordable healthcare, housing and education) — are grievances with Neoliberalism,* and the principal solutions, especially as enumerated in the Green New Deal (the Democratic party version) — such as increased government action and spending to create jobs, redistribute wealth and provide essential services — would not be Socialism, per se, but rather a return to, and ramping up of, Keynesianism.

This is not about splitting hairs. This is about getting to the root of the matter.

FDR’s New Deal (and Johnson’s Great Society) were both Keynesian; that is, they followed the theories of economic philosopher John Maynard Keynes, who developed them in the 1930’s (good summary). Keynesianism was not at all Socialist, and in fact sought to preserve Capitalism by blunting its sharper edges. With Keynesianism the sword is left entirely intact, and remains in the grip of the ruling class. With actual Socialism, by contrast, the workers seize the sword from the ruling class and wield it themselves.

What is the nature of this sword? Ironically to some — not the least of whom would be many in the Pacifist movements — this sword is a kind of plowshare; both are murderous. The multiple, intertwined crises we are facing today — whether economic, social or environmental — all precede Capitalism by several to many millennia. Capitalism emerged in Europe in the 1500s and 1600s (with no small help from the colonialism and slavery that marked the euphemistically named “Age of Exploration”) and Socialist thought rose in the mid-1800’s, as the massive dislocations of the industrial revolution demanded a reasonable response.

Yes, the depredations of Capitalism (and “capitalism”) have been horrifying, and yes, Socialism (and even “socialism”) offer something marginally softer, or more “humane” in comparison, but we must look back further in history than these relatively recent philosophies and practices if we want to address underlying causes.

I am speaking here of what Jared Diamond called “the worst mistake in the history of the human race”: Agriculture, which burst onto the scene about 11,500 years ago.

Read More…

The Burning Cathedral and the Dead Turtle

by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Like many people, I was shocked when I first heard the news that the Cathedral of Notre Dame was on fire and saw the photos of smoke pouring out of the iconic structure. Though I’ve never been to Paris, I can imagine something of what was lost, since I have visited other architectural wonders in Europe including St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City and the Duomo di Siracusa in Sicily, which incorporates columns from the fifth-century BC, Greek doric temple that it replaced on the same site.

Such places undeniably have a power when experienced in person. They are at once both monumental, with their soaring roofs and larger-than-life scale; and intricate, in their detailed ornamentation in stone, glass and wood. A palpable sense of history also inhabits these spaces. Certainly, damage to them is a real thing. But how real? And compared to what? In a world on the brink of multiple planetary-scale disasters, it is fair to ask such questions.


Read More…

Politics, Perspective & Imagination

by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

I was camping with a friend in southern California recently and we were talking about politics. Not “talking politics,” as in weighing the features of the Green New Deal or arguing blue vs. red – that is, policies and parties – but talking “about” politics. I gestured towards some nearby vegetation to make a point.

“See those two trees,” I asked. “Right next to each other there?”

My friend nodded and smiled. She saw where this was going.

I jumped up, ran over and stood between the pair. With exaggerated movements, I faced first one and then, ostentatiously, turned around to face the other. “They’re coming from completely different directions!” I declared. Allowing myself a smirk I said, “That’s the perspective of a partisan Democrat or a Republican.”

I jogged back to her. “But from here, it’s easy to see how close they are to each other.”

Indeed, the branches of the two trees were growing in each other’s airspace, meaning that their roots were probably entangled under the surface. They were quite literally drawing their sustenance from the same ground.

I pointed up at the rocky hills behind us. “And from up there, the view is different again.”

“You might not be able to tell them apart,” she said.

I nodded. “And from here, we can only imagine that perspective, unless we go up there.”

This is why imagination is so important.
Read More…

No, Bernie’s not anti-war

by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

[Collage by author from Wikicommons images here & here]

“A number of lefties are softening their criticism and some are even announcing their support for Bernie Sanders. Yet: Those who have watched Sanders for years – e.g., anti-war activists from Vermont – know better than to trust Bernie “Chavez is [a] dead, communist dictator” Sanders. When push comes to shove, he will side with imperialist power – e.g., voting against the invasion of Iraq but voting to fund the occupation.”
–Phil Rockstroh (2/27/19)

“One keeps looking for the moral clarity of Gene McCarthy, Wayne Morse or Mike Gravel from Bernie Sanders on issues of war and peace. Yet what we are offered is mush and drivel. One might be tempted to blame it on his age. But like Reagan, he knows exactly what he is saying and why.”
–Jeffrey St. Clair (2/23/19)

The Democratic Party has an undeserved reputation for being anti-war. The last time the party ran an anti-war candidate for president was George McGovern in 1972. The 1980’s was the last decade when it was typical of candidates to pledge “defense” cuts or nuclear arms reductions. Dennis Kucinich has been the only exception to that rule this century. In fact, the most successful anti-war candidate of the last twenty years was a Republican: Ron Paul, who made a notable splash in both 2008 and 2012.

Though he is not a member of the political party that writer Paul Street regularly refers to as the “dismal, dollar-drenched Dems,” Vermont’s Senator Bernie Sanders is once more seeking its presidential nomination and has signed the requisite “loyalty oath.” Sanders is often considered anti-war, but this is wishful thinking. His decades-long record in office demonstrates otherwise.


Read More…