Civilization/Politics Archives - Page 2 of 8

For People, Planet & Peace: Interview with Lisa Savage, Ind. Candidate for Senate in Maine

May 11, 2020 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Lisa Savage is running for Senate in the state of Maine, against Republican incumbent, Susan Collins. Lisa is long-time antiwar and environmental organizer, as well as being a public school teacher and a grandmother. Although she has been an active member of the Green Party, Lisa is running as an independent candidate due to restrictive ballot access laws in Maine. The state does, however, boast the advantage of having ranked choice voting, which gives independent candidates a better shot.

I interviewed Lisa for my podcast, “Voices for Nature & Peace,” on May 7th, 2020, and we covered a lot of ground: COVID-19 relief (including her call for a People’s Bail-Out), healthcare, agriculture, campaigning during a pandemic, the recently released documentary, “Planet of the Humans,” the Green New Deal, and US militarism. If she wins, she will certainly be one of the most progressive people to ever serve in the US Senate.

What follows is a partial transcript of our conversation. Listen to the full interview here.

To My Fellow Leftists, Anti-Imperialists, Radicals, etc., re. the Pandemic

May 10, 2020 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

I submit that the most significant effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US is sociological. The break with the “normal” that the population is experiencing, virtually universally, is without precedent in the post-WWII era. With this amazing moment, we are being provided with an incredible opportunity to organize and to support real resistance to the Establishment. We should make the most of it.

All other effects—to health, civil liberties, electoral politics, etc.—are secondary (besides being matters of seemingly infinite debate). By contrast, the fact that people’s faith in the system is being seriously shaken right now is a big deal, and—as a phenomena—is undeniably real.

Those of us who oppose war, capitalism, injustice, authoritarianism and ecocide have often wished that the population could be roused from their seemingly unquestioning acceptance of the status quo and consider new perceptions and ideas. Well, here we are. There’s a real chance for something to happen. The last thing we should be calling for right now is a return to “normal.”

Personally, I’ve been opposed to “normal” since I was made aware of its existence at the age of 11. My understanding—or “analysis” as the intellectuals like to say—has grown more sophisticated over time, but the core has remained the same, and that is a visceral revulsion for the status quo, its values and its actions, which—I don’t need to tell you—are anti-people and anti-planet.

The System of “normal” has seemed unassailable: a machine of massive scale and seemingly unstoppable inertia. But it is vulnerable. We are seeing that now. We need to seize this moment.

In the context of taking action during the pandemic, many details are unimportant, like whether these particular statistics are accurate or those specific polices are over-reactions, or even if the whole thing was planned by Bill Gates.

Of course the elite is taking advantage of this crisis to consolidate power and riches. That’s their MO every other day of the week too, and that doesn’t make this moment special. But every ruling class in history has faced a day of reckoning when they fall from power, sometimes abruptly. The circumstances have varied, but what most instances had in common was a population that experienced a break with “normal.”

Right now, in 2020, a door has opened a crack. We don’t know what’s on the other side, but it’s a way out of this miserable place. We should grab ahold of it before the powers-that-be slam it shut again by “re-opening.”

So, is this just another flu? Did Governor so-and-so overstep his bounds? Are the counts in New York City exaggerated? Maybe, maybe not. What I’m saying is that such things are trivial compared to the magnitude of the opportunity that life is offering us now, with the spell broken for so many people. This really could be a once-in-a-lifetime shot at big change. Let’s go with that flow.

What exactly should we do? Ha! I know better than to make any specific suggestions. Anything I say would just become something else to argue with.

Personally, I’ll be looking for ways to support people who are taking advantage of the new space and who are trying to expand it—the people for whom “normal” is just not cutting it anymore. Maybe we’ll see each other along the way.

The Pandemic as a Lesson in Humility: An Interview with Gilbert Mercier (excerpt)

May 9, 2020 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Gilbert Mercier is a is a French journalist, photojournalist and filmmaker. He founded the News Junkie Post in 2009 and is its Co-Editor-in-Chief. Over the years, he has been a guest analyst on television and radio programs for RT, BBC World News, the Progressive Radio Network, Sputnik, Al Hurra TV, CounterPunch Radio, and Radio Islam. Mercier’s articles have been republished by Alternet, Truthout, CounterPunch, Z Communications, Signs of the Times, Popular Resistance, and others. He authored the book, “The Orwellian Empire.” He is a member of the National Press Photographers Association and the Art Directors Guild of America.

Gilbert and I spoke on May 5th, and covered a variety of political and environmental topics, many of them in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. What follows is an excerpt.

Listen to complete interview here:

Or watch on Youtube here

Kollibri: We’re at a point now with this pandemic where Capitalism is facing a crisis, perhaps an existential crisis.

Gilbert: To me, this is excellent and it’s an opportunity for people like you and I and a bunch of other people worldwide to raise the consciousness level of the population…

Slaughter of the Innocents: COVID-19 & the Future of Agriculture

May 5, 2020 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

**Above:** *Massive cattle operation in Imperial County, California [Photo by the author]*

listen to the author read this post:

or watch on YouTube

It’s early days yet, but the COVID-19 pandemic has already proven to be revelatory, exposing much that is ugly about the “normal” functioning of the US: the sorry state of health care, the unresponsiveness of corporate-owned government, the hyper individuality of the populace, the high levels of ignorance among the same, and the racism of the entire system.

Regarding that lattermost point: This nation was founded by white Europeans who stole the land from the Indigenous and then built wealth with African slaves, and guess who’s doing the worst in this pandemic? The Native Americans and the Blacks. And look who’s protesting the loudest to get things “back to normal”: Whites, many of them with Confederate flags. Let that sink in.

Agriculture was at the heart of the settler colonialism: The land was seized for farming and the people were kidnapped to work the fields. From brutal beginnings, the situation has only worsened, especially in the last few decades. Small-scale, family-farming à la Old MacDonald is the stuff of myth at this point, with precious few exceptions. Pesticide use is up, ground-water levels are down, top soil is blowing away, wildlife biodiversity is shrinking, and human workers are abused.

Corporate ownership of the means of food production has led to concentrated ownership, de-localization, and supply chains that are brittle in response to stress. A handful of corporate giants (in fact, only four) have gobbled up most of the US meat industry.

These corporations have set up “economies of scale” that utilize mass mechanization and impose horrific living conditions never before seen—and not seen enough, thanks in part to “Ag Gag” laws that forbid photographic or video documentation of what goes on in such places. One could be forgiven for assuming these companies don’t want their customers to know the details of how their meat is processed. Especially when the results are thing like fecal matter in 100% of the ground beef (as found in a food-safety test conducted by Consumer Reports in 2015). Jim Hightower went so far as to say that factory farms aren’t farms, but “concentration camps for animals.”

COVID-19: Denial & Responsibility

April 22, 2020 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

*[Collage by the author from public domain elements]*

By and large, US Americans are in denial about a lot: the brutality of our militarism, the ecological cost of our lifestyle, the ethical vacuum where our communal heart should be. But denying the reality of a contagion is a whole ‘nother level of blindness.

History is full of infectious disease outbreaks; enough to call them regular, or even common. Repeated experience has built a body of knowledge of how to respond sensibly to such events; quarantine, isolation, and cordon sanitaires are tried-and-true methods, long proven through trial and (tragic) error. In short, we know the drill.

Not responding sensibly, then, is ignorant at best. It can also be willful stupidity or even malice, as history has also demonstrated.

In the US right now, we are witnessing some indisputably inappropriate behavior, as people gather in groups in public places to protest the social restrictions that various levels of government have been declaring.

Eight Reasons Trump Doesn’t Need to “Cancel the Election”

April 15, 2020 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

**March for voting rights, Dec. 10, 2011.** Occupy Wall Street joined the NAACP as thousands marched in midtown Manhattan to defend voting rights. Photo by Michael Fleshman. Licensed Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.

As the presidential race grinds on, more blue-leaning voters are expressing worry that Trump will “cancel the election.”

I don’t doubt that there are moments when Trump likes the idea of being a dictator or some kind of “president for life.” After all, he’s joked about it multiple times. But then, he has a history of both bluster and contradiction, so it’s hard to know how seriously to take him at any given moment. He could very well be fine with walking away after a single term to pursue other narcissistic projects that don’t demand as much of his time. For what it’s worth, Melania would mostly likely be thrilled if she didn’t have to put up with four more years.

Concerns about an “imperial presidency” are real, of course. The office began accruing more staff and power under FDR, and the burgeoning accelerated as time went on, especially after 9/11. This trend has plowed forward regardless of which party holds the White House, and no branch of government has attempted to check it in any meaningful way. Roll-backs have not been even lightly entertained, let alone undertaken. For this reason, Trump is the most powerful president in US history simply for being the current one.

This week, the subject of presidential power flared up in the media because Trump remarked at a press conference: “When somebody’s the president of the United States,” he claimed, “the authority is total.”

Constitutionally, that’s total bunk. Well-known attorney Floyd Abrams stated that: “President Trump’s assertion… is not just a breezy overstatement of his powers; it is a prime example of constitutional illiteracy.”

Trump is not alone in his illiteracy. I grew up in Nebraska, and it seemed like a lot of people there believed that kind of thing. But how different are the blue voters now when they assert that Trump will just “cancel” the election? Isn’t that just as blithe?

Saying No to Blue-No-Matter-Who

April 10, 2020 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

When I listen to Blue No Matter Who people, here’s what strikes me: That revulsion they have for Trump? It seems superficial compared to the revulsion they should feel for the whole system; for the profoundly sick society that we live in; for “America” itself.

We are a nation built on genocide and slavery, and we’ve never tried to make up for either. We’re the only country that’s ever dropped nuclear bombs on cities (Hiroshima & Nagasaki) and we did it even though Japan was trying to surrender; we just wanted to send a political message to the USSR. During the Vietnam War, we killed at least 3,000,000 people. We are some brutal MF’ers.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s designation of the US government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” still stands.

Do an image search for “Fallujah birth defects” sometime. Fallujah is an Iraqi city where we used depleted uranium and white phosphorous during the 21st Century’s Iraq War. To this day, babies are born there with multiple limbs or with internal organs outside of their bodies. That’s on us. (Side note: The general who led the attack? Mattis, who Sanders voted to confirm as Trump’s Secretary of Defense. This is who passes for “antiwar”?)

We are #1 in the world for military spending, incarceration, and pollution. A bipartisan consensus upholds these realities. The Democratic and Republican politicians are in consensus that we should bomb children, lock people up and destroy the environment. That’s how they vote.

I find all of this abhorrent beyond words.

We need to get honest with ourselves. That means looking in the mirror and acknowledging the depraved monster looking back at us. We are NOT a good people or a good nation. We are among the worst. Ever. We need to STOP. Then we need to go down a completely different road, one marked by humility, apologies and reparations.

Trump is not an aberration. He is what “America” is. History confirms this. The revulsion that people feel for him is a dodge for admitting the truth of who we are. It’s denialism and it’s a mark of our ill-earned privilege that we can entertain it at all. Other people in the world can’t afford to live in such illusion.

The ballot box is not designed to accommodate the scope of change we need. That’s no accident. We are not intended to have that much power, and the rules ensure we don’t.

So no, I’m not going to vote blue-no-matter-who. I will not endorse this perverse system or its atrocities.

The Betrayal of “Not Me, Us”

April 8, 2020 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

“Now America gets a choice between a rich white man with mental problems, a history of sexually harassing/assaulting women, a long record of supporting racist policies, & a career of taking money from the big banks & financial institutions OR… Donald Trump.”
~Lee Camp

So it ends in a whimper.

The so-called “revolution” that Sanders was leading to retake the Democratic Party has been brought to an unceremonious halt. Many primaries still haven’t taken place, and Biden remains short of the delegates needed for automatic nomination, and anything could still happen between now and then (such as putting off the convention itself for reasons of public health), but Sanders has thrown in the towel.

“Not Me, Us” indeed.

A Question of Identity: How Much Does Queerness Matter in a Crisis?

April 1, 2020 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Collage by author from public domain elements (sources: flag & coronavirus)

An open letter to my queer sisters, brothers and assorted others:

The Covid-19 pandemic is certainly turning life upside down. “Business as usual” has been cancelled or curtailed, from employment to education to entertainment. As the infection rate and death toll climbs, a sense of foreboding is coming to permeate the collective consciousness. “Pandemic” is a big word. How bad will it get? When will things “go back”? We don’t know the answers to these questions, and we won’t for some time.

But in the meantime, we suddenly find ourselves in a world where our usual concerns don’t apply. Instead of fretting about workplace politics, maybe now we’re wondering if unemployment benefits will cover our expenses. Rather than worrying about our place in the pecking order at school, we’re missing our friends and wishing we weren’t stuck at home with cranky parents. Last month, we were fantasizing about kissing the cute checker at the grocery store, but today we’ve got a mask over our mouth, and are hoping the TP will be back in stock soon.

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