Saturday, February 04, 2006

Earth Meanders

The U.S.A. now stands for totalitarianism, perma-war and collapsing climate.

America's freedom, prosperity and global allure are being lost forever. Fear, hubris and excessive consumption have turned the American dream into an American tragedy. In the name of freedom, freedoms are being dramatically curtailed. To keep oil cheap, deadly climate change is ignored. Totalitarian national security powers and an absence of leadership to stop climate collapse threaten the nation's and the world's economic, social, political and ecological foundations as never before.

The American dream of freedom and prosperity has long been fragile and incomplete, as American democratic rhetoric has been undermined by a history of militarism, racism and poverty. The great liberal democratic experiment could have gone badly wrong at many points in American history, but perhaps surprisingly, instead liberty and comforts continued to expand. Not anymore.

Because of one dastardly criminal attack on 9/11, many Americans have supported their government's rollback of democratic human rights and the rule of law, including curtailing domestic civil liberties and waging foreign wars of aggression. It is terrible that 3,000 people died that day over four years ago. But where is the perspective?

Forty two thousand people die in America every year from automobile accidents. We are not seriously thinking of limiting driving. Already some 500 people are dying daily directly as a result of climate change, and within decades this is expected to soar to the hundreds of millions, if not billions. At least 3,000 people, mostly children, die a day from bad water around the world. Yet the $20 billion investment required to provide drinking water to all the Earth's children is not made. The direct costs of the immoral Iraq war approach $400 billion - twenty times what it would cost to daily save from bad water the twin towers' death toll...

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