Thursday, April 22, 2021

Take This Earth And Love It!

Earth v. $$

April 22, 2021

As you probably know if you are in the habit of tuning in to Paying Attention, everyone here is a big fan of Old Mother Earth and every day is Earth Day around here. For better or worse, mostly worse, the United States has long been a major player in what happens to our favorite life-sustaining planet. This nation has been propping up the fossil fuel industry for 100 years, while simultaneously showing nothing but disdain for the only planet we have.

In 1980 Ronald Reagan named James Watt (not the steam engine guy, whose invention was one of the early insults to the environment, if not social structure) as Secretary of the Interior. Watt was hostile to environmentalism, and endorsed development of federal lands by foresting and ranching, and for other commercial interests. Watt worked tirelessly to carry out his Earth-killing mission. He was once described as  “intensely controversial and blatantly anti-environmental political appointees” in American history.

In 2021 Joe Biden appointed Watt’s polar opposite Deb Haaland, as the first Native American to manage America’s interior in out nation’s history. Haaland is the first Interior secretary to have no agenda other than no compromise in the defense of Mother Earth!

Deb Haaland – America’s first legitimate Interior Secretary

On the eve of Biden’s virtual climate summit with other world leaders, 101 Nobel laureates in peace, literature, medicine, physics, chemistry and economic sciences led by the Dalai Lama, have signed onto a letter weighing in on the scourge of fossil fuels. “The burning of fossil fuels is responsible for almost 80% of carbon dioxide emissions since the industrial revolution…Allowing the continued expansion of this industry is unconscionable.”

Capitalism Kills

If for no other reason than this, capitalism, conservative socio-economic theory and its companion theory on the function of federal government are utter frauds. Corporations (even the ones that do not get obscene and completely antithetical to anything fair or moral, welfare in the form of tax exemptions, subsidies, etc.) are privy to relatively unfettered ability to make unlimited profit. Bully for them. But somehow, they are for the most part completely absolved of cleaning up after themselves. That of course, is left up to tax payers by way of our friendly neighborhood Congress people. The government is left (voluntarily)holding the bag…and not just the one full of cash. They – us – must clean up all the pollution, in no small part because corporate henchmen known as lobbyists literally write the laws.

Ratpublicans yell and scream about the dreaded socialism. All socialists want to do is use taxpayer money to assure that people – you know, taxpayers – have the bare minimum required to live with dignity; and yes, maybe even a little more if possible. Sounds sinister, I know.

Ratpublicans believe that using taxpayer money to benefit taxpayers is simply lunacy, taking badly needed pennies out of the pockets of the people Ratpublicans cherish above all others – corporationpeople. Needless to say, Ratpublicans will never admit to their shameless, decades-long, relentless duplicity, as they somehow manage to convince their mentally malfunctioning minions that they are the ones protecting them and their “freedoms.” Yes, protecting them from being healthy, safe, middle class, or living in a democracy.

No, Ratpublicans would rather use that money, the money we gave them to ostensibly use wisely, and instead fritter it away not on protecting our environment from unnecessary depredations by corporate polluters, but instead on cleaning up after the world’s worst environmental assaulters after the fact. This achieves two things, 1) it allows unfettered destruction of the environment, and 2) it allows the tax-sheltered/offshore bank accounts of the world’s wealthiest to balloon at our expense. Makes sense, no? NO.

Go Fund Yourself

And just for the record, unlike the trillions of dollars of tax cuts for corporations and the very rich, which we are constantly being told, despite decades of objective proof to the contrary, would pay for themselves, however many trillions of dollars are put into infrastructure, renewable energy and keeping people out of poverty, will undoubtedly pay for themselves.

Meanwhile Mitch Fucking McConnell is threatening to wreak death and destruction if Democrats dare raise corporate taxes to repair and upgrade infrastructure – the infrastructure that corporations happen to use relentlessly. As a wise man once said regarding the corporate mindset that they owe the nation that coddles them nothing: they didn’t build that. We built that with the meager tax dollars we were able to wrest away from corporate welfare and military spending.

At the same time, Fucking McConnell is chastising his corporate benefactors for daring to enter politics on the side of everyday Americans…for a change, as CEOs are forced to speak out against Ratpublican voter suppression laws across the country. McConnell whines when corporations are finally shamed into taking a break from writing our laws to serve their greed and disdain for us and our planet. For one, probably brief, moment corporations that are perpetually stealing from us, were forced by the times to stand up for democracy and the people whose hard-earned money feeds their insatiable bellies.

Even Jeff Bezos, the personification of greed, has come out in favor of raising taxes on corporations. Cold comfort given the breadth of his financial excesses and his anti-labor practices, but we are forced to take what we can get. For now.

For now, celebrate Earth Day. Every day. In every way. Call your member of Congress. Hound your Senator. To paraphrase and old saying: The Earth will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no Earth. 


World Party - Thank You World

I. Mangrey, fuming.


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