Earth Day reflections

It isn't actually a holiday, just a commemorative day, but I believe we should rethink our position on this one. To me, Earth Day should be a full-fledged holiday, like Memorial Day, or Veterans Day, but more important; like Presidents' Day or Columbus Day, but more meaningful. No, we need a day to stop and think about the Earth.

We've only got one, and we're killing it.

Now, for all of you doubters and deniers: get over yourself. You're a huge part of the problem. Global warming is a fact, the ice caps are melting, islands are being lost and soon coastal regions will start flooding; we're acidifying the oceans and desertifying the rainforest regions; we're polluting the air, poisoning our water supply (and ourselves) and destabilizing the earth's crust in places (cf. fracking). You can say it ain't so, but you're wrong. You can believe that humans aren't the problem, but you're wrong. As my main man George Carlin was fond of saying, "you're here, you're guilty, end of story."

What gets me more than anything else is the justification of our ignorance and ignoring: to give ourselves better lives. How oxymoronic can you get? Oh sure, in the short term, some of the obscenely rich will get richer, and most of the obscenely poor will even more obscenely poor. Our lives are not going to get better folks. There is no way they can.

The simple truth of the matter is that the earth is a finite time-space entity. Acting as if it is infinite is, in simplest terms, stupid. But that's what we're doing. The developed world is consuming too many resources in improper ways with catastrophic results. The undeveloped world thinks the developed world knows what it's doing, but it doesn't. Things aren't looking good, folks.

It really is time to think about setting aside at least one day to reflect upon our own suicidal insanity. Earth Day would be the perfect day, but we missed our opportunity again. I wonder how many more we really have.

Happy Easter!

Just in case you were wondering, I have to admit that I'm enjoying this Easter a little more than some in the past. Oh, sure, the weather is more or less cooperating (I remember snowstorms, frost, sleet and rain on some); but I am also sort of enjoying the squirming some of the non-Orthodox Christians are going through this year. This isn't schadenfreude, it's merely an observation.

You will recall that the Roman Church and most Protestants would rather celebrate Christmas than Easter. For many of them, as is the case for many moderns regardless of persuasion, spirituality is a bit difficult to deal with. By focusing on the physical we can avoid all that messy metaphysical stuff. Up until now, the Paulites had the say: Jesus was killed for your sins; own up to it, accept it, proclaim it (preferably loudly) and you're home free (as far as the Protestants were concerned; you had to register this, so to speak, with the authorities and the Catholics considered you part of the club).

Unfortunately, this is just one view: Paul's. There are still some "weirdos" out and about, however, who think that Christianity has something to do with what Jesus said and did while he was alive, that what was important was not so much what you say, but what you actually do. The way I see it, this is precisely the approach that Papa Frank is pushing. I can't begin to imagine that he's making a lot of friends with it either. And that's why I'm feeling a little more upbeat today than usual.

So, whether you're getting ready for spring, looking for hidden eggs with the kids, having a special dinner, or simply wondering what others might be celebrating, I hope you have fun doing it, and I hope you have fun doing it with others. Easter should be, in my view, a family holiday. It's as good a reason as any to simply get everyone together and to spend some special time, eating, drinking, and being merry.

Yes, live it up. After all, that's what this particular holiday is supposed to be about.

Maundy Thursday

It is clear to me that many who read these posts regularly are bothered, if not downright offended, when I compare our current plutocratic capitalism to a religion. What is interesting, to me at least, that some of the upholders of that view are bothered as well as others of faith are bothered. That's a good thing. We should be bothered by ideas from time to time.

The advocates of "the system" like to think they are not religious, but I think it's pretty clear they are. They simply have a different set of beliefs that those who believe they are religious. The patterns are the same, the mechanisms are the same, there are rituals and professions of "true belief" involved, and -- most unfortunately -- the outcomes are pretty much the same (more death and destruction than life and growth). The religionists don't like it because they think being compared to a secular club somehow denigrates their religion. It only does if you allow it to, or if you practice what you call religion in such a way that it is hard to distinguish from its secular counterpart. That's where we are by all who believe that their religion is the true religion. This applies to fundamentalists of all stripes, but considering the real-life timing of this post, we're going to concentrate on our Christian friends.

Today marks the real beginning of the Passion of Easter. It should be, by all rights, the highest four days of devotion for all those who call themselves Christian. We need to remember: no Easter (that is, no death and resurrection) there's no Christianity. It's very existence depends on the events of these days 2,000 years ago. As it is, it is the Eastern Church, the so-called Orthodox varieties, who make this holiday the high point of the year. For the Roman Catholics and Protestants, it's Christmas; that is the celebration of the physical birth. If we look at the contention that Jesus was crucified, put to death, buried and arose again on the 3rd day, well, then what we are dealing with here is a spiritual birth. Religions, being by nature spiritual, you'd think that today would be the kick-off of the time of greatest celebration, but it isn't. We're going to spend a lot more time looking for hidden eggs and eating chocolate.

It's not exactly clear to me why, but I do have my suspicions.

The new religion

Don't get me wrong. I am more than aware of the power of beliefs. I may say that these are "simply" things that some folks believe, but "mere" beliefs have been the root of some of the most heinous atrocities in the history of humankind.

The problem is that it is an extremely small step from "belief" to "true belief", from "believers" to "true believers". True believers are not be questioners. By that I mean that they are not renowned for questioning those beliefs. Not only are they believed, they are accepted as true, they are taken as fact, and, in the end, it becomes heresy (or some kind of crime) to call them into question at all, to even hint that they may, well, questionable. And that's where we are with neoliberalism these days.

It would seem that we are confronted with a new religion. Neoliberalism, as currently advocated and practiced, has all the trappings of religion and its power is comparable, if not in excess, of its religious predecessors, be it the Islamic Expansion after the death of the Prophet Mohammed or the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. More specifically, it exercises its power through violence.

How many infidels were converted by the sword? How many non-believers were brutalized, tortured and executed for challenging the authority of the Church? And today, be it through the outright dictatorial oppression that the peoples of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Poland, Russia, Southeast Asia, and post-Colonial Africa were (and in many cases still are) forced to endure, or the ravaging of whole economies by the World Bank and IMF, as is happening to Greece, or the militaristic corporate state that has taken root in the United States, how many of been beaten, arrested, imprisoned and persecuted for resisting the Power of the Market?

No, the pattern, the motivations, the modus operandi, the justifications, the argumentation ... it is all the same. Whereas the victims of religious zeal were at least promised a life of peace and happiness in the hereafter, in the New Dispensation you are condemned to Hell on Earth: insecurity, fear, pain, poverty, illness and arbitrary violence as the preferred means of control.

Or, as the new High Priests like to proclaim: or so have you chosen. Only you are to blame for your plight.

Oh, how far we have come.