Tag Archives: climate change

Political Rants

Thoughts on prospects.

Yeah, so I did get around to writing. Partly because I’m in a ghastly New Jersey hotel room at 6:30 a.m. with nothing to do for the next two hours, and partly because I’ve got the usual head-full of notions.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t travel a lot these days. My wife Kory and I take day trips on occasion, but that’s about it. That’s a big change from back in the day, to be sure. Kory traveled all over the country for her film work and lived in Manhattan for about 15 years. Of course, I did the same in pursuit of a meager living as an itinerant musician and as a low-rent roadie, tag-along in my very very early years.

Different, but not enough.Living in a tiny little burg in upstate New York as we do, you tend to intellectualize big problems like climate change. Nothing makes it more concrete than an afternoon on the Garden State Parkway or the New Jersey Turnpike. Millions of vehicles in a mad crush, turning the road into a massive parking lot around the major exits, everyone struggling to get just one car length ahead of the next fucker. At one point in a particularly slow-moving traffic jam on a railroad overpass I was flanked by a tractor trailer carrying fuel while beneath us passed one of those amazingly long tanker trains. When no one’s moving, there’s little to do but think, and it’s moments like that when I start thinking … we have a little problem.

So … how do we turn the supertanker around? That’s the challenge of our age. We need somehow to get to a more sustainable way of living. It’s silly to deny that we have made some marginal progress over the years; those millions of cars are substantially cleaner and more fuel-efficient than previous generations of vehicles. And there are other factors, like the energy industry, that are major contributors in climate change. But this isn’t a problem that will be solved on the margins. We need to work out a different way of doing things – one that doesn’t involve burning all these hydrocarbons.

Those folks hanging from ropes in front of that icebreaker in Oregon had the right idea. Next time maybe they (or rather, we) should do it in the Capitol rotunda. Or in the main portico of the White House. Because that’s where you stop the drilling.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

What does it.

As Americans, we crave the simple solution. Just give us that one thing we can do to make a problem go away. There has to be an answer, right? Anything can be fixed. The trouble is, the actual world is more complicated than that. Most of our problems will not yield to easy answers. In fact, very often, if a solution to a serious problem is even possible, it is likely to be a very complex, multifaceted, and inconvenient one. That’s the last thing we want to hear.

What California used to call a riverAnd yet, here we are, faced with enormous challenges, decades – even centuries – in the making. Problems like climate change, a matter so enormous most of us just turn away. For those of us who believe the overwhelming scientific consensus there is a human role in climate change, far too many feel that this is something that can be solved by driving a Prius and screwing in a few LED light bulbs. Those are good things, but this is not the type of challenge that is going to yield to small-bore actions carried out at a personal level. This will take a major reshaping of our economy, our use of resources, our entire approach to the Earth. Half measures won’t do it.

Same thing with regard to the rash of police killings of unarmed black men.  It’s easy to lay it on the cops, and sure, police practices nationwide need reform, but this problem runs much deeper than law enforcement. Issues of race and racial exclusion on a profound level, reflected in government policy at the local, state, and national level, have brought us to where we are today. The practice of criminalizing black life goes back to slavery, to be sure, but so does shutting black families out of certain neighborhoods and effectively confining them to others. This is a case wherein justice delayed is truly justice denied – keeping these families out of home purchases in the years following World War II denied them the ability to build equity, increase their wealth, and move into the middle class. Employment discrimination contributed to this, of course. New rules for the police won’t undo that sad, sick history.

No quick fixes, people. We need to find solutions that match the scale and depth of the problems we’re attacking. Easy just won’t do it.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Lucy ball.

The president has announced that he’s taking executive action applying prosecutorial discretion to stop mass deportation of undocumented aliens in certain categories. This is the type of action he originally promised to take over the summer, then backed off by request of embattled red-state democrats, like Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor and others. (How did that work out?) Now that the disastrous election of 2014 is over, he is proceeding with the plan in the face of very vocal condemnation by Republicans in Congress and in statehouses across the nation. That, I confess, is an understatement. They, once again, have their hair on fire about this deal.

Meet president Eisenhower.Trouble is, Republicans ALWAYS have their hair on fire. It kind of devalues burning hair. All of this gas about how the president is going to poison the well by acting in this fashion; that Congress is ready to work with the president, but that this will screw it up. Hoo boy. If the president were to take them at their word on this at this point, I would worry for his sanity. They have been like Lucy and the football more times than I can count. Honestly, I don’t know why Republicans don’t like this guy. He’s basically Eisenhower with rhetorical skills. His immigration announcement was full of a lot of “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” clap trap. He’s deported more immigrants than any previous president. Sounds like their type.

Obama led with enforcement, as is the standard practice. The border is mined, folks! He ended with soaring rhetoric about what it means to be an American. In between was a promise not to deport the foreign-born parents of American citizens, as well as other undocumented immigrants who have been here five years or more. Now, why did he not do this before the election? Pryor would have lost anyway … and frankly, was he worth saving? It’s a bit like asking if “saving” Mary Landrieu is worth wrecking the planet with tar sands oil via the Keystone XL pipeline – basically the fuse leading to the climate bomb.

Either way, the Republicans threats against the president have been treated with the contempt they deserve. So one small point for Obama. What’s next, Lucy? The ball’s in your hands.

luv,

jp