Warning: this is a snafubar diary. It rambles. Don't whine, you've been advised, and you embarass yourself by wasting time to tell us all how much time you've wasted. It's just one man's point of view. Please move on if you're that busy.
Here's what I've learned about Jobs:
If an oil worker loses their job, it's unthinkable, but if an oil rig blowout ruins the livelihood of a fisherman, it's a price we have to pay.
If a coal miner loses their life, it's an acceptable loss - because we need them to have a job - "good paying" jobs...
...but the very same people who say that are the ones who were ready and willing to cut loose all of GM and Chrysler and every parts supplier, dealership, mechanic and dry cleaner who had a job because of them.
Is it as easy for you to see as it is for me that this country has lost the plot?
A "job" is clearly not a "job", and the way we attack, insult, condemn and now threaten each other over what a "job" means and who should have one seems to be the pin in the grenade that our country is collectively willing to pull on itself.
We can't build wind turbines because that's a communist plot run by Al Gore and George Soros; But T. Boone Pickins can say that to fracture the earth for Natural Gas is a way to promote good jobs,
and that makes Josh Fox a communist conspirator to discover that it also makes your drinking water catch on fire.
We have to hold vigils and ceremonies for dead coal miners, because for them to have lost their lives was a noble cause since in places like West Virginia, what other jobs could be had?
Ever see the mountains in WV? I wonder if those who think that they'd look ugly with propellers on them know what they look like when they've just been lopped off and buldozed into the valley.
To put up solar panels in the deserts of the US - well, someone will simply say that "the sun doesn't shine all the time" - and somehow no one argues with them that the fucking oil and coal ain't gonna last forever either.
The very first job I had as an electrian was at the largest residential electrical contractor in Charlotte, NC. We had 100 crews. Lot of guys on work release from the prison, who thought overtime on Saturday was a good time to do cocaine - after all it was Saturday. And the kicker was that when we did a shitty job, we got paid even more overtime because someone had to go back and troubleshoot the problem and get it right so the house would pass inspection.
There was a huge banner on the back wall of the shop - eight feet high and fifty feet long - "If you don't think you have the time to do the job right the first time, where do you think you will find the time to do it over the second time?"
I got laid off from that job after we went way over budget on a big development...too many reinspections, too much "punch-list" work.
I see that in this country now.
Energy we use is finite. Whatever amount there is, there will never be any more oil, coal, or Natural Gas (landfill gas excepted here, but that's not enough to keep up with our demand anyway).
Do you want to know how I can prove this?
Look here at this picture:
The Earth Seen From Apollo 17, 1971
http://s246.photobucket.com/...
All the oil we've ever had, will ever have, minus a whole lot since 1971 - It's right there. Whatever moment "peak oil" comes, or wherever we might drill for the last barrels of oil that becomes the last tanker of gas that begins the real "Mad Max", it's in that photo.
Global warming won't kick our asses as badly as the stark cold fact that we have no plan for what to do when the current fuels are gone, because the RW and the corporations are all saying
"it will cost too much!"
Whatever it will cost us now, it will cost us more when there is even less fuel than we have today, and even more people chasing it.
And the Deepwater Horizon should tell you that whatever is left will be harder and harder to get.
But somehow we can't afford to change....pretending that somehow it will be easier to change later?
This is where the smartest species on the planet hangs itself. We're too proud to admit that we might have screwed up, and if it looks like we really have screwed up, see Rule #1.
And so we postpone today what surely can be done tomorrow.
I listen to my RWingnut neihbors call me an environmental whacko greenie socialist, and someone here at Kos accused me of playing "Punch the Dirty Fucking Hippie" because I commented on a diary that said building new roads does not reduce traffic congestion. My point was that people still need to get from A to B, and we arent doing a damn thing to give them some other way to get there - the size and number of the roads notwithstanding.
So if building new roads does NOT reduce traffic congestion, NOT BUILDING roads does not decrease traffic congestion either.
We have an economic system (despite the RW cries of Socialism) that is dependent on more people, consuming more stuff.
We have an energy system that is consuming a resource that is finite and shrinking faster as demand grows.
These two curves will cross,
and then
why will it be easier to solve the problems that we think are too hard to solve now?
Why - when there are more people, less energy, and a bigger threat of "holy shit we're screwed!" staring us in the face - do we think we're going to have the intellectual courage, the conviction, or the technology to solve the problems we haven't solved yet - when there's less of a threat and even more time?
I don't get it.
Humankind is supposed to be the smartest species on the planet. Whether "G"od gave us the big brains and opposible thumbs or we evolved from the primordial slime by random mutations of the atoms and void, every time humankind does something galactically stupid, we find it shamefully easy to drop back and punt and say
"Yeah, well, what are you gonna do. Humans are fickle, dangerous, panicky and spiteful. It's our nature".
We're the greatest in the universe, but every time we do the wrong thing no one is surprised.
and if anyone dares to have some shame and say
"We can do better"
Well that dumbass better have a clear path to to the exits, because the mob will come to kick his ass for the suggestion.
I can't do this any more.
I really can't.
And you don't care - you'll pile on and make me to be the crybaby, whiner, or (insert belittling second-grade pejorative name here) and that will make many of you feel better.
I'm not one of those people.
Shakespeare did not write tragedies believing we would them set them as a goal to achieve. My tagline is written in this spirit as well.
T.R. Malthus pointed out that all of the "dumber" animals always breed in numbers that eventually exceed the capacity of their environment to sustain them; and scarcity of resources and competition over them causes the species to start dying off in numbers that bring the population down to some level that is sustainable. Human ingenuity has allowed us to "outsmart" this ideal so far -
but I feel our hubris, our arrogance, and our collectively huge testicles (not exclusively a male trait; see S. Palin and S. Angle) will forsake our better interests. However, unlike lemmings, it won't be as dramatic to watch us all run off a cliff at once, it will still be an action-drama-nightmare movie like you've never seen in a theater if you get to watch us live die through it.
You see I don't believe in the Bible or in any "G"od - but I do believe in the kind of thing foretold in the Book of Revelation. I think humankind for all it's intelligence, has very little shame and even less conscience. That's why we invented "G"od - to seek forgiveness in a creation of our mind because we know it won't come from anywhere else.
There's a great scene from the movie "Independence Day", where President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is grabbed by the alien and put into some kind of mind-grip. He says,
"I saw what they're going to do. They're like locusts; they move from planet to planet...after they consume all the natural resources, they move on."
Isn't that funny? Because if you are honest with yourself, "consuming all the natural resources" is what we - humankind - is doing now. But unlike the evil alien creatures of Independence Day, we're not even smart enough to have a way to "move on" or anywhere to move to, after we finish the deed.
"Today we celebrate our Independence Day!" as the fighter jets launch to battle the evil space aliens.
You really feel independent now? Like all that oil in the Gulf of Mexico isn't fucking up our world far worse than any fictional alien we've ever told a scary story about?
But to find some other way than by oil, well, that's treason in America. Even the "Democrats" (unicorns?) can't find the courage to slap the dumber bastards of our time back down in their seats and say "elections have consequences" - because why? We don't want to look like the Republicans when they were a big enough bunch of pricks to have done it to us for eight years?
And so we burn oil. We burn coal. I saw an article on Google News that said the economic impact of the drilling ban will be far worse than the oil.
Only a Republican - I dunno, maybe some of the Gulf State Democrats have sold their souls, too - could sit there and say something so egregiously unforgivable.
Because even the CEO of another oil company said that they were lucky that THEIR well did not blow out....and we've got 30,000 other wells.
What kind of a person would sit here and play the game of "well, it hasn't happened yet!" about another well blow out - and insist that we have to keep drilling until we have one because we dont' want ot put the oil workers and their support crews out of a job!
Oh, but the fisherman?
Fuck them.
Are you seeing what I'm seeing?
We have turned America against America - and it was Americans who are doing it - this ain't a tape from Bin Laden, people.
And when I point out that all of this hostility, all of this abject rage that just flies everywhere and lands on all of us is going to catch up to us eventually - I fear very soon - well, I'm ridiculed and assailed as chicken-little, or a panic-stricken worry wort, or I'm just told to shut up because...
...well, because people don't like to hear bad news.
We invented "G"ods to help us believe that there is someone coming to save us - but keep this in mind, people, because I can't escape it -
...all those Tea-Party, "God loves us, but never you" Republicans are quite comfortable with the end of the Earth. They believe the blood will rise to the height of a horse's bridle; they believe that everyone who will not be instantly evaporated to join "G"od in the press box to watch the End of Days will suffer miserably here on Earth, and then remain in misery for all eternity thereafter.
Some of these people are installed in the highest levels of our government and they make policy; so when I see the MMS and the Halliburtons and the Gasland nightmares of today - they really dont' care.
Because to them, the worse it gets, the closer they think they are to happy days forever.
And those people are willing to believe in their heart and soul (and base all their actions upon the idea) that you - you poor dumb bastard - are going to suffer in the bowels of Hell for all eternity while they have nachos with God.
So do I despise religion? Only two kinds of people - those who harbor such apocalyptic delusions and those others who refuse to allow any criticism of "faith" in general because surely THEY are not THOSE people. Clearly "those" people are not doing "G"od's work.
Funny though, when you talk to "those" people, well they think the same of everyone else.
So this became a diary about faith, about energy, about the ultimate fate of mankind, because what humankind seems to be best at it debating things ad infinitum, and whether or not the answer makes sense, or any answer is arrived at at all, we really haven't proven we care.
We fear aliens will rape the planet and leave us all in misery when there's nothing left. But you try to convince the same people that the people who are raping our world are ourselves, we have the solutions but we're too proud to admit we should impliment them because it will just be too hard on us...(and somehow easier farther down the road when everything is more urgent) -
I can't talk about suicide on Daily Kos - people don't like that.
The crowd that banned me from Street Prophets ignored the guy who I was so pissed off at who's incessant and repeated insult to me was that all people have faith - even atheists - because without it....
"anyone without faith would likely be a suicide victim"
And for banging heads with that guy, I was banned.
Nope. I'm clearly not cut out for politics.
I've often quoted lyrics from the very first album i ever learned to play on my father's Garrard turntable, "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkel.
First song on side two is "The Boxer". you can google the lyrics, but here's the part I think says more about us - dailykos, Americans, humankind - than we care to examine very closely.
"Such are promises, all lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest"
Disregard, yes, we're entitled to do that.
But whether it's learning how to be civil and objective in any argument, or whether it's coming to grips with humankind being it's own exterminator and not some evil space alien, we're awfully arrogant, dense, and shameless for the "smartest" species on the planet.
I have suffered my last round of being called an angry hothead by someone who is just as angry, contemptuous, derisive, and hypocritical as anything I might say, and I simply will never accept that when a guy says he's reached his limits and thinks his own death would be the best way out, someone else calls that a "threat".
Hey - a "threat" is something that is aimed at you. Something that consumes itself in abject dispair is not any "threat" - unless you really do feel some responsibility for pushing towards the ledge when the coroner asks how the body wound up as a stain on the pavement.
I think I'll let George Carlin's report of the "news" illustrate the intellectual absurdity of suicide as a "threat"
"A man has barracaded himself in his house and is refusing to come out; however, he is unarmed and no one is paying any attention to him"
Too much abject hostility, too much hypocrisy, a whole lot of invisible absolution (that somehow I can't tap into) and I see the "Greatest Country In The World" (TM) becoming it's own assassin and then claiming there is some larger conspiracy.
There isn't.
There ought to be less abject hostility in the "Greatest Country In The World"; or perhaps a more civil discussion on whether we actually deserve that title might be the place we start our noble introspection in search of some greater truth and purpose.
Have fun in Vegas. I doubt seriously that whatever happens will all stay there.
I believe by the rules, it is required that I be banned now.
If you have time, look back through some of my stuff. I joined here right after the first YearlyKos of 2006 made it to C-Span, and I was inspired. I used to come here in the cold and dark of my thoughts, and just a little feedback, just a little comeraderie was enough to make my space a little brighter and warmer. I can't risk that any more. The hostility is truly surreal - people who don't know me from Sammy Davis Jr. judging my character as if they've witnessed my every deed since birth, and who say that their words - althought they want me to be sure I heard and capitulated to them - aren't supposed to have any adverse effect on me after that.
Strange rules to this game called life. You'd think the species with the big brains and all these ways to communicate could figure out a way to be less barbaric than the "lesser" animals.
Ok...everybody ready...set...Go! Waste your time by telling me what a waste of time the diary was.
And MB - I believe you have no choice now. But it would be fun for you to all start a pool to see how long it takes for someone to put a "GCBW" tag on this - but then note that I'm not allowed to mention suicide because it's against the rules.
Remember - I'm an atheist. Yes, JCHFleetguy, a genuine, unambiguous, convinced and comfortable atheist. What this means is that any hope for our future will not come from the aether or some ethereal spirit in the sky. In my Universe, there are atoms, void, and at least on this planet, humans with a conscience who act of their own volition. That means that any change in our future will not come from a book, it will not fall from the sky, it will not echo through every space as a booming voice from some "G"od.
Any hope we can get ourselves out of this will come from a human, or a group of them like you.
That's not a declaration of despair, it's a challenge. It's a challenge to stop looking to the sky, under a rock, or in a book for the answers. We're the ones with the big brain, and
oh, yeah, - this is important -
Free Will.
Whether "G"od gave it to you, it seems odd then that "H"e ("G"od) would require those mere mortal humans with all their faults to have to defend it for you.
Got that?
So why not skip a step and just say that it's just us, and get on with it.
Do the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not out of fear that something will punish you after your dead for not doing it.
Do the right thing because you know you're dependent on the other person also feeling likewise, and you're willing take that risk without any guarantee it will be returned.
If you see something wrong, fix it. Silence and capitulation only ensures small problems will become bigger ones, and never guarantees anyone will be more noble than you to step up and do it.
If you fear vengeance, your first step is to stop the chain and not be vengeful yourself.
And lastly - if you see someone who is just out of control -
...they're swearing, they're swinging their arms and frothing at the mouth and jumping three feet in the air...
...do you really think that is the best time to run over there and club them on the head to calm them down? You might subdue them, or keep them from ever getting up again - but as a way to diffuse the situation, i've found a lot of people who think they are better than the angry guy who's only weapon seems to be anger in return.
How's that working out so far?
There's a lot of anger out here - simply standing your ground and declaring you're the more noble and sublime and justified might be easy from behind the anonymous courage of your keyboard. But I just dont' see how that translates into calming the waters of the oceans of our world.
I used to come here to find comfort that someone "out there" saw the world the way I did - unlike the narrow minded, self-righteous sanctimony of the conservative Christian Republicans who I'm surrounded by in real life. Somewhere, something changed, and it really scares me.
...
Last Sunday, rapid fire gunshots rang out in my neighborhood. There are often gunshots from the strip-mine nearby, or the woods during hunting season...but this was unlike anything I'd ever heard. There is a seven-foot-tall black bear that weighs several hundred pounds who tears down my birdfeeders about every two years - maybe my neighbor had encountered him. I ran over,
"MIKE!
YOU ALL RIGHT?"
"Yea! Just trying out my new toy"
We now have an AK-47 in the hands of a guy who likes to drink a lot.
A lot.
The first thing he said was,
"Well, the Messicans got 'em, now I do to"
I don't think I'll be dropping in unannounced any more.
After the big diary here by Angry Mouse, I'm supposed to feel safer.
Forgive me, although I expect none, that I don't.
I don't see this as a path to greater harmony. We forsake the value of each other; and for what? Humans are a symbiotic species; we are all dependent on each other whether we admit it or not. We can't afford to let Texas and Arizona secceed, any more than the Wild-edge-far-right can afford to assassinate every Democrat and think that somehow the country won't skip a beat.
Maybe we all cannot just get along.
I do not look forward to what that really means in due time.
Peace be on you. Throw some on someone else whenever possible, too.
Because the alternative sucks, and waiting for the other guy is not always fruitful.