We were all equal except for those who weren’t.
Climate emergency? Not the least of outstanding concerns but only one of many. As to it being an emergency perhaps it is but if you’re a Palestinian, a Syrian or you suffer malnutrition because an American Clown masquerading as a President throws out economic sanctions as if there were no consequences to real people, climate isn’t just the weather it’s the extreme emotional, mental, spiritual and material climate under which most of us have to labour – I had used the word ‘deal’ and then ‘work’ but ‘labour’ is closer to the truth.
What’s in a word? The crowds of protesters described by our news outlets here in regards to Hong Kong became gangs of protesters this morning. Hmm … gangs eh! Are sensitivities being accommodated?
It’s a ‘look over here’ – no – ‘look over there’ situation and meanwhile ….
Meanwhile economies are crashing and what’s left when the dust settles are billions who will never have a job other than that offered by an Uber economy, a gig economy indistinguishable from the serfdom and slavery still existing overtly or otherwise.
It’s easy to see how many see these as ‘End Times’ – they’re certainly times of trial and tribulation. Problem with that outlook for me is that prophecy can appear to be fulfilled because events are and can be manipulated to serve that purpose. While God knows what’s in the heart, God doesn’t appear to intervene in a way in which human beings can all understand. That being the case why do people murder in the name of God. ‘Don’t kill each other’ is a basic commandment regardless of religion yet it’s on a ‘wish list’ in ‘the real world.’
Meanwhile countries like Australia – bastions of democracy or so it’s claimed – continue with the headlong rush via 5G technology and a ‘soon to arrive’ cashless society into a totalitarian system such as that already in place in China with facial recognition and social credit scores which rise and fall depending on whether or not you’ve become a docile consumer and where being a citizen, a relatively free human being, disappears into those hazy mists of time.
We’re sending a warship towards Iran to protect our … er … um … oh yes … our ‘national interest’. Standing guard over oil supplies which Iran hasn’t threatened. Of course we’ve just had the nudge from our American allies and ominously familiar phrases like ‘the coalition of the willing’ come to mind.
There is no ‘coalition of the willing’ - not among the populations but world power play and a military/industrial complex which we were warned about decades ago and which depends upon conflict demands that the conflict be ongoing in order to fuel the profits. It’s stark, brutal and if the majority of the people die in the process … corporations have no ethics, maximising profit for the shareholders IS ‘the law’ apart from the petty legal irritations put in place by governments of the day.
The fact that corporations are given the same legal protections as those given to people raises the question of why this should be so if there were no benefit to corporations which, unlike people, don’t die.
I’m not anti-technology until health concerns arise. I know about addiction - still smoking ‘roll yer owns’ at great cost - but I shudder at the degree of addiction as evidenced by so many who can’t seem to walk without a mobile phone in hand.
‘Hooray’ and the background news tells me that a small earthquake has been recorded at a fracking site in the U.K. … fracking is an obscene way in which to treat the Earth and the aquifers below. The damage done - debatably unlike a mine - cannot be undone. A ‘hooray’ because the tremor may help raise awareness and put a stop to this practice.
How trustworthy are fracking companies? On a par, perhaps, with some of the builders of large apartment complexes which, here in Australia, are now riddled with faults so severe that residents have to move out.
We had a small earthquake here a week or so back. Only a 1.9 magnitude about 10 kms below the surface which I heard as a low rumble but didn’t feel. Two days later and the red and blue Rosellas which fly in for some birdseed each day were standing deep in snow on the handrail of the deck. A stunningly beautiful sight to see the Treeferns with fronds bowed down by snow, the birds sitting pretty, and all of it within that wonderful silence that snows tends to bring.
‘Be grateful for small mercies’ comes to mind and, with it, the acceptance of that which I can’t change but ‘needs be’ aware of.
A gloom and doom merchant is not my natural position and whatever realism might be depends, to some extent, upon an understanding of what exists now. I can’t know what unexpected events may change the definition of realism.
We’re in ongoing drought here. It’s serious enough for our inland towns to be needing water trucks. It’s not just the lack of water but the effect on the land, the crops and farming communities which carry those towns. Every aspect of life impoverished.
Here, closer to the coast, we’ve been on water restrictions for much of this winter. As yet the tribe of slow growing Treeferns in the garden show no signs of stress but the little darlings have been around since before the dinosaurs and are used to change and to hard times. They’re a graceful tree and when I say slow growing – oh – takes twenty years or so for the trunk to reach the height of a man but they withstand both frost and heat much better than the thinner-trunked fast growing Treeferns. They can put on a few feet and more each year once they’ve settled in.
Whichever way I look there are groups of Treeferns, three are close to twice the height of a man, a dozen or so at the height of a man and dozens more waist high and less. The fronds on the smaller trees are often the same length as the taller trees. When the wind blows they wave.
In a quieter time, aeons ago, on the shores of a languid inland sea, I imagine I stood, deeply rooted in the soil, and waved back.