There's No Glass

  

     My glass isn't half full.  There is no glass.  I have a positive outlook. It's as simple as that. It doesn't mean I'm unaware of the tragedies blossoming on the planet.  I under stand there are many calamities plaguing Earth today. I'm mindful that an undue proportion of them are unnecessarily brought upon us by humankind.  

   The plastics accumulating in our oceans have reached critical mass. Polar bears are stranded on garbage piles as they're forced south due to climate change in search of food. Anyone with the ability to perceive a portion of the complexity going on in the world today can tell that humans play a key role in having exacerbated climate change. It leads me to wonder why so many people today seem to shrug it off, much less argue against it existing.  

    It doesn't take a pathological genius to put two and two together. We've got all kinds living here in our biosphere surviving every type of weather, be it emotional, psychological, or continental. We should ask ourselves if it's accidental that half the human race looks the other way while the rest step into the path of the storm to face it.  

   What I find most telling about all of this is there being no need to argue over whether anything in the world is influenced by us or not.  That's beside the point. Let's just pretend that climate change has nothing to do with humanity having caused it. Let's imagine that part of  climate change isn't brought on by the billions of human beings established all over the vast surface of this planet. Momentarily put aside the idea that countless generations of industrious pollution and continuous releasing of carbon dioxide green gas emissions had no effect whatsoever. The facts remain.  

   Even the climate change deniers should be the first to stand up to admit that mankind has wrested with the elements to produce lumber and housing and automobiles and every other product that eases us into the comforts of modern living.  So they should not have a problem with admitting that we possess the wherewithal and ingenuity to help protect ourselves and those in need from the ravages of an uncontrolled climate bent on spreading natural disasters anywhere in its path.  

   Let's cut to the chase. For them to deny we have anything to do with causing climate change seems rather disingenuous, amounting to evading the most pressing issue facing us. It's tantamount to admitting that humankind has stood helpless facing our environment since the beginning of time (an absurd assertion) or it conceals an inability (or lack of motivation) to do the right thing and step up to help ourselves, our families, our neighbors, and fellow citizen standing in the line of fire coming from rampaging weather and other natural environmental disasters to survive it together.  To allow ourselves to get into an argument as to what the definition of "natural" may be, while extremely powerful forces gather on the event horizon to massacre us, seems a bit telling.

   I find the idea that these so-called gung-ho types would backpedal away from such a challenge as that rather curious, considering their self promotion as fearless heroes. Are they really that terrified of the prospect of us pulling together to tame nature's savage assaults? Or could it be they just don't care about other people? Are they just as idiotic as anyone else, or maybe just not that smart?  Their baseless assertion, a monotonal mantra as mindlessly repeated as the chewing of a cow's cud, really comes as a surprise from people who in the same mid-chew will proclaim their own superiority as a race. 

   These climate-change deniers act as if we were never able to control the growth rates of forests, or set up dams to contain floods, or filter pure water out of the air, or do anything that the human race has proven itself capable of already.  These cowards act as if we haven't been lumberjacks sawing down old growth forests into timber with our bare hands for hundreds of years! As if we're helpless mites brainlessly afloat on a turbulent sea of an unmanageable climate. "If it's God's will to sweep us away then God's will it will be," they smirk beneath their transparent Halloween masks. All dressed up as normal people, good one!

   These folk who stick their necks out to argue climate change isn't man-made are not only missing the point, they're revealing their true colors for anyone with eyes to see.  They're all too happy to chalk up their menus on school blackboards and give credit to all of our species' various achievements, from inventing airplanes and satellites and drones to massive engineering spectacles like the Hoover dam, not to mention paved highways and railroads full steam ahead on across the range of technological accomplishments from mass-producing loads of factory-assembled plastics and toxic waste of every type all the way through modern weapons production to the latest computer controlled cryptographic AI programming to help the relationship with our invention and execution of the nuclear bomb.  

   Most of these triumphs of man's technical ingenuity come with their down-side, notably the mass-pollution and wholesale destruction of viable sections of our environment which, in case these staunch supporters of derring-do have forgotten (or never realized in the first place) is an ecosystem upon which all of us rely on to survive. They wear their black kettle masks with ever so much pride and denial. 

   Just what would we ever do without the red, white and blue? I don't know about you, but I'd be less amused and appalled online. "Amuled," I'll call it; a lurching sensation felt in the pit of one's stomach when confronted by the knee-jerk reaction of a self-serving pathological narcissist waving their dime-store nylon flags on social utility message board. Its a feeling much like that which you get from receiving the swift kick of a mule who can't control their outrageous reflexes. You know the type. Or maybe you are one of these braying human donkeys reading this. Whatever the case may be, your kind has been tagged and bagged right here for all to see. 
 
   It doesn't even matter anymore whether you reply in self-defense or just go on slinking by like the weak trolls you are. Don't you have more important things to do than waste your time trying to communicate your so-called ideas online? Go back to your house and protect your family from a home invasion or something. You got in way over your heads when you had to come up with a password to get on the internet. We're not on separate teams. Life's not like the Superbowl. Our glass isn't half empty or half full. 

   There is no glass. There's just poisoned drinking water coming out of the taps on fire because our elected masters used money to cheat and support fracking, dumb-ass. We're all being led like slaves in chains shackled together around the ankles and you don't even seem to know it. Programmed to respond to dumb memes like barking seals in a three ring circus. Rooting for your team like demented clowns bought and paid for by the corporations we serve. We're all in this boat together, we're each hypocritical to certain degrees like it or not, and we're all being shanghaied by the rich in disguise dressed in suits acting wise in the aisles of the church they all profit from.  

   Us against them, you against me, sick of each other watching too much TV.  Except we each have our own chosen dumb series of shows. Just because some of the others escape reality doesn't stop either of us from being pimped out like whores. It's time for us all to face it. We've been pitted against each other plain and simple, goodness knows. Sure I lash back fast and furious, just like the guy in the aisle standing next to me who wants to pierce through the armor of what he considers to be his confederate foes. All I can see across the aisle from me through this storm of rubber bullets and tear-gassed haze is hypocrisy staring right back at me in the face. 

   

   Because this bipartisan dream got bushwhacked so long ago we don't even remember how deep it all goes. Seventy years since world war two ended.  But after the cold war began everyone just pretended business as usual was simply alright when nothing could be further from the case. Just look in the mirror at the accident surrounding us. If you're wondering who caused it the answer's staring you in the face. Don't talk back cuz I looked into it too. Whose reflection do you think I saw? I'll give you a little clue. It was both me and you. 

   I'm trying to help us not fight each other, you see. That's all I've been trying to say. It's not like I sit here thinking my hands are clean and paid for, while yours are stinking of the grease  and blood shed down through the generations. I'm patriotic too, that's not just for proud boys and tea-baggers. You all act as if you own the place. How dare you spit in the face of people who just want to go through with this democracy?  This country was made for me and you. 

   What's more, there's enough honor to go around to cover everyone on the ground. That includes your run of the mill science teacher as much as it does your journeyman and hard working plumber. We're all in this together, from environmental service workers to doctors. Every link in the chain plays an integral part, so don't you dare try to throw it back again in our faces with your nebulous bible passages and short changed excuses.  

   We who appear to be on opposite sides of this political divide either work together to save ourselves from the planet, or we all die apart and buried in heaps of garbage in disgrace. Forget about that for one hot minute! Let's set aside our differences. There's some music we have all got to face. Together we stand, divided we fall. It was your side that sang this strongest of all. And now you're going to sit back and allow the politicians we all voted for fleece us blind while we tear out each other's throats? 

   

   Thanks a lot for doing your part without seeing the forest through the trees. The near sighted don't need glasses in order to see what's right in front of our faces. It's a shame our far sighted brothers have disgraced us by pointing at the enemy among us and confusing an entire demographic for themselves. This hasn't been written as a warning so much as a once lovelorn letter bidding a sad farewell without tears to the proud members of our tribe who got swallowed up from the inside over the years. I suppose in the end all we can do is pretend that nature won't balance out this equation. The true patriot knows that democracy will eventually come to rule this nation just as it was intended. We won't look back at this chapter in our history, we'll just be glad that it ended. We can rise above our differences to avoid going feral, or we can forget who betrayed us at our very own peril.  

                                                                                                                                      photos by Shaun Lawton