One Man's Obsession

“The truth is, we are all caught in a great economic system which is heartless.” Woodrow Wilson

My wife tells me I should spend more time writing about being a father to two teenagers and all the trials that entails. Why, she asks, do you bitch, moan, and whine about politics and social injustice and racism and climate change? What good does it do?

She has a point.

Perhaps the reason I obsess about politics and social injustice rather than my children is because I sense that it is those areas of life that have the potential to limit their choices for happiness. Perhaps it’s because I am amazed at how radically the world has changed in my short time on this planet. And perhaps I obsess because I am afraid.

Unlike most American political leaders, and the entire gaggle of Republican presidential candidates (the Democrats are equally hapless), I believe that climate change is real, happening every minute of every day, gaining momentum that will be irreversible and catastrophic. Sticking our heads in the sand will not work because in a relatively short time the sand is likely to be submerged under several feet of seawater.

The other day I was listening to Democracy Now and Amy Goodman was interviewing a Latin American economist whose name I never caught, but what he said stuck with me. The world’s political leaders, he said, the economic high priests, hedge fund managers, resource extractors and capitalist cheerleaders know we are headed off the cliff. They know. The tragedy is that they keep doing the same stupid things.

Stupid is going to destroy this planet. I can’t, under any circumstances, be described as a fan of the Catholic Church, but the recent missive issued by the Pope summed up our situation very well. Name one other world leader who has made the case for immediate fundamental change – economic, social, political -- with equal vigor? Most nations are marching in neo-liberal lockstep with the United States, denying the evidence and insisting on business as usual. The major network news outlets in this country – profit centers of corporate America -- never allow the words, “climate change,” to be uttered on air, opting instead for the more benign term “extreme weather,” as if the cause of extreme weather is a mystery.

What was it George Orwell said, first they steal the words, then they steal the meaning?

I sense that time is running short, and the stakes mounting. I wonder what it will take to make our leaders and the oligarchs who own them wake up to the fact that business as usual is fatal. The future I see in my head is that of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel, The Road; society has collapsed, the sky is permanently gray, the landscape denuded of life, food is scarce, and death is always near at hand.

Yes, I obsess. Can you blame me?