Politics Plus

A recent article in The New York Times pointed out that many U.S. businesses are practicing self-censorship in order to appease China’s government. Why? Because when they look at China, all they see are dollar signs. All they see are 1.4 billion potential customers.

Hollywood is notorious for this. “World War Z” was rewritten so that the zombie virus didn’t originate in China. (And this was 6-7 years before COVID-19 broke out!) “Transformers: Age of Extinction” depicted U.S. officials in a negative light and Chinese characters as heroic. This movie was made with support from Beijing, and despite negative reviews – it has a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes – it was a box office bonanza, raking in $300 million in China alone.

Movies can have a profound effect on how people view the world. A film that celebrates democracy, condemns racism, or otherwise makes its audience think seriously about current issues or problems can lead to a push for positive change. Meanwhile, respected celebrities can encourage people to do right, such as registering to vote, recycling, helping the less fortunate, protecting endangered species and ecosystems, and so on. However, when people self-censor, they prevent evils from being exposed. We as a society need to shine lights on China’s brutal human-rights violations, such as the oppression of the Uyghurs and other minorities.

Sadly, there seems to be little the Little Guy and Gal can do. Big Business doesn’t care about human rights, only about the Bottom Line. Big Business will gladly grovel before the most brutal dictators as long as there is money to be made. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger said “You try in the process not to compromise what I’ll call values. But there are compromises that companies have to make to be global.” In other words, profit is more important than ethics and morals.

Mussolini said “Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.” We are seeing that right now in the USA, and to a lesser extent in other countries. One of the many early warning signs of fascism is protection of corporate power. How many items do you see on store shelves that are marked “Made in China”? Big corporations have moved much of their manufacturing overseas to where labor is cheap and workers have little or no protection from abuse or on-the-job hazards. Which leads to another early symptom of fascism: suppression of labor.

Authoritarianism is everywhere on the rise. Countries that have long been democracies, where human rights had respect and protection, are moving ever towards the fasces. Canada and Australia are leaning that way. The “Freedom” Convoy received support from Australia as well as the U.S. and Canada, and probably from a lot of other countries. Ironic that people whining about wearing masks and calling it a matter of individual rights are in bed with people who seek to destroy freedom and personal liberty.

The United States is supposed to be a country that stands for freedom, justice, democracy and liberty; but we are sliding into the pit of authoritarianism and fascism. And by catering to the interests of China’s Communist government, we are handing authoritarian and Communist Beijing power over us. How ironic that capitalists who howl about the “evils” of socialism – which they confound with communism – are kissing China’s jackboots in the name of commerce.

As consumers we have some power. We can avoid buying products made in China, or other countries with authoritarian regimes, as much as possible. We can refuse to see movies from studios that cater to dictators. We can sign petitions and post cards, make phone calls, send texts and e-mails, even demonstrate at business headquarters and demand change. We can wait for movies to come out on DVD, then borrow discs from the library. We The People are more powerful than we realize – and more powerful than Big Business wants us to think.

It is up to us to stop authoritarianism’s creep – before it’s too late.

A lot of Americans have in their heads the concept of the “self-made man,” somebody who built his entire life with his own hands. (Or self-made woman, for that matter.) They speak of the settler or mountain man who wrested a living from the wilderness. They talk about self-sufficiency even in these times. Those who harp on this idea fail to realize that “self-made” people in fact rely on hundreds of others, if not thousands.

The essay “I Am A Pencil” points out that even an object as simple as a pencil has a lot of effort behind it. The loggers who selected and felled the tree providing the wood, then removed it from the forest. The workers in the pencil factory. The people who mined and refined the metal that attaches the erasers to the pencils. The ones involved in providing and processing the rubber for the erasers. The people who collected and mixed the chemicals for the paint. All those involved in getting the wood, metal, rubber and paint to the pencil factory, as well as the cardboard and maybe plastic packaging for the pencils and the ink for the packages. The people who convey the pencils to the stores, who stock them in the appropriate places, and who work at the cash registers to sell them. And this is to say nothing of those who designed the factory, who provided the materials to erect the building, who actually erected the building; as well as those who designed, assembled, tested and installed the machinery in the pencil factory, let alone all those involved in assembling the machinery, as well as acquiring the materials to build it. Even a simple pencil involves a great deal of effort.

So, Mr. Totally Self-Sufficient, you really think you can do everything for yourself? You’ll have to start way out in the wilderness – with nothing. Nothing, but your wits. You want to bring tools? Somebody else made those tools. Other people mined, refined and shaped the metal; other people harvested the wood in the handles. Other people transported the materials to the factory, and then the finished tools to the hardware store. Sorry, you’ll have to start from scratch. Completely.

I could write a long article on what goes into all those clothes you’re wearing, as well as your shoes, your belt, your wristwatch. Those gotta go. So there you are, naked, in the middle of nowhere. Whatcha gonna do?

Do you yet appreciate just how intertwined you are with thousands of other lives?

Even the pioneer who turned a wild prairie into a productive farm relied on hundreds of others for his tools, farm implements, clothes, boots, wagon, horses, and so on. The settlers who moved in after the Native Americans were extirpated could never have established their farms and towns without an extensive support network. The Native Americans may have lived off the land, foraging and hunting, but they relied on each other and worked together.

So, Mr. 100% Self-Reliant, where are you gonna start? OK, maybe you think you can make some crude stone tools. Whoops, you just learned that’s not nearly as easy as you think. You need the right kind of rock to do that.

OK, now you have a primitive hand axe. But how are you going to get dinner with that? You think the woods are teeming with deer? You could wander around for hours and never see anything larger than a squirrel. And how are you going to avoid freezing to death without any togs or shelter? Do you know how to skin an animal and prepare its hide to be worn? Do you know even how to make a knife from rock? Do you know what sorts of rocks are best for making stone implements?

Do you know how to set traps for animals so you don’t have to spend all day hunting? And what are you going to hunt with? Bet you don’t know how to make even a spear, let alone throw it. If you decide to fish, what will you use for fishing line, for hooks, for bait? Sure, you can dig up some worms – but how do you make a fish hook from what’s just lying around in the wilderness? You’re probably getting mighty peckish by now.

Even if you know what plants are edible, you’ll have to spend a lot of time foraging before you have enough for a decent meal. And you’ll have to do that tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day. There’s no guarantee you’ll find enough every day – provided, of course, you survive the night. Making fire by rubbing two sticks together is a LOT harder than you think. Gives new meaning to “Naked and Afraid,” doesn’t it?

What if you get sick, or are hurt? How much medicine do you know? Think of all the people involved in making bandages – collecting the materials, designing and assembling the manufacturing equipment, gathering the material to make that equipment, and so on. Ponder the example of the pencil. And what about treatment? Can you self-medicate? Do you know which plants will help you fight off infection and illness? Uh-oh – you’re too sick and/or hurt to forage. So you’ll just have to lie there and suffer until you recover – and hope that you do recover. How will you manage if you need to forage for chow every day?

So, how are you feeling now, Mr. Self-Sufficient?

As the old saw goes, no man is an island. Nobody, however skilled and clever, can survive on his (or her, or whatever) own. We are social animals whose society is an extremely complex web of dependency.

The future is getting rather scary. Former President [sic] Trump and his Republican stooges packed the Supreme Court so it is now 6-3 in favor of conservatives. Even with Democrats in control of the House and a Democrat in the Oval Office, our rights – indeed, the very foundation of democracy in the United States – are in dire peril.

Amy Coney Barrett has a strongly conservative record and has expressed a desire to build a “Kingdom of God” on Earth. Granted, it can be just a reference to doing justice and following “God’s will”; but how many times has “following God’s will” been a justification for bigotry, persecution, even genocide? Christians disagree on what this phrase means, but that does not mean it is free of sinister interpretations. Barrett’s statement could thus be perfectly innocent, but her record on hot-button issues reveals that she leans very strongly to the right. A badly unbalanced SCOTUS is bad news for this country.

Already people are hollering to expand the Supreme Court, pointing out that the Constitution does not specify how many justices sit on this Court. Actually, 13 justices would make sense since there are 13 Federal circuit courts, and each SCOTUS justice is supposed to preside over one circuit court. Chief Justice Roberts currently oversees three circuit courts. If there were 13 justices, each one would preside over just one. And if Biden added four justices, even over the howling of the GOP, the court would be 7-6 in favor of progress. However, we must not, and cannot, count on such a change to occur, and for it to go in our favor.

Justice Breyer’s retirement provides Biden an opportunity to add a young, healthy left-winger to the already badly balanced SCOTUS. Republicans, no doubt, are already conspiring to thwart him. They won’t be satisfied until the Supreme Court is solid red, and probably until Congress is, too.

In a previous posting I warned that democracy in the USA is in dire peril. Indeed, fascism and oppression are rising around the globe. Canada and Australia seem to have caught the disease of fascism as they tip towards the right. Russia looked as though it was headed towards genuine democracy for a while – then Putin came to power, and we all know what happened after that.

So, what can we do? The obvious answer is vote. We need to do our homework and pick good candidates to support, and we need to make sure that people in traditionally marginalized communities are registered to vote – and can get to the polls. We need to fight voter suppression and gerrymandering tooth and nail. We need to keep up the pressure on our elected representatives, even if they are on our side. We need to let our foes know that they can either clean up their act or face the possibility of losing the next election – or worse, the primaries. I know of two Democrats in Congress, and I’m sure you know whom I mean, who probably committed political suicide by voting against legislation that would strengthen and protect voting rights.

We must maintain the Democrat majority in the House, and not only defend all blue Senate seats that are up for re-election but also flip some red seats. Failure to do so will almost certainly guarantee further descent into fascism and chaos as more common-sense bills fail to pass – while bills damaging to democracy go through. Republicans, meanwhile, are doing everything they can to squelch the votes of people who tend to vote Democrat, such as the poor and people of color. They refused to pass voting rights bills that we not only perfectly sensible, but absolutely necessary to preserve the very heart and soul of this country. And with our Supreme Court tilted strongly to the right, our sacred prerogative to vote could be in serious jeopardy.

Governor Santis of Florida proposed an “Office of Election Crimes and Security”, which he would staff with up to 52 people, including 20 police officers, and no doubt mostly or even entirely with his cronies and yes-people. The problem is, when you create a governmental department to look for something, they will find it. If you created a governmental office to stop crimes committed by teddy bears, they would find plenty of evidence for stuffed animals doing wrong.

We have an intense battle ahead of us. We must push back against the Republican red wave with all of our political might. Otherwise we can kiss freedom and justice good-bye, and set the clock back to the late 19th century. Or farther back.

People have been prophesying Doomsday for centuries. Many a religion has an apocalypse and/or Judgment Day at some unknown future date as part of its belief system. Priests and prophets claim to have had visions or insights that predict just when that bad moon will rise. So far, though, none of these predictions have come true. Earth goes on its merry way, not caring what sort of doom and gloom people preach.

In the secular and scientific field, researchers and deep thinkers have come up with many ways everything could go to doo-doo without the intervention of any deities. All you need is humanity’s aggression, violence, greed and short-sightedness. Some of you reading this remember the nightmare of the Cold War, when the threat of thermonuclear holocaust hung over everybody’s head like the Sword of Damocles, when students ducked and covered under their desks, when TV specials like The Day After and Threads forced regular citizens and world leaders alike to think about the horrid consequences. Today, though nuclear war no longer seems to loom over us nearly as much as it once did, other threats are poised to wipe out civilization as we know it, if not all of humanity.

In 1947 the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock as a symbol of just how close we are to annihilation – not just from nuclear weapons, but from existential perils that include climate change, bioterrorism and artificial intelligence. How far the minute hand is from midnight indicates how close they feel humanity is to global catastrophe. The farthest it has been from midnight is 17 minutes in 1991, thanks to the fall of the Soviet Union and hopes of better relations between the United States and Russia. As I write this, the clock is at 100 seconds from midnight – the closest it has ever been – largely due to lack of action to deal with climate change. Granted, this is strictly subjective, and not necessarily an indication that we are all doomed; however, as the consensus of numerous scientists, it is not something to ignore.

Article after article from respected scientists indicate that we are barreling towards catastrophe. Rather than heed common sense and scientific pundits, many governments kowtow to Big Business, whose only concern is the Bottom Line and are not interested in heeding persnickety regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Individuals – as well as some governments, notably that of Costa Rica – are taking steps to reduce humanity’s contribution to climate change; unfortunately, big corporations are the primary contributors. And, of course, they aren’t suffering for it.

Climate change will have multiple consequences, some of which we are facing now: rising ocean levels, changing weather patterns, droughts, crop failures, famines, stronger and more frequent storms, refugee migrations, emergent diseases, wars over scarce resources. People fleeing violence, chaos, hunger and calamity could easily spread viruses and inadvertently start new pandemics. You thought COVID-19 was bad? The next one could be worse – more contagious as well as deadlier. Also, we could face multiple pandemics at the same time.

This is why we must not lose heart, why we must keep on leaning on our various governments to make businesses reduce their carbon footprints. Especially in the United States, this will be a tough challenge, which is why US residents must get out the Progressive/Green/Liberal vote in 2022 and elect candidates who will heed the will of the people instead of the filthy lucre of mega-corporations. Voter suppression is bad for the environment when those who support the Green New Deal and Build Back Better can’t cast ballots for candidates who will fight for those programs.

Also, while we hope and fight for the best, we must prepare for the worst. We all need to make plans for the worst case scenario, in case our present civilization collapses, either a “head for the hills” strategy or “shelter in place.” We also need to preserve our current society’s collective knowledge and culture so future generations don’t have to start from scratch – and can enjoy our best achievements in the various arts.

Humans are tough, resourceful critters. Some of us will pull through the crises that will confront us over the next few decades. The ones who do survive will not necessarily be the best prepared, but probably the most resourceful and flexible.