Last fall torrential rains and floods hit our area. People think I’m joking when I tell them I could have taken a small sailboat down the state route from my town to the next. With the centerboard up there was enough water to sail on. Of course, I’d have been bailing the water out all the way – it was coming down so fast.
When I got home, I saw the amazing sight in my basement of a freezer chest fully afloat and drifting around the basement. We are at the top of a hill, and while we get wet during storms, we’ve never flooded.
Welcome to the new normal. It’s one out of a dystopian science fiction story: massive climatic upheavals, political unrest, economic distress, and the withdrawal of reason from everyday affairs. Let’s see, vast amounts of homelessness, fascism looming, and nature run amok! If the book were from the library, I’d return it and request that they withdraw it from the collection because it offends common sense.
However, reading the news, I realize this is merely the end of American exceptionalism. The same thing is happening all over what we have colloquially termed the “third world.” It’s happening in Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin America. We can no longer primly exclaim that it can’t happen here because we are different.
Could we still pull the proverbial chestnuts from the fire? Sure, but to do that, we’d have to do something positive about all the people our economic system displaces, make tough choices about the environment, and return to political rationality. You gotta be kidding! That would be radical!
So, instead, we will continue to be like every other third-world country.
What were those old military acronyms I remember from the Navy? SNAFU – situation normal all fucked up, or BOHICA – bend over here it comes again? Ah, but there was the ultimate in military wisdom – Problems go up the chain of command, but the shit always falls down.
That about sums it all up. Have a great day!
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But we can’t be bothered dealing with it. We are too busy prosecuting for murder those who destroy frozen fetuses!!!!!
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If you were in Florida, the Moms for Liberty would gladly pull those books off the shelves of all libraries for you. What in the freaking hell??
Untimately, people need to consume less, in order to make a significant difference. And people want more, not less. It gpes against human nature.
You’re right and it doesn’t make sense. The desire to survive should prevail over consumerism…
“We will change, but not just yet.” It’s nonsense, and begs the question “when will we know that it’s time to change?” and the only answer is “we won’t”
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Canada, Califirnia and other places have fire seasons like never before, floods, hurricanes, and more. It’s almost Biblical and political candidates just tool along as if it’s business aas usual.
Wxactly, they’ll never stop, not while there’s a buck to be made.
I’m so sad over the whole mess. I didn’t even realize that inside me was the small belief that by the time I lived to this age, things would — at the very least — make sense to me. They don’t and I don’t have the illusion any more.
I am mad at the former lefties of my generation…by and large they decided that Civil rights were checked off, environmental protection was a sure thing, and the wworkd was safe for democracy. They then finished college, took jobs at dad’s company, joined the Republican party and became their parents.
Bunch of Frickin’ turncoats!
I think Civil Rights and environmentalism are almost too big to comprehend let along for one generation to fix. I think we didn’t know how small we are or how short our lives. I don’t think we understood how awful people who go into politics can be and how in it for themselves. We certainly had no idea about a lot of things. In short, we were naive.
I have only cared deeply about ONE issue in my life and in that ONE issue (which is and was overwhelming) I’ve seen steps forward, steps backward and I felt then (and now) that not much is in my power. We also have kept learning things about how things work which has obviated what we thought we knew. In our parents’ (post-dustbowl) generation Russian olive trees were GREAT because they grew fast, formed a great windbreak, helped keep the soil from blowing away. Now they are a scourge to life on this planet. Who knew? They didn’t know.
Civil Rights? The law can do only so much but it’s still a wonderful thing and the changes were needed — and enforceable, but that couldn’t change people’s attitudes or fear of “others.” I now live in a town where most white people have never known a black person and the two colors we do have live in separate parts of this small town. I hate it hate it hate it because I lived half my life as THE white spot in mixed neighborhoods. No puedo hablar español aqui and it really was a second language for me for 30 years, a language in which life-long friendships were formed, kids were played with, meals were shared.
I look around me at our world right now at all the hatred. I probably cry five times a day — not long or sobbing, but sadness leaks from my eyes. Hatred seems to me to be an outgrowth of fear. “I’m going to lose what’s mine.” Well, until you lose what’s yours you’re not free at all. I’m not a leftie or a rightie. I’m just a person who’s lived 72 years trying to make sense and find happiness. That’s really a whole lot. To give up one’s ideals is a pretty sad denouement in a life, and I see it in our generation, too. “I me me mine.”
A friend of mine was once flooded with raw sewage and he’s in a second floor flat!
ICK!
I know! So grim! The worst was that he was out of the country at the time, and the discovery was made by a friend who was just checking that things were ok in preparation for his return. 😱
Double ICK!