I believe the United States is becoming a myth beyond redemption.
The USA is a country very much at war with itself; it has been for some time.
We have never made an honest accounting of our original sins.
We have never paid reparations to the men and women who built this country and toiled in its fertile fields as enslaved people.
Our bedrock was exploitation and inhuman cruelty whether we care to admit it or not.
We also continue to mistreat those we stole this land from in the first place.
Our ‘greatness’ is mostly just an illusion at this point and freedom lies forever out of reach for far too many.
USA politics have been hijacked by the wealthiest one percent among us; while much of our discourse is occupied by charlatans and grifters.
The chaos we continue to experience, much of it caused by Donald Trump but owing its roots to the ‘Reagan Revolution’ and the not so fine folks at the Heritage Foundation.
They have shaped our ethos into one that serves the few while punishing the many.
It will only get worse if we do not act soon and take an honest appraisal of the myriad issues we now face.
Climate change and our government’s continued allegiance to the fossil fuel industry should be at the top of this list.
A necessary evil has just become pure evil.
We need to stop it if we want to survive as a species let alone a republic.
Senator Joe Manchin is the latest weapon being deployed by the Koch brothers and the dark money behind most of the corruption in our body politic.
It is a tumor that has metastasized: if we do not excise this toxicity we will be doomed much like the people of West Virginia that Joe Manchin has exploited and left behind in his decades of political power.
Manchin’s own family’s coal operations have earned him millions since he first acted on their behalf as a state senator in 1987.
Striking a deal with the Grant Town power plant that allowed his family to be the sole supplier of ‘gob’ which can be burned for electricity but is highly polluting - and seen as refuse by most other coal companies.
Joe Manchin was willing to poison his own people to make a buck and it has made him a very wealthy man in the decades since.
It has also, no doubt, made many West Virginians very sick and many of those infirmed most likely lived much shorter lives thanks to the man who became their governor and later US Senator in his greedy ascent to power.
Manchin likes money - a lot.
His own brother had to sue him to recoup a loan to save the family business after their father’s death.
His daughter, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch, is practically a poster child for the unbridled greed of the pharmaceutical industry.
Raising the price of the life-saving Epi Pen over 500%, driving costs from around $100 to over $600 - for a device often used to save the lives of children.
The kind of things that would make most people unable to sleep at night are just a cost of doing business for the Manchin family.
Wealth is all that matters to the house boat hillbilly; if you don’t think he would be willing to throw democracy overboard into the oily waters of the Potomac you are not paying attention.
We have to be able to see with clear vision the machinations and movements of those beholden to the oil & gas industry and their own craven greed.
No Labels, the third party organization co-founded by Joe Lieberman and funded by almost unlimited dark money coffers is designed to protect the profits of those who would destroy our planet.
President Biden’s Infrastructure Bill and his Inflation Reduction Act both had ambitious initiatives to address climate change.
While obviously he could go much further and in my opinion should not be green-lighting any new drilling or pipelines, offshore or otherwise, the mere fact it is being addressed is enough to send the Koch brothers and their ilk into panic mode.
The oil and gas industry CEOs and the hedge fund managers that have for decades turned a blind eye to the destruction of our planet to achieve record profits are not sweating along side us this summer.
The oceans are warming and cities are breaking heat records day after day while they luxuriate on their mega-yachts and relax in their giant air-conditioned summer homes in Nantucket and the Hamptons.
They hold fund-raisers and dole out cash to the politicians that come to dance for them like trained seals eager to bounce the ball of industrial greed on their shiny noses.
Like a great white shark, waters chummed and primed for apex predators, they must keep moving and feeding off the venality of the lesser men who seek power over protecting our planet and the life it holds.
It’s a feeding frenzy.
How that story ends is now up to us.
In all that time, we have never faced existential challenges of this nature.
Sure, there’s been saber-toothed tigers and civil wars and despots willing to launch the world into war.
Not to mention Oppenheimer’s ‘little boy’ and its hydrogen-powered descendants that ushered in the era of mutually assured destruction; President Truman enacted this policy with his willingness to use the new bomb on civilians as a show of force and power to the world.
But we have never faced this kind of environmental catastrophe before, not in this way, where it is being caused by something that all of us use and few of us are willing to give up: fossil fuels.
The banality of it all leads to its lethality.
There are things we can all do, right now.
Most of us know what they are and many of us are unwilling to adopt them.
Move to a plant-based diet, stop wasting gas, turn off the air-conditioner if you are healthy enough to sweat it out.
Or at least turn it up a little and trade comfort for a chance at sustainability.
Save the juice we have left for those that really need it like the elderly and infirm.
We need to leave our comfort zones and do it quickly if we want to make a difference.
We need to stop recoiling at the dire warnings of the environmental scientists.
They are trying to save our own damn lives.
Are we willing to make ourselves uncomfortable, to really sacrifice in the way this moment in our planet’s history demands?
Sometimes you have to run straight at the tigers.
Be well.
Again, another awesome Noel's Notes. You say what everyone is definitely thinking. You are inspiring!!! Thank you My Brother 🙏🤘
An excellent article Noel. We’re experiencing similar here in the U.K. with our Conservative Party aligned to the Heritage Foundation and other like-minded think tanks.
It’s shocking to see the price of an Epipen in America, we get them free being part of the NHS (although the sharks are circling to align with privatised health care)