What's the best way to combat the terrorism unleashed against us by Islamic fundamentalist jihadis? March in a very large, very well publicized anti-war protest, or maybe do some high-profile work with Amnesty International according to Glenn Greenwald.
Conversely, anyone wishing to encourage jihad and promote the spread of terrorism should do everything possible to assure that we escalate our hostilities in the Middle East, and that we send more armies and navies, drop more bombs, kill more civilians, and destroy their property and livestock. That policy has been working like a charm to grow terrorism ever since the days of Bill Clinton's intermittent bombing of Baghdad.
"At some point, a rational person has to wonder," Greenwald says, whether those who constantly yell for more violence and killing against one part or another of "the Muslim world aren't desirous of exactly that outcome." I've wondered that very thing myself, many times.
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Looming behind the topic of veganism, which I touched on recently on the other blog, is the realization that's been haunting conscious observers of the world scene for a long time now, like a huge nightmare hiding in the deepest layers of a subconscious mind. The stark fact of this earth's severe human overpopulation is well known, but up until now has hid below the radar, and is just now breaking into our collective awareness, conveying the shock of revelation.
Currently clocked at just under seven billion, there can no longer be any doubt that the numbers of humanity are now several times beyond any acceptable number suited for optimum "carrying capacity," and that our overrunning of the planet is responsible not only for global warming, but the Auschwitz-for-animals conditions on factory farms and in feedlots and slaughterhouses. In fact, the two concerns are closely related because the fecal contamination produced by such farms is one of the most significant factors accelerating climate change.
"Men," says the preacher Ecclesiastes, with God's help "might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts...as the one dies, so dies the other; yes, they all have one breath, so that a man has no pre-eminence over a beast; for all is vanity" (III: 18-19).
James Howard Kunstler touches on the ramifications of overpopulation and lots of other things besides this week in a typically intense and profound Monday morning essay. "We may still be driving around in Ford F-150s, but the Pale Rider is just over the horizon beating a path to our parking-lot-of-the-soul," Kunstler remarks with his trademark sang-froid exuberance.
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Finally, it's a cliché among clichés, but click on the photograph accompanying this post for a large, spectacular, and always-inspiring view of the Golden Gate about an hour before sunset. The large picture also shows, at some distance but very clearly and nicely centered, San Francisco's weirdest, least-known, and least-loved landmark, Sutro Tower, which rises awkwardly from a hilltop just above Cole Valley.
1 comment:
Some more signs of that the elephant in the room is about to fall through the buckling floor are destruction of life in the ocean from overfishing, adding losses of land from overfarming, and continued losses of the rain forests.
Dave, good of you for touching upon the dire topic.
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