[1] Tip of the hat to genius and agent provocateur - [2] Laurie Anderson.

This small blue planet seems like a bit of a fractious place these days.

The Israeli’s are committing [3] genocide against the Palestinians.

The US is engaged in a [4] disorganized genocidal approach to Iraq, Iran, and we may want to start up again with [5] Nicarauga soon.

The Russians have their foot on the throat of the [6] Chechans.

People’s revolutions are turning countries to the left in [7] Venezuela, [8] Bolivia, [9] Chile and even [10] slightly left in the United States of Amnesia as Gore Vidal puts it.

The Right-Center (fascist?) government of Mexico has the [11] gloves off with the common people of Oaxaca.

Iran and Korea are trying to muster a nuclear weapon stash, the United States has decided to help [12] India increase its nuclear arsenal.

Yikes! What a mess for a small blue planet.

I think that many of these conflicts are essentially about the same thing: Power over and control of the resources of a small blue planet.

Certainly, the US has followed the blue print of the [13] Project for the New American Century with regard to Iraq. And as it has become increasingly apparent that we are not being [14] greeted as liberators, and that Iraq is not a [15] cakewalk, the architects of the New American Century have [16] turned on their own - now choosing to argue that their basic premises were and are sound, but that President Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld have botched the job.

I think it’s pretty hard to wake up to the conclusion that a lot of your own analysis and predictions are just no darn good. Much easier to just blame the technicians, but it’s a bad thing because it sets the stage for another military misadventure a decade or two hence when the story may be that we just didn’t have the stomach to fight and win this war. You hear that today about Vietnam: we lost in Vietnam because we wouldn’t fight to win, but we did kill millions of Vietnamese, we bombed like a place was never bombed before, before we gave up and fled by helicopter. The body count alone in Vietnam suggests we were not all that squeamish about killing the enemy. So, I think it’s important that we not let these truths be hidden or distorted.
Today in Iraq, we have caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and we are creeping up toward the 3,000 mark on US casaulties. Lots of folks want to argue about whether we have really caused the death of that many Iraqis, but it’s important that we not let this truth be distorted or hidden. I don’t know if the deaths of hundreds of thousands or even millions of Iraqis would distress americans, by and large. But I think it is clear that the deaths of americans does distress the american electorate.

I may not be happy about our selective antipathy to death by war, and I may or may not agree about who our “enemies” are, but I would argue that we clearly have the stomach for killing our “enemies.”

We just get frustrated when the folks we are liberating and the folks we are killing keep milling around together and resisting our efforts to help them with democracy and grave-digging and just start killing our american liberation troops indiscriminately with roadside bombs without any regard for how that is going to make americans feel. It is a tragedy and I wish that we would remove our troops immediately from this kind of danger. If one thing is clear, it may be that when the folks we are trying to democratize and liberate start planting roadside bombs to kill and maim indiscriminately, the liberation is complete. The occupation no longer benefits either the occupiers or the occupied. Time to declare victory and bring the troops home.
But in the bigger and truer picture, these conflicts and struggles are all about control of resources and access to power. The potential for justice, liberty, and democracy are a smoke screen for the planners and a chimera for the true believers.

These conflicts and struggles completely miss the big problems that we face here on a small blue planet. The real problems are resource depletion, resource sharing, environmental protection. These issues are in direct conflict with the economic juggernaut that is global capitalism. Even though individuals in economic enterprises may recognize that pumping and burning the last barrel of oil may cause an environmental disaster of unprecedented scale and truly make no economic sense, the economic enterprises the individuals exist and function in are so completely tuned to the profit margin of the last barrel of oil that there is no way to consider the the long term cost or impact of extracting and burning it.

[17] Species wisdom is in question. Is homo economis (industial wo/man) capable of becoming homo sapiens summissus (wise and gentle wo/man)? This transition if it can be done will be the result of hard work. There is some heavy lifting to be done because none of really like change and upheaval very much.

But as we fight our small and brutal battles around the world, we are like fools who are fighting over ocean front property but have failed to notice that a tsunami is on the horizon that is going to flatten us all. Time is short, there are things we can do to survive the tsunami. But we have to stop flailing at each other, see the wave on the horizon and start making plans, making changes, sharing and giving up certain things to increase our collective chance of survival. We can also choose to live well, live faithfully, live kindly in the process. It is the path and it is the place we are seeking when we put our feet on that path.

It’s time, folks. The tsunami on the horizon is oil and resource depletion, global warming, collapse of the oil-based agribusiness model, some truly devastating impacts on human beings on the planet as these things occur.

So, what can we do? Turn off the lawnmowers. Turn off the leaf blowers. Drive less. Walk and bike more. Plant gardens. Resist the drums of war. Disengage from the economics of planetary destruction. Turn off the television.
You connect the dots, Kemosabe.