We’re environmentalists and science enthusiasts here at the Bucket and we’ve harped time and time again about how we need to the put Earth’s health first in economical decisions because there is no other planet we know of that supports life. Capitalist economies have protected the destructive fossil fuel and mining industries and now with climate change wreaking havoc on our planet’s ecosystems the lives of every living creature in is peril.
There’s an excellent video posted recently on YouTube by BigThink featuring astronaut Ron Garan that states this case beautifully. “We need to move from thinking economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy. That’s when we’re going to continue our evolutionary process,” Garan concludes.
In this season of peace on Earth, watch the video and reflect on how fragile our planet is and how important it is that we protect it.
There is no planet B – We must put Earth’s health first.
In our previous post we commented about America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and ‘stable genius’ Donald Trump and his mind boggling, head spinning pivots on authority for opening up the coronavirus during the COVID-19 pandemic. One day he says he has authority, the next day he says the governors have authority and then the day after that he encourages civil war by urging his brain dead troglodyte followers to LIBERATE their respective states.
But the stupidity of these MÆGAMorons is off the charts on the bat shit insanity meter. These shutdown orders are to save your lives not to inconvenience you. What’s next? These idiots will protest taking shelter during a tornado warning because it violates their constitutional freedom. There were even signs among the protesters that proclaimed “My body, my choice.” But yet these same assholes are perfectly fine with the government telling a woman what to do with her uterus. What colossal dumbass hypocrites! These people are actually choosing to be exposed to a debilitating disease which may kill them or kill their loved ones; all in order to maybe bump the stock market up a few points and keep our plutocratic overlords wealthy. Un-f*cking-believable!
Trump supporters or MÆGAMorons have made it clear that they will not tolerate any ‘guvment’ orders which may violate their constitutional freedom even if it’s to save their moronic, bat shit insane lives.
There has been more than 40,000 lives lost in the last two months due to COVID-19. Our leaders should be taking this seriously. The goal should be reopening the country when we have proper testing available so more people won’t fall victim to the virus. But what does Florida governor Rick DeSantis do? He reopens beaches around Jacksonville while Florida is still getting slammed by the virus. The conservative Republicans values have been exposed for all to see and. . . surprise, surprise. . . the only thing they care about is money, wealth and power.
America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump demonstrates the bat shit insanity that has endeared him to his equally bat shit insane followers.
The coronavirus pandemic is still wreaking havoc on the human population across the planet with the death rate at close to 6% globally. The United States now leads the world in coronavirus cases by a large margin with over 500,000 cases and in deaths with over 21,000. Not only has COVID-19 exposed the incompetence of the Trump administration, but it’s revealed the true abhorrent nature of right wing propaganda media outlets like Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network, and has destroyed the myth of a strong economy that American CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump has touted since day one of his clusterf*ck of a presidency.
That’s where we are, folks; our leaders and right wing media pundits are actually suggesting we lay down our lives for profit. For those christians out there, is this what Jesus would do?With the coronavirus pandemic, we now know that to the Republican party, certain people in America (a.k.a. the non 1%ers) just don’t matter and they should sacrifice themselves on the altar of capitalism in order to appease the Gods of Greed; the capitalistic overlords on Wall Street and plutocrats of corporate America.
The Gods of Greed: In order to save his precious stock market while simultaneously improving his all-important TV ratings, American CEO/Dictator and top notch medical professional Donald Trump and his horde of sycophantic Republican lackeys try to convince the American populace that granny and gramps must sacrifice themselves to the coronavirus pandemic on the altar of capitalism in order to save the lives of our greedy corporate overlords and the avaricious plutocratic gods on Wall Street. Rated R for Rapacious.
But she’s not the first advocate for climate change. Jimmy Carter actually talked the talk and walked the walk back in the 1970s but thanks to conservative patron saint Ronald Reagan, the nascent green energy movement was ridiculed and quashed before it even got started. Of course, many other intelligent people have stepped to the forefront over the last forty years pushing for alternative energy, only to be ignored and vilified by the powerful oil, gas and coal industries and their Republican (and some Democrats) lackeys in Congress.
A few posts ago we noted how so many modern-day conservatives were against conservation, thus making themselves colossal hypocrites. But it’s much more complex than that, of course. It’s the collective, monstrous egos of our planet’s most intelligent (allegedly) species, homo sapiens, that have done the most damage. When you put it in that context, each and every human being on the planet is responsible for the demise of life on Earth. We are all to blame and if we’re to rectify the problem, we need to all get on the same page.We all need a giant philosophical paradigm shift and that starts with the realization that unregulated capitalism is killing the planet and all the life on it.
But Bolsonaro is only doing what other third world countries do when they want to play the capitalistic game. They see the wealth of the exploitative, industrialized first world countries and they want some of that action. Or, he who has the most money wins the game. Of course, once you place living, breathing ecosystems and wildlife as a commodity to be bought and sold for profit, human’s greed and hubris take over with devastating results. There are numerous examples throughout history. Most scientists believe it was humans who killed off megafauna like the mammoth, giant sloth and the saber-tooth tiger. We’ve killed off the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo and the carrier pigeon in the last five hundred years. We almost drove the American buffalo to extinction in the 19th century. We’ve killed off over 60% of species since the 1970s. Greenland is melting at an alarming rate which places its wildlife in peril. Climate change is killing the Great Barrier Reef as is human pollution. A new study has indicated that since 1970, bird populations have fallen 29% or 3 billion fewer birds. All because we ‘intelligent’ humans greedily lust for an abstract commodity; monetary wealth.
But how and why did having money become the most important thing in our world? Because we’re humans, goddamn it! We’re superior creatures! What are we humans supposed to do with our time? Go hiking in the wilderness, relax and enjoy life? Boring!!! We must grow, grow, grow! Bigger, bigger, bigger! We’re taught from day one that we must utilize our superior brains every second of the day or else we’re failures. We can’t just sit around doing nothing. Or can we? If you ask any sane person what their idea of paradise is, they’ll usually respond some idyllic tropical island like Tahiti or some mountain retreat with little to no development and lots of nature or some small remote village where people live simply. So, why are we constantly destroying nature and building ugly concrete and steel structures and athletic stadiums which only last for twenty years? Because we can; as a monument to human ingenuity and greed.
But just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should. Would it really be so bad to just not build a new multiplex shopping center? Would it be so bad to adopt a simpler lifestyle and enjoy nature and the great outdoors? Would it be so bad to tear down some of our ubiquitous, ugly strip malls and skyscrapers and plant urban forests and farms? Plant an urban garden where that stupid parking lot is. Have a nature reserve where that stupid golf course is. If we combine this with a global effort of birth control and contraception, we can get things under control again. We need fewer humans, not more humans on this planet. Humans, especially ones from industrial, consumptive nations are at the forefront of environmental devastation. We’ve created so much waste that we’re exporting it to third world countries with poor waste management systems. If third world countries become like first world countries, then our planet is truly doomed and we can all kiss our materialistic asses goodbye. We need to dial our greed back from 11. We need to curb our consumption and learn to be content with fewer material possessions and simpler lifestyles. This is the only planet we know of that supports life. We need to put the welfare of our planet before our own wealth, because without the planet, how can we enjoy the wealth?We need to stop worshipping the greedy, egotistical and avaricious and start respecting and caring for nature and our environment. Those paradises we yearn for are right under our feet; we just don’t recognize them because of all the concrete, asphalt and steel.
In an attempt to demonstrate how superior they are, humans are proving to be far more destructive to planet Earth than any asteroid.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also seems to be supporting the idea of war with Iran but for a different reason. Pompeo is one of those looniest of loony evangelical christians called a rapturist. In the warped mind of these nutbags, the end times are a-coming which means that all good christians will be slurped up to heaven while the rest of us ‘heathens’ will be left to toil on Earth. One of the pre-cursors for the end times, according to ‘biblical scripture’, is that Jerusalem is recognized as the capital of Israel, which Donald Trump did last year. Now, according to the end times mythology, a great war will occur and Jesus Christ will come again which will facilitate the ‘rapture’. Many prominent Republicans are rapturists including Pompeo, VP Puritan Mike Pence, former Teabagger darling Sarah ‘Ubetcha’ Palin, former Attorney Confederate General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, housing secretary Ben ‘Mr. Sandman’ Carson and energy secretary and brain fart expert Rick Perry. So, with a normal, logical, reasonable Secretary of State, war is usually and wisely avoided. But with this evangelical loon, conditions are being forced that would result in a catastrophic conflict in the Middle East. This would mean that biblical prophecy would be ‘proven’ correct and all the ‘good people’ (christians) will get their just desserts in heaven and all the bad people (the rest of us) will suffer in lakes of fire here on Earth.
Of course, these wack jobs fail to consider that the people who wrote the bible lived two thousand years ago and didn’t know jack about the Earth or the universe. We’ve mentioned before that religious people connect to a tiny bronze age database while scientific people connect to a colossal, 21st century database chock full of knowledge. We’ve gained so much knowledge about everything in the last four hundred years. To ignore science, scientific inquiry and scientific methods is sheer lunacy and any person advocating radical ideology based on two thousand year old babble shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the corridors of power in this country. We guarantee to all those rapture loonies that unless you’re vaporized by a nuclear blast you’ll still be here left to toil on the Earth with the rest of us.
To distract from the possible testifying of Robet Mueller before Congress, American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump has decided to ‘wag the dog’ with multiple wars much to the delight of National Security Advisor and war monger extraordinaire John Bolton and Secretary of State and Rapture aficionado Mike Pompeo.
Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, is quite proud of himself these days. Not only did he help push through a heartless, cruel health care bill, which will cut access to affordable care for tens of millions, he giddily celebrated it afterward like a child would going to Disneyland.
But we shouldn’t be surprised by the actions of this sociopath. He’s been wanting to cut Medicare since he was in college. Like this article says, who in their right mind dreams of denying healthcare to people who need it. But Ryan isn’t in his right mind. He’s psychotic. He’d rather have death panels telling people that they won’t be covered for their illness and it’s time to die.
A feisty senior citizen offers to give Speaker of the House Paul Ryan a proper reward for the Republican’s new healthcare plan, which could take away health insurance for 24 million Americans.
Well guess who’s been speaking up now that Russia has invaded Crimea in the Ukraine? Why it’s a couple of our old buddies from the Bush administration, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice. Dick Cheney, says that we should not take this invasion of a sovereign nation lightly and that no country should be allowed to do that to another country. And Condoleezza Rice echoes those sentiments. Haven’t they done enough for the world already? Of course, as we all learned from those eight fantabulicious years of Dubya and his pals, conservative Republicans are somewhat irony impaired. But hey… Dick Cheney just realizes that war is good business. So if there is the possibility of stoking another cold war and making money off of weaponry or oil, by golly, Dick’s going to be there on the front line ready for the profit taking (see Iraq War). What a Dick!
Former members of the Bush Administration and architects of the fiasco called the Iraq War, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice proudly display their irony impairment for all the world to admire.
