Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Too Late

I quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. in a previous post, in which I talked about the American police state and its perpetual wars.

"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late"."

Liberals are fond of predicting the future "end of our democracy". This seems absurd to me. Our ruling overlords clearly have no interest in what we think, or the way we want them to vote. Elections have been a farce for years, with two corporate selected candidates duking it out on TV, with the outcome of no more significance to our real lives than the outcome of the Super Bowl. Now that votes are "counted" by computerized machines, the announced vote totals need have no relation at all to what buttons the voters actually pushed.

But we are exhorted to get out there and push so many buttons that they can't steal the election! Seriously? Do these people not know how computers work?

But the structure of our society is a subset of our environment. The only thing that truly matters to our lives is that we have enough food and water to stay alive. All the rest is superfluous.

Scientists tell us that if we don't stop dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere "soon" we will be past the point of no return.

Soon? 3 weeks ago, we had almost 2 feet of rain in 10 days, leading to widespread flooding. Last week, we had tornadoes. Today it is 90 degrees outside. Meanwhile, the South is suffering through a drought.

Last year, Australia flooded and Russia burned. Polar bears have been drowning for years.

What do they mean- soon it will be too late?

The reason we are here is because Cyanobacteria changed our atmosphere. Before them, there was only 1% oxygen in our atmosphere. They took the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and turned it into 21% oxygen, through photosynthesis. The effect of trillions of bacteria upon our planet was immense, leading to life as we know it.

Of course, it killed off most of the anaerobic bacteria. We still have some around, but they have it rough, needing to stay away from oxygen. Tetanus, botulism and gangrene are all caused by anaerobic bacteria, which flourish when provided with an oxygen deprived environment.

So when people tell you that we puny humans can't possibly affect our vast planet, they are very wrong.

And I think that it might be too late.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

You mean we won't be sucked up to heaven?

wagelaborer said...

I'm pretty sure that I won't be, anyway!

Anonymous said...

Hi Wage,

Asoka here. Since your post referenced Martin Luther King and discussed voting, I thought it might be relevant to cite a post I made on CFN on April 27, 2011:

asoka | April 27, 2011 11:32 PM | Reply

Here is what I say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX5ueEKsSWc&feature=player_embedded#at=75

My sentiments via YouTube

That is not me in the YouTube video, but the guy is expressing my sentiments.

There is a widespread Republican effort underway right now to deny people their right to vote. They want to pass legislation to require people to show picture ID to vote.

Funny how they don't require you to present picture ID to pay taxes!

And, yes, I was banned from CFN, probably because of my posts where I challenge JHK's predictions, from Y2K on... I can't imagine it was for my peak oil posts.

It is not that my posts won't post. It is that I get a red stop sign and a message that says "Permission denied" that won't even let me get to a text box.

Anyway, I have always appreciated your radical messages and your kind words on CFN.

Anonymous said...

Bustin here. Excellent synopsis.

Initiate Plan B!

wagelaborer said...

Thanks, Asoka.

And Bustin - Plan B?

That's what we call the morning after pill, and I agree that we need more of it!

David G said...

Great to see that you are back in the business again, Wage Laborer.

There sure is a lot going on in America and much of it is dubious. The world doesn't know whether the U.S. will go bankrupt or start WW3.

I'm scared to turn the news on each morning for fear of what might be there!

Take care.

wagelaborer said...

Hi David. Yes, there is a great possibility that the US will start WW3, in order to get out of bankruptcy.

Actually, I live under the flight path of a very small airport, which only has one jet, owned by a man who only flies once in a while.

And yet, jets have been taking off frequently lately.

What's up with that? Drug running, or military flights?

Pangolin said...

The climate news is that there is probably a tipping point to a rapid climate change regime and we have already gone over it.

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

When the Arctic gets warm enough huge amounts of methane will be released into the atmosphere. After that how hot it will get is anybody's guess but it's plausible that most humans will die due to disturbed agriculture.

Auto-eco-genocide. Free with your next tank of gas.

wagelaborer said...

Yeah, I think we may have.

We're like the guy falling off the 110 story building, passing the 20th floor and saying "So far, so good!".

We really trashed the place.