Saturday, February 7, 2009

Updating

Here we are over a month into the new year, 2009, and going on three weeks since Obama's inauguration, and now four week since I've returned from Vietnam. So much is happening, these weeks seem like a lifetime. Just keeping up with events and coping with actions and possibilities is a stretch. The main thing for me is that I have recovered from the Vietnam trip! Not really, but it feels good to be recovered.

Several threads make up my present involvements, all in keeping with my mission/message of the last few years. Working towards an end to War making, especially nuclear war; overcoming Global Climate Change; and the effects of Peak Oil remain my top three priorities. I have raised up Climate Change and Peak Oil to just a little over war making. These humanly caused realities vie with each other for the lead. I don't think you can separate one from the other, as humans intentionally and unintentionally mix them.

Following up from the Vietnam trip, I continue to study and research why humans sacrifice other humans. While I diligently study Ernest Becker's Escape From Evil with its piercing insights, I find other complementary sources for insights. One interesting one is that Becker reflects on William James' essay "The Nonviolent Equivalent to War," written in 1906. That is the same year that Gandhi came up with his "satyagraha" method, which he tittled "the nonviolent equivalent to war!" When I finish this study, I will have to decide how I can use the insights. One possibility is to combine some with my photos from Vietnam. Few people realize that the bombing of Vietnam with Agent Orange is massive, the greatest use of chemical weapons in history. 3,000,000 suffer the effects today. I feel deeply thinking about the babies, children, and adults I've seen. Then, this compares with the effects on the peoples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention the victims from all the nuclear bomb testing. We can go on to the radiation of "depleted uranium" in Iraq, the Gaza Strip, and elsewhere.

What about Climate Change and Peak Oil? To make a long narration short, I went to see what Richard Heinberg's latest is. He now works at the Post Carbon Institute (google it). Reviewing the site and the series of videos "Why all the things are going wrong"," has moved me to re prioritize, rather go back to my priorities of the last few years.

So, I'm regrouping and reorganizing. If anyone wants to make comments, critiques, suggestions, etc, go to it. Thanks.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I once saw a video on the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Those poor people will suffer the effects of the US ecocide forever, and the American public just doesn't want to know.

You may find the following videos from my blog to be of interest:

Peak Oil

http://essentialdissent.blogspot.com/search?q=peak+oil

Climate Change

http://essentialdissent.blogspot.com/search?q=climate+change

Middle East

http://essentialdissent.blogspot.com/search/label/Middle%20East

Bernie Meyer said...

Dear Essential Dissent: I am indebted for your offerings about critical issues of the day. Until people feel power from the souce of life they will avoid and deny these issues.