Prior to reading Rising, I had read Strangers in Their Own Land - Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild, much of which is focused on the Lake Charles area in Louisiana, near the current bullseye for Hurricane Laura. More recently, I've (belatedly) read the first section of James McPhee's The Control of Nature, which relates the efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and others, to keep the mouth of the Mississippi River from moving itself several hundred miles West of its current location. Earlier today I skimmed through a piece about "the pivotal life and work of Rachel Carson, the author of the 1962 book Silent Spring." I found it telling and disheartening to read, again, how
The chemical industry and its powerful allies in government set out to destroy Carson, often insinuating that she was a Communist. Her book, published as Soviet ships sailed toward Cuba with ballistic cargo, sought to weaken American productivity, they said. The nightmare might be Americans waiting in bread lines like the Soviets.
Here we are, 60 some odd years later, and what's happening in response to climate breakdown, a response to COVID-19, election tampering and a variety of other significant, critical, perhaps existential issues, hearkens back to the response of "chemical industry and its powerful allies in government." Do you wear a mask when in public and indoors these days?
This November, and following, we must, unequivocally and for the foreseeable future, repudiate misinformation, disinformation, self-serving and hateful ideologies in all their forms. We need to consider, reconsider, and create answers to this question:
The United States is one country comprised of many people and cultures that are part of one world, the only home we have. We are living on our only available Planet B and, as Benjamin Franklin, one of the founders of the United States, pointed out: "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." These challenges are not new. They are interrelated. A wonderful folk singer captured them years ago in the lyrics below. We are long overdue for providing answers.
Where have all the flowers gone
Lyrics: Pete Seeger
Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone, long time passing?
Where have all the young girls gone, long time ago?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone for husbands everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the husbands gone, long time passing?
Where have all the husbands gone, long time ago?
Where have all the husbands gone?
Gone for soldiers everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone, long time passing?
Where have all the graveyards gone, long time ago?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
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Please be kind to each other while you can.
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