Speaking From My Heart

I am going to continue to speak from my heart (and mind), somewhat spontaneously, as we approach the election.

What I am encountering in many people (on Facebook particularly) is a deep sense of cynicism, the idea that democracy is already dead in the US, and therefore it really doesn't matter what happens with this election. There is even in some people a kind of gambling fervor: They think rolling the dice on Trump might be good—maybe it will lead to the deeper revolution /transformation that they would like to see. There is a sense that people are so tired and frustrated that they want, as the Heritage Foundation president also wants, according to his new book (with an introduction by JD Vance), to burn it all to the ground and start again.

I understand this view (albeit from the left not the right), but I think our situation is too critical and dire now to take this approach. Often we find when dictators and despots come to power via (fair or crooked) elections, they never leave.

Franco for instance was in power in Spain for 35 years, ruthlessly repressing his people and keeping that society stagnant during that time. Trump and Vance have made it abundantly clear they intend to end the American democratic system: They want dictatorial control. While Trump is old and will die soon, Vance is 39 and could be with us for a very long time. He lied through his teeth throughout the debate and is supported by Peter Thiel, a right wing tech billionaire who wants autocracy in the US, following the destructive ideology of Curtis Yarvin, who has become America’s version of the dangerous Russian crackpot Alexandr Dugin. An increasingly unhinged and racist Elon Musk has also joined the Trump train, hoping to gain more control over America.

Many ordinary people are not aware that their worldview has been expertly manipulated and deformed over decades by the fossil fuel interests and other Right Wing tycoons, through all sorts of brainwashing techniques. Most obviously, there is the endless indoctrination from Rupert Murdoch, who was given legal right to consolidate his reach in local markets due to President Clinton’s ruinous Telecommunications Act of 1996, which also empowered the tech monopolies. There is the pernicious influence of billions of dollars of "dark money" coming from "Super PACS" that were allowed to spread unlimited money since the catastrophic 2010 Citizens United decision, where the tie-breaking vote was cast by Clarence Thomas. As Thomas Hartmann writes today:

In 2010, the year of the Citizens United decision, all of America’s billionaires together spent a mere $31 million on elections: There were still substantial limits on dark money in American politics. That number jumped to $231 million in the 2012 and 2014 elections, and over $600 million for both 2016 and 2018. The dark money blowout came in 2020, when Trump was running for re-election and there was a very real chance the billionaires could seize complete control of our federal government.  They spent a total of $2,362,000,000 in that election, with $1.2 billion of it going to elect conventional politicians who would then be beholden to their patrons.

Then you have the use of Russian disinformation techniques and bot armies apparently responsible for 20 - 30% of political content on social media, including threatening comments designed to shut down opposition and concerted efforts to increase every division in American society until we break down and are incapable of listening to each other (which has happened).

The Republican Party is an incredibly destructive entity, just considering its history of denial of the impact of fossil fuels on accelerated global warming alone (plus the wars it launched such as the Iraq War which caused the death of one million Iraqi civilians). What we see with the last hurricanes and the unprecedented droughts and floods all around the Earth now is that we have already pitched over into a new climate reality — a permanent emergency that, very unfortunately, may lead to billions of deaths in the next decades as we run out of fresh water and food, as countries in the global south get too hot for people to survive, as super-storms intensify, and as masses of desperate people try to migrate North, leading to wars and refugee crises on an unprecedented scale.

The only way to deal with this sanely and compassionately would be unprecedented global coordination. We need to use the dwindling material resources we have left to create a system that protects as many people as possible, while rapidly instituting renewable energy and other changes to build a more sustainable and regenerative system (as I outlined in How Soon Is Now). I agree with the ecologist Steven Barlow on Twitter:

As we move forward in time, the action necessary to prevent future catastrophe has to be ever more sudden, radical and drastic. It would mean suspending the whole world economic and financial system as it is now, and yet our leaders are more unwilling to change than ever. In addition, much climate and biodiversity destruction is now locked in, meaning no matter how radical action is we can never repair it all and difficult times lie ahead. Although we can prevent it getting much worse, just. But time is running out.

What the oligarchy, the top 1% must realize, is that they can only put off radical change, for a bit longer. Change is coming whether they like it or not, and they can't stop it. Their money and their power, will not save them from this reckoning. What this is about, is us managing and navigating this radical change, without billions of people starving to death, which is what'll happen if we don't pry the control of our societies from this super rich death cult, which currently has a stranglehold on our societies.

Even now, after two hurricanes in a row causing more than $100 billion worth of damage to the US, The Times of London (owned by Murdoch) is still commending energy companies like British Petroleum for “sensibly scaling back its environmental targets,” and reneging on its commitments to cut oil and gas production by 2030. With Trump-ism, we have a “Shock and Awe” plan to roll back current environmental restrictions and increase drilling, while funneling more money to the super-wealthy who have put billions into the "dark money" campaign to destroy American democracy.

Biden's plan with the Inflation Reduction Act to create millions of new jobs in renewable energy infrastructure is a sane, good direction, even if it isn't enough. Trump and Vance want to stop this, for more fossil fuel drilling, which is insane. Everything they intend to do is terrible, from cutting taxes on the wealthy to seeking more control over women’s reproductive rights, to putting in more fanatically Right Wing Supreme Court Justices. In a sense, everyone supporting and voting for Trump and his minions are voting against their own best interests, as money will be of zero value without a livable planet.

While I also have a "mystical" view on reality, finding that "Samsara is Nirvana" and on some level everything is perfect, just primordial awareness creating dream-bubbles in the infinite Void, I do not want to spend the rest of my life living in or running from a White Christian nationalist dictatorship. I don't think any of you really want this either. We do have three weeks left before the election and there is still the capacity to spread sanity via peer-to-peer, heart-to-heart communication, although I do recognize a lot of people are very far gone and seem to be kind of zombified, full of frustration and misdirected outrage, incapable of thinking clearly.

I realize the American system is particularly terrible in many ways. Decades ago, the Democrats made the terrible mistake of allying themselves with Wall Street and the managerial class, betraying working class people, under Clinton and then Obama. I believe Biden has tried to address that to some extent. I expect Harris will too, within the limits of the establishment.

I also realize that many people are furious at the Democrats for continuing to support Israeli genocide. I addressed that in my last essay, noting the Democrats were left with the shrapnel from Trump's policies, that Trump and Vance will be much worse and far more dangerous on the Middle East. They will give Netanyahu a much freer hand while actively seeking to criminalize protest against Israel in the US. Hence, if this issue concerns you, I recommend the short-term strategy of voting for the Democrats. Also there are many reasons that Harris can't express anti-Israeli sentiments during the election, including the tight race in Pennsylvania where Jewish voters may be the key to winning there.

Also… what we really need to see is a landslide in Harris' favor as the Republicans are going to fight this tooth and nail in any way they can if they lose. They have made it plain they do not intend to admit defeat and will try to get the Supreme Court to make the final decision. I know that many people think the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans when it comes to fixing elections somehow, but this is utterly wrong. For instance the Republicans have massively disenfranchised black voters in Georgia. They have used totally unfair gerrymandering practices in many locations to control the state legislatures. It is a shame the Democrats haven't pushed back with greater force. From now on, we need to do that.

Everybody who reads this can also influence other people in their networks and communities, and help those who are confused and brainwashed by the decades of indoctrination from Dark Money media buys, Murdoch propaganda, and Russian “political technology.” There is still time for the people to wake up and realize this is a highly coordinated effort to destroy the US and give it over to a vicious plutocratic elite who want a dictatorship with unlimited power and the right to criminalize dissent, while ruthlessly repressing poor minorities and immigrants. The Democrats fell into the "paradox of tolerance" problem explored by Karl Popper. Now it will be a huge battle to fight back against this nightmare, which we may lose.