mY LITTLE theory (or "what am I afraid of")

I love science fiction.
 I have read a lot of it.
I have watched a lot of it.

I have noticed that the very early science fiction eventually bears a striking resemblance to the NEW present.

My theory is:  If we can imagine it, it can happen"

My fear is;
 


                   


                                                                                      
   

And yes, I know they aren't real.

Yet.

climate change--why do we believe it, why do we not believe it,

A lot has been said about climate change in the last 5 years.  Most of us had heard the term, in close association with greenhouse effect, ozone depletion and the size of our carbon footprint, before it became a political issue.

Most of us had sort of believed it, made tiny concessions like  not running the car in the driveway while getting ready for work, not eating on nothing but Styrofoam plates, not making 10 trips to the store for 10 items, recycling--when it was easy and convenient or they paid us; that kind of thing.

Most of us sort of believed it because it made sense.

Many of us didn't want to believe it because it meant we needed to do something different.  We had help not believing.  Some of our leaders, the same leaders that told us that sugar was good for us and cigerette smoke wouldn't hurt you and the only moral way to stop kids from getting pregnant or catching a disease was to not have sex until they were married, have found scientists to back them up.

Scientists like money as much as the next guy.  While scientific purists wouldn't do it, those scientists that have no problems making bombs, no problem cheating on their research for drug safety and no problem swearing to a theory that others find ridiculous, can always be counted on to say what the guy with the money wants them to say.  Being a scientist doesn't guarantee ethical behavior or honesty.

The problem with climate change is:

1. it is pretty slow
2. it is mostly not very dramatic
3. it looks a lot like the normal variation from one year to the next.
4. in geologic time--we have already had climate change--we think 5 times so what is the big deal, and humans didn't cause them (the dinosaurs are still dead, the endless waters parted, the ice age helped create racial diversity, and who knows how many species never left a single fossil so its like they never existed 

The reason that powerful people want to deny climate change is obvious.  Their business models are all based on doing what we do now the way we do it now.

It's very profitable NOT to have to redo the factories, NOT to have to change the materials we use in the widgets we sell for massive profit, NOT to have to pay for research and development of new ways to do things that aren't so hard on the ecosystems of the earth.
And--they do NOT want to sell the idea of "LESS IS MORE", selling less does not make more profit.  They like there consumers buying more, More, MORE!

We may have all quaked at the number of shoes Imelda Marco had in her closet in 1986, but these days, that just meant she was a hoarder, if she had bought 365 pairs a year and thrown them out or sent them to Goodwill after one wearing, no one would even raise an eyebrow these days.
We buy more.  We make more trash than ever.  We use disposable, and these days, everything is disposable.

We Consume!!!  WE ARE LOCUST!

What would we do with ourselves if our lives were not the way they are now?  (be bored? write blogs? volunteer at the shelter? take a class? talk to a friend? make something out of used stuff?)

Those of us that are comfortably consuming; buying and buying, driving and driving, eating and tossing, trashing and discarding---we are living the life of ease.  Or at least the life the media tells us is a sign we have succeeded.

Those of us that are not able to buy whatever we want, that are shopping in goodwill, cooking instead of buying prepared, have a goal of becoming the media darling that has no worries about such things.  Success is just around the corner.

Those of us that are trying to be less wasteful, trying to eat more earth-friendly foods, grow our own, cook our own and compost the remains; that limit their consumption of widgets, buy used, recycle, walk more, ride bikes, read labels and avoid buying products with excess packaging, chemical additives, poor production processes--we are ridiculed as eccentric, weirdo's or avoided as outright crazy.

We want to be the person on the American TV drama.  Not the geek on the sitcom, not the pathetic creature on lifetime that needs saving--unless she is also rich and beautiful, but the rich, powerful man or woman that is living the American dream.

In the American Dream, there is no Climate change, just endless seasons of love, beauty, human drama and consuming of products. 

If you can't be rich and greedy, you can always be shallow and consuming.

Remember, the earth made it through the other instances of climate change.  It was still here, changed but here. 

The Dinosaurs, Trilobites, Mammoths are not.

GO EARTH!

BLACK LIVES MATTER-ALL LIVES MATTER-POLICE LIVES MATTER-WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?

I'm recycling this, as it came at a time not unlike where we are this week.  The aftermath led to a year of my sister and I barely speaking.  If you have family that are Police Officers, I hope they are good ones and that you don't think you have to choose to be OK with dead black people out of loyalty.
Black Lives Matter;  "All lives Matter", "Police (blue) lives Matter".  The latter became the response, usually shouted back at those supporting the BLM movement. 

How does responding to the "Black Lives Matter" activism with "all lives matter" or "Police lives Matter" and even the photo of the police officer walking up in the mirror of a car that says "his life matters" create a hostile response?

The Black Lives Matter" movement  was started  in 2012 after a man shot and killed an unarmed black teenager and was acquitted due to Florida's "Stand you Ground" law. Stand your ground, apparently even in a public place that you both have an equal right to be in. The man that did the shooting, George Zimmerman, 
was a part of the local police's neighborhood watch group.  (see link for more details).  He since went on to be the subject of more criminal behavior--but who could have guessed that would happen(🙄🙄🙄)

 After the acquittal, Alicia Garza is credited as having inspired the slogan when  she posted on Facebook: "Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter, Black Lives Matter."

I can hear the tone of what she wrote.  It is not a tone that says "we matter more", but one that says,"what happened was not ok, it is not ok to kill us, we are people too and our lives are as important as everyone else's."

When the "Black Lives Matter" activists started appearing at the places in which black people were killed or maimed for reasons that few nonblack persons would find believable and no rich, white person would face, protesters began the "all lives matter" slogan.  It was a response to the original cause; a way of saying "hey, we all matter, you have nothing to complain about."  It probably made the nonblack people shouting think they were being colorblind, when, in fact, it proved they were merely blind to institutional racism.

If you have never been stopped for being in a car because you look too ethnic for the neighborhood or been treated with disrespect because the person that pulled you over feels that they can talk to you like you did something horrible--drugs, alcohol, shot someone--but the pull over was for forgetting to put the sticker on you license tag; if you have never had to warn you teenage children  to not do anything in their car that might get them beat in the head or thrown to the ground,  then you really don't have a clue what it means to be black person in a country that is pseudo-colorblind.

But the third protest cry--" Police Lives Matter".  That is pure denial.  The NYPD officers that started selling the t-shirts that say that said it was in response to growing lack of respect for police and "people don't appreciate us the way they should"

My response to that is:
1. Respect is earned by individuals not given to a group because of their membership in that group.  You have a career.  If you act in a professional manner, people will show you respect.  If you act like your uniform entitles you to cuss people out, hit them, shove them, belittle them and treat them as lesser creatures than yourself, you deserve NO respect.
2.  Appreciation is also earned.  We agree to work for money and benefits.  If you want appreciation in addition to that, do appreciably more than the job calls for.  We all have jobs.  "Should" is a word used by truculent tweens.

Lets look at statistics.
Using the FBI reporting, between 1980 and 2014 the average number of felonious Police Officer deaths was 64 per year.  This was for the 50 states plus the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
In 2003 the number of deaths was 52.
In 2008 it was 41.
In 2011 it was 72. (the only year in the recent that was above the average.
In 2012, after the beginning of "Black Lives Matters", there were 48 Felonious Officer deaths--44 by gun, 2 by vehicle and 1 with bare hands/feet, and 1 with a knife.
That is national over a year.  We have lost 100,000 in three months to a virus in 2020)
In 2013 there were 27 felonious Officer Deaths, (new group--7 by ambush--no warning) 26 with guns, 1 by vehicle, (25 of the killers are already arrested or dead).
In 2014 there were 51 felonious Officer Deaths, (8 by ambush) 46 by gun, 4 by vehicle, 1 by bare hands, (All killers already arrested or dead)
The 2015 numbers from the FBI are not yet available, but if you search for the 2015 Officer deaths, you will pull up a string of media sites discussing recent years of spiking  officer deaths.  (We have not seen a year over the average since 2011).  In 2018, there were 53 shot and 2 beaten to death, so the number have not grown in the last few years.

The FBI did not put any statistics about the killers so it is unknown what their race, age, culture, or even sex was.

It is harder to track the killing of unarmed black men, unarmed men, or unarmed people of any kind.
There is no government function that tracks the excessive use of force by local police.  Since BLM began, they have been seeking a national tracking of this but for some reason, probably the same reason the CDC is not allowed to study gun violence, it is not allowed.
Most of us didn't know we weren't tracking police caused deaths until the death of Michael Brown.
If you do an internet search, you will find this:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicholasquah/heres-a-timeline-of-unarmed-black-men-killed-by-police-over#.kvlPGE4d3

http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men

 http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/young-black-men-killed-us-police-highest-rate-year-1134-deaths

http://www.mintpressnews.com/776-people-killed-by-police-so-far-in-2015-161-of-them-unarmed/209127/

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootin


http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349

 http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20150808-cases-of-24-unarmed-black-men-killed-by-police-this-year.ece

There are many more articles available now.

In my own county, an unarmed man was killed on video by a favored (read wealthy and contributing) volunteer to the sheriffs department.  The petitions that were passed around and signed by enough people to lead us to a sheriffs election this year, were carried by people of all backgrounds, races, and ethnicities.  The Sheriff was replaced and the volunteer was found guilty of manslaughter and received a sentence of 4 years.  He would be out by now. 
That same year, 2016, a Tulsa police officer shot an unarmed black man, it was captured by helicopter, with sound, the video is still to be found, but when it first happened, the one that went out made it obvious she was in no danger.  She was fired, acquitted, and promptly got a job with a police department 20 miles away---training their officers.


So what is my point?  Here are a couple of stories about police shootings.

If you dig around in these stories, you find things like--
"Officer and his father and cousin shot when at a private residence, 3 people tried to steal a motorcycle and the police family started shooting, off-duty--over a motorcycle--over a motorcycle.  If a nonpolice victim and had done the same, they would have spent months trying to figure out who of the 6 involved in the shoot-out should be charged.

Black officer in plainclothes chasing hispanic suspect shot at 6 times---wait for it--by white office in squad car that passed the chase and made assumptions.  Lucky for Mr White Officer, he was cleared and is now a sergeant.

Officer C. Kondek, in Florida, shot and then run over by Marco Antonio Parilla, an hispanic 23 year old, out on probation for drugs and leaving the site of a crash, someone called in a loud music complaint, he was afraid of a probation infraction, scared of jail, so he shot the officer then ran him over--so the prison he was so afraid of is now to be the rest of his life.   2 lives ruined--not counting the families that have to figure out how to put all that into their memory banks without being rather crazy at the end.

But don't misread me.

None of the officers deserved to die.

Not one person has celebrated the death of any officer. (short of one song from 1992--and when you listen to the lyrics, you realize it was the angry rantings of people that had been mistreated by the LAPD when the LAPD was at its most over the top.   (Rodney King) That was it.  )
No one is currently saying anyone should do anything to police officers.

The number of Officer deaths is not up.

And no one has ever been shot by an unarmed black man.

So, yes, all lives matter, but for a lot of people, that is not an expression of a new idea.

The next time you hear "black lives matter", just join them, say it back, chant it with them.

or just be quiet.
Now, a little rap about it all.
https://www.facebook.com/NickCannon/videos/249657193124575/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDE3MDA0Mjg3NjozNTY2Nzg4MzUzMzM2Nzk4/

http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/

Little fears from the downhill side of life.

There are plenty of big fears in the media these days--from Trump as president and North Korea's possible nuclear weapon to climate change that floods the coasts and heats up the middle to Death Valley proportions to suddenly finding ourselves slaves in a corporatocracy with no rights promised below the management level.

There is disease, and antibiotic resistance, videos of police shooting unarmed petty criminals and a return to the need for back alley abortions.

There is war moving so many people that the refugees may double the size of the places they are fleeing to, and they are fleeing to places that did not do well in the not-really-over global recession, so people are scared--big fears.

We are scared for our future and our children's futures. We are scared for the loss of lives, animal lives, people lives, plant lives, that we have known and accepted as part of our own lives since our childhoods.

But there are also little fears.  And when you are more than half way to the median life expectancy number, you can count yourself on the downhill side of your life.
I don't consider that to be a negative thing or a reason to give up hope. 

It does give a person a very different perspective.

On the uphill, I couldn't imagine a world without me in it.  My grasp of the time before my birth was more fantasy than history.  Most of those rare moments when I tried to imagine life after my own death, it involved the world standing still, crying and weeping and gnashing of teeth. That was where the giant "THE END" showed up.  No more me?  What is the point.

But from this side of the hill,  after years of history reading and listening to people and watching survivors as they regroup after a loss of a loved one, I get that there is no "THE END" when I die, except for me.  I get that when anyone dies, other lives change but life goes on. 

I also get that the same is true of species.  Dinosaurs might not have gotten it, or maybe they did---I certainly never met one in my life so that conversation never happened.  But what about those "last of their species" currently living out their life.  I suppose they could hope there are others still out there to continue them.  It is certainly in our genes to always try to continue our line--and that if part of being a living thing, not just a human, or maybe I'm anthropomorphizing.   I know we tend to lean toward the opposite of making animals more human, which is really just our own need to make ourselves less animal-like.

But little fears pop up.  Not like they are new to my life, but they are different fears.  Fears like "will I have to deteriorate for a long time in a nursing home?" and will I remember who I am", will young strangers make fun of me" "treat me like I was always so incapable"  "do I have enough time to improve my skills with a paintbrush and can I learn to work with silver?"  "Should I keep trying to find a way to keep this home I love so much, that is just now becoming a place that feeds my soul or should I accept that I can't do everything I want and that is likely to get worse in the coming years"  "will I have enough money to live or will I end up choosing to burden my family or go homeless"

Little fears.  The kind that do not change any part of the world but my own.

The kind that I never thought of on the other side of the hill.