Earth Day 1970 -The Path Home
On April 22, 2022, I published an article titled, Earth Day 1970. I have included it at the end of today’s post.
On that first Earth Day I was 15 years old and a freshman in high school. I was also active in the local Boy Scout Troop. Perhaps as a sign of the times, as in more enlightened that in the current Age of Endarkenment, we were Boy Scouts of America by geography but more importantly and in the big picture - of the Earth. We didn’t slap American flags on our uniforms.
We were inspired by the culture, traditions, values, and spirit of the Natives of this land. Not those of the ones who desecrated the home of those ‘heathens” and destroyed them and their civilizations through warfare and the spreading of disease.
By their standards, the only real American birds are the European starling and the English sparrow. Aryan birds and WASP birds. But can they share? Anything? Is it in their nature? They behave like their human fellow pioneers and it works for them.
Warfare being the most insidious disease of them all, and we are a nation of “joyful warriors.” Hardly honorable warriors by the standards of those heathens we destroyed through what’s known as the process of creating a Christian civilization.
The most sacred ceremony of our scout troop was the performance of a flaming hoop dance. Performed by a guy in out troop who ended up achieving the rank of Eagle Scout. In the woods where we held our meetings and other events during the summer.
We didn’t agree that the West was “won.” We didn’t believe that being fruitful and multiplying, like a cancer cell within a body of normal cells, was an honorable thing to do. We didn’t believe that everyone and everything in the nation and world needed to be commodified. By Divine mandate.
We saw the pathology of this system. In clear view of a nation looking at itself and everyone else though a carnival mirror of its own creation that changes on command as necessary to assure its greatness. Or its image - which is all that really matters when you’re selling things like yourself. And everyone else is doing the same thing. As opposed to the sane thing.
“Call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye.” Then move on to more fertile ground after our spider has sucked all the life out of the helpless flies of the world. Providence or Animal Farm?
You can suck a lot more life (value) out of your fellow human beings (and the world that gives them life) than you can find in than a fly. If you turn on them and say, “Nothing personal, just business.” I have my interests and you have yours, and they can never be the same because we are rugged individualists. And conflict fueled by ignorance generates commerce and more growth. Any growth. We are now addicted to a circular firing squad.
The big money is in swords, not plowshares. What would you do? The nation has decided for you. You can read about it in the New York Times. And the national worship of the war machine. The biggest carbon footprint of them all. A war machine embraced by - The New York Times. If your goal is to be a celebrity hero, I wouldn’t be spending my time planting corn and soybeans.
Nothing is better at growing than a cancer cell. But once things have metastasized, it’s hard to stop even if you wanted to. It’s the economy (of) stupid. Whatever is yours is fair game for me. If your brain doesn’t operate in the world of an ownership society, I can take your stuff and you won’t miss it because you have the wrong values. You sucker. You fly. Everyone wants to be Spiderman. Neugenics! Force Factor! The power of duhhh with muscle behind it.
Many of those who understand this madness and have seen the results, and care, have been inspired by a young Swedish woman who at 13 years old dedicated her life to a Quixotic effort. To open the eyes of a world so it can see through all the marketing crap and realize its destructive folly.
Those of us who have been relegated to the status of fly by the spiders, and protest the injustice, are dwarfed by those worshiping at the carbon footprint of the world’s most famous Pop Tart and her money machine franchise of narcissism and spectacle. Artistry can get you to celebrity, then you need to go Bezos or all of your potential for wealth and net worth will be wasted on music. And you would have “blown it.” Message heard loud and clear.
Or her boyfriend who plays a game of war with a ball in a manufactured conflict – one that has made violence a thing of beauty - because of the complexity and strategies. (Beauty isn’t what it used to be.) For our entertainment. Football as described by the New York Times, which usually sides with the spiders while giving lip service to the flies.
We all have choices to make. Or we can let others do it for us, so we don’t miss the next big meaningless game of violence. Played with a ball.
Do we spend the rest of the time keeping our eyes glued to a “smart phone” that has raised the capacity of technology to create idiots like never before. Convenience. I don’t need to think about that anymore. I don’t need to think about anything anymore.
“My scull is now an idiot box. Why don’t I remember how that happened?”
Violence has no mind. It did, but it got in the way. Mission accomplished.
What could possibly go wrong?
We are told - don’t talk “politics.” We are told that democracy is for weirdos who don’t have a life. I also learned that in the New York Times. They put a different spin on it. Journalism isn’t what it used to be, and the reason why? Have you been reading this and paying attention?
The path back to Earth Day 1970, is founded on knowledge and reason and paved with fearless curiosity and love. Of something besides one’s self. If you can’t get to that point, you are a menace. And a fool. And pathetic. You had a lot of help getting there, but that excuse is getting old.
If you can and care - do something. Ask yourself “What would Greta do?”
The path is walked with tenacity, not ruthlessness. It is not a yellow brick road, but the destination is the same. To find a brain, a heart, and courage. And Home. You don’t get it from a Wizard. And the men behind the curtain won’t come out on their own and risk being exposed to the light of day. It’s not “who they are.”
They are fearful tyrants. Call their bluff, but always be prepared to duck. It is best to know what that means before you get started. Remember - In their minds you are still a fly, and they are still spiders. And for them it is the natural order of things. Do you agree?
The choices essentially come down to this:
· Be an ass
· Sit on your ass
· Stick your head up your ass
· Or get off your ass
And if you do that last one, don’t do it to kiss someone else’s.
Maybe some music will help inspire you to soar above it all. A gift from a group of Eagles who got together shortly after that first Earth Day and soared for over 50 years. Their music continues to soar. Far too many people never learned to look up, watch, and listen.
Here’s another chance:
Fred
***
Earth Day 1970
FRED JOHNSON
APR 22, 2022
This morning, I was looking at a photo on the wall behind me in which I’m standing with a red-tailed hawk in the driveway of my falconry teacher. I remembered the photo was taken in 1970. Earlier that year my High School celebrated the first Earth Day by having everyone go out and collect trash. Each class would try to collect the most. My freshman class collected the most, by the way. It was a time of real promise for us.
Here is the photo discussed above. I am also posting a photo of my falconry teacher and close friend Karl Lee, who was probably the closest person I had to a grandfather, since both of mine died before I was born. His is a bit more dramatic than mine.
I hope you can all find a meaningful way to remember that great awakening of our Nation, the darkness that has fallen on us in the subsequent decades, and the urgent need to renew our work* to restore the light.
*I purposely chose “work” to make a point. I believe in working for a goal. The less you fight, the more work gets done. As an evolutionary ecologist, I am keenly aware of how the simplistic “survival of the fittest” concept dominates our culture. The term has been credited to Herbert Spencer, an engineer, philosopher, and psychologist. He first coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” in his Principles of Biology (1864) and he was one of the first to try to apply Darwin’s writings to philosophy and psychology. Others perverted the concept for their own purposes by misrepresenting the term “fittest” in a way not intended by Darwin and not consistent with the theory.
Future posts will deal with the issue of competition from an ecological, science-based perspective.
Fred