The Day the Earth Stood Still (Or When We Told the Planet to F**k Off)

Everyday I wake up and say to myself, “Self,  today I’m going to understand the other perspective”.  I think to myself we have a Commander in Chief who I just finished defending in the face of disgusting humor (if you can call wishful bloody be-headings humor).  I even publicly expressed my willingness to die to defend our President, as I would most certainly do for our Country.  But everyday when I wake up I now must face the challenge of having to be my own researcher, my own scientist, my own constitutional scholar, my own journalist, my own fact checker, my own lawyer, my own statesmen. I’m compelled to be a critical thinker, we’ve lost that skill. Don’t read the headlines, it’s all a bunch of crap.  Think for yourself.  Well to all of that I now say bull shit.  I don’t have the time for that crap.  I have a job.  I have a family.  I have a life. I don’t want to think anymore.  I've been reading, thinking and writing so much my head hurts. The flood of material is overwhelming and so  many other people are contributing to the huge ocean of random thought. They have also been reading thinking and writing as well.  What's blowing my mind is that we are still coming to different conclusions.   

So here we are.  Trump has decided to pull the United States out of the Paris Accord. In 2001 when Bush dumped the Kyoto protocol I was done with the Republican Party...the following morning I held a press conference and declared officially that I was an independent (I didn’t actually hold a press conference). Now, 16 years later, I’ve been asked to “read the Paris Accord” so that I can decide for myself if Trump has made the right decision.  Bull Shit.  He’s the President.  He negotiates the treaties.  He should read it.  I seriously doubt that he has. Why?  Because I didn’t have to hold my breath awaiting his decision from the Rose Garden.  We all knew he was pulling out of the Accord.  That was a campaign promise. If he doesn’t pull out he’s a liar. It’s also spectacular theater. And Trump thrives on spectacular theater.  Nothing wrong with giving the entire planet the middle finger to make a headline.  I actually like it, giving the finger.  Sticking it to the man.  When your local municipality cites you for violating an ordinance, maybe you didn’t mow your lawn, maybe you didn’t put your trash cans away, maybe you’ve been secretly keeping chickens in your backyard.  Don’t you just want tell the City to “Fuck off!”.  I do.  But then I have a few sleepless nights and I go out and I talk to my neighbors.  Trump doesn’t appear to do that.  He appears to literally raise his middle finger to everyone.  Recently he did so to the Italian prime minister.  A spectacular international incident that didn’t receive as much coverage as it should have.  Just for the record, I’m all about giving the finger, particularly when I’m driving in rush hour traffic and I see someone driving with their head up their ass.  But I really don’t want my President to tell another head of state to fuck off...it’s not very diplomatic...I’m surprised a fist fight didn’t break out.  Or worse, a war.  Yet I recognize there’s a bit of a romance in having the backbone to stand up to the man, to give the finger.  We all do like a strong man...when we need one...

But now our strong-man has officially told the world to fuck off.  He’s told the planet to fuck off.  He has told the entire universe, 14 Billion years in the making, to fuck off. The United States officially doesn’t care about the planet.  The irony here is that he is the one driving with his head up his ass and he’s giving the planet the finger at the same time.  Apparently his supporters care about something but no matter how much research I do I cannot actually find it.  Which means I can’t fight it. I’ve been looking for that evidence for over 15 years now, that we actually are not destroying our planet.  I’m listening to the other side.  But I can’t find their evidence.  All around me there are signs that exactly the opposite is happening.  Their arguments about faulty science make no sense. They can’t see that the forest is dying because there are so many trees in the way.  I can’t argue that the merits of one course of action over another because there is no other course of action that actually exists. There is nothing.  The evidence is simply denial.  Head in the sand.  Head up your ass.  It’s the same thing.

Yet, somehow with nothing, Trump will renegotiate better terms.  Good luck.  He’s now negotiating terms for the evolution of our planet. The arrogance, the selfishness, the lack of understanding, the ability to be so disconnected from the world we live in and what’s happening around us, the crackpot belief in some higher virtue that will come and save the planet.  My fellow American’s we’ve literally just failed the big exam. If Keanu Reeves is watching us right now, we’ve just been selected for annihilation. We’ve been worried about Trump having his finger on the nuclear button.  Well, he just pressed it.  We might not be annihilated in the next 20 minutes by a nuclear volley and Klaatu may not actually be watching us, preparing to do the same thing, but we’ve just signaled to the world that the United States does not think the planet, or our species, is worth saving. There is simply no other answer to the most profound question of our times.  Are we worth saving?  No.

To my friends who believe the Paris Accord will do nothing to help you may actually be right.  But that’s because we are already too late, not because nothing is happening.  As our numbers grow and our resources shrink we will suck our planet dry.  To think differently is to drive with you eyes closed.  If you drive with your eyes closed  I reserve both middle fingers for you.  But just like with Trump, you too are driving with your head up your ass, you don’t do so consciously.  You don’t consciously cut someone off on the highway just as you are not consciously  aware that you are raping our planet.  I know I don’t feel malice toward the planet when I don’t recycle or drive to work or leave a light on or run my air conditioner all summer. And then even if we do everything we can to reverse the effects of climate change we still face countless other challenges as our population grows like a plague  and continues to be the most devastating force.  It is our destiny.  And we don’t care.  That’s really what pulling out of the  Paris Accord means.  We don’t care.