A House Divided; A Land To Save
“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand." --Matthew 12:25
Photo by Martha Ture
There is not much point in critiquing the errors, calumnies, and falsehoods in Project 2025. The reality is that American voters are divided into three camps. One camp is independent and disinclined to vote, having a “plague on both their houses” stance. One camp is committed to the Republican candidate, and one camp is committed to a Democratic philosophy.
A candidate and a philosophy are not equivalent. A candidate is a symbol, like a playing card or a movie actor. A philosophy is a set of values we paste on the symbol, expecting her/him to embody those values and set them to running the country, the world, the planet. A candidate is a little deity, and embodies attributes, but only the human idea of the deity is immortal, supernatural, or divine.
In the United States today, the Republican philosophy, as expressed in candidate Trump and in the exactingly detailed Project 2025, matches most closely with a totalitarian dictatorship. One of its stated goals is to increase the mining and production of oil and gas, without environmental restraints. The Democratic philosophy or platform is one of transition to fossil fuel reduction, in order to meet the stated goals of the Paris climate accords.
I am personally in favor of restoring the earth. I don’t think either candidate or philosophy can achieve that restoration, and I think that other entities - banks, corporations, the International Monetary Fund - are more likely to get the work done. The power to govern the world seems to be shifting away from nation-states, except insofar as they have the power to nuke the planet, destroy the air and water, befoul the land, starve and enslave the people, and lay waste to the world.
I would like to be wrong about that.
How is it that most humans simply do not understand that our importance is entirely of our own construct and meaningless in any larger context? How is that we don't realize that this is the only viable planet we have, and that if it fails, all else is a moot point? How is it that we still refuse to understand that our survival depends on understanding we are all interconnected, and if we don't work together to save the planet that sustains us rather spending 24/7 trying to degrade and kill each other we will inevitably fail? It's not going to matter how nice your car is, where you live, or how much money you have squirreled away when the planet is clearly dying. We're just another sad failed science experiment. Living alone on Mars is highly overrated. Ask Matt Damon.