Antifa(scism) is the Antidote to Full-Throated American Fascism

Under no circumstances will white supremacy, authoritarian fascism, and rollbacks of global human rights be tolerated

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” – Sinclair Lewis*

“…another generation of American antifascists has been called to duty.” – Dr. Glen Barry

* quote disputed yet salient

The American Capitol defiled by
traitorous deplorable confederate filth

America invented fascism. America’s centuries long system of white supremacy inspired Hitler’s Holocaust. Genocide and racial hostility are as American as baseball and apple pie, perhaps more so.

The new world of settler colonialism was born upon the twin sins of genocide and racism. Settlers wielding shotguns and bullwhips terrorized and subdued non-white nations; raping and enslaving dark-skinned people. Under the banners of christianity, capitalism, and democracy, white people have murdered and enslaved black people for centuries.

A white supremacist state was enshrined with highfalutin words of liberty, justice, and equality. As dispossessed Native Americans wallowed in squalor and enslaved Africans counted as 3/5 a person. Millions of living human beings were murdered and enslaved because they weren’t white christians.

Such savagery has rarely been seen, and its vestiges live on, as the white supremacists’ system of control has never wholly been dismantled. American rape and murder of non-white persons continues apace. And rising American fascism in the heartland promises a return to genocide and enslavement of all non-white non-christians.

There have been many types of fascism. Yet all share far-right, authoritarian, nationalistic, irrationality that critically depends upon scapegoating and dehumanizing others. Here I define fascism as including systematic racism whether it be against Jews, Africans, indigenous peoples or others.

Hitler came to power democratically with the aid of conservative allies who thought they could control him. He built a fascist system that raged against all that was non-Aryan. And murdered millions of mostly Jews but also the disabled, intellectuals, Gypsies, and those of other political persuasions. Nazism is a type of fascism, but there are others.

Fascism leads inevitably to mass murder

In a display of confounding duality, out of the American melting pot has also come two of the world’s most substantial antifascist responses. In 1865 the confederate slave-owning traitors were resoundingly defeated. And again in 1945 the filthy, genocidal nazi fascists were brought to justice.

American soldiers storming Atlanta and later Normandy were amongst the first successful antifascists. These mostly white Americans understood something about humanity despite their indoctrination and society.

We are all one human family. And while our different hues reflect the diversity of a multitude of rich ethnicities, it is our individual character that determines our worth, not the color of our skin. Claims of superiority and repression based upon skin color and religious belief are evil. And after all the arguments are through, sometimes to end the threat of murderous evil, you must punch a nazi or a confederate in the face.

Over the intervening years, steadily the US and the world have embraced the notion of global human rights. It has been slow, and the results are incomplete. But progress has been steady.

All people are created equal and have a right to freedom and liberty. In some of the greatest strides of human betterment, universal suffrage and freedom from servitude have become accepted as universal truth. Whole regions of the Earth still labor under dictatorial cults of personality, but the expectation has been set eventually all will have their inherent rights of hu(man) recognized and protected.

American fascists sought to capture and
murder America’s political leadership

Flash-forward another ~80 years and fascism and racism are again on the rise, particularly in America. In an age of increasing environmental scarcity and ecological collapse, poorly educated, down-on-their luck white people fell prey to a playboy New York huckster, here referred to appropriately as Creepy Donald.

Sweet nativist whispers were made by the creep that America would be made great again by rolling back history to a time of fascist white supremacy.

After four years of despotic rule by Creepy Donald’s cult, the nascent fascist disease – just in the nick of time – was defeated at the ballot box. The defeated great leader began sowing the big lie that the election had been stolen, seeking to illegally seize and hold power. This American authoritarian resurgence culminated recently with the creep’s white nationalist acolytes waging insurrection upon the capitol of the American Republic.

Creepy Donald’s legacy is treasonably
and seditiously sending a mob to murder
political adversaries and seize power

In a speech worthy of fascist greats of old, the American great creep repeatedly lied, whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and directed them to the Capitol. I have no doubt that the deplorable fascist foot-soldiers that assaulted the U.S. Capitol intended to take hostage and murder Congressional leadership to seize power. And that the Capitol was purposefully left unprotected.

In shameful acts of demagoguery, Creepy Donald sent the mob to kill Vice-President Pence, House Speaker Pelosi, and others. As the mob descended chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, the great leader was gleefully watching on TV and calling Senators to further delay ceremonial counting of electoral votes.

Nothing shows what a pile of shit Creepy Donald and his deplorables are more than the beating of a downed capitol police officer with an American flag.

American Fascist beats downed police
officer with an American flag

Whoever could have imagined electing a failed philandering, bankrupt reality-TV show host could have such consequences? Many saw it coming and resisted early.

The United States of America narrowly averted mass assassination of our country’s political leadership. The only thing that stood between white supremacist insurgents and seizure of power were a small group of valiant capitol police and legislative aids with the foresight to carry the electoral ballots to safety. A coup was narrowly averted.

Thus, another generation of American antifascists has been called to duty.

A white nationalist American government has brought sedition and treason, disease and ignorance, to America. At this moment American nazis and militias continue planning to overthrow the democratic government of the United States of America. Even as Creepy Donald’s negligence and lust for power have enflamed a pandemic that continues to ravage America.

America came perilously close
to losing its Democracy

We must remain vigilant and ensure that full-throated American fascism does not come to power. Not now, not ever, using all just means necessary. We must tirelessly atone for America’s original sins, and continually work for self-improvement, and the achievement of universal human rights in America and globally.

Not every conservative is a fascist, but all fascists are conservative. Throughout history fascists have come to power through alliances with conservatives who thought they could control the racist, genocidal impulses of their fascist partners. They have been wrong. Thus fascist-enabling conservative sympathizers share responsibility for authoritarian atrocities.

Either you are fascist, or you are antifascist – often abbreviated as Antifa. Each of us must choose now, there is no middle ground. To not choose makes you a fascist sympathizer.

Antifa is merely a shared belief that all humanity has equal dignity and rights, and a commitment to resist within your means white supremacists, advocates of genocide, white christian nationalism, fascist dogma, and other authoritarian ideologies and outcomes.

You beat white supremacist fascism by removing their platform, denying their control of the streets, removing individual fascists’ veil of anonymity, and when necessary, by punching nazis. And by holding them and their conservative sympathizers and enablers accountable.

The Antifa philosophy has united all types of people to defeat fascism for decades. On many occasions post-WWII fascist resurgence has been beaten back, avoiding further authoritarian dictatorships and genocidal mass murder. Once again we have a deep-rooted responsibility to stand up to the resurgence of fascism of various types in America, Russia, Brazil, China, and Europe.

Avoiding mass murder and white supremacy
may require punching nazis and their equivalents

The prude boys, zero percenters, belch keepers and other deplorable white supremacist nationalist militias must be disbanded, and their members imprisoned. Under no circumstances must we allow their seditious behavior to continue un-resisted or become normalized. Or there will be dictatorial rule by a fascist lunatic, concentration camps in the American heartland, and the mass murder of all that is non-white and non-christian.

While America has much going for it, American exceptionalism has always been a pernicious myth. There is much to celebrate in America’s history. Yet the myth has been used primarily to justify our obvious shortcomings.

It is the human family’s ongoing realization of universal human rights that is truly exceptional. People of all colors and creeds, sharing equally basic rights including universal suffrage and equitable opportunity, living with liberty in multi-cultural societies, free of systematic oppression, where prejudice and persecution based upon race and religion are not tolerated. While bearing the duty to expand and maintain these global human rights for all. It is this marvelous recent historical accomplishment, not yet realized perfectly, yet a work in progress, that is exceptional and must not be allowed to be rolled back by nazis or confederates.

Truth exists. We are one human family. Love is the answer. There are no gods. Earth is alive. All there is, is humanity, nature, and kindred species.

While the current moment seems hopeless, there are things that can be done. Extra-judicial murders of black people by the police, anti-Semitism, and the disappearance of native women, must be eradicated. Occupied lands must be returned to indigenous peoples. Fascists and their sympathizers must be brought to justice for their sedition and treason.

Systematic racism must be dismantled once and for all through a commitment to communication, policy, and reparations that bring about equity and justice, and only then make sustainability and peace possible.

Reject the fascist white nationalist nonsense: to be Antifa is to accept that all humans are created equally and universally possess inalienable human rights. And a commitment to resist murderous fascists bent upon white supremacy and genocide. Antifascism is in tune with the equitable, just, and sustainable societies America and the world are becoming, rather than what we were.

Home-grown American fascists must be deplatformed, and denied control of the streets and government. The 29% of Americans that approve of domestic terrorism in service to christian and white supremacy must be soundly driven from power, imprisoned if they have committed crimes, and deprogrammed to avoid forever the horrors of American full-throated fascism.

A well-lived life is one that serves justice, truth, sustainability, and peace. And fights against racism and fascism.

Bless Gaia and may she and our shared commitment to Antifa ideals save us from these nazis in the American heartland.

The End of Being

Abrupt climate change and ecosystem collapse are leading to plagues, famine, perma-war and tyranny and will ultimately result in biosphere collapse and the end of being

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — Death, Famine, War, and Conquest — result from our everyday choices and are not preordained

“I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round…”

John Lennon

“Regain a sense of wonderous awe at the miracle of creation and work tirelessly to protect and restore nature’s splendor.”

Dr. Glen Barry 

Look out the window, any window, and behold portends of the end of being. The very ecological fabric of being is unraveling. Disease, famine, false prophecy, and authoritarianism are rife.

The biosphere – the thin mantle of life upon the Earth that holds ecosystems that are the habitats for all life – is dying. And all Earth’s life is threatened with prolonged collapse followed by extermination. There can be no escape. Unless as individuals, societies, and humanity we dramatically change. And fast.

These are hard topics to talk about. Where to start? Religion and overpopulation, given the level of ignorance that exists regarding these topics, are as good as any.

Living our lives based upon millennia old myths, for which there is no evidence and the messaging is ecocidal, shackles the human family to a most ominous fate. Invisible ghosts living in the sky in constant judgment, and if we do not do as religious authorities say, we will burn forever; is a false, tawdry and dated manner to organize society. Particularly as we are told without proof that the ghosts want us to go forth and multiply and subjugate the Earth. And murder for our tribe’s rich old men.

Please, enough already.

We break free of god pollution or in a self-fulfilling prophecy all that we love will assuredly be unnecessarily destroyed.

The multiply part – from one to eight billion human beings in about 130 years – has led to exponential growth in human numbers, fueling the stripping of Earth’s life support systems. Some say the ghosts don’t want us to control our fertility, relegating humanity to the status of a disease upon the biosphere.

Grotesque inequity, a handful of super-predators possessing half of Earth’s wealth, while billions live on a few dollars a day, exacerbates the physical conundrum that Earth can not produce as much as we desire in total to consume. Vast forests, waters, oceans, and even the atmosphere have been fouled and destroyed to meet humanity’s insatiable hunger.

And then there is looming demise of nature. For millennia since humans settled, ancient naturally evolved ecosystems have been destroyed for “development”. Nature is destroyed for consumer goods, allowing human nerve endings for some to be positively stimulated for a while, as the habitats that constitute our life support systems are weakened. And eventually natural systems collapse and die. First the woodlot out back, then your city’s surroundings, next your bioregion’s ecosystems collapse, even whole countries’ and continent’s natural assets are lost, and eventually and finally Earth as a whole will follow in-kind and become a tawdry, denuded mess. And die.

The spilling forth of European ecocidal genocide into indigenous nations and their natural habitats represented an infection upon Gaia that has festered and grown. And may well prove fatal. Innumerable worldviews that understood the harmony between humans, nature, animals, and the stars have been wiped from being.

The industrial revolution, building wealth by murdering plants, wildlife, and non-white people, became a universally accepted twisted concept upon which to build society and individual aspiration. Wave upon wave of disease spilt forth from the destruction of wildlife and natural ecosystems and continues to do so. Most recently coronavirus, and any number of pathogens are yet to emerge during the collapse as nature ends.

Priceless ecological systems – that evolved novel and miraculous structures and patterns across scales from genes, to organisms, to communities, upward to ecosystems and landscapes; and together constitute our one shared biosphere – continue to be cut to wipe your ass. Nature is being liquidated for consumer throw-away crap, as basic human needs of so many go unmet.

Major ecological crises (sadly for which there are solutions) fester and grow, any one of them capable of toppling civilizations, and together capable of ending the conditions for life on Earth. Topsoil erodes. Rainforests fall. Diseases emerge. Water gone. Oceans die. Harvests fail. Toxics accumulate. Climate heats. War murders. And tyrants reign.

Granted, the momentary abundance provided for by market economies has led to the rights of man, slowly expanding (though not yet universally) to include all human beings. Democracy and liberty have made for greater well-being, remarkable liberties, unprecedented comfort, with less violence. Yet universal human rights have not been achieved and piece-meal advances have recently been shown to be weak and flaccid.

Resource scarcity and declining prospects have led to a surge in authoritarian tyranny, with petty dictators of all types in power over much of Earth’s inhabitants. One great people recently narrowly averted collapse into full-throated authoritarian fascism (for a while anyway). Other great peoples live under constant surveillance and threats of violence for thinking and acting freely.

Universal human rights are a precondition for just and equitable global ecological sustainability.

And then there is war. Huge amounts of Earth’s productive capacity continue to be siphoned off by the Congressional-Military-Industrial complex. Murdering other usually less fortunate people in the name of your god and country for the economic benefit of elite, usually white old men is good business if you can get it. Mass hysteria accepts war as patriotic. Yet free-thinkers and many vets know war is murder.

Humanity’s state of perma-war and resurgent tyranny is a direct result of environmental decline.

There can be no just, equitable, sustainable future until guns are beaten into plowshares one last time. Standing armies in times of peace are wasteful and evil. Imagine what could be done with these resources to educate, feed, clothe, house, employ, and limit the fecundity; while otherwise maximizing the shared well-being and sustainability of humanity. The obscene amount of armaments that presently exists greatly increases the potential for violence as ecosystems continue to collapse, and social strife explodes, making regeneration and reconciliation much more difficult.

The time for global demilitarization is long past due.

What philosophy remains unthought, technology un-invented, words unwritten, songs unsung, stories untold, and sport feats undone because we toil all day to destroy ecosystems and wage war? Humanity and you are capable and worthy of better.

And finally we have arrived at that painful matter of the entire biosphere collapsing and dying. Abrupt climate change and natural ecosystem loss are diseases of the Earth System that threaten an end to being for the human family and all kindred species. We immediately power down our fossil fuel use and destruction of nature or it is the end.

Failure to embrace a great transition means decades of war, pestilence, famine, and disease. Your family either starving or being raped and then murdered in front of your eyes. For the lucky, nuclear explosions to mercifully wipe the human taint. Before widespread collapse and mass die-offs, perhaps of all life.

Gaia, the Earth System, is a living organism. There are no guarantees that the tremendous destructive impacts of so many types, so quickly, upon already diminished biological systems, will not end the billions of years of conditions conducive to live, or that a re-radiation of evolutionary diversity is assured.

The biosphere too can die. Being can end. It’s happening now, creation is in its death-throes. Unless the will is found from watching and deeply understanding the multitudes of looming warnings, and necessary changes are made in how we relate and depend upon each other, kindred species, and nature.

There are things that can be done. Survival for awhile will be local, we need to grow our own food and find livelihoods that are local. Much can be done to limit consumption, but that will not be enough. Many of these problems are societal and can only be defeated through rationale thought, improved education, and global people power.

We know what must be done, all that is lacking is the will, even in the face of self-evident disease, fascism, hunger, and war caused by nature’s decline. Regenerative agriculture, population control, restoration ecology, bans on natural ecosystem clearing, universal human rights, global demilitarization, ending fossil fuels, energy conservation, and major expansion in renewable energy are all key (there are others).

The great transition will require far more than teenage girls striking. However well intentioned, if most others are self-righteously vilified, social change cannot succeed. We need allies of every type including farmers, business people, veterans, people of color, labor unions, financiers, indigenous peoples, and particularly the rich and powerful. History has shown that when the elite are made to understand it is in their interest to change, only then does social change come. Engage with efforts to reform finance in service for Earth.

Even as you grow coalitions, set your sights high, based upon what is ecologically sufficient. The business of war murders must end. Nothing short of societal transformation that eliminates the destroyers while fostering regenerative systems will suffice. Only a broad-based movement can avert being’s end.

Watch and understand the wheels going round and round. And then become a cog in the wheels of ecocide. Re-localize, grow food, make more with less, organize, convince others, take actions for Earth you deem necessary.

Understand that ecology is the meaning of life.

Regain a sense of wonderous awe at the miracle of creation and work tirelessly to protect and restore nature’s splendor. The human family must embrace the great transition – powering down, making love not war, and returning to nature – coming together to avert biosphere collapse

Starting now. Make it so. For Earth and all species. Or it is good-bye forever. 

Creepy Donald’s Fragile States of America

I do not know how to tell Creepy Donald’s fascist death cult that they should care for other people

The survival of America as we know it – a particularly good, but flawed country, until recently working on improvement – depends critically upon resoundingly thumping Trump at the polls.

Dr. Glen Barry

Rarely if ever has the State of the Union been as grim or as fragile.

A pandemic rages without benefit of a federal response. Self-absorbed Americans gripe about the inconvenience of wearing a mask.

As 135,000 people are dead largely un-mourned.

It has become OK to be openly racist again. Non-whites are at risk of false imprisonment or even death from squads of Karens and rogue cops.

Sick, weak, and vulnerable; our enemies put bounties on our troops. While we surreptitiously wage war on Iran, blowing up nuclear facilities. Unidentified federal agents abduct Americans off the streets of Portland.

The 2020 budget deficit has already surged to $2.7 billion as money is printed at will. The stock market rises as the economy crumbles and mass unemployment festers.

The signs of abrupt climate change and ecosystem collapse are everywhere. Record heatwaves advance more quickly than expected, as we prepare to endure another year of burning sick forests. Water is becoming scarce.

The environment is collapsing and dying.

Despair, fear, and broken dreams mingle with unemployment, ecocide, and addictions to create a crazy morass of conspiracy, outrage, and disease.

Hunger stalks the land.

Who could have imagined that electing a reality show actor as President could go so badly? The stakes have never been higher as our bankrupt President melts down.

The last days of the Trump administration are culminating in an existential emergency threat to America and the world. Creepy Donald’s anti-science, anti-truth, anti-justice, anti-equity, anti-women, anti-non-white, anti-environment, and anti-democratic agenda has a name which must be spoken.

It is fascism.

Frankly, the most fervent Trump supporters that I have seen personally are those that did not do well in school and have limited prospects as a result. Many were bullies in their youth and remain political bullies today, and continue to not be the sharpest tools in the shed. Further, oftentimes Trumpers have limited prospects because they have shown an unwillingness to retrain for a changing economy

In an increasingly bifurcated world of haves and have nots, the deplorables embrace a twisted populist vision of despair and revenge at their imagined tormentors. Nationalism, scapegoating, falsehoods, a cult of personality, and the threat of violence provide meaning to weak, hurting, down-on-their-luck people.

The normalization of hate, racism, injustice, and untruthfulness by Creepy Donald’s acolytes has been truly shocking. It is Unamerican and threatens to usher in a dystopian authoritarian state that stops being America.

President Trump’s negligence of the greatest health crisis in the nation’s history, as he pursues personal vendettas and re-election, is a crime. His defense of confederate traitors and inflaming of racial tensions is unhinged. Justice will be had.

Anti-Fascism is American

What will become of America, a beacon of liberty and opportunity? Are we going to let these deplorable dead-enders lead to the fall of America and the planetary system?

Granted, America was founded on the original sins of genocide and racism. We can never stop apologizing and making amends for centuries of ethnic cleansing, enslavement, and murder of indigenous peoples and black people.

You can love your country while acknowledging the truthful past and wishing for a better future. America was built upon constant self-improvement, and there is still hope of realizing our full potential of the rights of hu(man). But the system built by genocide and slavery has not yet been dismantled and there is hard and painful work ahead to do so.

America is precipitously in decline. There is reason to be concerned that another catastrophe – possible examples being a a major natural disaster, political violence, or an attack from a foreign nation – may overwhelm our resilience. Things may spiral out of control. Urgent measures must be taken every day to avoid a fall into irrelevance or perhaps even collapse.

Daily from now to 2021, we need to take measures to buttress the Fragile States of America.

Creepy Donald is unraveling and becoming an even worse blathering idiot before our very eyes. His unsteady gate and grasp, and daily tirades of petty grievances as the nation is sickened, are a window into a sick and twisted mind. We need to stand tall and strong until Trump and his virus are excised from the body politic at the polls.

So how do we ensure Fragile America makes it to the post-Trump era?

The survival of America as we know it – a particularly good, but flawed country, until recently working on improvement – depends critically upon resoundingly thumping Trump at the polls. Trump’s death cult of hate, lies, ecocide, and a frenetic instability – and America’s flirtation with authoritarian fascism – must be forever tarnished and banished.

President Trump’s reelection will only be possible through disenfranchisement. Plan your voting now. Ensure you and others around you are registered and know how to get to the polls. Every opportunity you have highlight the decay and disintegration of America values under Trump, demonstrating civility as you speak hard truths, and emphasizing that a Biden Presidency represents pulling back from the abyss to begin a return to normalcy.

At every opportunity we have, we need to set an example of caring for each other. Start by staying home when you can, and when you go out following scientific public health policy. This means masks and distancing at the least.

Model anti-fascist, democratic behavior. Care for yourselves and others. Share when you can. Work to be more self-sufficient. Grow food, plant trees, and care for children. Learn new skills.

Re-embrace grand visions of peace, love, truth, equity, ecology, and justice.

We must make crystal clear the democratic process will be followed to the letter. Under no circumstances will election cancellations or failure to accept the democratic results be tolerated. An attempt by Creepy Donald to steal the election would bring forth an anti-fascist fury that even the Trumpers should fear.

The US. Military is called upon to under no circumstances follow a Trump nuclear launch order. To seek to deescalate international conflict. And to pledge to respect the coming election.

Listen. Be open to others’ experiences. Question your white privilege. However anti-racist you may feel realize there is more you can know and learn.

The problems listed earlier are all solvable. It begins by reducing the military budget, practicing diplomacy, and once again joining civilized nations to end our state of perma-war. There is tremendous potential to use these savings for renewable energy, job training, health care, ecological restoration, public health, schools, and public infrastructure.

Recommit to an America based upon both the best of traditional values and continual betterment. For all peoples and life.

We are called upon as a nation to continue down our path of perpetual self-improvement and end all vestiges of racism once and for all. As we make the investments necessary to restore and maintain ecosystems and the climate. And ensure all have adequate water, food, and employment.

We can reclaim a United States of America where all basic needs are met, where we are at peace with the world, and once again education and health care provide the foundation for opportunity.

The Trump Virus must end. So once again America can stand proud and continue the process of being a model of decency and progress.

I remain unbowed

Nearly eight years ago I reported to Madison state, local and federal authorities that then Congressional candidate Mark Pocan had made statements in my presence recounting his travel to Costa Rica to sexually assault young boys. Let me be clear. My account as communicated in an essay was 100% accurate and I stand by it completely. It is the truth exactly how it happened, and there is more to tell. I reiterate my willingness to take a polygraph test on the matter when Mr. Pocan agrees to do so as well.

Since then Congressman Pocan has waged a harassment campaign against me. He has had capitol police call my employers. An associate of his followed and threatened me outside of my New York City home. He has repeatedly lobbied to have my Twitter accounts shutdown. And he has coordinated a misinformation campaign trying to destroy my reputation with lies.

Madison Wisconsin’s response to a longtime resident coming forward to detail such troubling behavior has been particularly disappointing. It has shown the truthfulness of Madison’s reputation as a smug, elitist bastion that holds few core values other than posing as being socially concerned. And a thirst for power.

Like in 2012, my request now is that my reported allegations be fully investigated, with the same legitimacy as other reports of sexual abuse over recent years. There are half a dozen other individuals that were present as Mr. Pocan went on at length detailing his illegal conduct. One boasted repeatedly to me he “knew where the bodies were buried” and recounted other episodes of sexual abuse of boys by Mr. Pocan. This was relayed to half a dozen Madison investigative bodies and the FBI. Have Mr. Pocan and these witnesses been questioned? What were the findings?

Coming forward was the right thing to do. Someday there will be justice. My conscience is clear.

Yet it saddens me greatly that the capitol of the great state of Wisconsin is represented in Washington D.C. by a child rapist, with the full acquiescence of state political institutions and politicians. And that other children may be at risk. Not one media or political figure expressed a concern or asked for more information. That is on them. I have done what I can do.

I affirm the above and original account are fully truthful. And I remain unbowed.

Dr. Glen Barry
July 19, 2020

Scientific Truths Matter, Willful Ignorance Kills

Key bio-geochemical patterns and processes that sustain the biosphere, and thus societies and wildlife populations, are failing. Only love, science, and nature can keep us safe. Or disease, ecological collapse, and despair rage until being ends. That is the truth, like it or not.

“What is all your studying worth, all your learning, all your knowledge, if it doesn’t lead to wisdom? And what’s wisdom but knowing what is right, and what is the right thing to do?” – Iain Banks

“Science informed and strengthened by love is our best bet to remain healthy and prosperous in these troubled times… Looming global ecological collapse including abrupt climate change is going to make the coronavirus pandemic look like a picnic in the park.” – Dr. Glen Barry

Love and Science

Anti-science sentiment and hateful rhetoric are in vogue in certain quarters. In a disturbingly relativistic age, we have lost track of profound truths upon which our shared well-being intimately depends. Many people live their lives as if scientific truths, the natural world, and empathy for those other than themselves and close loved ones, have no importance.

Much of humanity enjoys the material comforts of products and other advances derived through scientific processes. Ironically their inventors, who are experts in their fields, and have spent a lifetime mastering and contributing to all that is known about a topic, are disregarded and even vilified.

Response to the COVID-19 pandemic roiling America and the world has been profoundly disappointing. All of the above strands of thought come to mind. Yet in particular, I am horrified by the lack of focus upon the one hundred thousand Americans that have died and over a million sickened. This is more than thirty times the tragic horrific losses of 911.

Where is the empathy and outpouring of support for these equally innocent victims? America has become a hardened, soulless place where we don’t mourn our dead but instead focus upon how continuing mass death impacts our own conveniences. Even as the coronavirus is not yet contained.

It makes one wonder whether looming potentially catastrophic ecological crises can be responded to while maintaining our humanity.

Casual neglect of traditional wisdom, emerging knowledge, and traditional norms of civility threatens our very existence. We are constantly conditioned to hate all that is different or natural.

Let me share some objective, observable truths with you, that we disregard and fail to acknowledge at our own risk.

Biological life requires maintaining a narrow range of conditions. All living things require water. Economies are utterly dependent upon ecology.

Encroachment upon and destruction of natural ecosystems and wildlife result in emergent disease vectors. Stopping a pandemic requires reducing and eliminating pathways for disease transmission.

Earth is warmed as heat is trapped by atmospheric gases, an increase of which results in further warming. A given piece of land has a finite carrying capacity. Given their role in powering ecosystems, naturally evolved old-growth rainforests are worth more standing than logged.

Science Truth: Naturally evolved old-growth rainforests are worth more standing than logged

Chemistry and physics are sufficient to fully understand and explain biological processes and the cosmos (even if we do not yet know everything). Evolution explains the diversity of life. Exponential growth leads to feedback that tears apart systems.

There is no scientific evidence that an invisible Abrahamic god sits in judgment of our actions, or that we are destined for any life other than in the here and now.

And the penultimate truths of our times: Earth is alive and dying. Even as true love continues to have transformative powers to motivate you to do what is right, including making you more selfless.

Science is but one, albeit important, pathway to a love of observable truth. The scientific method of posing hypotheses and seeking repeatable methods to gather evidence for their testing has proven remarkably effective.

Other routes to know and serve truth may include carefully and reflectively listening to tribal leaders, trained naturalists, sage women, and philosophers. All who have honed their skills of observation. And seeking through reading, pedagogy, and reflection to become a student and teacher of truth yourself.

Nothing overcomes ignorance like a life-long commitment to self-education. Until such time as you become an expert yourself, act in service to the truth by critically listening to the advice of experts on important matters of life and death. And by not repeating every junky, titillating, yet unproven meme.

Science and education have allowed much of humanity to overcome superstitions that impede societal progress. Yet reactionary, revisionist ignorance continues to pose a risk of collapse back into medieval illness, servitude, and perma-war. Religious self-fulfilling prophecies of a rapture like end of the world continue to foul our thinking of what is possible with love and science.

Love and Science in the Time of Coronavirus

Now Earth and her humanity find ourselves in a time of pandemic. Scientific experts have long known that the world was vulnerable to new infectious disease. It has been firmly established and documented that microbes can evolve and emerge from animals and habitats, particularly when encroached upon.

It is truthfully self-evident that in recent decades there has been a reduction in public health expenditures. That China has a pattern of suppressing information about new disease outbreaks. And that deeply divided democratic societies are ill-equipped to mobilize quickly to organize the necessary social distancing and other requirements to stop a plague.

I remain stunned and saddened by the amount of anti-science conspiracy theories circulating that are undermining the science-based medical response to a global pandemic. One can honestly differ in opinion regarding how to balance health and economic aspects of pandemic. The required steps to stop the coronavirus pandemic are unnecessarily made so much more difficult by anti-science, hate-filled sentiment by ignorant people amplified through social networks.

Don’t let your perhaps well-intentioned but poorly informed political beliefs become a death wish for yourself and others. If you are sharing kooky conspiracy memes on the Internet you are part of the anti-science dumbing down of America that has allowed the virus to kill almost one hundred thousands Americans and a third of a million globally.

Science doesn’t care what you believe. There is nothing conservative (or liberal) about being untruthful, belligerent, and loud. Science and her truths are apolitical. If you refuse to social distance and wear a mask, and spread unfounded misinformation on Facebook during these tragic times, you may well be killing your neighbors, loved ones, or even your own parents. Do not let your beliefs make you a member of a conspiracy death cult.

Shame on you, stop it now. Or this coronavirus pandemic – which is far from done – can and will get much worse.

Loving Ecological Science

There exists a plethora of other unpleasant scientific truths that threaten mass human suffering, a rise of authoritarian fascism in response, and ultimately societal and biological collapse. And the death of billions of humans, and possibly biosphere collapse.

In past centuries, a wave of ecological imperialism spilt forth from Europe that has globally decimated indigenous cultures and ecosystems. The apocryphal worldview proliferated that natural ecosystems only existed to be destroyed for growth in economies and population. The massive illusory increase in material consumption has been inequitably distributed and is not sustainable.

Key bio-geochemical patterns and processes that sustain the biosphere, and thus societies and wildlife populations, are failing.

The list of ecological scientific risks is long and expanding, but includes: 1) soil loss and infertility, 2) ocean dead zones, 3) water scarcity, 4) abrupt climate weirding, 5) nitrogen and phosphorous inundation, 6) declines in biodiversity, particularly keystone wildlife and plant species 7) and loss and fragmentation of naturally evolved ecosystems including critical old-growth forests and wetlands.

There are science based policy prescriptions which will solve each of these ecological crises. But it requires wisdom to know and trust in the right course of action, and sacrifice and empathy based upon understanding and commitment to the scientific imperative. Yet if we don’t try, any one of these ecology truths left without a response could cause mass disruption and death. Together they may well collapse the biosphere and end being.

Looming global ecological collapse is going to make the coronavirus pandemic look like a picnic in the park.

Climate change and ecosystem collapse are the response expected by science to inequitable overpopulation that consumes nature, it could not be otherwise. These observations and others have led me to hypothesize that Ecology is the meaning of life. The test of this hypothesis is ongoing as humanity systematically murders species, dismantles ecological systems, and fouls the climate.

Love Science Truth

Scientific truths matter, willful ignorance kills. Believe in love and science as transformative forces for good.

We will only protect and change for what we love and have empathy. Shared survival depends upon each of us listening to and supporting science and other ways of knowing, or we willfully choose to lose our and our loved ones’ lives as being ends. Global ecological sustainability requires expanding the scope of your love to include others that are different than you (including both other cultures and species), natural ecosystems, and Earth as a whole. Revel in self-expression of your truths making sure they are defensible.

Though science has not always been channeled for social good, in sum it has provided amazing levels of social benefit as we better understand and adapt to observable reality. Yet even science must work to improve itself by committing to its appropriate application. We are beyond the point where we can return to a pre-science era.

Science informed and strengthened by love is our best bet to remain healthy and prosperous in these troubled times.

Reducing risk to you and your family’s well-being means, out of love for others and Earth, staying home and wearing masks when you go out. At the same time work on reducing your ecological footprint, while working to be able to meet as many of your subsistence needs as possible. Be open to and critically review information that comes your way, with a commitment to truth and self-improvement.

Only from the transformative nature of love of science and truth can we avoid a massive second wave of coronavirus in the short-term, and the next pandemic and impending ecological collapse in the mid-term.

Only love, science, and nature can keep us safe. Or disease, ecological collapse, and despair rage until being ends. That is the truth, like it or not.

Amazon Standing

Financed by the Other Amazon Paying for Its Name

The Amazon rainforest must remain standing for global ecological sustainability, and Amazon company is the best source of finance given their expropriation of the Amazon name. It should be possible to pay to fully protect the Amazon rainforest while meeting local people’s needs. The best place to start is for online Amazon Inc. to pay on a sustained basis for its long overdue unpaid use of the Amazon name. Transforming Amazon Inc. into a purpose driven venture will make it stronger and more appealing, while providing a long-term source of finance to keep Amazon Standing.

EARTH MEANDERS
By Dr. Glen Barry

“There’s nothing about our model that can’t be copied over time… A lot of it comes down to the brand name. Brand names are more important online than they are in the physical world.” – Jeff Bezos

“The bill is due for Amazon company’s unpaid use of the mighty Amazon rainforest’s name.” – Dr. Glen Barry

The First Amazon

The Amazon rainforest is a global ecological treasure of unparalleled importance for Earth and all inhabitants. Over at least 55 million years vast evolutionary radiance has created a brilliant super-organism that powers the planet’s biosphere through the sum of the interactions of its parts.

The Amazon is rich in ecological diversity with a dizzying array of life across scales — from landscapes, downward to ecosystems, to plant communities and animal populations, including indigenous peoples, down to species and individual plants and wildlife, composed of their genetic sequences. From such complex yet decadent disorder emerges the primary bioregional ecosystem that powers the biosphere.

Though the Amazon as an ecosystem is more than the sum of these parts, all parts are required for it to remain fully intact and thus operational. The Amazon basin drains the slopes of the Andes through biodiverse mountain slopes into the vast lowland swamp forests. This vast plethora of micro-habitats contains stores of medicinal plants, cycles water and nutrients, and drives global climate.

Besides large-scale farming and logging, many
Amazonian rainforests are being slowly fragmented
for rural electrification and other activities

Loss of the Amazon as an intact whole will result in a major diminishment in climate buffering, disappearance of an unknown amount of genetic wealth potentially valuable for diseases such as coronavirus, deprive millions of indigenous peoples and settlers of their livelihoods, and may in itself crash the biosphere. Yet a variety of threats continues the European legacy of ecocide upon native nature and peoples, cruelly propagating the myth that destroying millions of year old ecosystems and their inhabitants is “development”.

Recently I wrote On Amazon fires: It’s the ecology stupid. Therein it is noted that Global Ecological Sustainability depends critically upon ending the logging and burning of old forests such as the Amazon and letting them recover, expand and reconnect. Earlier I have published peer reviewed science that is worth reading, identifying a threshold for how many ecosystems can be lost before the biosphere collapses: Barry, G. (2014), “Terrestrial ecosystem loss and biosphere collapse”, Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 25 No. 5, pp. 542-563.

I have had the privilege to spend the month of February in Brazil, mostly in the Amazonia region. There I trekked into lowland tropical rainforests and was overjoyed to see big ancient trees and wildlife including spider monkeys, pink river dolphins, and anacondas. The river boat ride down a portion of the Amazon was an adventure. By the time I reached The Amazon river’s point of entry into the Atlantic Oceans, I was struck again and again by the generosity and kindness of the region’s peoples.

Dr. Glen Barry, Amazonia, 2020

Mostly I silently rejoiced in my long-felt ecological intuition that these Amazon rainforests are the global habitat that makes my and all life possible. Often I just sat in the jungle listening for long hours, fully feeling a bond with the diverse and dependent life therein. And I also saw firsthand the senseless devastation being wrought by agri-business and rural electrification.

And I became further resolved that it must be possible to meet development needs of Amazonians while keeping Amazon Standing.

This essay represents the beginning of efforts to develop a campaign to find and implement a way to finance sufficient socio-economic activities to ensure the Amazon remains standing. This must be done in a creative, sustained manner that protects native livelihoods and means meeting all basic needs and then some. Yet forgoes all commercial exploitation that destroys or diminishes standing primary forests.

The greatest challenge of our generation is to find a viable way to fully protect the Amazon.

Time for the Other Amazon to Step Up

Imagine if you can that there was a large organization that has benefited from the unreimbursed use of the Amazon name, and could help fund keeping the Amazon rainforest standing. Surely, in such a case, there would be tremendous potential to harness sustainable funding for Amazon rainforest protection, and there would be a huge public outcry that the company pay a significant portion of their revenue for the right to use the Amazon name.

Wait, what of Jeff Bezos’ Amazon online store? He reportedly named it Amazon because it was “exotic and different”, and the Amazon River was the largest in the world, and he planned for Amazon company to be so as well. Given the tremendous corporate and personal success realized by Amazon and Jeff Bezos, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that the company pay to protect the threatened Amazon rainforest after which it is named.

Mr. Bezos himself has expressed how critical branding is to online success, and he has certainly benefited richly from the sentiments evoked by his use of the Amazon name.

Indeed, given Mr. Bezo’s hundreds of millions of dollars spent on new homes in recent months, isn’t financing by Amazon company to protect the Amazon rainforest long overdue? It’s a justice, equity, and ecological sustainability thing Mr. Bezos. How can you have so much, benefiting from the globally recognized name of an impoverished region, for which you have never paid?

Some would say that Amazon having made so much money without paying anything to Brazil and neighboring countries is the very exemplar of white and billionaire privilege. 

Don’t get me wrong, Jeff Bezos has built Amazon (the company referred to as Amazon Inc.) into an amazing company. I spend considerable amounts of money with Amazon Inc., making purchases almost daily given the convenience, selection, and speed of delivery. And EcoInterent’s services are hosted on the Amazon cloud, which is truly amazing in its own right.

But come on, at some point growth becomes greed. Already there is a backlash against the richest man in the world, and how it has come at the expense of local merchants and the climate. And then there is the fact that Amazon Inc. simply pilfered their name from the greatest ecosystem in the world that is mortally threatened.

Bezos’ recent commitment of funding to address climate change is welcome and appropriate given Amazon’s huge carbon footprint. Yet an additional massive, sustained investment in Amazonia rainforest protection is still appropriate given the past and ongoing benefits accrued from the expropriation of the Amazon name in particular and all it connotes.

With all due respect Mr. Bezos, how much is enough? How many more lavish homes do you intend to buy this year, as our global home and your company’s namesake, the Amazon, is destroyed because of lack of conservation finance. At what point does the existential threats to global ecological sustainability become more or at least as important to you, the richest person in the world, than delivering ever more consumer goods faster?

We get it Mr. Bezos, your Amazon may not be legally required to pay for use of the Amazon name for your branding. But it is the classy, ethical, and just thing to do. And it protects your future as well.

There will be consequences of Amazon failing to act to protect its namesake. Already popular sentiment is shifting against the company given its size and extravagance of its owners. How much better to make the company a purpose driven organization rather than only a consumption growth machine.

Pressure campaigns are possible, but hopefully are not needed, assuming the goodwill of a man and company that has benefited so much from expropriating of the Amazon name. Some would say theft, like so much else that has been forcefully taken from the Brazilian people.

Big old trees in expansive primary
forests power the biosphere.
Dr. Glen Barry, Amazonia, 2020

Amazon Standing Trust Fund

It should be possible to pay to keep the Amazon rainforest fully standing. And in a manner that provides decent livelihoods for all inhabitants. Surely there is more worth to be found in a live than a dead forest. Particularly ancient naturally evolved old-growth forests. All that is required is sustained investments in Amazonian alternative development models and governance depending on protecting and not destroying old, natural forests.

What I am proposing is that Amazon Inc. and/or Jeff Bezos establish an endowed trust fund committed to full protection of the Amazon Rainforest. “Amazon Standing” would use the interest on the endowment to fund non-extractive efforts for local peoples and governments to benefit economically and culturally from permanently standing and intact primary rainforests.

Sufficiently endowed, such an approach has great potential to shift the economics against large-scale extractive industries which are only marginally profitable.

Without massive investments the Amazon rainforest will continue to fall at an unconscionable rate. Slowly yet inexorably the last remnant large natural ecosystems will be dismantled; liquidated for all the wrong reasons, sending shock waves throughout the global ecological system.

And moving us a step closer towards Biosphere Collapse and the End of Being.

It is not OK for one of the largest companies to name itself after Earth’s largest and most important ecosystem without having some stake in its protection. Imbuing Amazon Inc. with social merit beyond consuming ever more, faster, will make it a force for social good.

Transforming Amazon Inc. into a purpose driven venture will make it stronger and more appealing, while providing a long-term source of finance to keep Amazon Standing. There is tremendous reputational risk to Amazon Inc. and Jeff Bezos of not immediately beginning to pay for the use of Amazon as their brand name.

The bill is due for Amazon company’s unpaid use of the mighty Amazon rainforest’s name. Significant funding can be provided willingly to keep the Amazon rainforest standing while meeting local needs, or all sorts of campaign measures are likely.

Amazon will have earned its name based on merit and not merely size.

Expect to hear more about what it takes to keep Amazon Standing and the rainforest movements efforts to get Amazon Inc. to embrace and finance protection of its namesake.