Beyond a humanitarian and ecological disaster
Last weekend, the worst wildfire in Hawaii’s history claimed at least (and likely many more than) 100 lives and destroyed the traditional indigenous capital of Lahaina, yet the President of the United States chose to remain on vacation before offering federal relief amounting to a ridiculously meager $700 per resident.
Beyond the loss of life and incalculable suffering in the aftermath of the fire is a further, irreparable harm to history and culture. Having colonized a once indigenous island and wreaked havoc on its culture, America has stood on the fossil fuel climate accelerator for decades, inviting the calamity that just wiped out an irreplaceable cultural treasure and the history it once commemorated.
The loss of Lahaina should not be understood merely as a humanitarian disaster. It is an injury to human civilization that ultimately continues the genocidal project of colonialism.
None of this had to happen. We were warned long ago.
A presidential election race divorced from reality
The President’s chief rival, meanwhile, is under criminal indictment in four different jurisdictions. While Biden has enjoyed a comfortable vacation this week, Trump continued to fuel his campaign with the corresponding outrage of a support base convinced—despite his open attempts to usurp the democratic process, and the Constitution—that his prosecution is political in nature.
Neither Biden nor Trump are willing to participate in a debate.
Even though the major parties’ favored voices have each declared their inadequacy and proudly thumbed their noses at voters, journalists across the political spectrum continue to deride the only available alternatives: an esteemed Black scholar with no peer or equal in either politics or higher education (Cornel West), an author and ecumenical guide who has inspired millions (Marianne Williamson), and a figure whose father and uncle were both literally assassinated during previous presidential campaigns (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.).
Beyond political journalists, non-profit organizations have appeared equally oblivious. Climate justice organizations are bragging about half measures, seeking validation from the establishment’s concessions rather than emphasizing how vastly inadequate they remain in the face of the mounting climate catastrophe. Nor is climate the only arena in which the establishment’s bipartisan failures have grown offensively obvious.
For instance, this week, NPR documented the findings of government officials who discovered “barbaric” and “negligent” conditions when investigating federal immigrant detention facilities. One example involved “a man in [ICE] custody…sent into a jail's general population unit with an open wound from surgery, no bandages and no follow-up medical appointment scheduled, even though he still had surgical drains in place.”
Beyond the horrifying conditions revealed in NPR’s report is a remarkable reflection of bipartisan opposition to transparency. The NPR story included the following passage:
For more than three years, the federal government — under both the Trump and Biden administrations — fought NPR's efforts to obtain those records. That opposition continued despite a Biden campaign promise to "demand transparency in and independent oversight over ICE."
Not only has the Biden administration continued the Trump-era assault on the rights of migrants once guaranteed under international law, but the assault on their rights also compounds the harms of the climate crisis. Many migrants currently detained en masse were driven to seek new homes by environmental disasters, including a drought across Central America that has grown so severe that the Panama Canal has been forced to limit shipping traffic.
Why are weapons for Ukraine so much more important to Washington than clean water, sustainable housing, and a livable climate for Americans in Hawaii and elsewhere?
Ignoring the bipartisan roots of crises from climate to human rights, Democrats bray about wanting to defend democracy from the likes of an outright fascist, hiding themselves behind a legal process while ducking public debates. They rely on voters failing to notice that both corporate parties support the same policy agenda, embrace the same corruption, and rely on similarly ignorant tribal cults of personality.
Meanwhile, our social crises continue to fester well beyond Hawaii.
Capital compounds our crises
Home ownership has grown notoriously impossible for first-time buyers, food prices have forced millions to tighten their belts, and the federal government is about to risk unprecedented debt defaults by forcing millions of Americans to restart payments on student loans that Biden could have waived were he less committed to Wall Street. Americans are “drowning in debt,” including over $1 trillion in credit card debt, and nearly $2 trillion in student loan debt.
Across the United States, suicide rates are rising, alongside homelessness and also food insecurity. Meanwhile, life expectancy is dropping, as are the life prospects for hundreds of millions of working Americans struggling to survive while the top 1% continues to hoard the world’s resources.
Ignoring all of these festering crises, Biden has instead sought yet another $25 billion in military aid to Ukraine, revealing once again the bipartisan imperial priority on militarism over the rights or needs of struggling Americans. Why are weapons for Ukraine so much more important to Washington than clean water, sustainable housing, and a livable climate for Americans in Hawaii and elsewhere?
What sense does it make to be wasting more money on weapons & war when we so obviously need more firetrucks & fire fighters?
From wars to pandemics, it’s almost as if journalism in America exists in order to mislead readers & viewers, rather than inform them.
The contrast between bipartisan militarism run amok and the ignored concerns of people struggling with the impacts of the mounting global climate catastrophe is not the only example of how our system continues to invite preventable disasters.
“Believe science,” unless it’s inconvenient
Having recently recovered from a bout with COVID, I’m struck by how little concerns about the latest surge appear to be registering in national media. Of course, having abandoned its previous attempts to track & trace infections, Washington has done everything possible to make sure that the continuing pandemic remains out of the public discussion.
But the resignation of transparency on public health is also outrageously nothing new. Remember how much energy was once poured into labeling the “lab leak” hypothesis of the disease’s origins as official disinformation, leading social media platforms and journalists to suppress a growing body of evidence that continues to face bizarre hostility from some experts even as others eventually acknowledged it as the most likely explanation?
From wars to pandemics, it’s almost as if journalism in America exists in order to mislead readers & viewers, rather than inform them.
None of this had to happen. We were warned long ago. The annihilation of Lahaina was preventable.
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