A Polemic: the Veiw from Down Here

Source: https://www.citizen.org/news/texas-and-the-cost-of-climate-change/

Living in one of the premier Red States is not a joy. Being vaccinated while knowing that the state is only at 41% of the population vaccinated is not comforting. The reason you need at least 70% of the populace is to reach that herd immunity that so many of the unvaccinated, gaslit, ill-informed, my freedom over your well-being, idiots tout. 

I am weary from the state’s attack on voting rights and their fervent desire to damage and damn my home state, to reduce it to a hellhole beyond the climatic one it is swift becoming (along with much of the western and southwestern states). Shrugging shoulders at the latest stupidity issuing from Austin is a great work-out, but a useless political stance. 

Sadly, it’s not just that Texas is red because of a sizable Republican population and voter turnout is often disappointing; there really is very much an intransigent sense of “going it alone” and not being dictated to by the federal government, and also restrictive pre-election policies and finding people to run the poles(1). Apparently, Texans are Texans first, then Americans. It’s not enough to wait for the next election cycle to vote Abbot and his cronies out of office; that may or may not happen and these days, it’s looking like it won’t.

Texans - for the most part - are nice people, but frankly, shortsighted and so inculcated into the idea of “state’s rights, my rights” to the exclusion of any sort of communal bonding for longer term survival that they are seemingly inoculated against common sense and recognizing existential threats of broader and deeper scope.

The hold that the petroleum industry has on almost every facet of political life here is exasperating. I quit attending the Baker Institute panels on industry and climate change because they were simple assemblies for the insiders to pat themselves on the back. There might be the opposition speaking in moderate tones and not pointing out the bullshit from petroleum leaders or it often felt as though the opposing side was happy to “go along to get along” instead of actively engaging in examining the facts as opposed to dealing in the same kind of rhetoric that would paint discussions about fracking and natural gas as a panacea. 

Climate change is a very real and horrible threat. COVID-19 is far from over and in states like Texas, the population is at ever higher risk for another wave and another and another. Restricting access to voting is a transparent ploy to keep the disenfranchised away from the polls and rig elections in favor of these exploitative mandarins, this class of latter day slave owners milling about the halls of power and ensuring that everything from Texas history to daily reality is similarly rigged in their favor.

Yes, yes. The answer is ultimately to vote these marionettes out of office but to get there means making phone calls, sending emails, talking to your representatives (at least, the ones who see what’s going on) and putting the pressure wherever possible on the officials who promote blindness and injustice. 

Engaging the opposition at this point doesn’t seem to be very effective. I’ve run into repeated think skulls and stone walls with the intransigent who feel the election was stolen and that the former occupant of the White House deserves accolades for his handling of the pandemic. I do not have the skills to de-program cult members, so I have to defer to the professionals on that note. 

However, I do have my reps’ phone numbers and emails and can express my concern about the direction the state is headed in. It seems the most difficult aspect of sociopolitical life that people overlook is that it’s not just about me, or you. It’s about all of us, both within and beyond the borders of this or any stated. 

COVID doesn’t care about geopolitical boundaries. Climate change doesn’t recognize your party allegiance or your monthly insurance premium. Plundering the earth in one location has long term effects for all of us, either immediately in damaging local neighborhoods or down the supply chain in terms of oil spills that are rarely reported by the media or how air quality diminishes the more we pump toxins into the atmosphere and continue the cycles that also impact the oceans, contribute to wildfires, and despoil the environment. 

“The environment”: that sounds so abstract. Our home. The earth is our home and we, particularly in the so-called civilized world are ruining it and our chances for survival. It is our bed, and we shit in it. Yet we cannot come together, even in the face of environmental ruin to enact policies and regulations that would retard the effects of this roiling process.

The way we vote, the so-called ideals we support, the religions we follow, the tales we tell ourselves need to be discarded if they lead us to further insanity, to electing “leaders” (they don’t really lead; they plunder and seize power to impose their wills on the people they purport to serve) who do not support the genuine interests of their constituents. Our perception of the  world needs to change if what we think, what we believe, leads us to fear and hatred. As long as I put me before you, there can be no we, no us. 

Our elected representatives aren’t doing it and it is slowly killing us.I believe they are callous enough that they know full well where this division leads. As surely, however, as the stresses of the results of their policies begin to take greater tolls, they will feel the results as surely as the rest of us.

To the Greg Abbotts and Ted Cruzes of the Texas legislature and their allies:

When the grid here fails again, as it is more and more likely to, it won’t matter where you live or how many back-up generators you have after a while. Even if you squash the ability of the electorate to make it to the polls, when climate change worsens, as it surely will, you will have no one to blame but yourselves.  Fly to another state or another country; do you really think you can escape the outcomes of decades of self-serving policies? 

When more and more people find themselves stranded because the infrastructure has failed and jobs are scarcer, who will there be to blame? You will cry that you did all you could to say no to taxes and to federal oppression. But the issue there isn’t taxation or federal “oppression”; the issue is your lack of long-term vision and simple humanity and goodwill for all who are suffering as you stride the halls of power.

I would say “shame on you”, but as you have no sense of shame, I’ll not waste words. I feel I’ve done that enough already.

FOOTNOTE

1. This article is instructive in terms of both why Texas has historically low voter turnout but also, why more people turned out for the 2020 election and why the results came in as they did.

POSTSCRIPT

I don’t like ending anything on a doomsday note, no matter how likely the scenario. I hope that I’ve made it clear that there are actions we can all take in the body of this screed. Call/email your representatives, volunteer at organizations that you can get behind, educate yourself on the issues.

Recently, I came across this site. It answers the question “what can I do?” in relation to climate change. “Anything.”

https://heated.world/p/what-can-i-do-anything