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Silence is a Form of Partisanship
In this watershed year, 2012, many of us citizens, who strive to be nonpartisan, are forced into a dilemma: To remain silent is to be partisan. We confide to our European counterparts that this year resembles Germany at the rise of Nazism in 1933. Today, with the rise of militant materialism deliberately following the selfish and atheistic principles of Ayn Rand, one political party has been taken over by Big Energy merchants of doubt and confusion. This group, with arrogance stemming from millions and billions of dollars of undertaxed bank accounts here and abroad, seeks to buy this national election just as it has bought the recent primary.
These arrogant powerbrokers have partisanized a national unified environmental stance that since the First Earth Day has for the greater part stood beyond politics. A comparison of the energy platform of the Republicans in 2008 and 2012 shows this shocking turn of events. Four years ago, concerning climate change their platform says that common sense dictates taking reasonable steps to reduce any impact on the environment. This year any mention of such effects is gone and in its place is a demand that Congress "take quick action to prohibit the EPA from moving forward with new greenhouse gas regulations." These merchants of doubt emerge in full force demanding caution because "the causes and long-range effects of a phenomenon [anthropogenic climate change] are uncertain."
The dilemma for those of us with a lifetime history of championing life in all its forms and circumstances is thus: Both political platforms are imperfect with an explicit Democratic pro-woman's right to choose plank and this Republican rejection of concern for global climate change effects on the life of countless human beings. To say one or other is more important here is to digress into a distracting and politically-charged argument. In essence, all life is important and must be defended whether life of human beings from unborn to senior citizens or our planet Earth, the ground of our human vitality. We must defend life!
Unwanted effects of the one platform are being mitigated through citizen actions and emerging lawsuits that would remove restrictive and religious freedom-threatening clauses in the Health Care regulations. However, denying human-caused climate change (now judged far worse by climate experts than known in 2008) while taking pride in being pro-life is a form of latent hypocrisy. The policies of continuing benefits to Big Oil and other fossil fuel producers, relegating fuel efficiency to a minor role, and reducing the thriving rise of renewable energy are all harbingers of global disaster. All this when our country should be in the forefront of responsible environmental action! We see impending disaster -- and we must speak or be judged cowards through our neutrality and silence.
The Earthhealing Team
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