Blog Dedication

Angiosperms, or flowering plants, are some of the most beautiful, diverse and widespread groups of all plants. Amborella trichopoda is the first flowering plant and can still be found in New Caledonia. This is my first attempt at blogging and Im not sure that I totally understand the point and purpose, but I needed a way to share my thoughts and photos from my journeys and this seemed like it would work.  Though the primary function of this blog is as a travel journal, from what little I do know about the blogging process, it seems appropriate that I open with an opinion piece. So here goes my first attempt at blogging:

It is a beautiful day here in Maui. The sun is shining and there is a cool breeze. A few hours from now the Phillies will have undoubtedly defeated the Rays in the first game of the World Series and Obama will be next door to me on Oahu visiting his grandmother. Despite all these pleasantries, it seems to me that things in our world are continually slipping into the gutter, literally. 

My brother sent me a Washington Post article the other day titled, "Risk of Disease Rises With Water Temperatures" (Click Here). This is a well-written short article by Kari Lydersen about frightening links between epidemics and disease outbreaks; specifically, disease outbreaks due to the affects of global warming on our outdated infrastructure that are predicted and have already begun. Needless to say, this is scary stuff.

Now we all know health care, education and the economy are in the dumps, but it seems like every aspect of our world has been inflitrated by thoughtless evil.  For example, I read a few years ago one of the biggest threats facing our National Parks is from an ATV moratorium lifted by the Bush/Cheney Administration.

We've borrowed and imported billions from China (financiers of human rights abusers such as the the Janjaweed Militia) to pay for an illegal war that has funneled billions into the oil sector, inefficient contractors like KBR, and fundamentalist mercenary armies like Blackwater.  

I believe government should legislate on those issues related to common goods; i.e., education, defense and healthcare. Instead Bush/Cheney have privatized those sectors and instead legislated on marriage and who can provide my internet at what cost. It is absolute madness.

The Bush/Cheney Administration has accomplished the most sweeping victories for privatization and against personal privacy ever.  They hide our dead soldiers by denying media access, they treat our injured soldiers as embarrassments by bringing them home in the middle of the night, they callously outed the identity of a CIA operative, and they cover up whistleblower testimony related to their illegal activities (see WSJ article from 2006, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13506).

It is sad that as American's we buy into all of this.  The media is liberal, social healthcare is inefficient and bad (what US hospital have you been to lately that cannot be described that way? what British hospital have you been to that can?), environmentalist are to blame for the high gas prices (which happen to be dictated by the collusion of the largest cartel known to man whose distributors, big oil, make record profits of ant company EVER quarter after quarter), and immigrants and homosexuals are the source of all our financial woes and natural disasters. 

Next the collapse of our economy will be the fault of Obama when he needs to borrow another $700 Billion to bailout the greedy speculators that are our banking gurus. 

To me these issues are huge, but the biggest problem we face is the growth in evangelical fundamentalism. When Palin said at the RNC, “As for oil and gas, take it from a girl that knows the North Slope. We’ve got lots of both,” she was talking about a lot more than lining her pockets with for-profit legislation.  She was talking about an evangelical movement ("I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that") in this country against the very thing that sets us apart as a species, REASON.  

Palin was saying, don't analyze the cost of getting that oil financially and environmentally, don't debate about the hundreds of thousands of acres of land that is known to have oil reserves in the lower 48 and is being leased to the oil companies who are not drilling on it, don't come up with a plan before drilling to use that oil as a means to carry us over to a renewable solution, don't think about these things because education is elitist and you have the freedom to drive your 5,000 pound vehicle two blocks to buy gum, which is all that really matters.  

These are the philosophies of the evangelical movement that is sweeping our nation and seeks to brand thought, reason and attempts to acquire these as elitist. Forget the fact that John McCain doesn't know how many houses he has.  That's not elitist.  We can all relate to that problem.  

This is really critical to consider when you think about what has made this nation great.  We have grown to our level of affluence and success through innovation.  This innovation was made possible through the access and quality of our education system.  Our economic growth over the past several years has been based on consumption and debt.  We have been creating business through anti-capitalistic measures like our irrational protections of the telecom companies and American steel instead of creating new and better products.  

What does this mean for our future? Well it is going to cost a lot. We are going to have to pay for the excesses of this administration to the tune of several trillion dollars, we are going to have to fight for a better health care system (not supported by either candidate), we are going to have to end this war and repair our image globally, we are going to have to regain control of the corporations we have come to serve (as opposed to the other way around), we are going to have to renew our commitment to public education and access to higher education and we are going to have fund science at much higher levels. 

I know this is a bleak forecast.  We are headed for difficult times, but it is critical we stay involved and not get disillusioned as the current trend is the more educated you are, the less children you are having.  So if we don't remain active, we can look forward to a nation of uneducated and unskilled religious fundamentalists who hate us.  They will be the most angry and entitled bunch this country has ever seen.  If history teaches us anything, all people who are rational and believe in education should be very afraid.

As a kid I always imagined we would end up like Star Trek, men and women wearing the same androgynous jump suit while cruising the universe seeking knowledge, but something went terribly wrong.

I believe Obama will get elected and that will be nice, but he will change very little as he has already shown to be his ambition (he supports off-shore drilling, the wall on the border of Mexico, immunity for the telecom companies, continued violence in the middle east, an armed and militant Israel, and on and on).  The republicans through their greed and gluttony have got us in this mess, but the democrats were supposed to be the party of dissent.

As a means to start making a difference, I sincerely suggest looking into the efforts of Ralph Nader.  A good place to start being the award wining documentary, An Unreasonable Man, http://www.anunreasonableman.com/.  Also, I saw him speak recently and he discussed a new citizen lobbying effort he will begin in the new year, which is the most promising solution to combating the corporations who control our lives that I have heard thus far.

This blog will primarily be about my travels, but it is dedicated to those who remain skeptics of everything and continue to work for change and seek knowledge instead of becoming disillusioned, apathetic and cynical.

Evolution is truth.  I can PROVE it!!!

Jarrett