Humans are animals

Humans are animals and are classified as such. Biology makes no special provision for our perceived divinity or specialities. We are chordates, vertebrates, mammals, and primates - that's right, lumped in with monkey's. Part of the hominidae family of homo sapiens. We are animals and as such we occupy, hunt/kill/domesticate, feed, and eliminate as any other animal. We are destructive and constructive like the elephant and the ant. We are social animals like chimps, dolphins, and prairie dogs. So if we're just animals where does the problem of our existence come from? It isn't because we bulldoze a forest to build our homes, or when we throw our byproducts into giant landfills for the elephant will knock down tree's to get to the fruit and ravage the landscape too. Kudzu will smother a forest completely. Army ants will kill every other insect caught in their hungry march. Swordfish will eat every sardine in a school, and carp will decimate whole river systems. Animals do the best they can to eat well, to live long, and most importantly to procreate. They are biologically equipped to these ends, or they perish through competition or lack of adaptation. That's just how it is. Without any doubt whatsoever, the human animal is the most successful animal that is alive today. We have procreated to the ends of the earth, we dominate every other living creature as sources of food or amusement, we pile up our waste, and leech toxins into every biome. 85% of the great forests are gone because of our presence. Tons upon tons of our industrial gases fill the atmosphere, into the very stuff we breath and require to exist. We are animal kings. Top of the food chain.

Let me conjecture the problem isn't with the man animal per say, but simply in the mathematical and calculated outcome of our "success."

Over 40% of all tropical forests have been destroyed and another acre is lost each second.

Each year, humankind adds six to eight billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and destroying forest

The annual catch in 13 of the world's 15 major fishing zones has declined and in four of those - three in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific oceans - the catch has shrunk by a startling 30%.

Millions of pounds of toxic chemicals, like lead, mercury and pesticides, pour into our waterways each year contaminating wildlife, seafood and drinking water.

The US just burned 25 million gallons of oil in the time it took me to blog this.

4 billion pounds of pesticides were used in the U.S. this year- eight pounds for every man, woman and child.

Americans are exposed to 70,000 chemicals, some 90% of which have never been subjected to adequate testing to determine their impact on our health.

We throw away 17 billion pounds of plastic in packaging each year.

200,000 people a day are moving to cities from environments that no longer support them.
Average person consumes twice as much as 50 years ago.

Average American creates 4.5 lbs. garbage a day -- an amount doubled from 30 years ago.

The U.S. burns 10,000 gallons of gasoline a second

700 million gallons of lubricating oil, 200-250 million tires, 138 thousand tons of lead from discard auto batteries, and 9 million passenger cars are disposed of each year in the U.S.

I could go on and on with environmental statistics and facts that show how successful we are as a species in resource distribution and allocation. As any other animal we pollute too, but none hold a candle to our capacity in doing so. We're talking huge numbers, numbers that most couldn't even fathom, that are literally altering the atmosphere, the soil, and the water. We're so successful that the numbers are exponentially accelerating, doubling what once took centuries. If one elephant knocks 2 tree's over per day to eat fruit it isn't too destructive, but if 7 billion elephants were doing it, it would be total destruction of every tree on the planet. We are the 7 billionth elephant, and we seem to be constructing our own extinction. 

I'm typing this blog on my laptop that took many different mined resources to make, gallons of fuel to distribute, and even more fuel energy on my part to generate the money to buy it. Is it killing the environment in so doing? No, but when billions more are purchased similarly, yes. Guilt is written with each key stroke. I just cleared an acre leaving maybe fifthteen or so shade tree's to plant a large vegetable garden, setup a chicken coop, and dig a pond for more sustainable purposes. Add a billion or more of me doing the same thing and you have a billion acres gone. "Get a bike, recycle, stop consuming so much," and other green philosophies are commendable, but it isn't going to alter the human animals basic behaivor to utilize resources, tool make, consume, and eliminate (pollute).

There can only be one conclusion for our success - a hammer stroke, a karmic sledgehammer that will shocked our species into extinction or possibly frighten the survivors into intentionally modifying their behaivor. Much like my dog which has the instinct to run the neighborhood looking to procreate and can only be fenced in with a shock collar/invisible fence system. One or two shocks and he never crosses the fence line while the system is active. I believe humans need a similar shock to modify their behavior. Much like a person who experiences chest pain and a heart attack suddenly becomes health conscious. Fear and pain are the most powerful biological motivators known next to sex. I feel no pain in my personal consumption habits, nor you, but the pain of which I speak is swiftly approaching. Let us hope our childrens children learn from the pain, and are frightened into adjusting themselves accordingly, or our extinction becomes the worlds gift. Wisdom has to be experienced and learned.  

US Healthcare implosion

If you didn't already know I work for a private ambulance service contracted by a dozen southern MS counties for 911 emergencies and inter facility transports. I've worked in the health care field for over 20 years as a paramedic, and what I see about to befall this country is no less than a catastrophic meltdown in health care. The supercomittee, an oxymoron is there ever was, has failed to come to any resolvable solution for our current fiscal woes. It just isn't possible to cut the fat out of government spending without causing immeasurable social misery and hammering GDP (20% of which is government spending)to the point of collapse. That's what happens to a nation that has generated economic growth with debt spending instead of actual productive capacity for the last 40 years. Instead of having a simplified universal health care program paid for with tax dollars we have a hodge podge mish mash of wacky private insurers paying percentages, deductibles, and what have you, a medicare system for the old, and medicaid for the poor, and a lawyered up rule book governing the administration of it. That doesn't even consider the state to state differences on what is paid and isn't paid. It's completely unsound and just plain nutz. Most Americans really don't know how bad their health care system is until they find themselves old, disabled, or poor. A group that is expanding since, well since we were counting. Now that we are forced to address our debts and make the necessary cuts these gross facts are going to feel like a rock to the head to anyone unfortunate enough to be old, injured, sick, or just plain dealt an ill fated deck since birth. Just one example of which I could tell you about is a young man that I run on frequently. Just eighteen years of age who is seeking gainful employ in a rural MS town. He has seizures, bad ones, and he requires Kepra to control his seizures. $1500 a bottle! Does he have the money for them? Obviously not. It's hard as hell to find a job right now and made even harder by the fact he has a preexisting medical condition that most employers care not to have behind the forklift. So he's on MS state medicaid and receiving food stamps. What does medicaid pay? Well about $600 towards his prescription and he receives about $100/month in food stamps - them rama noodles make good eaten, huh?  $600 is not $1500, so he has seizures at least twice a week. He has busted his nose twice, stitches to his head, and now has a broken elbow. Is it his fault that genes dealt him a ill fated hand? Obviously not, but he is also unfortunate to have been born in the USofA. If he was Canadian this would not be a problem at all. He would get the prescription he needed and he might even find a job because his seizures would be properly managed. Then maybe the rama noodles might be replaced with fresh fruits and vegetables, and some quality meat.

But not America! We have bombs and bullets to make! We have trillions to spend in our global policing. Taking care of each other is socialism, that dirty word. We can't have that. Instead, what we're going to see unfold here is a bureaucratic implosion in what is paid for and what isn't, and if you're the unfortunate one falling in the ever widening crack of doom than you will be swallowed up utterly. Bereft and dead in the land of the turkey eaters.  Meanwhile, in the field of health care, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth in the ranks of the providers as their previously untouchable professions will see widespread cuts and reduction in pay or benefits. A sizable amount of all health care spending is Medicare, it's old people, it's people who have been dealt bad hands, and then it's a growing group that is psychologically ill. What do you expect when the American dream becomes a nightmare? People are losing it! Trust me! I'm seeing it right now!

Who calls an ambulance most of the time? Old people! Old people with their strokes, their falls, their chest pains, their smoking related COPDer's, their GI bleeds, and everything else that infirms the human being as they wither and die. Medicare or Medicaid! Medicare pays the bill, it pays for the ambulance ride, it pays the wages to the medic, it pays for the treatment, it pays for the ER visit, it pays for the doctor, it pays for the hospital treatment. It pays. The guy shot in the projects isn't paying their bill. The working stiff at the corporation paying for his United, Blue Cross, and what have you isn't the one getting sick and calling an ambulance. That's a rare 911 call indeed. So listen to me, it's old people, and old people are not working people. They've done their time for the most part. They have what's saved, pensioned (a source being attacking on all fronts), and provided for by social security (also broke and defaulted), and that's it, but they're the ones that need health care. So it's medicare not United, that's paying for the bulk of the entire medical industry, and if Medicare - no, not if, but when - is cut it'll also be cutting the primary source of revenue for doctors, nurses, medics, technicians, hospitals, clinics, rehab centers, psychiatric wards, etc. It's the one American industry that has been a solid source for jobs in this land of job scarcity.

Not anymore! Game over folks. I pray that you are well, that you are fit, because this nation is so up the creek without the proverbial paddle that millions will be doomed to old school medicine and hope for the best bedside prayers.

It won't be military cuts coming despite what you might have heard on the news. A world war is the making, and it'll crop up at the opportune time to pour every cent into its bloody endeavor. Old people, sick people, disabled people, nothing more than unproductive refuse, capitalistic rust, and dead weight to the 1%ers and their American corporate fascist scheme. Trust me.

"We can't afford these people!"

(As he himself gets complete coverage)

Turkey eating Americanism

Another turkey day for America, and if anyone is paying attention, one wonders if there will be another. "Happy thanksgiving," people say as they scan the newspaper for black Friday deals from Walmart, Best Buy, JC Penny, Sears, Macy's, Academy, Home Depot, and every other corporate juke box of Chinese manufactured goodies we Americans feel so compelled to partake in.

Like a manic moment of consumer voyeurism we light up with excitement at seeing a 42" TV for $199 as if anything worth seeing ever comes across that now infamous plasma nightmare, and just how many TV's do we need anyway? Hey look, a Xbox with kinetics for under $200! More time for which we can become virtual soldiers shooting our way to victory! An extension of our madness without ever getting dirty or feeling the effects of bombs and bullets, a conviency not felt by the countless families in the cross hairs of a real crotch ratcheted, former video gaming, frat boy looking to showcase his training with some acrobatic drone strikes.

Followed by a turkey dinner and a video chat with his knocked up girlfriend stateside who let's him know that you can buy a laptop for under $300! Be home for Christmas might be her secondary wish.

Meanwhile, back in central park, we have our generational parade dedicated to the adulation of triumphal capitalism. Like the Israelites worshipping the golden calf, we parade our symbols of corporate greed and American silliness at the end of long ropes up and down the throng of spectators while half naked women dance in mock worship to the tunes of countless uneducated youth playing their brass and woodwinds.

Floats filled with more silliness and exponential goofiness fills in the road between big balloons and titillating sexism. Since I think 99% of us are unplugged from reality we find the show fun and by all means - traditional - while we eat one of the 30 million turkeys slaughtered for us and stuffing our already massively overfed and undernourished tubby girths. Meanwhile, the rest of the world bows to Mecca, washes their torn threads over beaten rocks, and cook their meal worm invested rice while watching the sky above for predator drones piloted by American turkey eaters. God help them if they happen to live by anyone that looks like they could be Taliban or Al Queda, because ya know, it's unnecessary to truly identify a hostile from a group of kids trying to get their goats back in their pen.

We Americans have to have our blu rays for $50 bucks and our gas at $3 a gallon after all. China give us more junk! Arabs, give us your oil!

The sad fact is that hardly anyone knows what the hell I'm talking about, being that our soldier boys are over there under the cross hairs of evil forces protecting our freedoms, the latest programmed meme  as we cover our hearts singing a ode to war, the American anthem. I must be one of those hippie communist occupiers to say such "truths." A nice evil slot in the American mental architecture to put my kind of commentary. A nice slew of propagandists, who are paid millions, are then broadcast into our living rooms while we swallow FDA approved cancer causing fake pizza's to swallow it down with diabetes making concoctions.

This American experience to be followed by a week long run of fuel consumption to haul our lard asses to and from our "work for the man" corporate institutions, paid for of course by those same goat herders and peasants mentioned above. Never once questioning whether this is right, how people should be living, or what it might do to the environmental womb that is mother earth. Oh sure, there are those that care, those that realize our iniquities, yet these glitches in the system are quickly tear gassed and pepper sprayed or shot in the head with what they call harmless rubber bullets despite needing a dozen stitches and repeated CT scans. The blood stains can still be found on the street in front of the stock exchange. Water cooler nightmares cheer on their demise.Yet this is nothing as the blood could fill a whole lake in a place half a world away and out of sight of the turkey eaters.

So remember what I say in that every transaction made with the above blood dealers (Walmart, Best Buy, JCPenny, Macy's, Mcdonalds, etc) pollutes a river, enslaves a child, tears a mountain apart, spills more blood, and steps on the accelerator to oblivion and extinction. Can you break the hypnosis of consumption and live up to your promised divinity, or do we embrace the destruction and pass into history? So far, all I see is the clutching of self destruction.

Smoke coming from the machine

Can you see it? Smoke from global economic machinations? Smoke from grass root frustrations? Smoke from Iranian centrifuges? Smoke from European bond markets? Can you see it? There's a real glow in the embers of future fires, where the kindling is piled high in flesh and blood, and the fog of revelation lifts from the mound of falsities. We're in the time in history where the wolf, the real one, the one believed by most would never show up, has started knocking at the door, and whether we open it or not, it will huff and puff until the architecture of capitalism is blown to pieces around us. We, all of us, unless buried in some bunker somewhere sipping expensive wine with fellow elites, will be left naked and exposed to the villainy and brutality the wolf brings. It's only a question of how many times the wolf will knock. Will it be once more, or twice? Only the wolf knows, and it doesn't share its secrets with the likes of me or you. It gets orders directly from those bunkered elites parading themselves on red carpets as they smile and wave at the camera's they own. They tease us with their plans, their promises that a solution will be found, their gifts of austerity that they say can be successfully endured, not by them of course, but by the electricians and bus drivers of the world. "Keep smiling you bastards," I think as I watch people by the thousands shutdown major US ports, occupy banks, and endure the icy test of winters onset while be insulted by corpobanking mouth-pieces on CNN and Fox. It is but a natural reaction to the same, and the momentum of outrage grows. When I see the rubber bullets, tear gas, batons, horses, and shields come out, I know the fires are lit, and they are! "Keep shooting marines, you cowardly tools of the rich," I yell! "See what happens!" 

Smoke over here, over there, and everywhere. I see the fires being lit in Iran, a big pit of lies and geopolitical manipulation, and it's not being manipulated favorably for Iran, a land that's frequently represented as the gates of hell instead of the reality - another ME country with sweet easy to get oil. It's beyond stupidity to think this graph of global oil production has nothing to do with Zionist worshipping Western thuggery, unless you believe those who say we can become energy independent if the president would just give big oil everything they want (reckless unshackled drilling anywhere and everywhere).

A ridiculous claim if there ever were, and as much nonsense from the Pollyanna's that conceive a transformation from combustion to the whine of electric motors in the time the president can waive his magic wand. Leaves my own calculations smoking to weigh the variables in this crucible of disaster, and even more so in knowing no one is telling the truth. Crunch time is near, and where there's smoke there's fire. Where do we get the energy to keep up the burn? How many people must die to reduce the need? This is the truth, this is what's being calculated. The fires of that decision are smoldering all over the place. You don't get 7 billion people eating, sheltering, and breathing without millions of barrels of oil per day being produced, much less so when speculating on the exponential nature of people making. We're about to enter the hurt locker as a consequence. I'm sorry, that's the truth.

So sing a song, smell a flower, admire a tree, and go paint a mountain for the time where such beauty is despoiled by the darker side of man is near, and what remains must be fought over instead of shared. I hope future generations learn something from it all, and that we don't die off entirely.