Runners on the Edge

70 years ago, ‘litter’ meant paper, bottles and cans. Unsightly, yes, but hardly able to clog the digestive systems of sea birds or congeal into floating mats. In 1940, there were 2 billion humans. Now 7 ½ billion occupy every habitable acre . . . and extract resources from the rest. The remotest nooks and crannies proffer bits of trash and traces of chemicals, medicines and pollution. We’ve filled the Earth.

Now what?

If a group of runners arrived at the edge of the continent, their experience with running on land couldn’t carry them much further. They’d have three options. 1. They could charge into the waves anyway, flail madly and hope to figure it out soon. 2. They could turn back, which would mean running over the masses who followed them. Or 3. they could party like there were no tomorrow.

This is America’s predicament. We’ve raced across the planet, and in the last half century, challenged the Earth’s limits. As many in the world follow our energy-dependent lead, the amount of life trampled increases. Polluted water, poisoned air, exhausted agricultural acreage, depleted fish stocks, increased rate of extinctions, climate change, rising seas, etc. It’s universal.

We won’t sit and do nothing, but should we go forward or back?

The present administration takes us backward. It rescinds regulations that protect plants, animals and habitats, including air and water. It opens up previously closed areas to extraction and development. It relaxes laws against trophy hunting. Plus many more life-destroying actions.

This should come as no surprise. Expropriating from nature - food, tools, raw materials and essential resources - has been our practice for thousands of years. Our MO is long established: explore new lands, invade territories occupied by others, conquer them, take what we want and leave the mess to others. The drive to selfishly expand and conquer is the key to our success. It’s in our genes and embedded in our culture.

This administration, though, runs over its own people by appropriating lands in Monuments that belong not to nature or to enemies but to us, by taking away health care and Social Security (if it could) and by confiscating our future earnings through tax breaks for the rich that were funded by national debt.

Egad, they destroy nature and society. What to do?

We can look to that vast sea beyond the shore, because we, unlike the ‘runners’, know how to swim. We can wade into the future unafraid of being run over.

The runners, loosely speaking, are men. The fastest are the alpha males, the explorers, adventurers, warriors, killers, conquerors and builders. Wired for conquest, and driven to exploit and dominate, they pushed ahead, exhibiting little to no empathy for the lives lost. “We provide for our own!” they boast. In their wake, humankind multiplied, expanded and thrived.

But their us-against-them attitude could never lead us to peace and sustainability.

Women have always been the producers of life and the nurturers of the vulnerable. If we are to find within our gene pool support for children and protections for nature, we’d have better luck if we looked to female leaders.

Humankind is in transition. We exit a male-dominated, exploitative phase, and enter a female-oriented, life-affirming phase. Women rise and will never again submit. Women speak and will never again be silent. Women and kids and minorities take to the streets fully aware that they build the foundation for a Global Village.

NYT - Comment on Brooks' Opinion piece. "Donald Trump's Magical Fantasy World"

Brooks concludes his essay with "The more time we spend on the Trumpian soap opera, the less likely we are to know where we are or what we should do." It seems Brooks has identified the power of Trump.

When egg beaters are swirling and the eggs are churning, the only thing that seems stable are the beaters themselves. There are so many overwhelming and contradictory facts on every subject, from which foods to eat to who has the right to marry to which style sink to install in the new bathroom to which politician is trustworthy, that every aspect of life is a decision. "Give me a simple answer," says anyone just trying to get on with his life. Add to the cascade of facts an entire new world of false stories, and the average guy says, "I can't figure it out. You're my leader. I believe in you. You tell me what to do."

Run for Office 4

Less than three months after launching what was absolutely guaranteed to be a spectacular political career, I was smacked upside the head by Goliath and sent back into the lowly ranks of ‘citizen’. The final score in my race for the U.S. House was humiliatingly lopsided: 53,745 votes for Representative Schrader and 8,161 for me.

In order to preserve my dignity, I spun the stats. My total expenditures - registration, cards, meals and gasoline – came to less than $200, or 2.5 cents per vote. The incumbent’s expenditures during this period included $2500 for the Voter’s Pamphlet, $2810 for printing and postage, $19,658 for consulting, $2877 for wages, $1674 for lodging, $1580 for catering, $5300 for taxes, plus dozens of incidentals. His expenditures specific to the Primary probably exceeded $40,000. That’s 74 cents per vote!

Still, all said and done, I lost. But so what? Nine of the ten candidates in the Oregon’s Primary for Republican Governor also lost. Losing is part of the game. There are always other races, other ways to win. We losers pick ourselves up and move on.

But what if there weren’t other ways to win? What if the winners rigged the system so that we always lost?

For many people, that’s how America works.

Examples:

1.         A bright kid learns in Business School how to export jobs. He and the corporation that hires him make immense profits sending jobs to low-wage nations. None of the profits go to the laid-off workers or their towns.

2.         Kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods train hard at basketball, but only a few have the chops to make pro. They get not only the glory but also the money. Lots of money. Shouldn’t some of it go back to other hard-training kids, their schools and their neighborhoods?

3.         A schoolboy wants to succeed, to be somebody, to win - just once. He tries, but he’s academically and athletically average. Artistic talent and social charm? Mediocre. He’s just a run-of-the-mill kid in high school. Except, in America, if you are not a winner, then you are a loser. And in America, he can do something about that. He can buy a gun. Bang, bang. "I win. You lose."

The American I-win-you-lose culture starts at the top. 1% owns 40% of America’s wealth, and that 1% tells Congressional Republicans to protect their fortunes forever with massive tax break. Republicans then go a step further and order Congress to cut food and health benefits for the bottom 20%, presumably so the poor will be too hungry and sick to vote for change.

The culture of win/lose goes all the way down to the Second Amendment devotees who scream, “I’m right; you’re wrong,” and brandish their AR-15s like the top 1% brandish money. “We want our guns, and to hell with anybody else.”

An I-win-you-lose Administration runs an I-win-you-lose economic system. Citizens are held hostage by an I-win-you-lose Congress and an I-win-you-lose gun lobby. Can a ‘loser’ citizen make any difference?

I tried. I ran for the U.S House to protest Schrader’s support for lax gun laws. 15% of voters seemed to agree with me. But had Schrader even noticed? Did my campaign have any effect? Or am I still insignificant, a mere citizen?

The day after the election, as the numbers settled, but before I could call him, Schrader called me. Yes, a one-percenter called his defeated opponent. Maybe there was change afoot. Maybe I’d won after all.

My Decision to Run

My decision to run for Kurt Schrader’s U.S. House seat was a spontaneous burst of outrage, and yet not totally illogical. In December, he signed HR-38, the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act which would force Oregon to recognize the concealed carry standards of every other state, even those with the weakest standards - even those that require no permit at all. Then in February, Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I’d had enough. Guns and gun control needed to be on the ballot. Schrader, with a 73% approval rating from the NRA, was out of step with the majority of his constituents. I signed up with the Secretary of State to challenge this Democratic turncoat.

As I looked more closely at my opponent, I discovered a smart, competent, dedicated, scandal-free man who loves Oregon and works across the aisle for healthy, national solutions. He’s what I think everyone would want in a Congressman. A member of Problem Solvers (a caucus in the House which a Member can join if he brings someone from the opposite party with him), he was able to unite enough members of Congress around a bill to designate forest fires as federal disasters, thus saving the limited funds of the Forest Service. This was a big win for western states.