Food For Thought

While I’ve been pound¬ing out drug horror stories on my faithful computer, the world has been mov¬ing on. Osama Bin Laden is dead and his compound is now an historical site.

When Barack Obama debated John McCain, they were asked if they would go into Pakistan if they were told Osama Bin Laden was there, McCain said he would ask permission first; Obama said he would go in and get him. And he did.

At the end of the Clinton Presidency, we were beginning to balance the bud¬get and the projection was that, within ten years at the present rate, we would have a balanced budget. Then came the Dubya (Bush) Presidency and at the end of his Presidency we were in a multi-trillion dollar hole because of the ill-fated invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden remained free at the end of the Bush Presidency and our infrastructure was crumbling because of the wars.

Right now, the wars continue. Okay, we have Bin Laden—or the oceans have his body—mission really accom-plished. True, Al Qaeda still exists but they are fragmented all over the world. Maybe it’s time to pull out of both Iraq and Afghanistan, use the money we’re wasting on the war to rebuild our infra¬structure, hire some teachers who have been laid off, save American soldiers by reuniting them with their families and move towards balancing the budget again.

In a two week period, Barack Obama produced his birth certificate, invaded Osama’s compound and had him killed while running our country. Obama is one bad-ass gangsta, folks. He deserves a second term.

But it’s time to rethink the wars, elim¬inate the tax breaks for the rich, shift the money from the war machine to the United States machine, and work on balancing the budget so China doesn’t own us in 5 years.Also, when it comes to dancing in the streets because some¬one is killed, that is just not the thing to do. All deaths by violence are sad and should be mourned. The only good death is when one dies of old age; now that’s a natural occurrence.

In today’s newspaper, it says that the Republican Party is going to push for trillions of dollars in cuts. But they want all the cuts to hurt the people of the United States. They want to attack Medicare, Social Security, programs that have proven themselves.

I say that Congress should have all its members come under the Medicare & Social Security acts and lose their special entitlements. Maybe then we’ll have them focus on other ways for the United States to save money. Why are the rich getting richer and the other 95% of the people in our country losing ben¬efits and money? Why do corporations have the same powers as individuals when lobbying while the corporations have so much more money.

Money is the power of free speech in our country. The people have become muzzled. The war machine and the rich are trampling our rights and lives. Enough on this topic.
Now to switch to an understate¬ment—Global Warming! People, when they hear that phrase, which has become a meme(a term that has spread through the human consciousness like a virus spreads), think that it only means that some places will get hotter. That’s far from the truth.

Take a look at all the Global Turbulence that has recently occurred. Hurricane Katrina—New Orleans was still in the process of recovering from that effect of Global Turbulence when the Great BP Oil Spill took place. The same process that causes Global Warming, I mean Turbulence, was the cause of the BP Oil Spill. The extensive use of fossil fuels by our expanding civi¬lization causes this devastating effect. How does Hurricane Katrina fall into the same ballpark as the BP Oil Spill? Well, it’s all connected to our burgeoning demand for more and more energy, mostly fossil fuels, and as our popula¬tion expands and gets hungrier for more energy—events take place that are liter-ally a connected spider-web of catastro¬phes.

Every time we have an environmental catastrophe, more people are killed and more of our civilization’s infrastructure is destroyed. Right now, as I write this, the Mississippi River is spilling over its banks. There is flooding all through the farmlands and towns nearby.

The good news? Graceland is safe. Elvis fans rejoice. But the facts remain that, as the water recedes from the plac¬es that are flooded, it will take a labor-intensive clean-up. But that’s good, right? The unemployment rate is high and that means jobs. Not fun jobs, of course, but necessary jobs to rebuild our infrastructure.

Then there is the tornado destruc¬tion in North Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama combined with flooding in some of those areas. We have had a record-breaking tornado season and it has just begun. This is what we mean by Global Turbulence.

Then there is the tragedy and rebuilding that is still going on in Haiti. Thousands of people there still remain homeless or live in substandard con¬ditions while recovery work from the earthquake continues.
As our population around the world increases, each Global Tragedy takes more and more lives. Tunisia—over 230,000 people killed. They are still rebuilding from the quakes and tidal waves.

Then there is the tragedy going on in Japan. On March 11 of this year the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northeast Japan, sitting on a major fault line, was crippled by an earth¬quake and disseminated radioactivity all through Hamaoka and farther. It’s not a fossil fuel disaster but it took place because our burgeoning population needed new sources of energy.

The Hamaoka plant, which provides power to central Japan, including Aichi, the home of the Toyota Motor Corp has caused Toyota to fall behind in its production by over 500,000 vehicles. Nuclear energy provides over one-third of Japan’s electricity.

There will be excessive power short¬ages there over the summer. All this is related to Global Turbulence and over¬population. Maybe you have a better term for Global Warming than Global Turbulence.

It should be a powerful term and one that resonates within the human mind, hard to forget and powerful in nature. The meme Global Warming just doesn’t say it all. It’s not powerful enough. Global Turbulence is better but maybe there is a term that is even more power¬ful.

That’s your job to come up with the term. Whatever happens, the Global events occurring all over the world, dec¬imating our human infrastructure, con¬tinue to happen and expand in scope.

Marc D. Goldfinger is a formerly homeless vendor who is now housed. He can be reached at junkietroll@yahoo.com Marc also has books on www.smashwords.net that can be download¬ed for $2.99.