Oh Sarah Huckabee Sanders. And Ron DeSantis. … And EVERYBODY! … Such ignorance of life and life systems … hence disrespect for knowledge of living systems.
And MAGA-demos elected y’all to GOVERN!?! Ignorance is bliss, but not for the governed.
Wake up! Learn!! Be WOKE!!!
(We do such a piss poor job of teaching the science of biology … gender determination, the challenges of taxonomy, diversity & variation, the crazy dynamics & beautiful messiness of life and living systems, etc., etc., etc. … Such a poor realization of the learning of the science of biology.
Our primary challenge is “positively ethical applied community ecology/PEACE” … biology … across the curricula and campuses of all human organizational entities.)
Why are we not locally & globally abiding by the universal golden rule and working perseveringly, persistently, comprehensively & profoundly in a solidarity of truly sharing and caring toward equity???
Why do we not have “positively ethical applied community ecology/PEACE” education across campuses & curricula of all human organizational entities (churches, clubs, businesses, bureaucracies, etc.)?? Can we not begin to understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Precautionary Principle, and that “Less Is More?”
Why are we so apathical and complacent about realizing the above? Why do we mostly just hope and pray … and/or continue to numbly, ignorantly, mindlessly, carelessly, rampantly consume/artificialize/destroy? Why are we not critically thinking and acting? Why are we not morally & ethically strategic?
Can we not systematicly (“millingly”) change this Eaarth of neoliberal capitalism and militarism, and War (against “races”, ethnicity, sexual persuasions, those who are different, …, each other) and socio-ecological destruction … to a neo-Earth of PEACE and quality life for all???
I am sorry! But I would just continue to be me & do it over and over again!!!
(The stimulus for these thoughts was a story on the recent very nice work of art, “The Banshees …” presented this morning on CBS NEWS Sunday Morning [The Banshees of Inisherin – Wikipedia ])
I am full of empathy. But I am also very callous. (And, by the way, I AM [not so uniquely] a sinner!)
Love and sensitivity are an inherent part of me. … On the other hand, I arrogantly believe I read people and the world pretty well. And I tell the world what I think about it. I speak “my Truths.”
In my feeble, terribly human ways, I think I am as right as most. But certainly, my Truths have been initially & necessarily formed with religious doctrine & very necessary Myth, and sprinkled, shaded, obscured with various levels of mistake in the process of being informed by science.
Because my Truths and the way I communicate them often challenge the indoctrination & lives lived and unsustainable livelhoods and excessive lifestyles of status quo Haves and those in power … many, maybe most, absolutely do not want to hear it!
(Haves who wield Power Inappropriately view Truth as Toxic.)
Thusly, I have lost the “friendship of friends,” even family (though because I think of the gently, savvy genes of Mom St. Louise [Kneuper] Martin, not that many?). But on the other hand, some (my very special partner, some siblings, a couple of offspring, a childhood friend et al., a major professor, several college co-studiers of entomology, several dear “communitarians” here in our current home town, a couple of dear mentors out west/north/east/way south, and a few others) … have hung tight with me over the years despite my frequent “toxic” outspokeness in quixotically trying to buck the system.
The really important Truths involve a profound and holistic abiding by:
o David Orr’s “all education is ecological education” (paraphrased) and realizing that we must have “positively ethical applied community ecology across curricula/PEACE” across campuses & curricula of all human orgnizational entities
o Wendell Berry’s “To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.”
o the golden rule and caring & sharing (Do strive hard and perseveringly toward equity & elimination of disparity and take care, as humanity, to live in concert with a dynamic homeostatic symbioses which INCLUDES humans.)
o the second law of thermodynamics, the precautionary principle, and “Less Is (always) More!”
If we do this, we will be OK! That is my story and I am sticking to it!
…………………….
I am sorry. I tell the world what I think. I speak “my Truths.” And despite the loss of supposed friendship and presumed friends, I would do it over and over and over again.
One more moment of “insanity” before I get started on a focused 3-day effort at finalizing a sub-project in the translation-into-Portuguese process for our little applied ecology book, Games We Play …
Remember the Alamo! … I mean … the sacred Second Amendment. Stop this crazy insanity of attempts at banning or regulating guns.
We need more guns in kindergarten!
Arm these poor, threatened young’uns!!!
More arms in all schools.
More arms, more guns, more AR-15s, more AK-47s in schools, in Ameeerika, in the world … here on Eaarth. That’s what we MUST have. (You know … More Is More, and better!
Think & act through the moral lens/mindset of immorality … I mean morality … of the Holy NRA, our Christian God-given 2nd Amendment, through the wonderful ethos/psyche of neoliberal capitalism.
Fewer guns!??! Fewer arms. Fewer nuclear armaments just because we have already have enough to do in Earth several times over. … That’s insane!
(Prepared for Five Minute Presentations to Local Governing Entities in Seguin, Guadalupe County, mid-Jan 2023)
You know … it could be that the GOOD I learned from frugal low-input/-throughput Mom & Dad, through Catholicism (& Francis’ Laudato Si’), rural Devine-Texas, civil rights & ecological movements of the 1960’s & 70’s, the times of the horrible Vietnam Conflict, the ecology I learned at A&M & the University of Florida and from scientists, academicians, scholars (including Niebuhr & his Moral Man and Immoral Society), and experiencing some of the real poverty and desperate struggles for needs of friends in Latin America … it could be that that GOOD is “wrong?”
I don’t think so. I may be deemed as looney, off my rocker and super unrealistic. And I am certainly flawed, ignorant, & very imperfect. But I am not insane in my actions. Au contraire. The problem, rather, is an uneducated, stubborn, immoral (and relatively insane) global society, including of course its leaders.
A basic problem is WAR. Our rampant artificialization is de facto WAR on nature. And neoliberal capitalism results in, and even needs, WAR.
WAR! War on topsoil & quality air, quality water. War on photosynthesizers and sustainable primary productivity and biodiversity. War against the benefits of natural/sustainable capure of daily solar energy. War against each other. War on sustainable social & ecological fabrics.
I want you to dig deep into your psyche and ethos and begin to see the Why? and How? we change this culture of WAR; and What? we must do … and relatively soon! Consequently, you should immediately recognize that the only decent, moral, and ethical option is DEGROWTH and that you all should be robustly & sincerely, strategically, “teaching, preaching, & politicking”* this.
(*The great Texan, Lyndon Baines Johnson, emphasized that the only thing worth being is a teacher, preacher, and a politician. We all do some of this. Hopefully we do it well, and for the good of all of the Eaarth.)
…………………………………………………
Real change from the inertia of status quo is tough. (At my “young age of 76” and “youthful knees”, it is generally difficult to simply rise from a couch after sitting for a period of time.)
We don’t emphasize enough that capitalism is a systems root-evil of socio-ecological injustice in many of our (superficial) accolades for one of the greatest of peoples, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who we honored on January 16th and in the days surrounding. But Dr. King knew and spoke often of the toxicity of what we often refer to in today’s world as neoliberalism … and the need for change from status quo. And he taught, preached, and politicked against capitalism in a positively strategic way regularly in his 39 years of life. Therefore, concordantly, I humbly agree that we desperately need systematic-system, strategic change from socio-ecologically destructive capitalism which results in MINDLESS CONSUMERISM, inequity & racism & xenophobia & anti-immigrant/anti-have-not policies, militarism, buildup of guns and armaments … and resultant inevitable WAR.
Locally and globally, we must realize action (vs. satisfaction, complacency, apathy) to radically modify our lifestyles and our institutions toward a system different from growth-dependent neoliberal, laissez-faire capitalism. Of course, if you folk of our local governance have a mind to, you can truly help locally … and hence globally.
Now even though I have perhaps jarred you a bit and maybe even totally closed
your minds, I am going to continue for a while longer.
Back in the 1950’s when I read my Weekly Reader (You
remember the 1950’s don’t you [Mayor Dodgen, President Guerra, Judge Kutscher]?),
there was a piece about how the frutos del mar, the ocean, will always be
a dependable source of feeding the world.
Of course, that was before plastic, or widespread use of plastic. And it was before widespread knowledge of
global climate change caused by the use of fossil energy and fossil materials
when we make plastics and other artificialities, and before widespread mass
production of other toxically addictive stuff … in this global world which de
facto worships at the altar of the God of growth-dependent neoliberal
capitalism.
Anyway, current scientific predictions are that the mass of
plastics in the oceans will exceed the mass of fish 30 years from now, IF we
don’t realize profound & comprehensive systematic system change.
Recently in a neighborhood gathering with snacks in our front yard, when I said something detrimental about disposable plastic bags, and the desperate need to ban them, one of our elected officials quickly pointed out that “THE alternative”, multiple use/reusable plastic bags, is even worse, or at a minimum not better. A problem is that that elected official was not critically thinking, and (apparently) certainly not critically acting. “THE solutions” lie not in reusable PLASTIC bags but in strategies of no-growth, consuming less, and reuse, and along with this, profoundly sharing and deeply caring in a “christian” (with a small “c”), or jewish, muslim, buddhist, secular humanist, etc., etc. kind of way. One aspect of this “solution” is the homemaking of shopping bags from old cloth scraps, like this one (in hand) of many made by Mom St. Louise Kneuper Martin. And I am going to give this one (in hand) to young Jackson Biesenbach, who recently has been regularly attending Seguin City Council meetings as a wonderful and conscientious good citizen of Seguin.
(Also, before I leave this aspect of my presentation which sort of deals with the culturally- and religiously-molded closed minds which Dr. King struggled and battled against in his short life, I must mention that that alternatives to so-called democratic capitalism don’t have to be an even worse system involving totalitarianism. We can go the route of democratic eco-socialism like the Nordic countries … or something even better.)
…………………..
You will probably be happy to know that I probably won’t be
visiting your meetings much in 2023 for these presentations. I am currently
working on a Portuguese version of our little applied ecology book, I plan to
travel to do a considerable amount of volunteer work here in the U.S., with
indigenous peoples, and in Latin America this year. Moreover, in just this recent holiday period,
I spent a considerable amount of time traveling to Oklahoma, Weatherford-Texas,
and closer Medina and Bastrop counties here in Texas, for funerals of family
and friends who were about my age, and younger. I feel strongly that this and related visiting
are appropriate actions I must fit in at this stage of my life. But these things do take time and energy!
Therefore, unless I really get really stirred up by silly pro-growth propaganda, or related issues, I don’t plan to be doing many of these little five-minute presentations (which do take considerable time for my little brain to formulate) to y’all in the future. But who knows? (I will probably bring in a young man from Brasil to say a few words along with my own, when he and his two young boys visit in mid-February.)
Finally, to assist in local critical thinking and action,
herein this handout, I have included a list of books I wish you’d purchase and
read.
I do appreciate your time and patience! And thanks for your efforts at ecological learning and critical thinking, policy-making, and action … and learning together with our populace, your staff, and our youth. And remember that as the great learner Dr. David Orr of Oberlin College has said (paraphrased a bit), “All education is ecological education!”
Readings Which Could Help Make You
Good Decision-Makers
Less Is More. How Degrowth Will Save the World. Jason Hickel (Economic Anthropologist) NECESSARY ACTION, “easy” read (Hickel builds on the work of E.F. Shumacher, H.T. Odum, and the amazing Texan/Rice graduate, Herman Daly)
The Art of Commonplace. Wendell Berry (Farmer, poet, essayist, ecological activist. Along with his friend and genetic agronomist, Wendell is one of the best of humans.) LIVING SUSTAINABLY, Easy read
World Wildlife Fund Living Planet Reports. STATE OF THE
EAARTH, many years of reports
Nature’s Economy. A
History of Ecological Ideas. Donald Worster (Ecological historian) IMPORTANT HISTORY!, lengthy, but well written
An Inconvenient Apocalypse.
Environmental Collapse, Climate Crises, and the Fate of Humanity.
Wes Jackson & Robert Jensen (Jensen is an ethicist & journalist, professor emeritus,
UT-Austin) PERHAPS THE MOST NECESSARY OF ALL THESE READS, well written and
short, but it might be a difficult read for some
Food, Energy, & Society.
David & Marcia Pimentel (Especially after the
energy crisis of the 1970’s, entomologist David Pimentel led the way in many
aspects of the science to some knowledge of energetics in agricultural systems,
national and global systems. He was a
friend, and influenced me greatly!) ENERGETICS,
probably a difficult read
Resource Conservation and Management. G. Tyler Miller, Jr. (Chemist & author of many text books on ecology) GOOD LISTS OF PRINCIPLES FOR UNDERSTANDING & SUSTAINING THE EARTH in Miller’s books. I used the list from this particular book on pages 136-8 in Games We Play. “Easy” read
Behave. The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. Robert Sapolsky (Neuroendocrinology) THE LATEST ON OUR “RIGHTEOUS MINDS”, fairly easy read, but it takes time to read
(I do believe page 141 (and other pages) of our little book on “Positively Ethical Applied Community Ecology/PEACE”, Games We Play is worth reading. I do wish that on page 141 (Giants of Education) that in some way I had added “basic life skills of gardening, carpentry, metal work, plumbing, electronics, …”.) Games We Play (kite.pub)
paul vain martin
7 S’s / VV->^^
(Just for you to know me a bit better, I have included two photos with the written pages of this presentation, one from the early 1960’s and the other of the mid to late 1950’s of my formative years. I am the oldest of six. I do wish my sister, the youngest and the prettiest, would have been included in these photos from that period.
…………
And after hearing at the Seguin City Council meeting of the near-future work to be done on the golf course, I would refer you to some opinions about the relatively high-input and ecologically destructive game of golf on page 131 of our book, Games We Play. At the bottom of that page, I write “A sustainable golf course would be one of locally-adapted native plants, would use no pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, would be maintained with grazers & browsers, and would be mostly walked.”)
I do not not really understand hate of other living things. Moreover, I do not understand unforgiveness. Both result in so many maladies.
I do not understand how anyone can receive a gift without saying thank you. (A mark of educated persons is that they are grateful for the gifts given them.)
All should be welcomed into each others village, in each others home. (Caring and sharing is super-important!)
Yes, moreso than others, respect is a complicated and “loaded” word. … Nevertheless, I do believe all should have a respect for their elders, no matter how “bad” these elders might be. (A mark of educated persons is that they give [warranted?] respect to all, and all others.)
Conspicuous consumption and greed can easily sneak up on you! Frugality and humility take discipline, practice, perseverance, work.
I believe there is (potential for) good in the baddest and (potential for)bad in the goodest.
Communication can be impossible. But we do have to try! Also, communication does take a village. Finally, failure to communicate results in so many maladies. … (More is not more. “Less Is More.”)
………………………….
To boot …
“All things must pass All things must pass away” George Harrison
mundane things were in the plans
for this last day of 2022
(by this relatively comfortable not
overly-intelligent, sort of lazy white guy
who over 76 years eased himself
into a doctoral degree
and relatively cush livelihoods and some relatively significant power on this Eaarth)
1. work on an irs nag
(irs is threatening to penalize me
if i don’t adequately respond to
their requests by the first week in january
[in the 55+ years required to do
so
i have mostly done my own tax
paperwork & filing
and contrary to what maga-admired “silver-spoon-in-his-mouth,”
“wall-‘em-out” trump does
i always give the u.s. government the benefit of the doubt
even though much of my tax goes to the military-industrial machine of which i disapprove])
……….
2.
a planned bicycle ride and then a swim
(seventy-six years old? gotta get the exercise … regularly)
……….
3.
and I have obligated myself to work a new year’s eve wedding at the silver
center
(for which my beautiful betsy is on the board)
…………………..
o but readings early this morn,
and tv news, of the plight of immigrants on our texas border
o this morning’s boob tube displays
of the wealth of people of this nation
o and trivial (and exploitive … and
definitely not trivial) pursuits of this estados unidos
(four percent of the world’s
population consuming 24 percent of Eaarth’s
resources)
o these Holy days; the news of benedict-of-the-(wealthy)
vatican’s death
o and news from another desperately
poor central-american young friend
of her difficult trek from nicaragua (not yet completed) to reagan’s shining city on the hill
(the rich dreamland on this Eaarth, … historically land-grabbing & genocidal; of slavery & exploitive neoliberal capitalism, reagan’s “wonderful” trickle-down economics, and george w. & obama et al.’s militarism)
the “shining jewel of a nation”
which from the early 1900s employed its powerful military
to invade/intervene in/exploit Yoseling Cordonero’s dear nicaragua
the intervention was thoroughly done
militarily and economically
with marines, large corporations, and
puppet-dictators
(and then reagan’s toxic contras of the 1980s)
……….
Yoseling left her home in chilamatillo community, tipitata, managua department this month
a few days before the celebrated birth
of the mythically holy jesus of nazareth
a birth which was supposedly part
of the reason christians (and perhaps some Christians)
are holy, sharing and caring, …
and live sabiamente, simply, smally, slowly, steadfastly, and sustainably
********************************
(this all) started my head pinging about the hypocrically immoral & unethical Christians, including yours truly, in this nation of the u.s. of a.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
…………………..
WHY?? …
from Christians in the u.s.a. …
prayer, satisfaction, complacency, apathy, and smug arrogance
versus
from what should be “positively
ethical applied community ecologists/PEACE-makers” …
real systematic system change toward socio-ecological justice & caring in a humble ethos of “Less Is More”
Nevertheless, Trump and Trumpism, Bolsonaro and Bolsonarism, Orban and Orbanism, Putin and Putinism, etc., etc. … neoliberal capitalism are for the most part evil.
I have done some very evil things in my life. But I think Mom St. Louise Martin, Grandma Eva Martin, Tony Cruz; the good, bad, and ugly, and hypocrisy, of Devine-Texas, Texas A&M, Naval Air, Land Grant University & USDA research systems; Vatican II, the civil rights movement, the hypocrisy and horrors of Vietnam, the ecological movement of the 1960’s and 70’s; and Pope Francis and Laudato Si’ pretty much formed me into an ignostic “christian” who truly wishes, and somewhat/sometimes tries, to be more like Jesus of Nazareth and St. Francis of Assisi.
