An Overall Feeling of Helplessness

Time to cowboy up.

What a week...

Wisconsin shows that with enough money and enough balls a state government can do whatever the hell they want to, even in the face of widespread public disapproval.  I am not that hopeful for recall until I actually see it happening.  While I do think there are thousands of motivated Cheeseheads out there, I wonder about the whole oh-look-a-shiny-object aspect of the American electorate.  Will they follow through?  I hope so, but I live half a country away and have already spent my discretionary money at ActBlue supporting them.  

What can I do?

The federal government is going to shut down next week.  It is going to shut down because one political party has sworn obeisance to the idea that we must never, ever, under any circumstances raise taxes on rich people.  Paul Krugman - who's not really an Obama fan - notes that the only thing done in Washington to help control long term growth in the deficit is health care reform.  Which the GOP is trying to kill.  They don't care about deficits, they just want to get rid of programs that help people who are not them.  Given the Democrats general spinelessness in negotiations and the fact that they WANT to keep the government functioning while the Teatards want to return to the Articles of Confederation means that they have little leverage.  Millions of Americans are likely to suffer under the proposed draconian budget cuts, which could also imperil the recovery.

What can I do?

The NFL owners have locked out their players and deprived millions of fans the pleasure of football's "hot stove" season and the hope that goes with "wait until next year".  These billionaires are taking direct aim - not at the millionaires like Manning, Brady and Brees, they will get their money - but the journeyman interior lineman and the guy who plays three years shuttling back and forth from the practice squad.  There could be no better example of the plutocracy than the owners.  They want players to give up a billion dollars in revenue sharing, play two more games a year in a sport that demonstrably shortens their lives already and the evidence that they offer up to justify this?  Because we said so.  Suck on it proles. Suck on it fans.

What can I do?

My profession is under attack.  I'm not a public school teacher; I don't belong to a union.  I will - hopefully - get my first real raise in two years later this week when I - hopefully - get rehired.  I had a nice talk with my Head who praised the work I was doing.  But I live in a climate where - for political advantage - the idea of teaching, the idea of objective knowledge and critical thinking itself is under attack.  Members of the GOP running for higher office will not come out and acknowledge the accuracy of evolution.  They won't admit the data of climate science.  They will misread history and the evolution of American democracy.  I can waive my hands and thunder at the front of my classroom, but in the end...

What can I do?

And then there is Japan.  There is no one to blame.  No people in the world are better prepared for an 8.9 earthquake than the Japanese.  Their architecture, their warning systems, their culture are all geared towards surviving an event like this.  And yet in the end, we will see a death toll that will dwarf Katrina or 9/11.  And that's without the sort of rampant government incompetence we saw in New Orleans or the negligence we saw leading up to the attacks on the towers.  Japan did everything possible, but it was not enough.  

What can I do?

I don't know.  I haven't blogged much recently, because I've been busy with end of the marking period stuff, but also because there just isn't anything you can say in face of all this.  I'm not sure what one can do beyond words anyway.  

It's spring.  For the first time in months you can see grass and dirt.  There is a promise of warmer days and growing things.  The world is always ending and yet it seems to go on.

In the end, maybe all any of us can offer is a prayer for the people of Japan and a little more diligence towards our own gardens in the hope that something will grow.  

That's my plan at the moment anyway.

UPDATE: THIS is good news. Simply put: Japan's reactors are not that dangerous right now.