I consider myself a born iconoclast. From as early as I can remember I learned not to trust what I was told by those ostensibly in the know.
I chalk it all up to having been put in a boarding school at the age of six for a couple years, and having the known ground suddenly cut out from under me, while everything I’d ever known up to then fell away and disappeared.
Somehow or other I survived it, as did the other boys, and I adapted to the harsh reality of what was, and have ever since.
I bring this up only because the general theme of this edition of The Sun is sort of in celebration of the 250th birthday of the good old USA. So, let’s take a look at our history.
First, our country, built on the colonial tradition, was initially populated by Native “Americans” who were forthwith treated as brutal savages that stood in the way and needed to be removed or slaughtered in the process.
Along with that genocide was the birth and rapid expansion of slavery, which we all know about in vibrantly great detail … its aftermath still with us. And yes, yes, we know all this, although far too many of we Americans seem to have forgotten or insistently disagree with this stark reality.
Then we come to the whole panoply of wars this country cooked up on the way toward world wars and after. Which brings us to the 18th and 19th centuries and the intimately oppressed, i.e., women, people of color, immigrants, common laborers and uneducated classes and generally those who think and see things “differently.” And bringing this up to today, we have the blanket disenfranchising and castigation of anyone who doesn’t think like Trump or his cohorts.
Granted, this is just a summary of the last 250 years, and leaves out the progress we’ve made, the good things that have been accomplished, the aspirational ideas dreamed, and plans made that counter some of the more disastrous mistakes and stupid beliefs we’ve rolled into the mix.
So, if we diligently stir this admixture of good and bad ingredients, it seems to me we wind up with a skeptical and cynical outlook in general, especially if we take into account that humanity has brought us to the brink of nuclear annihilation, tik tock, and (let us not forget) human-caused global warming and climate change, which assuredly will profoundly alter our planet and all the life and environment upon it. Not to leave out the projected outcome of AI and the new world of robots and its inevitable interfacing with humanity.
And lastly, we are living in the sixth mass extinction period, thanks to humankinds meddling into things it didn’t fully understand or think out before acting upon.
What a sad and lonely world will that be, fellow humans, without the other animals, the great forests and the viable functioning oceans, along with animal and plant life, gone and not retrievable because of our blind drive to consume and devour all we behold.
Happy birthday, amigos.
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