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The empty joy of billionaires versus the genuine and deep joy of communing with animals and people and Nature.
Shouldn’t the victorious be genuinely happy? Shouldn’t the defeated be sad, worried, and lost in contemplation?
Superficially, that’s what the situation looks like today, post-election. The GOP is ebullient, looking forward to taking and abusing power. The Democrats are lost, confused and wondering what went wrong. They are on the mat and, for the moment, too stunned to get up.
Both sides are obsessed with winning. But what they seek to win is really not that important. Both parties operate within a system awash in corporate money and one that allows policymakers a very narrow range of choices.
For example, ending the exploitation of workers or even seriously improving their conditions are out of the question. Ending the massive abuse of the Earth by sharply slashing the production and use of fossil fuels is also not an option.
In other words, governments and corporations have little to no chance of either helping people or preventing the deadly collapse of the biosphere, and perhaps dooming most of our species.
I only care about elections because one party—the GOP—has great enthusiasm for brutalizing our citizenry in the cruelest possible way. And the Democrats, well some of…
