Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

Happy Fourth of July!  Today we celebrate in blissful denial, as polls show that we are driving just as many miles as ever this holiday, flying just as many miles, as if this consumer nation can just go on like this forever.

To help make this possible — to stretch out the era of denial a little longer — the House passed legislation last week that ends a 25-year moratorium on offshore drilling.  The anti-hero once again is Rep. Richard Pombo, who never saw a pristine wonderland not worthy of destruction if it means profit for energy industry corporations, or a science of climate change not worthy of being debunked.  You have to wonder sometimes what this guy has against the Earth.

Typical of the brand of Republicans that now rule Congress, Pombo was made chair of the House Resources Committee.  The fox is indeed in charge of you-know-what.

Read the linked article to find out how this legislation also contributes to a fiscal debacle, robbing the US Treasury of billions of needed dollars.  It represents another example of how House Republicans would simply like to destroy the federal government.

Yes, Happy Fourth!!  The bill still must pass the Senate where it faces much stiffer opposition.  Bet you know how you could add to that stiffening.  Might be a good way to honor the nation’s birthday.

Maybe the best celebration of this 230th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence would be for we citizens to take responsibility for this government, which has been so decimated, or “disarticulated,” by the current anti-leadership.  Limited as popular democracy was in the beginning, it would do us well to reclaim a bit of that spirit that put rebels in the streets back in Boston, New York, Valley Forge, and elsewhere in these old colonies — demanding government that represents the people, their welfare, the common good.