It has been interesting to be visiting the United States while Mid-Term Elections were touted, held and now adjudged. There has been no absence of intelligent commentary and writing as things progressed; fingers have been pointed at the lack of any agenda other than crippling the powers of the Presidency. And yet, before my very eyes, the people have voted to remain in the mire of confusion and colossal money wasting.

Once again, Marshall McLuhan shouts loud. The medium IS the message. The US has many streams of media-packaged ‘reality’; the voters chose the medium that convinced them to cast their votes squarely against the interests of all but the very, very few.

It is bewildering in the most literal sense. Time after time the politicians lie and prevaricate. They make it clear their only mission is to keep that cushy job at all costs to the common good. There are so many crises that need attending to, urgently affecting the very citizens they are sworn to represent but they will not shut down the pipeline of money from lobbyists representing those who cause these crises. And yet, in a kind of mass hypnosis the people re-elect them.

I don’t like to be bewildered. I read and I ask and I research and I consult and usually that takes care of providing a tolerable understanding. But there is no understanding this, it is. Acknowledge, step aside and move on. Engaging in the intellectual wanking is a distraction from action, which is clearly what is needed.

There are leaders in action right now who are busily engaged in representing the rights of the people. I will put my attention on them. A place to start is with Dr. David Suzuki at bluedot.ca. A former neighbour of mine, he has made it his life’s work to educate and illuminate his fellow Canadians and to interact with First Nations peoples in a position of respect. He has focused his scientific mind on the environment for decades and has much to share for those who want to know WHAT is being done for good or for ill and how to get involved.

If we do not have air and water and food we cannot survive. It is that simple. Sure there are the daft billionaires who already have bunkers and super yachts and that floating city of the rich that was in the news a few years ago. They think that money will replace the air in their lungs and brains, the water in their bodies, the living foods that fuel them.

Their kind has existed so much in fairytales, legends and mythologies of all cultures. And they always come to a bad end. Greed always plays out to the same void. There is never enough for the truly greedy. There is no debasement they will not succumb to to feed the need for more.

This time though, it is not a myth. It is playing out in front of us in real time. And this time, they are taking the rest of us with them to a bad end. If we continue to let them, in the name of profits for the few, pollute the waters, air and land, we are all dead. If we allow them to commodify water, we are many dead. Nature doesn’t care if she has to shuck us off as a toxic nuisance. She will create new life forms. I am not given to doomsday scenarios or science-fiction thinking. It seems simple to me. We are life forms and thieves and anti-social fraudsters are assaulting the mother that gives and sustains our life force. We are at a critical point.

There are so many places we can start, depending on our proclivities. Politicians need to have their feet held to the fire about false promises and cut the bullshit verbiage. Or get replaced. The stately rules that are in place to fire them are out of touch with the brigands and chancers who actually run for office nowadays. That can be done from home on the computer, or old-fashioned pen to paper.

Any cursory googling will turn up activist movement all over the world. Instead of wasting our time bemoaning the state of things which only makes for misery, doing anything at all that is the right thing is a contribution to self esteem.

I am speaking to myself first of course. At this point in my life I have time again to consider bigger issues that demand my attention and work. My children are raised, my health is good – I love being alive on this beautiful planet and think the minimum any of us can do is keep our own patch clean for the next generations. Earth to earth, dust-to-dust, ashes to ashes. That has not changed.