Foxes Protect Their Earth

A tax reform to better the welfare of those who pass it. Sponsoring a nominee who’ll heed to his supporters’ demands. The redesigning of vote districts to increase odds of electing agreeable candidates. That is, the old fashioned feathering of one’s own nest taken to a novel level.

While people are entitled to defend their own interests, living in a democratic society implies that common causes often take precedence over individual needs. And ideally, we elect governments so to arbitrate and find balance over conflicting extremes. Except when they don’t.

The staggering number of special-interest decisions the U.S. president has taken reveals a disturbing reality: as more Americans get caught in the fallout of the administration’s unfair policies, many are realizing that our current head of state has in fact little regard to the state he heads.

Two months from his first year in office and the U.S. finds itself in an unprecedented position in the world: a gigantic, dangerous pariah, at odds with most civilized nations, allies or not, and pretty much every treat, agreement, and global convention that kept the state of the planet relatively predictable. Even as that was never an ideal condition to be, at least, a commonly accepted reality goes a long way toward stability.

From the get-go, Trump’s inflammatory stance about, well, everything but white supremacists and Russian affairs, has placed the U.S. in the crosshairs of North Korea, and the Muslim world, while antagonizing women, Latinos, the scientific and gay communities, should we go on?

His latest disastrous foray into foreign policy practically lit up a new set of explosive kegs in the Middle East, when supporting the claims of Israel’s ultra-right to rule Jerusalem as its own. Like other decisions of his, this one also shows an absolute lack of reflection and due debate.

Granted, the approval of a massive set of tax cuts to corporations and the very wealthy preceded him, as it’s been an old Republican Party aspiration, and just spelling this out in words is, 

in itself, bizarre. But as soon as it became clear he and his family would reap generous profits from it, his push for it was decisive. The matter is not over yet, but there’s a chance that, once passed, the GOP may have little use for him.

But before wishful thinking about a possible impeachment, or a criminal process that could unseat him, Trump has already made a signature of his White House term to sabotage and wipe out every piece of environmental legislation, almost always to benefit the fossil-fuel industries.

That such stance goes so against everything we now know about climate change, pollution, powerful interests hurting the little guy, and downright isolation from the civilized world, is indeed stupefying. And given the gloomy consequences of his all-out support to notorious polluters, whatever happens to him, personally, becomes beside the point. Future generations, starting with the next, will be footing this bill.

Beyond the president’s evident poor judgment, and lack of expert advising when making decisions that will affect millions and the planet, there’s also their complete lack of sync with the reality shared by the rest of the world. That flawed quality was at full display last week.

Just as we were all assaulted by end-of-world raging fires in California, and the brutality of a viral video of a polar bear, starving to death on an Arctic’s iceless patch of land, a direct consequence of climate change, the Lout-in-Chief signs on a radical reduction of two federal parks.

With the stabbing of his pen, he cut down 85% of Bears Ears national monument, and half of Grand Staircase-Escalante, both in Utah, to, you guessed, allow oil and gas drilling, mining, and logging, and the likely destruction of estimated thousands of Native American sacred sites.

Some two million acres of pristine land will be lost, exactly to those industries responsible for much of the dire state of the global environment of our age. Something else too, perhaps even worse: the decision looks like a welcome sign for developers to come and feast on federal land.

Going back to perennial optimists, who envision impeachment as a way to halt the cascade of bad executive decisions, it’s always instructive to mention the #metoo movement. Now, that’s a way more reasonable outcome to expect, or rather, hope, for this unworthy administration.

The movement that has turned tables on sexual abusers in Congress and in high positions, forcing some to step down and be accountable for their actions, has a crucial box to check next: setting up public hearings for each of the 16 women accusing the president of sexual misdeeds.

They will need our help to accomplish such a difficult task, but there isn’t any doubt as for who’ll benefit from it: Americans of all genders.

Before that happens, though, we may endure the sad spectacle of electing to the Senate a president and GOP-supported sex predator and pedophile, according to yet another group of women. Tomorrow’s Alabama Special Election may become another shameful day in America.

And on Thursday, all going according to a plan conceived in the bowels of hell and execrated by the majority, the FCC will hand control of the worldwide Internet to a handful of media corporations. Or maybe the commission will postpone its decision for when no one is looking.

Finally, to our readers around the world, whose patience is running thin for our insistence on covering the U.S. and its deranged leader so often, leaving other important world affairs aside, one paltry, but solid, justification: the guy’s finger is of the trigger of a nuclear holocaust.

This is not about breaking news, but someone whose demeanor shows little restrain and lots of anger, does make the world alarmingly unsafe.

Foxes protect their fox-earth, or burrow, just as alike minds tend to stick together. The difference is that we choose our allies based on their character and compassion; the powerful pick the ones who’ll serve them, round up the hens, and bring them diet Cokes. By the way, this is an instance when using an animal as a metaphor doesn’t do it justice: no fox is as conniving as such wretched human beings.

Some may dismiss our angst by stating the obvious: that’s what happens when the lamb vote on a wolf to be their leader. But that’s not how we comfort those we care about. Instead, we work to unmask the pretender and undo the charade. A country, race, or civilization are not made up only of the good and the virtuous, or about us vs them. Ideals may be pure but it’s time to get dirty to save us from this Dark Age. Chin up.

(*) Originally published on Colltales on Dec. 11, 2017.