FOR THOSE OF US WITHOUT A GATED HIDEAWAY

Jill Cozzi's post at Brilliant at Breakfast acted as a final spark for me today. In "So Long [Gulf of Mexico], And Thanks For All The Fish", she begins:

I hope you all have had a chance to enjoy a tropical beach at least once in your life, because the days of sitting on pristine sands, looking at turquoise water and enjoying a dinner of fresh-caught fish are over, thanks to the oil-soaked greed of the Bush family and their cronies, the complete selling out of America to corporations, our own sense of petroleum-based entitlement, and Barack Obama's insistence on playing nice with greedy bastards.

Read her post for the details.
So I'll share here some of my not-quite-all-the-way-finished thoughts:

If you ardently believe in imminent Endtimes (count on it, in fact)

AND/OR if you ardently believe wealth is meant for only the elite few and there is not enough to go around, certainly not for the unworthy

AND/OR you are hopeless about human nature being inherently decent

AND/OR you secretly know climate change means hundreds of millions will die before the end of this entury unless a stop is put to the lifestyle which accrues you and your friends wealth and power

If you have this kind of damaged, defeated, christianist, white supremacist, male dominated worldview, you will easily decide to loot what is available for looting as you prepare your compound in Paraguay with its own private and pristine water source that will not be affected by the desertification of much of the globe.

You will easily decide rendering our own ocean unfit for anything BUT drilling is a logical step, a hedge against coming oil wars, because those who depend on fishing and nature are expendable segments of the population.

You will all speak the same language -- which we can interpret, if we are only willing to admit it -- and you will slyly allow things to go past the point of remedy. Beginning with the more unbeloved of our national coastlines.

Katrina and Rita response now appear as dry runs.

This is what I'm thinking. And I can read it also in the post of Jill, whom I trust.

But I am not hopeless, and I will not give up. They are wrong in ALL their beliefs, and I will not let them frame the question or close my mind to possibility. It can just as easily become the event that sweeps our elite from all decision-making over our lives. We can imagine that occurring, and whatever we can honestly imagine is a potential reality. Because, in fact, WE are in charge of our own perspective, and we are not stupid. Deceivable but not stupid, and that is the critical difference their class training has missed.

Not stupid, and we have a means of speaking to each other from the heart.

Rest up, allow yourselves to have a truly joy-filled weekend if you can, but rest up in any event. Talk with you soon.