As a country, we are facing two out of control destructive forces: the executive branch of government and forces of nature.
Good Men and Climate Action
Keeping the planet safe for habitation is not a “woman” or “feminine” action, as reported in Fobes Woman. It is gender-neutral PROTECTIVE actions we must adapt to protect ourselves and our children from displacement, starvation, forced migration, homelessness, starvation, and annihilation. This is a not a gender issue — it is a global human issue. It may look like it’s a South and Central American issue or an African issue or a mid-east issue. But don’t kid yourself for a minute. It is happening in the US.
Forces of nature, exacerbated by climate change, is creating a class of nomads and street dwellers of increasing proportions:
- Note the thousands rendered homeless by the California fires and living on the streets and in parking lots.
- Note the thousands rendered homeless and penniless as their homesteads and livestock were destroyed by the flooding in the Midwest.
- Note the hurricane destruction in Puerto Rico, the East Coast, the Gulf coast, and the flooding in California.
Good Men, Kindness, and Respect
Good men, regardless of cultural background, as good people make sure that every person is treated with kindness and respect; has access to housing, food, education, and healthcare; is paid a living wage; can worship or not; and is given full rights regardless of skin color, abilities, and language.
Every person makes choices every day to provide for ourselves and our families. Some choices are easy and others hard. We try to do our best under the best and worst of circumstances. Life for most of us is not easy. Kindness and respect is a gift we can give each other every day.
History in the name of a false sense of elitism
Foreign invaders destroyed the centuries-old culture of the Native Americans because they didn’t look the same, speak the same language, live in the same structures, worship the same, and have the same values.
Colonizers, immigrants, and refugees all came to this country to mine its riches by any means necessary. All seemed fair in this takeover until distant monarchs started making decisions against the people’s best interests. Freedom became the cry during the American Revolution. “No taxation without representation.”
To define this idea of freedom, the wealthy educated landed gentry drew up the Constitution and the bill of rights to protect themselves – not women nor any people who were not of the same class or color. They knew what they were doing, and they did it without a second thought. They based it all on the idea that only they understood freedom and therefore only they were entitled to define and contain it.
Repeating the past will kill our future
Fast forward to today. We are still in the clutches of entitled men, mostly white, who continue to interpret freedom for their own benefit, separate from the people. Their interpretation is called Authoritarianism, only a step or so away from Dictatorship – the antithesis of Freedom and Democracy.
The Dilemma
Good men worked on fusion to produce energy for peace. In the end, their ability to produce the reaction was used for war and decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Good men work for the fossil fuel industry that drives our engines and poisons the air and water. Good men work for chemical companies which ends one problem and poisons our food both farmed and raised. Good men work for pharmaceutical companies which restore health and create epidemic addictions and death.
Good men did and do these jobs because they need to take care of their families who are being poisoned by the work that they do. Fighting the “company” means losing a job, which means not providing for your family. This conundrum is not lost on the owners, corporate giants, who fill their coffers and those of their investors while killing, literally, their workers.
Solution possibilities
I do not have answers to this very real dilemma. However, if there is a chance to change jobs to work for clean energy, poison-free chemicals/fertilizers, or non-hazardous materials to protect our shoreline and infrastructure, do it. There has got to be a way to support life and jobs at the same time.
Good men must act
It is going to take more than women and children to save the country and the planet. Perhaps the country needs to go on a nationwide strike until polluters and poisoners collectively sign an enforceable declaration to reduce emissions and pollutants. Again, the specter of job loss makes this highly unlikely.
The only choice left is changing our government’s perspective. In 2019 special elections and the 2020 elections, Good Men can help change the conversation. If everyone is on board with saving our freedoms, our health, food, and, through climate change initiatives, our future.
- Register to Vote
- Support automatic voter registration – every citizen has the right to vote.
- Support ranked choice voting – rank your preference from a list of candidates and your vote will count.
- Support an end to political gerrymandering – ensure every vote counts.
- Support candidates who support climate change action in agendas going forward.
- Support state initiatives for Election Day Holiday – everyone has a chance to vote.
- Support and show up for campaign initiatives: writing letters, writing postcards, attending rallies.
- Support equal job, equal pay initiatives – value is not about gender or color.
- Support universal healthcare – no one ever again loses their home, or job, or watches a loved one die because they couldn’t afford care or medicine.
- VOTE.
Failure to act: DEAD PEOPLE DON’T SHOP! Silence now means no jobs later, and ultimately a planet that can’t sustain life.
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We celebrate Gay Pride all year long. But this year, we’re doing some special programing for a large-scale campaign #LoveEqually. We’re looking for both sponsors and contributors. Check it out! https://t.co/tkraXFPxLL pic.twitter.com/X2FlBEZb8Y
— The Good Men Project (@GoodMenProject) March 11, 2019
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