FINALLY A REASON TO LAUGH

After all the seriousness in our times it’s a relief to find something funny. Funny how Sarah Palin makes people feel alright about being ill-informed.  Funny how huge a portion of North Americans believe that Rush Limbaugh is a reliable source of information.

Funny on John Stewart when he showed clips of the last 8 US Presidents, right back to Nixon and including both Bushes, promising to “end the American addiction to foreign oil” (of course there simply is not enough American domestic oil to get them through 5 years so….).

Funny how everybody has such an abiding confidence in democratic institutions that can change nothing of the agenda of big profit.  Funny how government regulatory agencies are stacked with former (and usually once again) industry people. From Wall Street
regulators to regulators of the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breath, the banks that hold our cash and paper, all a horde of craven yes men for the industries they are bound to oversee.  Of course it makes sense, right?  Who best to understand the  nuances of the energy industry than a captain of  the energy (fossil fuel) industry? The fox looking after the foxes.

How in 1985 the FDA conducted over 50,000 inspections of food production facilities and in 2005 it performed 6,200. And the e-coli and salmonella outbreaks abound.  Funny how the Albertan institution that monitors the water quality downstream from the tar sands is made up of a board of tar sands “developers.” And how they say that there has been no diminishment of water quality these last 40 years. Funny how the little guys get regulated to death and the big boys get a pass.

And here’s the funniest thing.  All of the people still thinking that when the four horsemen of the new apocalypse (population, energy, food and water) meet, the problems that are “likely” will be resolved by “them that know better than we do.”

Funny how many of us have become so adept at living in a bubble of our own creation and believe that whoever else is out there and whatever they do, we’ll be alright Jack.  And that Jesus will save the little babies when we top 10 billion. And 10 billion again. And again.

Funny how guys in Calgary look me in the eye with big cocky grins and tell me that I am brainwashed, that climate change is a fiction created to make University post-grads rich with research money.

You might as well laugh because laughing will change as much as crying will. Or screaming. Or busting windows. Or shifting deck chairs on the Titanic.  Ha ha.

This Saltspring post has had 403 views