And Then Your Head Explodes ReDux.

A couple nights ago I invested my evening watching CNN do these mini town halls with the top 10 Democratic presidential candidates on the subject of climate change.

It was interesting because you really got to see pretty clearly the differences in the candidates by the way they talked about the challenge and the kind of solutions they were suggesting.

And that was all well and good, but the simple fact of the matter is that the majority of these people either had no clue or, because they were politicians, kind of pussyfooted around the issue.

And then on came Elizabeth Warren who, in my mind, was always the frontrunner in this race. During her allotted time, she laid out the issue, identified the real enemies (not the useful idiot Trump) and talked about what she could do, with the power of the office of the president, to really force the automotive, fossil fuel and mining industries to get their act together and start thinking about the future of this planet and not just their own corporate interests.

And of all the candidates and all the palaver and all the promises and all the posturing, I saw her as, quite simply the only one who could actually follow through and get the industries in her country to toe the line and make the changes they need to make in order to become part of the solution that can literally save the world.

I have been watching US politics for a long time now, and one of the most significant things I have noticed over the years is that Republican administrations tend to work on behalf of corporate America and Democratic administrations tend to work on behalf of the people of the country.

It’s quite simple, and in this particular era, it’s as plain as the nose on your face. I’m looking really hard and cannot find a single significant thing that Trump and the government he allegedly runs, has done for the people of America.

They have started a trade war with China and initiated tariffs on virtually all of America’s trading partners in a failed attempt to bring manufacturing back to that country en masse.

They have deregulated the industries that do exist here, which is substantially increasing the levels of toxicity in the air and water. And sure as you’re born, cancers will follow.

They have proposed opening up public lands for mining and drilling. Which is an obscenity.

They have pulled out of literally every agreement that could force their industries to reduce carbon emissions or control the threat of nuclear arms development.

They have become the only major power that denies climate change, even while one of the strongest hurricanes in history rips their east coast apart.

And these are just the highlights.

Now a lot of people argue that all of this is being done at the behest of the Russian government who is somehow blackmailing Trump and some of the other key political figures in America. But I have to call bullshit on that.

Certainly Russia is doing whatever it can to influence US elections, like it is doing in countries all over the world. But this is not about that because Russia knows that there are just so many stupid, gullible Americans, and that they would follow Trump and his idiocy to the ends of the earth anyway.

Nope….it’s a lot simpler than that. And you know what I’m talking about. It’s about greed. It’s about the Benjamins that the lobbyists for the fossil fuel, automotive, pharmaceutical and other toxic industries are throwing at lawmakers to get them to pass this draconian and destructive legislation.

It’s also about the direction of business development, suppression of unions and all the kickbacks that fly around in between.

It’s a series of processes and events that get neatly summed up in a single word…corruption.

And to anyone looking at this from the outside with even a rudimentary knowledge of how these things work, this corruption has been going on for so long that it’s actually high functioning part of the American political process.

And it’s getting rid or, or al least reducing as much as possible, this corruption that Elizabeth Warren has made part of campaign strategy.

Of course in politics, doing has hardly ever been a logical consequent of promising, but there’s just something about this lady, her massive energy level and seemingly genuine concern for her country and its role in the world, and the American people that says to me that she could very well be the real deal.

Time will tell of course, because there are forces at work in that country that we know very little about. And you can bet that if she gets the nomination, those forces will be going after her with all their might.

Greed is probably the deadliest of the seven deadly sins. And the greed level in American politics and business these days is off the charts. It causes a great deal of short sightedness, which many of the rich and powerful in that country suffer from, the poster boy being Trump.

It causes desperation when their right to keep on being greedy and damn everything else is threatened. And it usually brings about dire consequences for anyone fighting against their greed.

My sister, who reads a lot of history and listens to a lot of intelligent people, believes that the world in going though a state of chaos being brought about by the need for change in the way we are care the plane.

I believe that the US, because of its large economy and power around the world, is pivotal in this need for change. And right now, everything possible to stifle change is what is being done by the current administration. Because the corporations and the rich who own those corporations are unwilling to make the investment in change required to keep the world in balance.

What they need is a good swift kick in the ass. And from where I sit, I can see no better person to do just that than Elizabeth Warren with a majority of Democrats in the house and senate.

Of course this is just my opinion. You can agree or disagree. Last time I looked we were still free to do that. The real question is, and always will be, what kind of world do you want. A world in chaos or a world where everyone is working together to solve meet our common challenges.

I’ll take the latter. How about you?

Jim Murray is a Canadian writer who loves his country and understands the simple logic of Canada's need to have a good relationship with their most important trading partner, the USA. Right now, the mental instability of the current US president and the ineptitude of the current administration is threatening that relationship. But more importantly it is weakening America's power around the world, which is a further threat to that relationship. As a Canadian, Jim wants every country to have a government that governs for all the people. Right now the US government is a tool of the rich, and until that changes, real forward progress will be almost impossible to achieve.

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