I believe this is one of those rare times that I posted an article from a secondary website which has posted an article from a primary website/blog. I saw the headline from a feed reader which gives me titles of articles from various websites/blogs that I find reliable and of interest. One of those websites is CounterPunch. During the past five years I've found that its selection of articles increasingly take a rather insipid liberal-left orientation which is increasingly irritating as the main issues of a nuclear war holocaust and environmental catastrophe become increasingly dire for human existence.
CounterPunch is an old website that back in the 1990s I initially followed with great interest. Alexander Cockburn and his partner, Jeffrey St. Clair, published articles by authors that would critically deal with many issues that websites from mainstream corporation would not. Cockburn died in 2012 and his partner continued on with the website. Over the years the posted articles have become much less interesting to me, and I've nearly dropped them from my feed reader.
I spotted the headline of this article posted in CounterPunch in my feed reader, but was not interested primarily because of its source. Later in the day I received an email from System Change not Climate Change (SCNCC) alerting me to this article which they re-posted on their website. I read it and found it excellent. The author expressed her concerns about the dramatic warnings by a UN report which cited the short number of years we had left to prevent catastrophic climate warming which she saw were obviously caused by the operations of capitalism. I was very impressed! Few writers--although increasing in numbers--will write about the obvious solution: replacing capitalism with another system that will not destabilize the Earth's climate. And she wants to start organizing for this solution immediately! Early on she writes:
This is not a joke, or a drill. This is it. Decision-point for humankind. The UN says we have to turn things around within 12 years to avoid catastrophe. Others give us even less time.She understands that working within the capitalist system which controls our nation can never be a solution because they, the ruling class, will never allow the system to be replaced--the tremendous power and wealth they enjoy is delivered by this system. We ordinary people must come to the rescue of our planet's ecosystem to save our ourselves, the rest of humanity, and future generations! She writes:
We need to act. And we need to act quickly. But we need to act rationally as well. It won’t help to run out and just “do something, anything” to fight for our future. We need to look honestly at whether the things we’ve been doing so far are effective. They aren’t.
Some say it’s crazy to fight for system change, leaving the Democrats and incrementalism behind. “System change is impossible” they maintain. “We can’t possibly achieve it in time to stave off disaster.” But which is crazier really? Fighting for actual control over our destiny, or continuing to fight within the very system that produced global warming, a system that thoroughly disempowers us?Enough said. Read the article in which she has some specific suggestions about how get the system-change started ... and act!
