Several things to cover in this post. There were more, but I decided these were plenty.
Our IndieGoGo
Our indiegogo for our Climate Change Rock Opera; The Nature of Man, is complete and ready to go. However, we are forced to hold it for a little bit until the news cycle calms down some. Our publicist is concerned that we’ll drown among the crazy stories of the last week.
We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime please go here and add your email to the coming soon page so you’ll be the first to know when we launch.
Saturday Night Live
The other night I saw the video of Kate McKinnon’s Saturday Night Live opening. Although it was motivated (mostly) by the death of Leonard Cohen, it couldn’t have been more cogent in light of the news of the election. Especially the last verse, which reduced me to a puddle of tears;
“I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah”
We cannot let it come to that. We will not let it come to that.
The Election
To say that I am stunned by Trump’s election to the presidency is a cosmic understatement. How could we have elected someone so unprepared and so divisive? The man is a racist, a probable homophobe, a misogynist, a climate change denier, a cheat, a probable sociopath and a hundred other things that should have been massive red flags to our media and our citizens.
And he’s surrounding himself with the same. His VP is a radical right wing with white supremacist ties who has already begun moving against the LGBTQ community and believes the world is 6000 years old. His Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor (has this title ever been a part of our government before?) is an anti-semite and a proponent of “peaceful” ethnic cleansing (what the hell is that?).
It’s almost too much to take in. That it’s happening at this moment in time could be a complete disaster for the climate.
Trump has promised to roll back every environmental control we’ve ever put in place. He wants to gut the EPA and pull out of any and all climate treaties we have signed on to. He wants every pipeline we’ve fought against to be built, including the KXL and Dakota Access.
He wants to go back to burning coal.
Whether or not he will be successful and to what extent is unclear, but it’s happening right as we are desperately close to tipping points which will prove impossible to recover from. Tipping points that could ultimately cause the collapse of our civilization.
We cannot let this stand. Those of us who know what the future will become with unrestrained fossil fuel consumption must continue the fight at all costs. We have been fighting every step of the way up until this point, but now it just got really, really REAL.
Do not give in to despair. Do not give in to resignation, nor to complacency nor defeat. In the words of Winston Churchill; “Never, ever, ever give up.”
Will we win? I don’t know. But if we fail, we will fail while daring greatly. Let me leave you with something that inspires me;
“I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends, and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight!”
God Help Us All.
MAD