Musings: Stop Pretending

So the PLDC is dead, with Gov. Abercrombie saying “get thee behind me, ASAP” and the Star-Advertiser claiming the law “will likely be remembered at the state Capitol as a cautionary tale of government hubris.”

Mmmm, I don't think so. Not when you see the kind of hubris that's been going down this session. And not when you have people like Sen. Donovan DelaCruz, co-architect of the vile legislation, proving he still doesn't get it with comments like this:

"It's really about implementation," he said. "The administration is going to have to be a lot more proactive in communicating with the public and the communities once a law gets passed as to how things are going to be implemented so that we can address concerns as soon as possible."

Gee, Senator, you would have heard those public concerns if you'd actually held a hearing in the Legislature, like you're supposed to, instead of secretly ramming this thing through.

So three people are dead — murdered — in Boston, 141 are injured and countless others are shaken, shattered, by the reminder that no, security cannot be guaranteed.

We're now getting saturation media coverage, with even our own little paper looking for a local angle. Yet there's barely a murmur in the media about the 175 children — here are their names and ages — who have been murdered by U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen.

I know some folks don't want to hear it; it offends their sensibilities to put our own government on par with a bomber dealing death at a marathon, but the end result is the same: senseless violence that begets more senseless violence.

Because right away, how does our President respond?

We still do not know who did this or why. And people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts. But make no mistake, we will get to the bottom of this. And we will find out who did this; we’ll find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice.

Like the kind of “justice” our “shock-and-awe” bombing dealt to the poor civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9-11? Like the kind of “justice” we've meted out to prisoners at Bagram and Guantanamo? Like the kind of “justice” that resulted in the execution of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who was never brought to trial because he was never even charged with a crime? Like the kind of “justice” that makes the president think he has the right to maintain a secret “kill list?” Like the kind of “justice” that results in children in other nations being killed by remote control?

Somehow in America the promise of “justice” rooted in the rule of law has been perverted to mean revenge. And the killing will continue until we all wake up and see it for what it is: the absolute wrong way to deal with anything.

So the bees are dead, by the hundreds of thousands, by the millions, and they're still dying by the scores. We know it's our fault, whether it's the poison-for-profit chemicals we use or the industrial ag we embrace or the utter lack of care we show for the natural world.

But we pretend we aren't sure, that the studies are flawed, that it's not really such a big deal. Just like we pretend that  a corrupt process and corrupt people can pass good laws. Just like we pretend we're the good guys being victimized by the bad guys.

When really, it's all about power and control.

Time to stop pretending.