"They’re Not Our Kind"

 

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” 

 American philosopher George Santayana

According to the ClimateChangeRealityProject.org (3/18/19), that magical 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) average temperature increase threshold is “about the point that scientists project we’ll see some of the climate impacts we already see today begin to go from bad to outright terrifying. It’s about the point where we’ll likely see many natural systems begin to cross dangerous points of no return, triggering lasting changes and transforming life as we know it.” People seeking economic standards, from wealth to survivability, are the obvious cause of rising climate change, and the Earth’s ability to sustain human life is at stake. A new study by the World Meteorological Organization tells us it is 50/50 that we hit that temperature average rise within five years.

Another study by the Australian Academy of Science also tells us that the global population is continuing to grow by around 80 million people per year. While the planet might sustain as many as 10 billion people who are exclusively vegetarians, for nations following the US dietary patterns, “The answer comes back to resource consumption. People around the world consume resources differently and unevenly. An average middle-class American consumes 3.3 times the subsistence level of food and almost 250 times the subsistence level of clean water. So if everyone on Earth lived like a middle class American, then the planet might have a carrying capacity of around 2 billion. However, if people only consumed what they actually needed, then the Earth could potentially support a much higher figure.”

Bottom line: Earth has more people and insufficient resources – which are dwindling due to climate change – to support the global population that is on the cusp of passing 8 billion people. Given nature’s proclivity to impose balance on the global ecosystem, when one species seems to rampage out of control, nature’s knee-jerk reaction is to reduce the offending population. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – Plague, War, Conquest, Famine – are the religious exemplars of nature’s tools.

In modern times, the coronavirus evidences plague, the mass starvation occurring in significant parts of Africa and Asia reflects famine, the rage of civil and wars of conquest fulfill the rest. It is in nature’s best interest, in its effort to cull the human herd, to instill divisiveness and intolerance in humanity to increase the probability of self-annihilation. After all, human beings are the top of the food chain, with no higher predators to take out our population surplus. Malthusian theories on steroids. Eliminating people appears to be nature’s new mandate, however that can be accomplished.

Yet, you really cannot explode those mass killings without denigrating specified segments of society that are “less than you,” who must be killed if they do not allow themselves to be completely controlled and subjugated to the will of those more exalted individuals. That need to subjugate or kill is exceptionally difficult in a representative democracy, where human beings are essentially (theoretically) treated as political equals. But when traditional cultures become threatened by diversity, when resources become increasing costly and the path to economic success is redefined, it is easy to predict that those feeling the greatest pressures find that democracy is not serving to protect their needs or their vision for the future. They do not want those “they’re not our kind” to have any voting power to challenge their vision. Autocracy, supporting deepening levels of intolerance, is the only political system that enables the challenged class to purge the challengers. To dehumanize those who are “not like us.”

It continues to happen, whether it’s Vladimir Putin’s denigration of Ukraine as a nation governed by Nazis, which coincidentally results in a massive annexation of steel manufacturing and exceptional grain exports, or a global rise even in purportedly “democratic” nations to elevate one class, one race, one religion, and one set of cultural values to the virtual exclusion or marginalization of all others. In short, it is autocracy imposed through some manner of “democratic” elections, predicated on rewriting historical truth with a new mythology of denial and fabrication to justify crushing any opposing force.

We see this pattern in too many purported “democracies.” “In recent years, numerous countries have started to offer case studies. Steady state capture of institutions and relentless culture wars by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban sparked a slow-rolling political crisis within the European Union. In India, the ruling party’s Hindu nationalist agenda is eroding a democracy long anchored by the country’s religious and ethnic pluralism. And right-wing demagogues in the United States and Brazil have strained the guardrails of their countries’ democratic systems, to varying yet worrying effects.” Washington Post, May 5th.

One additional such “democratic” nation, the Philippines, is recovering from the controversial rule of right-wing President Rodrigo Duterte, now termed out and facing possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court for his extralegal extermination of thousands of local drug addicts. Instead of opting for a more open, tolerant new government, a new scion of a dictatorship we believed was long gone has taken to social media to erase the unpleasant facts of his father’s horrific rule.

In a May 9th election, “Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the late dictator, [won] the Philippines presidential election by a landslide… [with double the votes of his nearest rival.] Known as ‘Bongbong’ in the Philippines, Marcos Jr.’s win would return the Marcos dynasty to the Malacañang Palace 36 years after the family fled a mass uprising. His father’s 21-year rule was marked by human rights abuses and widespread corruption.” CNN.com, May 5th.

“For Marcos, it’s a triumph that brings full circle a journey that began in 1986, when he and his family fled Manila’s Malacañang Palace to life in exile in Hawaii. His father, dictator Ferdinand Marcos, had infamously ruled the country under martial law and looted billions of dollars of state funds. His mother, Imelda, likely used some of that ill-gotten money to amass one of the world’s largest shoe collections. Their time in office was known for its corruption, decadence and repressive cruelty.” The Post.

Despite popular alure, life under autocracy is almost never pleasant except for the oligarchy at the top, the self-selected chosen few who live well at the expense of others. The salient symptom of the greatest “democratically” induced autocratic unraveling is the dehumanization of identifiable classes of people who are “not our kind.” Mockery becomes an accepted political tool. Nature and unpleasant facts, however, still do not succumb to political will.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as I watch a minority of American right-wing conservative autocratic wannabes continue to reverse progress and dehumanize anyone who opposes their vision, using a rural-values-biased political system, I wonder why must relearn the lessons of history the very, very hard way.