Every time I get on the freeway, I see, on the back ends of cars, a new crop of ribbons of Freedom. They are popping up everywhere. Often they are yellow, sometimes camouflage tan, or red white and blue. They say "Support Our Troops".
I'd like to see a campaign of bumper sticker ribbons that are brindled blue and green, and assert a different motto, "Support the Earth".
If you can't beat 'em, rip off their tactics. We need visible, positive symbols of resistance. Let's subvert that possessive loyalty that beats in the human breast from nationalism to worldism.
Reasons to be worldly:
Global warming is a greater threat to our children than terrorism.
Around the planet, 26 billion tons of topsoil are eroded each year from the world's farmland.
Deserts advance at a rate of nearly 15 million acres per year.
10 million acres of rain forest are destroyed annually.
There is a 6 million square mile hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.
There are over 130,000 tons of known nuclear waste in the world, some of which will remain poisonous to the planet for another 100,000 years.
All those ribbons I see have a psychological impact.
The New York Times today has an article about the psychologically wounded, who are returning from this war. I heard on NPR that the fiscal debt we owe on the war by the end of next year will exceed 200 billion. Yet we can't keep our soldiers in flak jackets.
Humans are a herd animal. The Kerry lawn signs have come down, bumper stickers are scarcer, buttons are being passed on to antique dealers. We need to say to our neighbors- we're still here, and we count. Our values matter.
In millions of galaxies, in a vast emptiness of billions of miles of stellar space, one tiny speck is a shining citadel of burgeoning Life. Our planet's breathtaking beauty and complexity is a blazing psalm. We see God's work every day, in the flutter of little sparrows fluffing their feathers in the cold, in the great shining trove of Light that greets our eyes. This evident Miracle is greater than any one religion.
"Support the Earth" is not just about environmentalism, it's about diplomacy rather than pre-emptive war, about international cooperation as opposed to unbridled competition.
It's about every aspect of life on this marvelous marble.
In my own quixotic quest to be a voice in the maelstrom, I've used
Sticker Junkie, where you can type in your own pithy bit of political wit, try it out in a mock layout, and get 100 stickers for $25.
My current sticker is "Love a Liberal", which I pass out among my friends. I leave a stack in our local cafe, alongside the art postcards and the music scene leaflets. They fly off to parts unknown.
I'm not, by nature, political. I'd rather write poetry than invent slogans. I hate pulpits, and bullies, I recoil from using this blog to preach. But we have to act.
A couple alert readers recently sent me this essay, by Bill Moyers, which talks about apocalypse mongers.
Battlefield Earth
I keep thinking about Michael Moore's latest missive about a domestic violence counselor who argues that what the left is currently experiencing is intellectual and spiritual abuse.
It makes you think.
In millions of galaxies, we are the ones, the keepers of the Sacred Fire of Life.
Light a candle.
Use your voice.