The Cycle Repeats itself
Today I am full of rage and pain and exhaustion. Mine is a generation of broken promises. Promises of hope, of equality and equity, of peace and prosperity. When I was fourteen my country, in response to the September 11th attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, went to war in two countries, one of which was partially involved, and one of which had no involvement at all. At the same time, we rolled back civil liberties, increased military funding, and pushed our political rhetoric further to the right. We dug deeper into political aggression on a global scale, doubled down as the worlds police, and re-entrenched conflict in the middle east, as it seems we must every decade or two, to ensure neo-liberalism and modern capitalism can survive an attempted domestic overthrow.
It is easy for some to forget that George W. Bush lost the popular vote, and should have lost the election, to a man who became the face of climate reform for much of the next twenty years. Al Gore was a threat to Big Oil and under regulated industrialism in the year 2000 in a way that, in hindsight, makes the repetition of the cycle today all the more obvious in its compression.
In response to the Inflation Reduction Act, the Trump administration ran on unwinding regulations around coal, fracking, and offshore drilling, while their advocates spread spurious ideas about the risks of wind, the dangers of China in the solar industry, and the miraculous speed with which the US could localize its own energy production industry from start to finish. But the reaction from all sectors to the latest spending bill, the bill that is only “Big” in its growth of the deficit, and only “Beautiful” in its destructive force, has been markedly negative. Cuts in funding to new energy programs, when taken with the trade wars the Trump administration has already started, will be incredibly harmful to US energy production, especially in Republican aligned states like North Carolina. At the same time, environmentalists and energy investors find themselves agreeing that that push for US coal investment makes no sense. Aside from the ecological drawbacks, it simply lacks financial viability in the short or long term.
And so, as the planet races ever faster toward temperature thresholds we may never come back from, the choice is clear. We must once more sacrifice the Fertile Crecent to the alter of Western Colonial convenience, the genocide in Gaza no longer being sufficient to pull our attention from the dangers here at home. President Trump launched a strike on Iran, during a declared diplomatic window, without the support of Congress or the people of the United States, and it feels so much like I am fourteen again. But timelines are compressed. The recession is almost here; we will not have six years of war and wondering before it comes. But we can look back at this history and start to be ready.
We are called now more than ever to support and protect our neighbors. The Latinx communities have been hit hardest by ICE so far, but just as we need to protect them, just as we have been protecting our Palestinian families and those raising their voices loudest, we must now be ready to stand up for all Muslim communities, because they will be targeted next, no matter their “status” under US law. We must hold our supposed political allies accountable. While they are not perfect bedfellows, we need loud voices in as many places as possible. We must prepare for retaliation and be mindful and temperate in our responses. The US is the aggressor in this conflict. This aggression is meant to illicit a response, so that further action can be taken. We must focus on defending our communities, neighbors, families, friends, from the blowback of this unnecessary but purposeful conflict.
It is hard to be back here twenty some years later. But we are more awake now. We are no longer children. We can be ready for what the Trump Administration will try to justify under all of this. Mine is a generation of broken promises. Promises of hope, of equality and equity, of peace and prosperity. We can at least promise not to let things play out the same way again.