Lessons from the Fires

We're in the season for fires, massive conflagrations that sweep everything before them. Apocalyptic, revolutionary, deadly changes. Nobody doubts they're coming. They're spreading, in Australia, California. Can we manage the fire of global change? Can we come out alive?

It's an emergency, but there is some proof that we are rising to the occasion. At the same time the fires rage in the Australian bush, threatening an entire continent, global conflagrations of a different origin seem to be petering out. There is no appetite for war in the Middle East; maybe we've finally learned a hard lesson decades in the making about the limits of man-made firepower. Maybe we can organize a response in Iran that brings together ancient enemies to organize a different playing field.

At some level, the Australian fire has put us on notice. We have no time to waste with geopolitical gamesmanship. Even Trump's Republican base, with seemingly an endless appetite for lies and propaganda, in thrall to a Daddy figure who promises an escape to a Lalaland of winning 24/7, balks at the prospect of American exceptionalism being put to the bloody test for the sake of obscene corporate profits.

If we could just somehow leverage this moment to get everyone on board with the need to restructure our economy and society to build a new middle class and get off the addiction to fossil fuel burning. But I'm afraid they still thrill at the Sarah Palin motto of stupidity: burn, baby, burn, because it triggers the elites to say it. Triggers the kangaroos and the koalas, also.