Election Eve

The election is tomorrow. It’s like an evil Christmas Eve, when we dread what we might find under the tree when we wake up in the morning. Will the Grinch deliver lumps of coal, or the Mother of All Bombs? Will the election devolve into martial law? Will the storms of El Niño drown us, or sweep us away? Will the Mad King launch a war in the Holy Land, destroying the infrastructure that provides fuel to the world, triggering a global depression? We cannot know.

On the bright side, there are good elves working hard, trying to slow the Mad King's rush to destruction. Trump's attempt to steal the election is having very little luck in the courts. Intrepid bands of lawyers—from Democracy Docket, the ACLU, and the NAACP—are opposing him with great success. His metastasizing lawsuits are being thrown out right and left, but there's always the prospect that the debased Supreme Court will parachute in at the last minute and simply hand him the election.

We'll know more on Wednesday. At least the waiting will be over, and we'll have an idea whether or not the Republic has a chance to survive. The fight will go on, however. Between now and the seating of the new Congress in January is perhaps the most dangerous time. The Republicans and the billionaires will mobilize every tool, no matter how illegitimate, to cling to power.

Meanwhile, those of us who attend to such things understand that even a temporary rollback of the most egregious evils will not touch the underlying problem that is driving the world to ruin. Capitalism is incompatible with life. The pursuit of profit kills the Earth. You can't eat money, but the tech broligarchs want to turn the whole world into crypto dollars on the blockchain, even if it means that we all starve. Trees are felled by the hundreds of thousands, wildlife is displaced, water is diverted and consumed, all to make way for their appalling engines of death.

What is one to do in the face of this cancerous malevolence? Where can we find refuge in the rising storm of chaos and disaster? How are we to live in the time of collapse?

At Collapse Club, Deep Adaptation, and other groups large and small throughout the world, we know that the answer begins in love. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Treat other people and creatures as if they are yourself, because, ultimately, they are. At the deepest level, our roots entwine and we are one being, growing from the Earth.

We are not responsible for the devilish idiocy of powerful men cavorting in their illusions. They have chosen their path and they must walk it to its dread conclusion. We are responsible only for what comes under our hands, and that is a responsibility we must take seriously. Now is the time to do our best, to focus and persevere. Whoever we think we might be, now is the time to be that person. In company with others of like mind, calling on the strength that manifests in our togetherness, we may traverse the valley of the shadow of death with the spark of love kept safe, inextinguishable within our hearts.

❤️ David B.