False promises by the biggest crooks

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"I'm livin' in America, and in America you are on your own. America is not a country. It's just a business."

These are some harsh, yet honest words, spoken by a character played by Brad Pitt in the movie, Killing Them Softly. While he says it in a different context, I cannot help but think of the countless American soldiers who believed the lies of their leaders and their journalism. They went to lands that didn't belong to them and fought wars they were lied to about, killed innocent people they were told were monsters. And when they returned home with either their limbs missing or in most cases, their brains messed up, they were not given the medical help they were promised. The message from America to them was clear and simple: the country only cares about those who can pay (in body and blood). Once you are no longer capable of paying, America doesn't care about you. You are no longer a paying customer as far as America is concerned. The country is not willing to take care of their end of the bargain, which is to take care of the wounded warrior after they were sold on the war.

A massive and devastating wildfire happened in California and is ongoing at the time of this writing. Several people have died and countless houses and buildings have been burnt, including those belonging to Hollywood celebrities. The leafy town of Beverly Hills began to resemble Gaza within days. Very quickly, the insurance industry, which is a euphemism for crooks, started to make noise about not honouring fire coverage. Let me tell you something about the insurance companies in America; they are some of the biggest crooks in the world. They work more like banks and less like insurance companies. Insurance companies want the customer to keep paying premiums on their policies but once those customers are rendered useless after their house or business is burnt or damaged, insurance not only not wants to take care of their end of the bargain, which is to make the customer whole, but they also do not want to renew the existing policy after its term expires.

The same wildfire in California also shed some light on the actions of another group of crooks: the oil industry. Their friendly media continues to make noise during this wildfire that this was an act of arson, which started this fire. Initially I did not understand their game. But their continued focus on how it was an act of crime and the use of phrases such as 'there was human agency involved in this fire' and that this was human activity made me realise that this sheer focus on this rhetoric was actually to avoid any discussion of climate change. Because every time there is a wildfire or a flood, the first thing that comes to mind is the climate crisis.

What they forgot to realise is that climate change also is due to human activity. There is a human agency very much involved in environmental disasters. Climate change is not due to environmental disturbances occurring naturally but rather is the response of the environment to our maddeningly excessive use of fossil fuel.

The fossil fuel industry has made their filthy fortune from the extraction of natural resources from the earth. The earth in response needs to be taken care of or else it will stop hosting life. The fossil fuel industry does not want to take care of a planet, which has been their paying customer for centuries. The planet has been paying them but now that time has come for the fossil fuel industry to return the favour and make their customer whole, the same tactics are being repeated to avoid such an endeavour as have been used by the United States of America and the insurance industry it houses.

All the crooks want to shift the blame and responsibility elsewhere.