Politics, Propaganda, Pollution, and Profits Make Us Ill, Let’s Look At Alternatives
If you suffer anxiety, grief, depression, or ill health, you are just as likely to be a normal person in an unhealthy world.
Life is for the birds right now
We just might be collectively insane because politics, pollution, and propaganda for profit are making us ill.
There are parts of this article republished from the Roaring Rivers blog, but all of this is information that most of us are seeing now on a daily basis, in one form or another.
It’s the collective realization that people are beginning to lose it. With deteriorating natural resources, divisive politics, inflation, plague fatigue, a Sixth Extinction, broken healthcare, and an insecure food network, we should not be expected to have perfect physical or mental health.
The New York Times is running a series called: “It’s not just you.”
They take a deep dive into how messed up things are right now and how it affects our mental health. We are divided into tribal camps as well as being reminded we have little control over things like disasters and politics.
“Conflicts, using reification, re-frame problems into “that’s just how it is now” situations. You may hear: Inflation is an event. The climate crisis is natural and cyclic. Mental illness is genetic, or personal. It’s too late to change. The economy is at stake.
None of these newly framed issues are isolated. Nor are any of the societal structures that allow them inevitable.” There is a lot of evidence, in fact, that the general public is ready for bold change, it’s the leaders who depend upon the status quo that are not motivated to step up. Check out this OLD article about political inaction.
The core of the study notes that society shapes how we feel. Just as the environment shapes natural selection, cultures too, evolve and adapt.
While structures crumble, we continue to tangle up our interactive institutions, and habits. We have allowed domination and money to influence everything from healthcare to lawns.
You might say life is for the birds right now because we can’t poison their food with pesticides and herbicides, or kill too many more, because what birds do for us — is assure us that we have life on Earth.
They’re one of many species that do so.
Everything is connected, so, everything is at risk.
For a decade now, as a psychologist, and an ecopsychologist, I have realized our social and physical structure is broken.
“That is, if you are not disturbed, then you are not aware of what is going on all around you. That defense mechanism is called denial. It is one of our strongest, and in some ways, best defenses to keep your head about you.
Unfortunately, if your house is on fire, it doesn’t work.
If a man claims he is president, when he is not, it doesn’t work.
If you say some variation on “I’m not racist, but…”
If you say some variation on “I’m not sexist, but…”
People are in denial, these days, even about the weather. Some truly do believe that our heating planet has nothing to do with our human pollution of it, or they confuse climate with weather and don’t acknowledge our weather is destructive because we heated the climate itself and throw our trash above, below, and all about us.
Forever chemicals, toxins, are now in our blood.”
Recently, it came to light that microplastics, Phthalates, and endocrine disruptors, are even found in the milk of some nursing mothers.
People do not even know that the dying trees and animals are key to their deep, unexamined grief. We are lab rats who never “touch the grass.”
Polarization and tribalism is making us particularly stressed, so please find something of value to cherish about each person you think wants to hurt you.
We who demand democracy cannot give in
One very stable genius has said,
“They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
“He was telling the truth, “they are bringing” all of these,
But that man, now under federal investigation for treason and other crimes, was using others as scapegoats. He was not pointing at our established cronies of Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Banks, toxic media, and persistent misogyny.”
While Biden has set paths for people to self-medicate (or escape) with the use of cannabis, Big pharma still hooks people on opiates, as just one example.
Big Ag still uses polluting factory farms, higher profits, and still employs dangerous practices that release zoonotic illness (such as COVID-19), and keeps low-wage workers at high risk of termination, deportation, or injury.
“ They are media and moguls, politicians and pundits, and saddest of all, many who support them are we.
There are ways out of this. Appreciating diversity. Unifying. Connecting. Protecting internal and external nature. Defending our commonality.”
What is happening in Iran right now, is people defending their sense of personhood and autonomy. Human rights are forever demanded. It is also a huge issue in the upcoming midterms when it comes to all marginalized people.
If we were to turn all immigrants and refugees away at all borders, where do they go? What does it solve? When will more (and more) risk lives to flood in?
Energy spent erecting and defending walls must become safe, legal bridges, green jobs, creative new minds, and open hearts.
“It is one thing to say your house is on fire so get rid of immigrants, and quite another to say, each of us can be empowered to help save our mental health, our lives, and our home.”
Our programmed roles harm us
“Our structure is set up to protect infinite growth on a finite planet. It is set up to tell us some are superior, and we reward them as elites. It is set up to tell men they are either heroes or bad guys. It is set up to tell women to stay home and have kids, rather than work on food science. It is set up to keep us consuming. It is set up to keep us fighting.
If you say “life is sacred,” but you don’t do anything to help birds, trees, seas, and bees, (the living network that makes life possible) then you are in a special kind of denial that does not realize our connection to the living Earth.
One could say you are not pro-life but pro-death on Earth.
Our learned helplessness is disastrous.
Politics, with gasoline, poured over it due to social media and true resentments, has become dangerous. Our system for treating collective mental ailments and just simple sadness involves medicating ourselves with addictions.
Among our addictions are drugs, booze, shopping, fanaticism, food, gambling, and more.
Many people have already concluded that we’re not worth saving. Or, some feel that it’s too little too late with extinction, climate, and greed.”
Recent reports on the loss of animal populations and habitat are so alarming that we should be talking of almost nothing else until we address this existential threat to biodiversity on Earth.
We need life thriving about us for our mental and physical health to even be a possibility.
So far as we are capable, we must address extinction in order to take care of ourselves. And each other. Resilience requires that even when it looks hopeless, we must make every effort possible to mitigate damage by never giving up.
So long as we have any ability, we can improve our mental and physical health by actively helping one another and ourselves, and the planet. For now, we still have a great number of people worldwide willing to stand up for freedom, and life.