Absorb the Pain

By: Black Pepper

Our prophet taught us that we can’t be neutral.

“Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.” “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” ― Martin Luther King,

If the crow is eating your neighbors’ corn, you had better stop him for your corn is next. – African Proverb

Freedom costs – be a hero

We are at an intersection of climate justice and the quest for a global humanitarian social order. The test of civilization is when you can plant a shade tree for future generations. We have already been to the moon, now we must make an inner journey and climb the highest mountain to the summit of our potential.

In a moment of clarity, we know what is at stake. As the bad actors are winning, history demands that we forge a new readiness and mindset to defeat tyranny at home and abroad. Remember that the dictator would not have been emboldened if our parliament had not yielded to President Trump’s seditious attempts to bribe President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (white Nelson Mandela) of Ukraine. He held up strategic weapons that had been approved by our Congress through a devil’s bargain of exchanging dirt on challenger President Joe Biden.

Ukrainians are facing an end of history event and the world is 10 minutes closer to midnight. Many of us remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and daily bomb drills at school. From that day forward, the world spoke to us- non-violent conflict resolution or non-existence.

Today, North Korea boasts of a hypersonic missile carrying multiple nuclear warheads that can cross the Sea of Japan and reach Californian west coast cities in one hour. Response time is a matter of minutes before millions perish.

How did we get here? Consider this example of national prostitution and violation. A few years ago, Jamal Khashoggi, CNN journalist based in UK, lured to a location in Turkey, murdered, body parts sawed off by our ally and shipped to Saudi Arabia. The charges against the assailants were “premediated murder with monstrous intent.” Germany, Denmark and Finland suspended arms deals with the desert dictatorship of Peter Pan boys. We couldn’t find a way to apologize for our shameless behavior and therefore we capitulated to Arabian tyrants.

We now plant the shade tree by making a deposit on the meaningful futures for our children. In our country, 3 to 4% of our oil comes from Russia. Shutting down a tiny but significant amount of Russian oil would marry the sanctions and cut revenue to the war machine. The goal is attainable, that is, the gas station with nuclear weapons would be unable to fund the military and  the ruble  continues to plummet to Zimbabwean value levels. Today, one ruble is worth one “Bobby Bland red copper cent,” atrophying and weakening the Russian economy.

As of today, we are a bunch of cream cakes, wilting from $4 to $6 per gallon gas. The 70’s and 80’s signaled that we had to break our addiction to 6,000-pound internal combustion engines on the freeways.

One of my children did a research paper a few decades ago.  This paper led me to the intersection of humanitarian justice and climate justice. The paper stated that a piece of ice fell off the Antarctica ice shelf. Not fazed by a piece of ice, envision that it was the size of the state of Maine.

Black people and people of color from Madagascar to Miami hurt the most, drought and famine in Madagascar to rising sea waters in Miami. Unprecedented infernos in California and Florida. This means more starvation, suffering and war.

Our course is not sustainable; 90 percent of scientists agree that an increase of global temperature above 2 degrees centigrade is a redline that should not be crossed.

We will have to suck the morale out of the Ukraine invaders. To do this we must endure pain at the pump. We have gotten too fat and gluttonous. Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. Americans  and the Europeans must layer their clothes and shiver the winter through. Our leaders must first prepare us to sacrifice by explaining that our belt tightening will save lives and bring the expanding war to a close.

Remember that our prophet explained that the Vietnam War would eviscerate and destroy the budget for food, safety and security at home. That is why I refer to Rev. Dr. King and Mickey Leland as our prophets in this “Land of Plenty.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is perhaps the next President of the United States, is on the way to Europe to strengthen our NATO alliance and make the case for the “boa constrictor sanctions.” Before she departed, Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman said, “standing up to aggression doesn’t come free.”

Yes, this is our fight for I am watching black and American boys of color being shipped to the frontline.

Do it.  Oil based sanctions will hurt but they will hurt so good. Let us put on our big boy britches and let’s start ride share. Let’s build a 21^st century rail corridor to Hobby and Bush Intercontinental Airports.  Let us start thinking about preventing WWIII. Let’s field the freeways with Mini-Coopers and deal a fatal blow to the dictator and fossil fuels. Let’s plant a garden at home for food security.