The News

I have recognized that the function of the news for me is torture.  So I avoid it as much as possible these days.

Having let it largely pass me by for weeks now, while I turned my serious attention to subjects that require a larger perspective, a greater expanse of time to consider for cause and effect, I can see a little more calmly that, despite the quickly replaced headlines and new outrages,  nothing much on the political scene is changing or is likely to change.

That this administration is the most morally shameful in my lifetime won't change (and considering that I said the same ten years ago of the Bush II reign, it is even more sobering.)  I grieve for the lives damaged, as I do for the larger effects on the present and the future.  But being tortured by the news doesn't change any of that.

The combined and related effects of the climate crisis, population growth with its carbon pollution implications and species extinctions require major and concentrated efforts in order to forestall civilization-threatening consequences. Those efforts are still insufficient, and without the urgent and comprehensive commitment necessary. Even the resilience of the existing institutions within the federal government and the western allies that could help ameliorate the challenging consequences, is being depleted and damaged.  That won't change with this regime (except to get worse), nor will the consequences.

Nothing in Washington will change, at least until the November elections, but only if Democrats win control of Congress, and win overwhelmingly otherwise.  Even if that happens, the task of slowing down the damage, let alone stopping it, will take years, and just repairing the damage done could take many years. Meanwhile the time that has been lost is probably lost forever.

Some of the news leaks through to me, but it hasn't changed my perspective.  While the antipresident's statements and behavior in Europe are shocking, they aren't surprising.  Whether or not he is being essentially blackmailed by the Russians, his motives are plain and predictable in denying Russian interference.  Like any tyrant, he fears nothing more than threats to the legitimacy of his power, in this case to his own election.  His statements were a desperately global attempt to discredit the special investigator, preemptively tainting the findings that are yet to be known.  And until Congress is out of Republican control, those findings won't matter either.

I don't criticize others for being more involved and especially more active.  More power to them.  But I'm picking my spots, and they are few.  Obsessing over the news is not one of them.