If 2022 was a normal year, one could watch the riveting Hearings of the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol with sympathy, understanding – and foreboding for the plight of democracy in America.
2022: a year of climate emergency and war
But 2022 is not a normal year. It is a year of climate chaos and war.
The dreadful predictions of the UN climate summit of last year have had no effect on politicians or business the world over. Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, minced no words saying to the rulers of the world (presidents, prime ministers, billionaires, and fossil fuel company executives) they have been setting the planet on fire.
No wonder 2022 is businesses as usual. The sky is full of airplanes and the asphalt streets are chocked with millions of cars and trucks emitting climate offending fumes and gases.
War in Ukraine boosting the petroleum economy
And as if human irresponsibility needed another excuse to maintain the poison economy of fossil fuels longer, Russia’s invasion and war in Ukraine was what the petroleum doctor ordered.
President Joe Biden gave up his flimsy efforts in convincing the Republican petroleum war party that climate emergency demanded its cooperation. Instead, he grasped the Russian war in Ukraine like manna from heavens. Suddenly, Republicans and Democrats embraced each other, agreeing with Biden in supporting $ 40 billion military “assistance” to Ukraine.
Biden’s rhetoric against Russia became the Cold War rhetoric of American presidents against the Soviet Union. His Secretary of Defense said something to the effect that Americans weapons and billions to the Ukraine would teach Russia to mind its own business, not to pretend it’s a superpower like the United States. And the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said Russia must be defeated.
This war mongering becomes a cloud that covers up climate emergency, the epidemic of gun violence and the killing of children, and the January 6, 2021 failed insurrection inspired and guided by former President Donald Trump.
The war in the Ukraine was a gigantic gift to fossil fuels domestic and global economy. It unleashed the barbaric hatred countries harbor against each other.
But the sudden American immersion in this deadly conflict, basically funding it with billions of dollars and tons of lethal weapons, not merely erases the climate emergency from people’s mind, but brings the world a step closer to nuclear war.
So, yes, the House committee is revealing details of an evolving crime against the American government, but those detains are floating in the ether. They appear incredible and fitting for a gangster Friday night movie.
Trump is untouchable. He is the king of Florida, blessing his political followers and dismissing the Washington proceedings. In fact, he may be the Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
The testimony of a former Federal judge, J. Michael Luttig, captured the anxieties and dangers of the Capitol insurrection. He said to the members of the committee and to all Americas:
Capitol insurrection almost annihilated American democracy
“A stake was driven through the heart of American democracy on January 6, 2021, and our democracy today is on a knife’s edge.
“America was at war on that fateful day, but not against a foreign power. She was at war against herself. We Americans were at war with each other -- over our democracy.
“January 6 was but the next, foreseeable battle in a war that had been raging in America for years, though that day was the most consequential battle of that war even to date. In fact, January 6 was a separate war unto itself, a war for America’s democracy, a war irresponsibly instigated and prosecuted by the former president, his political party allies, and his supporters. Both wars are raging to this day…
“We Americans no longer agree on what is right or wrong, what is to be valued and what is not, what is acceptable behavior and not, and what is and is not tolerable discourse in civilized society. Let alone do we agree on how we want to be governed or by whom, or where we go from here and with what shared national ideals, values, beliefs, purposes, goals, and objectives -- if any at all. ..
“The war on democracy instigated by the former president and his political party allies on January 6 was the natural and foreseeable culmination of the war for America. It was the final fateful day for the execution of a well-developed plan by the former president to overturn the 2020 presidential election at any cost, so that he could cling to power that the American People had decided to confer upon his successor, the next president of the United States instead. Knowing full well that he had lost the 2020 presidential election, the former president and his allies and supporters falsely claimed and proclaimed to the nation that he had won the election, and then he and they set about to overturn the election that he and they knew the former president had lost…
“America is at a perilous crossroads. Who is it that we have become and what is it that America has become? Is this who we want to be and what we want America to be? And if not, just who is it that we Americans want to be? And just what is it that we want our America to be?...
“America’s democracy was almost stolen from us on January 6.
“Our democracy has never been tested like it was on that day and it will never be tested again as it was then if we learn the lessons of that fateful day. On the other hand, if we fail to learn the lessons that are there to be learned, or worse, deny even that there are lessons there to be learned, we will consign ourselves to another January 6 in the not-too-distant future, and another after that, and another after that. While for some, that is their wish, that cannot be our wish for America…
“America finds itself in desperate need of either a reawakening and quickening to the vision, truths, values, principles, beliefs, hopes, and dreams upon which the country was founded and that have made America the greatest nation in the world -- a revival of America and the American spirit.”
Back to democracy
Judge Luttig is a rare American thinker and patriot. He is warning Trump and the Republicans to abandon their plutocratic politics. Otherwise, they are drugging the country to a potential civil war.
But President Joe Biden is not innocent in this evolving tragedy. His plunging into a subversive war against nuclear-armed Russia is another way of destroying democracy in America and undermining our purpose to fight climate chaos – an existential danger.
This country, Judge Luttig said, needs a new vision similar to the ideals that brought it into being. I agree. What better than the Greek vision of Thomas Jefferson? Democracy, “We the People,” was the core Greek idea Jefferson brought to the table in the constitutional construction of the American republic.
Biden should talk to Judge Luttig. But get out of the war in the Ukraine, telling the NATO allies to mind their own business. The key to survival in America is to cease the internal war and embrace democracy, getting it away from the knife’s edge.
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