I recall somewhere Sherman Alexie saying that all Native Americans are schizophrenic - anyone would be if their way of life, the memory of which is recent, so radically and maliciously had been altered. Perhaps we, as “white" America, mainstream, feel echoes of these emotions, sentiments - traumas - in that we, too, exist in a schizophrenic state. Yes, we fear losing our traditional way of life. Only, our way of life, which happens to be empire, is not sustainable. It places a heavy hand on the rest of the world, on its own castes and classes. If climate change as a man-made threat is actually dire then faults for non-adoption of mitigation policies rests 100% with the United States, with us. Growth is needed for our system to work. Growth is needed for the overspill of wealth of the elite ruler-manager-crypto-fascist class to fall onto the masses.
But we do not see this - blessed are the Americans who perhaps have an intact, non-schizophrenic mind: the earnest/ignorant believers for they shall inherit the task of performing in the uncertain world to come. Not understanding the US as an Empire, not having that awareness makes seemingly random events occur, reactions being processed through the fractured black box of the American mind. If we do know more - if we can “see” a la They Live, with those glasses - what does that help. The Earnest People will perform in the events to come. Those Who Can See cannot help be perform with them.
