Killing the Heroes

IN 2020, the most recent year for which official United Nations statistics are available, one hundred and seventy six environmental activists were murdered around the world. Although this was among the most murderous years on record, it is essentially indicative, typical of the carnage visited annually upon the people courageous and caring enough to do more than merely worry and complain, courageous enough to risk their lives to take action on behalf ofthe environment, action against the ominously, pervasively powerful governmental and corporate forces responsible for the perilously unhealthy condition in which we the human species have tragically placed this planet's ecosystem. Of the dead heroes of twenty twenty, sixty were slaughtered in Brazil, and forty more in Colombia. South America, iteems, is the most deadly continent for crusaders for planetary health, in a wolrdgenerally cangerous to them. In Brazil, the reason looms obvious; the never ending ongoing struggle between progressive and conservative forces over the use and abuse of the Amazon rain forest. Columbia for the past half century is a country in which all issues, especially those involving politics, are decided by organized violence, environmental issues being no exception. Just recently the Brazilian people had the good wisdom to vote out of office a Trump - like president, Jair Bolsinaro, who sat by placidy while corporate interests, mostly the logging and beef industries, waged wanton war on the Amazon rain forest. The recently elected progressive president, who has held office before, pledges to protect the precious supplier of so much of the Earth's oxygen against unchecked greed and profit. To whatever exent hs is successful only the future will reveal. Environemtal activists are easy targets for violence because their murderers almost always kill with impunity, going unpunished under the protection of the mafia like tentacles of the far right wing forces of corporate oligarchies. Corporations exist only for proift, and are not caring institutions. They will do and have done almost anything to protect their precious profits, including killing workers, consumers, and crusaders for a healthier, cleaner planet. Any cursory study of he history of American economics, capitalism, politics, and the labor movement clearly demontrates this. And, as usual, the masses of indolent citizens in every country in the world sit placidly, helplessly by on the sidelines as capitalistic corporate greed runs roughshod over everything, every human being, every plant, animal, drop of clean water and breath of fresh air on Earth in the unbridled pursuit of extravagant riches for the wealthy few, the elite ownership class,so venerated in most countries for their culture of celebrity wealth. This veneration is bought and paid for by a bloated advertising industry, itself part of the informal but very real corporate conspiracy to govern the planet with a plutocratic oligarchy, with most national governments serving only the purpose of existing as cosmetic covers for the plutocracy.This tragically nefarious global system of corporate control has been spoken and written about seemingly without limit; books detailing the precise nature of the arrangements which facilitate this disastrous state of affairs abound, and could fill vast libraries. But not enough people read them, or listen to their authors, or bother to get involved and take action of any sort, including electing pro environmental leaders rather than the usual conservative corporate errand boys, bought and paid for by corporate money. And because most of us are content to sit idly by and enjoy the fruits of the system as they are trickled down and spoon fed to us like bread crumbs,on goes the wanton destruction and slaughter, of people, wildlife, wilderness, water, and land, the annaul savage slaughter of thousands of brave environmental activist crusaders for the health of the Earth being the sacrificial lambs to our perfidious lives of greed and shallow materialistic hedonism.