In one way or another, everyone thinks, “God’s on our side.” This has always been the case. In the religious wars between Protestants and Catholics in the Middle Ages, both sides thought that God was on their side. In the U.S. Civil War, both the North and the South thought that God was on their side. Bob Dylan wrote a song about it:
(For those who want to read the lyrics, see God’s On Our Side.)
Although the US is currently much less religious than it has been in previous times, the religious impulse for people to believe that God has the same view of reality that they do continues to prevail. When it comes to gender, the belief tends to be that God is of the same gender as the person(s) in power. In the modern world, cultures in which women hold the power are few, but matriarchies do exist. Some countries (including England) have often had queens who ruled. Even so, men, and especially white men, hold most of the power, regardless of who happens to be head of state.
In some ways, the current political strife in the US is a religious war, although the “sides” are too complex for easy definition. The main differences seem to be based on how the nation’s wealth should be distributed. Those who say they love the Bible seem to have forgotten the Biblical teaching is that the love of money is the root of all evil. They rewrite tax laws to benefit themselves at the expense of those who already have very little, despoil the land to exploit potential resources, and poison water supplies to gain increased access to fossil fuels.
The problem is much larger than opening Bears Ears and Grand Staircase National Monuments to oil and gas exploration. This is what happens to water in areas where fracking has been used to access oil and gas: Tap water catches fire and earthquakes multiply. As a rule, those who own and run oil and gas companies do not explore for fossil fuels in their own backyards.
Is it worth ruining our environment to exploit fossil fuels when we are currently able to get the power we need from wind and solar energy? I think that the continuing migration from wood to coal to gas and oil to wind and solar is inevitable. My sense is that nuclear power, coal, and oil simply do too much environmental damage to make them a good investment. At one time, they served their purpose, but they have outlived that purpose now. Hydroelectric power from dams and tides are fairly “clean” source of power, although both influence the ecology in unpredictable ways.
The principal reason we aren’t doing more to explore and exploit “clean energy” is that political interests are heavily invested in fossil fuels. Most modern wars are have been fought to protect the vested interests of the wealthy. That includes profits based on fossil fuels. For my generation, the war was Vietnam. It is essentially forgotten at this point, but the reason we were in Southeast Asia was oil exploration. We thought we were going to greatly expand our access to fossil fuels, and we certainly didn’t want the “Commies” to be able to gain access to that resource. The “masters of war” made the decision to protect that resource.
If they are permitted to do so, the masters of war will continue regardless of the cost to the rest of us. Remember that when you vote.
