Our Man in Moscow
"...this has all been going on for a while"
This week, we continue looking at our predicament in Washington and on the world stage through the oddly predictive Batman comic books of the 1960s. You can go back to the beginning by visiting our February 25 post, The Dark Night.
But even as we use these new AI tools to redraw the present, with each passing day, we learn more about the weird origins of current reality. Just today, for instance, I learned that the way Donald Trump may have discovered the notorious prison in El Salvador—the one to which he deported hundreds of unverified, unnotified, and uninterrogated migrants, a prison no one ever leaves alive—was probably from the Miss Universe contest in 2023.
As the former owner of the Miss Universe pageant, POTUS 47 would not have failed to notice its closing ceremony being overseen by Presidente Nayib Bukele or to learn that Bukele was defying constitutional term limits to run for reelection. By the time of the pageant, Bukele had more than 72,000 people locked up without due process on vague allegations or their tattoos.
Sound familiar? Bukele also went after journalists, labor organizers, human rights groups and other critics, mobilized an elaborate, one-sided communications machine to spread his message, and made BitCoin a national currency. At a gala opening of a national library, colored drones overhead arranged themselves in his image.
I have shifted this digression into current events to my Substack Notes section as we now return to Our Man in Moscow in the 1980s.
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Next week, we’ll close this back story with the Emperor Penguin’s return to power and set the stage for a denouement—the Return of Batman. Please come back, and if you enjoy this, please share it with your friends.
Meanwhile, let’s end these wars. We support peace in the West Bank and Gaza and the efforts to cease the war immediately. Global Village Institute’s Peace Thru Permaculture initiative has sponsored the Green Kibbutz network in Israel and the Marda Permaculture Farm in the West Bank for over 30 years. It will continue to do so with your assistance. We aid Ukrainian families seeking refuge in ecovillages and permaculture farms along the Green Road and work to heal collective trauma everywhere through the Pocket Project. You can read about it on the Global Village Institute website (GVIx.org). Thank you for your support.
And speaking of resettling refugees, did you know? A study by Poland’s National Development Bank found that the influx of Ukrainians added between 0.5% and 2.5% to GDP growth and paid more in taxes than they received in benefits.
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#RestorationGeneration.
When humans are locked in a cage, the Earth continues to be beautiful. Therefore, the lesson for us is that human beings are not necessary. The air, soil, sky and water are still beautiful without you. So, when you step out of the cage, please remember that you are guests of the Earth, not its hosts.
We have a complete solution. We can restore whales to the ocean and bison to the plains. We can recover all the tremendous old-growth forests. We possess the knowledge and tools to rebuild savannah and wetland ecosystems. Coral reefs rebuilt with biorock build beaches faster than the seas are rising. It is not too late. All of these great works of nature are recoverable. We can have a human population sized to harmonize, not destabilize. We can have an atmosphere that heats and cools just the right amount, is easy on our lungs and sweet to our nostrils with the scent of ten thousand flowers. All of that beckons. All of that is within reach.
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