Matthew Lyle Landsman

As I witness the states around me being tinder dry, streams and rivers dissipating, warm and unable to host life…I can also smell and see smoke in the air as land and towns, homes, and lives burn.
I cannot help but wonder why a larger portion the fleets of airplanes owned by the wealthy companies and our own government haven’t been converted to water/fire retardant bearing bombers. We certainly have enough resources and planes to bomb the shit out of any place on the globe at a moment’s notice…and yet our country burning to a crisp is responded to by a mere drop in the bucket, relatively speaking…sigh.
And again I look to our lands drying up, crops shriveled and crispy. I look to the streams that fish cannot return to to spawn. I look to the rivers, warm and green with invasive growth, to dead sturgeon and fresh waters in a toxic state. And I look to a parched population.
Then I see (for instance) the huge corporations raking in windfall and record profits…proudly distributed to a few lucky shareholders. Their corporate chests puffed up and full of false bravado. And I reflect back on the times when corporate America rose and served a better cause during times of war. And I wonder why the rising up of nature threatening us all, even the wealthiest, hasn’t prompted those financially over blessed folks to again address things for the “greater good” and not just the few.
I saw war planes and tanks and weapons and all the tools of war materialize overnight…and yet our coastlines are yet to be blessed with desalinization plants and a lifeline to the masses of our own. The debates are always nearly exclusive to pipelining oil. I have news for you folks. None of us will ever pour oil on our crops, swim in it, fish from it, or drink it. We have plenty of oil and political issues surrounding the countries we siphon it from. WE NEED FRESH, SWEET, CLEAN WATER. Lots of it.
I understand it isn’t fashionable to do a damned thing that doesn’t add to the bottom line, but even shareholder and CEOs need fresh water, food, a living water and ecosystem…And all the stacks of cash in the world cannot be eaten, drank, breathed, or sent to wherever along with their holders after they are dead, along with the rest of us peons.
I am more than just a bit concerned with the situations overrunning us today, and the lack of resources being trickled onto them. The focus and priorities are surely pointed in the wrong directions.

I think many of us look for the “second coming” to materialize in the form a man among us performing miracles. I think the second coming is expected by the good Lord to consist of the miracles being performed by his flocks here on earth. I think the good Lord is waiting for us all to get together and save ourselves from nature and each other. And I think the good Lord is watching and waiting in the wings. And I think he may be becoming mighty sad over what he sees and hears. Just a lot of killing, talk, finger pointing, judging, and hoarding. And not enough real doing.
Doing REAL good doesn’t always add to the coffers of shareholders. Real good is basic and the reward is in the doing, and giving, with a lack of public acknowledgement and patting on the backs…other than the feeling of sweet knowing when one’s head rests on the pillow at night…so that ALL of us might be able to rest easier. THAT is the reward. Knowing the truth, and realizing that the second coming is already upon us, and that many of us are failing miserably in his eyes…
Note: (…the “many” I refer to are the leaders, the politicians, the policy makers, the decision makers, the lobbyists, the CEOs, the wealthiest, the influential, the movers and the shakers…)
There, I spoke my piece. MLL