Pre-Journey for Justice camping South Padre Island

Bummer – it’s overcast today, windy with rain forecasted later today and thunder storms tomorrow.

Early this morning, I saw my fellow tenter wrapping up his extension cord that he’d plugged his tesla into and approached him to ask about his nite. He had asked me yesterday if they check here, because he was supposed to set up a tent, which he didn’t want to, and he planned on sleeping in his vehicle, which the office had told him was illegal. He wanted me to tell him if they checked, which I didn’t know but I was also planning on sleeping in my vehicle – not a tesla but a camper – even though I also signed up for a tent site, which is half the price of an rv site.

He said he wasn’t disturbed at any point during the nite and then asked my where I was off to. I told him about the Journey for Justice and he wasn’t interested in joining in. He was on his way to Oklahoma to see a nephew play hockey, but first he was going to try to take an xspace tour.

My mouth dropped in horror. He was a very tall, broad white male probably in his 50’s that reminded me of one of the white men d.c. activists, not just in his height, build, skin and hair color & length, but also in his quiet demeanor. Plus his license was Virginia and I bet he was from the d.c. area, which I later found out he was.

As he proclaimed his love for e.m. and all the technology ‘advances’ and ‘sustainable’ goals of tesla I could only ask him what the hell he did for a living. Computer engineer, of course. He agreed that he really admired e.m., when I asked him what contribution to society he thinks those huge, energy guzzling machines are making.

“Why, he’s making an interplanetary sustainable system.” When I ask why not take care of Mother Earth and life on our planet first, he actually tells me things have never been better on earth than they are now.

It could be laughable or mind-boggling if I wasn’t looking at this wealthy white middle-aged man of privilege.

: I’m sure I’m frowning, although I’m trying hard to keep the disdain and anger out of my voice – who knows what my face is doing.

So I mention the violence to Mother Earth and humans happening on such a great scale today, he kinda nods slowly then I hit him with the question does he really think that Indigenous people think their lives have been much better since white men conquered this country? Or that African people, on that continent and the descendants here really think their lives are greatest today than they were pre-white men genociders and enslavers?

I point out that only people who look like him, with jobs like his who have stocks his grandparents gave him when he graduated from high school to cash in so he can buy this tesla and idolize that fuckin multi-billionare – he actually thought it would be brownie points that he chose to spend stock he’s had for 40 plus years in the fuckin oil company on an electric car that yes might not now be getting energy from a sustainable source but will be in the future. He acknowledges there is racism in this country and sexism but claims again that all humans {men I correct} have always wanted power since the beginning of time and will always be this way.

I’m glad he mentions the “beginning of time” because then I can point out how untrue that statement of the mantra of those in power is. I point out that every major religion around the world begins with some kind of rendition of the peaceful, plentiful garden of eden type beginning of human life on the planet. He claims this is not a historical account meant to have any real human experience in it but full of myths so that people will think things were peaceful, the way god created and intended, so then humans have strayed and he repeats, only want power, which is the worse thing about human beings, the thing that has to change and is changing. Besides, he only listens to real historical accounts of the past.

When I ask him what those real accounts are he actually mentions the illiad and odysseus. I try to keep the incredulity out of my voice…not…when I ask him if those accounts are not full of myth and legend also? He kinda sheepishly acknowledges that is true.

Again, he says he knows that the seeking of power is the thing that is terrible and can be blamed for destroying so much.

So I ask him, what about e.m. and the power he has sought and hogged for himself. He denies that e.m. is power hungry but admirable because he is turning his billions into ‘help’ for the planet by ensuring sustainability will happen.

I emphasize that anyone that hogs billions of dollars is the worst power-hungry man on the planet. He seems a little unsure about the correlation between accumulating wealth while others starve to death and the fucked up psychopathic need for power. He wants to keep defending this billionaire.

I tell him again, it is only people who look like him, who’ve had the advantages he’s had his whole fuckin life that can believe that e.m. has made himself rich legitimately when the truth is that the only reason there are ‘poor’ people on the planet, people living in poverty is because of men like e.m. who are hogging not just more than what they need to live but what a third of the planet’s humans need to live

Furthermore, I say, he absconded with all this money, accumulated so much wealth, without giving one iota of thought, without caring about all the other humans in the country and on the planet that were/are struggling to survive while he hoards what they need.

He tries to say that e.m. doesn’t have political power – I have to laugh out loud and ask him ‘you can’t really believe that I or even you have as much political power as e.m.?’ Then I tell him that I don’t have the power to close down a public beach but he just did.

When I talk about how little of his wealth it would take to build the infrastructure to provide water and sewerage for every human on the planet that doesn’t have these two basic human rights, Doug immediately thinks he’s on firmer ground.

“Oh, e.m. said he would gladly fund that if anyone presented him with a ‘decent’ (such an ‘interesting’ choice of words) plan on how to do it.” Does he hear himself?

I say “do you mean to tell me the man who has figured out how to make this interplanetary whatever and energy sustainable on the planet thinks he can’t figure out how to provide simple water and sewerage to present-day humans? Really?”

Well, Doug says, he doesn’t want HIS money to be misspent, wasted, going to war lords (only to multi-billionaires). It’s not HIS fuckin money but money he has stolen from other humans….grrrrr

Lastly, I say you do know the issue with “sustainability” don’t you? Now I can see Doug can’t imagine what I’m going to say. He already knows I have solar on my roof and run on waste veggie oil so he thinks we must be on that same page.

I say the problem is when you and most people, including e.m., throw around that term you are not talking about sustaining all life on the planet but you’re talking about sustaining a certain lifestyle – this greedy, opulent lifestyle you and e.m. value so very much.

He’s ready to get on the road – his water has boiled in his microwave he has in the back of his tesla that’s plugged into the campground electricity and has made his cuppa so he throws out the line that most polite people use to end the conversation “well, we’re not going to agree but we’re both working to change things in our own ways.”

Yes, I tell him, we’re not going to agree now but I bet you all your faith in that multi-billionaire that you’re gonna think about what I’m saying to you and I have faith that you will change, maybe just a little, but change you will because you care.