The Rembis Report and Other Fascinating Topics - Volume XCIII

This newsletter is the fifth of six weekly editions as we count down to Earth Day. This series focus is on recycling, fossil fuels, mining, pollution, climate change, and the existential threat of annihilation as the result of war. If you are just tuning in please click these links to read the first four parts and get caught up.

The Road To The Brink Of Oblivion - Part I 

The Road To The Brink Of Oblivion - Part II

The Road To The Brink Of Oblivion - Part III

The Road To The Brink Of Oblivion - Part IV

***SPOILER ALERT***

This report includes a movie review and spoilers for Avatar: The Way Of Water.

Do you like movies with big explosions? I sure do. Today, I must channel my inner Stefon (from SNL) to bring you the following review from an honest and unbiased perspective.

If you like movies with fast-paced chases, gunfights, giant animals, absolute devastation on a massive scale, and a body count too high to keep track of, Avatar: The Way Of Water is for you.

Filmed on greenscreen in director James Cameron’s secret underground lair, Avatar: The Way Of Water is his newest masterpiece to sink a giant ship and kill everybody who gets in front of the camera. This flick has everything; hot chicks with tails, dismemberments, talking genius whales, lands that float in the sky, tame dragons you can ride who can fly and swim, parasitic biological communion, robots with people in their stomachs, helicopters, coral reefs, indigenous tribalism, white guys appropriating minority culture, and a younger, more alien version of Sigourney Weaver who has a nip slip.

James Cameron has hit it out of the park with this one. Filmed in 3-D because it was too much for just two dimensions to handle, neo-Na’vi Jake Sully is hunted down by an avatar of the guy he killed in the first movie and has to take his family into hiding. They hook up with a tribe of water-people who don’t want any trouble. Jake swears “No problem! No trouble! We will learn your ways and hunt and fish and do stuff like you do. Everything will be cool.”

Boy, is he wrong about that. That guy he killed is out for blood. Jake and his family are tracked down by the Sky People, humans who have devastated Earth and are now here to ruin and exploit Pandora. In addition to decimating the rest of the planet, just for good measure, they wage war on the idyllic islands of the water-people, torture and kill whales for money, and basically leave everything in their path destroyed, just like people do in real life.

James Cameron caught a lot of flack for his use of tribal elements borrowed from Maori people, Native Americans, the story of Pocahontas, and (promoting) white savior complex. What he has accomplished is an extraordinary film that is well worth watching. It is by design that the Avatar films focus on the destruction of land, pollution, greed, the murder of animals and the indigenous, telling his tale through the lens of war, which is arguably the most popular of all cinematic devices, aside from theft.

But when you think it through, war is theft on a grand scale. That is the point. The declaration of war is an offensive act based on intolerance with the goal of taking resources that belong to somebody else, leaving behind only dead people and spoiled land, and writing a narrative to justify that devastation.

It is easy to say that nobody wants war, but is that entirely true? The ones who start wars certainly have a goal in mind. They want something. Generally, land, but if there are too many people on the land they want, they have two options in taking that land; subjugate or kill them. Exiling them is a third option, but where to? It is easier just to kill people. So that is what happens.

Those who find themselves on the defensive end of wars are generally looked upon as the good guys. They were not the ones who started the wars, they stood firm, to the death when necessary, to maintain their positions, and historically, many of those who stood up to tyranny had allies rush to their aid and successfully fought their transgressors. So, in the end, everything worked out.

Really, Mike? It all worked out?

Not perfectly for everyone, but wars do eventually end. Do they end fairly? No. Quickly? Sometimes, not always. Are they necessary? Yes and no, depends on who you ask. Are they profitable? Absolutely.

What wars do is establish precedent for us to learn from and bolster economies that can survive the downside of war; the downside being death and destruction.

What is the upside?

Jobs. War creates jobs and jobs are what people care about. This is why you see billions in arms being shipped from the USA and others to Ukraine. It is why China entertains a military alliance with Russia. It is why Israel and Palestine keep trampling each other. It is all about money. And jobs.

Destroy, then resupply, then deconstruct, then resupply again, and finally rebuild, and keep doing that over and over again. Just make sure not to kill everyone so that there is somebody left to do that last part. That is why we cry foul when women and children get killed. We need the younger generation to do the heavy lifting.

Even Oskar Schindler started out as a guy who was just trying to make a buck before he felt a calling to do everything he could to save innocent lives.

In times of war, nobody can afford to turn down a job. And in times of peace (if you can actually cite such a time) the construction of war machines continue. Metal is mined and forged into tanks and planes and bombs and it keeps people employed. Arsenals are stockpiled and spycraft thrives. Militaries are trained, fed and housed, and strategically placed everywhere. War never ends.

For years, we have heard talk of World War III. How will it happen? Who will strike who? Has it already begun? Whatever your answers are to any of those questions I am sure you can find someone to debate with.

War is a constant. It is not always people versus people. Jane Goodall reported that chimpanzees engaged in war. So do ant colonies. Everything has an enemy. Some plants have repellent properties to deter insects and animals who would eat them. They can be poisonous, or just not taste good, like kale.

Humans have been waging war on the Earth, not just each other, but on the planet we live upon, for millennia. We take it for granted, that it belongs to us and we can do whatever we like with it, and it will not rebel. That is so wrong and misinformed.

Our planet is rebelling. As we pour toxins onto the ground and they seep into water tables and rivers that take our trash to the ocean, notice the carcinogens that the Earth kicks back at us. Notice the overabundant blooms of red tide. Notice how oil and plastic go everywhere. Notice how clean air gets scarcer. The Earth will not lose a war against us. Once the planet warms considerably, it will choke us out and it will win.

Another James Cameron film franchise, The Terminator movies, supposed that humans were viewed by artificial intelligence as parasites to be stomped out of existence, yet humans rise up from the ashes to destroy the machines they created. Our planet may not be as easy to defeat as an army of cyborgs, and if we keep kicking and clawing at it, dumping concentrated amounts of poisons in it, and possibly destroy each other with weapons of mass destruction with any of the 10,000 warheads we have ready to go, the Earth will bid us adieu.

So, it does not have to be war amongst ourselves that does us in. The road to the brink of oblivion has lots of options to get us closer to the end quicker than you think. The more pollution we create for the sake of somebody having a job is just another bullet in the foot of humanity. The Willow Project is a good example of this.

Joe Biden broke his promise to protect the Alaska wilderness just so a handful of people could have jobs. In doing so, this project will do irreparable harm to our atmosphere, effectively striking a blow at the natural world. This is the largest project of its kind on the planet. It is a declaration of war on the environment. But the upside, it is argued, is that oil will be abundant and a source of revenue for the next thirty years. That’s right. It’s all about the money.

Thirty years. Just long enough for the eldest generations to check out before the planet chokes everyone to death.

This is just one example, but you get the point. Since the ones who will make all the money from this project will probably die out in the next thirty years anyway, they don’t care.

Hopefully, some young upstarts will, and they will stop this madness.

Thanks for reading.

If you are new to the Rembis Report and would like to read any of the previous issues, PLEASE CLICK HERE to access the archives. To read it from the beginning, PLEASE GET A COPY of The Rembis Report: An Observation.

Click here to read The Road To The Brink Of Oblivion - Part VI