Helping Children Save Their Future, Colltalers

Less than a month since the Trump administration decided to oust Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, the country is in turmoil, clashing with neighbors, and facing civil war. What it’s farther from achieving, though, is the social stability Venezuelans want.
It’s another make-believe threat, to be sustained until or if this week’s North Korea summit produces a sliver of good news the president can boast about. It’ll further deplete the already poor climate change media coverage, the only war we should be fighting.
It’s inspiring to see the young, mostly children, in fact, jumping into the trenches for the climate fight, with the resolve and maturity rarely seen in our leaders. By pushing them hard, the kids are also exposing some pretty vexing realities about the adult world.
When members of the Sunrise Movement, middle and high school children advocating for climate action, visited California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein, to plead her support for the New Green Deal, which calls for a (U.S.) ‘transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030,’ she all but dismissed them. As their encounter went viral, though, it showed why is so hard to get change in Washington.
Feinstein, one of the stalwart leaderships of Democratic Party’s moderates, is obviously annoyed, along many of her colleagues, by the ‘invasion’ of enthusiasm and bold ideas brought about to Congress by a new crop of politician, mostly women, elected last Nov.
The kids didn’t take long to reply to her paternalistic approach with pointed, science-backed arguments. And even political ones too, as when they correctly noted, when she dismissed the package’s chances of being voted, that to support it is still worth. Like clear-eyed politicians, they’ve lectured her on the importance of preparing appropriate laws for when change becomes reality.
But the good senator doesn’t seem too keen into supporting this new, daring, loud leadership voices, pushing to halt at least some impact from climate change. Perhaps it’d be instructive to ask her own grandchildren, whom she mentioned as if she cares, what do they think about their grandma’s views? Maybe not too adoringly, on hopes. Otherwise, she should be told to get out of the way.
As the party’s current star, the much maligned-by-the-right Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said, ‘small, incremental policy solutions are not enough.’ We’ve all seen what ‘incremental policy’ has done to the planet in the past decade, including its string of hottest years ever. Even if science consensus, that we’ve got only 12 years to reverse this process, is flawed, we’re already in a

state of emergency.
Remember that one? When Trump declared a (made-up) national emergency at the border, and immediately after, spent a few millions of taxpayer money to fly to Florida in time for tee off, even local officials backing him had trouble following the narrative.
Sorry Venezuela, but that’s exactly why the focus is now on you; that tale about a vicious border invasion, happening right now, started losing steam, and another needed to be primed. All to divert attention from the investigation to determine whether the president committed treason, by colluding with a hostile power in exchange for economic gains. For that doesn’t look good either.
The death of four people in the border with Colombia, over the weekend, could be attributed in part to the massive media attack, from American and Brazilian organs, on the Maduro administration. His drive to retain power at any cost notwithstanding, the president is right in calling this an illegal invasion, and to suspect that the ‘humanitarian aid’ is designed to favor the opposition.
The U.S. risks entering another conflict it can’t win, had no business entering, and has no exit plan either. It’s an adventure that soothes the deranged mind of old hawks who never saw a war or conflict they wouldn’t profit from. In common, they – who shall not be named – have despicable pasts as shady operators of destruction and fat defense contracts. And derision for human rights.
Venezuelans should know that this is not about saving democracy or ‘freedom’ to the people. If there was any intention to address that, U.S.-based humanitarian agencies and political officials would be helping bring the parties together, to preserve the state of normality. Political and institutional crisis are never solved by canons and threats, even less with embargoes that starve the people.
Apart from that, it’s unlike that Trump will commit to a Latin American problem like this one, despite posing as if he’s doing it so, because his buddy Putin already put the kibosh on this administration’s plans. Are they headed to a showdown? Tune in next week.
The summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un, that starts Wed in Vietnam, comes then as a welcome relief to the president, who may even score some progress towards a more workable relation between the two countries. But expectations are lower than their first meeting, because Kim, as expected, has done some hedging to protect his hand on nuke autonomy, and Trump, well, he lied.
The term ‘workable’ is probably not on his vocabulary, anyway but the claim is entirely gratuitous. And almost as fake as the petition to the Swedish Academy to grant him a Nobel. The second such scheme ever was deemed a fraud and referred to the Swedish police.
While the old establishment of the Democratic Party discusses their odds of getting any legislation passed by a GOP-majority Senate, the young people are the ones leading the most remarkable offensive against inaction in climate change. Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen who’s been pointing fingers at world leaders, for their lax attitude towards the environment, has set the tone.
Now there’s an even younger American, Alexandria Villasenior, who’s planning the Youth Climate Strike, on March 15. And many others, some older, like Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, an indigenous activist, and the same age, like the survivors of the Parkland shooting.
These kids have the potential to become tomorrow’s leaders, and it’d be an improvement to all of us, but we need to encourage, not chastise them. They don’t need to be taught how complicated it is for a common citizen to be heard by a powerful politician; they’ve experience this at every interaction with condescending adults, hopelessly compromised with maintaining the status quo.
Finally, the AOC’s and Ed Markey’s green proposal is a road map, and not a bad one at that. So it happens to have found resonance with the American people; support to it is obvious because even a 7-year-old can tell that whatever we’re doing is not working.
We’re coming to a point that supporting any costly intervention, any waste of our military resources, or any distracting made up crisis, invented by the president out of self preservation, compromise everybody else’s own preservation. Bring these kids to prime time, help them propagate their message, because they’re defending our survival. If Trump is not interested, well, wait until 2020.
Meanwhile, demand the U.S. to give up of its badly planned intervention in Venezuela, and join, instead, efforts by U.N. agencies, humanitarian and civil rights organizations, and the Venezuelan people, to agree upon a consensual political solution to their woes.
There’s already enough carnage to burn the world a few times over. Entire populations live with the harsh reality of death by bombing. The U.S. has a huge responsibility for this state of affairs, and it’s time the American people demand accountability for what’s being done on their behalf. It’s time well-taught children get the power to veto what’s being done to their future. Cheers. WC

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