Teddy Roosevelt | The Direction of Intention

Not Hyperbole [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 6, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

I added an addendum to my post yesterday. I’d purposely avoided the news of the day. I was in overwhelm with the corruption and blatant disregard for human life by the current administration. I was tired of asking myself and others, ‘How is this possible?” And then, right before I scheduled my post for publication, I saw a news report of the fires in Spokane and around the world. And, as fate and the algorithm would have it, right next to the news of the fires burning across the globe, was an article about Shell Oil’s massive surge in profits. I wanted to vomit. This was my addendum from yesterday:

(a note about the current state of the nation and the world: today I simply do not know what to say. There is fire. The oceans are heating. River’s are drying. Crops are dying. And, “Shell reported a massive surge in profits, posting second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $9.84 billion, more than double the amount from the same period last year.” What is there to say about people setting fire to their neighborhood and then finding pleasure in profiting from it?)

My question was not – and is not – hyperbole. “Carbon dioxide emissions are the primary driver of global climate change.” Oil. Gas. Petroleum. Coal. What is there to say about people setting fire to their neighborhood while finding pleasure in profiting from it?

This is not a challenge without a solution. We-the-people and the people of the world have the capacity and the technology to slow the warming if not turn it around. Our challenge is not will. Our challenge is the profit of special interests. Rampant greed. It fuels the cries that climate change is a “hoax,” it is the driver behind the current attempt of authoritarian take-down of our democracy.

In the era of the emergence of the corporate monster from the swamp, Teddy Roosevelt – a Republican – warned that the only protection a citizenry had against exploitation by the monster was a strong government willing to regulate its actions. Our current situation is not a new challenge in the USA:

“At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will…Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.” ~ Teddy Roosevelt, The “New Nationalism” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas, 1910

The difference between now and then is the scope of the existential crisis. Teddy Roosevelt cited the Civil War which was a very real threat to the existence of our nation. Our warming globe threatens the very existence of humanity. This is not hyperbole. The water wars are on the horizon. Crop failures, the collapse of the food supply, are a reality today. This is data. Information. It is knowledge that somehow has not landed as understanding in the corporate boardroom or the republican congress.

Wisdom is nowhere to be found.

Last night we had a discussion with 20 about a man who has made his home a bunker. His basement is filled with canned food. He hoards ammunition because he believes in the coming world bullets will be currency. His is a cowboy fantasy. It is the same fantasy as those entertained in the boardroom and strutted by the maga-republican-madhatters. This man thinks that he will somehow be able to go it alone in a societal collapse. His strategy is built entirely upon the labor and support of others. It has yet to occur to him that his cans of food did not manifest themselves. They represent the labor and service of hundreds of people, people that he pretends that he does not need or depend upon. The same is true of his guns and bullets. He did not forge or construct any of his many weapons. He has yet to consider that his cans and bullets will only go so far. And then what?

Penny wise and pound foolish. And arrogant. And blind.

We’ve only walked our loop twice since June. The storms, heat and humidity have made it impossible. While snapping his photo of the black-eyed-Susans, Kerri said, “I miss our loop. When do you think this gross weather is going to change?” I shook my head, not wanting to say what I was thinking because my thought was cynical: When the people stoking the fire in the world realize that their massive profit will not spare them from the flames.