From a reader:

Grieving for the Loss of Lives from the Maui Fires… and Angry at the System

Updated August 13, 2023

Editors’ note: Wildfires that started on August 8 on the island of Maui in Hawai`i quickly spread and have caused widespread destruction, including the burning down of the town of Lahaina on the western coast. More than 90 people had been reported killed as of August 13, and the number of casualties continues to climb. This is described as the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in more than a century. Various factors are reportedly involved in the ferocity and magnitude of the fires, including strong winds from a hurricane near Hawai`i and the effects of global climate change. We received this correspondence on the fires from a reader in Hawai`i.

As I'm grieving for the loss of life on Maui, the evacuations and loss of homes and means of living, the loss of habitat and land, I'm also filled with anger! As I'm seeing the photos of Lahaina I feel like I'm seeing Nagasaki. That the fire happened on the day before August 9, the day that the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki (in 1945) isn't lost on me. The anger I feel at a system that dropped the bomb is the same anger I feel at a system that fundamentally denies climate change. A system that now places our whole planet at the brink of extinction through either war or climate change. Hawai`i is in the crosshairs of both.

"That the fire happened on the day before August 9, the day that the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki (in 1945) isn't lost on me. The anger I feel at a system that dropped the bomb is the same anger I feel at a system that fundamentally denies climate change. A system that now places our whole planet at the brink of extinction through either war or climate change."

Maui destruction of whole city of Lahaina, August 9, 2023.

Maui, August 9, 2023. Photo: AP screen grab

Destruction three years after nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

Nagasaki, November 1945. Photo: U.S. Army Air Forces via japanairraids.org

This week's hurricane was predicted to be nothing but a strong wind—but instead ignited a full-scale disaster; a disaster that was predictable (even while the moment couldn't be predicted). Climate change has brought less rainfall to Hawai`i and has decreased humidity, bringing about extreme fire conditions. Hawai`i's farmland has become non-profitable and has been abandoned, while invasive plants that are known to be tinderboxes for fire have been left to grow rampantly. Expansion of tourism and underfunding of infrastructure (including emergency services) is well known but ignored.

As the disaster continues and state services are completely incapable of controlling the fires or providing necessary services to the thousands who are left houseless or have been evacuated, who are we told to depend on and thank? The federal government and its military. The system. The same system that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The same system that denied climate change for decades—and continues to expand drilling for fossil fuels, deep sea minerals, and more. A system that is compelled to expand, expand, expand. A system that has a name: capitalism-imperialism.

So what do we do now? The people of Hawai`i ARE largely dependent on the military to do search and rescue, to drop water from helicopters, to provide financial help to those who need it. But we're also being told to just "get out of the way," or at most give money and pray and let the system that got us into this in the first place "rescue us," even while they continue to perpetuate (and even plan) more devastating disasters in our futures.

NO. We cannot just stand aside and wring our hands, hoping the next disaster doesn't hit too close and interrupt our comfortable lives. It's up to us to refuse to tolerate these continual outrages and injustices and search for a radically different and better society and world! And it's up to us to ACT on that, while searching for a REAL solution.

If you're one of those dreaming of a far better world, I urge you to read the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America and the Interviews with Bob Avakian, “Heart and Soul & Hard-Core for Revolution,” both available at www.revcom.us. Do your own study. Refuse to retreat into fear and hopelessness and instead fight for a whole new world where humanity and the planet can flourish. I, for one, don't think this is a pipe dream, but I do know it will take millions of people. And that depends on each of us.

...we have two choices: either, live with all this—and condemn future generations to the same, or worse, if they have a future at all—or, make revolution!

—Bob Avakian

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