Last week, DuPont and Dow Chemical announced their plan to merge their two companies into one: DowDuPont. The merger will produce three separate branch companies with focus on agricultural products such as herbicides and genetically modified seeds, commodity chemicals including plastics, and specialty chemicals such as those used in solar panels.

This is the fifth merger of major American corporations this year: Pfizer-Allergan for $160 billion; Anheuser-Busch-SAB Miller for $180 billion; Royal Dutch Shell-BG Group for $88; Charter Communications-Time Warner for $80 billion; and now Dow Chemical-DuPont for $68 billion.

I am not one inclined to writing on a subject from 30,000 feet — the normal cruising altitude for domestic airlines — which is exactly the vantage point most people in board rooms who make decisions such as these mergers view the rest of us on the ground. I am most interested in us — the ants on the ground.

I am not inclined to writing science fiction. Science fact is pretty dramatic and dangerous in and of its own. But figuring on this merger, which is standard practice in the world of corporate mergers and acquisitions — with the history of both the players — leaves me with a great sense of unease for the rest of us here below.

Silly me, what could possibly go wrong with the merger of two mega chemical giants, both with corporate histories of causing cancer, toxic chemical disasters, and depletion of what was once an abundantly diverse biosphere?

In large part, the creation of DowDuPont was done as a mechanism to withstand international competition from China, India — and their chief domestic rival Monsanto; and to respond to increasing pressure from ‘activist’ investors whose motivation is, of course, an increased bottom line. Their individual profit lines were not enough. To do anything less than this would be declaring corporate surrender. Their shareholders still want more.

Given recent history we know what that means, especially for big players like Dow and DuPont. In the short term: job cutting and factory shutdowns, followed by an increased pressure on existing plants to diversify and increase production.

This is the traditional setup for the big demon of corporate malfeasance to be let loose, if they do not carefully monitor and manage the production transition: failure to manage plant operational safety, which leads to plant accidents or other environmental disasters. Add on to that the plain fact that these plants anywhere on the Earth is a health risk to those of us here on earth, especially nearby.

You can be certain that resentment against environmental regulation here in the US will push production elsewhere on the planet, creating more profit at an environmental expense abroad. How will they manage and monitor plant safety in international venues? These are mild concerns compared to what could happen. All it takes is one terrible incident to blow the cover off. And that doesn’t exclude terrorism.

It’s suspicious these corporate changes are happening on a parallel track with the COP21 climate agreement, which by the way will not have enough teeth to crack down on the mass globalization of corporate polluters. Poorer countries will still feel the brunt of this, and the poor everywhere, including here in the US, will feel this as well — as both an economic and environmental burden.

As with any merger of such major international corporate players, a round of international vetting will need to take place over the next year. The US Federal Trade Commission will check to make sure that the merger will not impede fair competition, which is as far as the US will go. We should be watching to see how big a corporate payoff it will take to get approval from other industrial states across the planet to play ball with the new monster DowDuPont.

Do I sound naive? Anti-capitalist? Anti big business? Alarmist? Am I not being fair to DowDuPont? In a word or two, hell yes. From Exxon to Fukushima, the track record for large corporations has not been good. Anything can happen, and it has — at an unimaginable scale on an already fragile world. And those of us who have watched these events unfold have no delusions that a merger between two corporate chemical giants will lead to more transparency and accountability. Snowball’s chance.

When corporations such as these commit these environmental disasters — which cause emphysema, cancer and birth defects (and that’s just if we consider the impact on humans), and which their respective boardrooms would robotically categorize as “regrettable, unanticipated and unfortunate loss,” that is about as humane a statement that an entity from 30,000 feet can be. These statements, the cover for criminal acts against the rest of us, are crafted specially for them by a team of lawyers from the 70th floor of a legal conglomerate somewhere in a major international corporate hub.

You get the message. It’s not personal Guido. It’s just business.

By CAROLINE MYSS

Diplomatic solutions to global crises? Nonsense — that’s what war is for. Right? Just bomb it. You know how Cheney does it: Ready-shoot-aim.

Well, okay then. Can you recall what country you want to bomb? Ah…that’s why I have cabinet-makers…no, that’s cabinet members.

Their fraudulent morality is yet another performance that I urge you to see through, even though the issue is abortion. (And how one feels about that issue is not my point here – that is an individual choice and I make no comment about that at all.) My point is their fraudulent use of this issue for political noise.

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Dear Sagittarius Sun, Moon and Rising and friends:

We are pleased to announce that Eric has now completed your Sagittarius 2015-16 birthday recording. Here is a sample to whet your appetite:

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This is the latest in a series of letters connected to Vision Quest, the 2016 annual edition of Planet Waves. You can read the prior letter in the series here, and the first letter — introducing the project — on this page.

By Jeanne Englert

I am a deer using my whiskers to experience the beauty of a chair. I call my pet bear so I can feed him. He is far away but I can see him coming. I have new eyes that allow me to see into the depths of the sea. A clear and determined voice awakens me in the night, calling my name.

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Its been a difficult few weeks in America since the Paris attacks of mid-November. With the responsibility for the attacks claimed by ISIS, all the usual suspects latent in America’s post-911 xenophobic subconscious have emerged like ugly flowers.

Now, given the sunlight of the San Bernardino shooting — where a young couple purportedly claimed their support for the ISIS cause (though ISIS claims no responsibility) and killed 14 people in a public services office — these flowers are in full bloom.

Of course the nightly news isn’t helping. Once again, we revisit late 2001, reborn in Donald Trump’s and Ted Cruz’s demagoguery. And their supporters love it. No need for facts right now. Just plain, raw emotion, suspicion, xenophobia and a desire for vengeance. All the national uncertainty surrounding why this young immigrant couple with a six-month old baby took to opening fire on civilians in a government building is essentially a powder keg — one we’re sitting on squarely.

Because of that public uncertainty, the once-diminishing Trump campaign gained new life in the wake of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. Once again grabbing hold of the national id, Mr. Trump’s declarations of going after not only terrorists but their families on national news has helped him regain further traction, building into a sizable lead over his fellow challengers for the nomination.

I don’t even recall George W. Bush being so blatantly anti-immigrant in the aftermath of 9-11. Yet, with Trump’s entire party in fear of a Black president, and never one to let a moment for opportunism slip, Donald — the alpha demagogue, Mr. Branding himself — dove to even lower lows. He was followed by Ted Cruz, the beta demagogue, who gave his anti-Muslim xenophobia its own flair. Not surprisingly, recent polls among Republican voters place Trump and Cruz as first and second, respectively, and Ben Carson’s once appallingly pleasing campaign has faded.

It is under these circumstances that President Obama spoke to the nation in an unusual Sunday evening address, asking for calm, attempting to reassure a highly wary and trigger-happy America that the government plans to get to the bottom of the San Bernardino attacks, and asking us to remember what we are as a nation. Even though all the right words seem to have been written and said, the general atmosphere on both sides of the political sphere is division and mistrust. Will he or won’t he pull the trigger and send boots on the ground in Syria? Will he go to war to keep us safe?

It is here where, among other words spoken by the President, I ask today for calm as he did. Yet I want to take that one step further and ask not for calm as in complacency, but for the reasoned calm of one insistent on investigating who did what to whom and why in San Bernardino. Getting to the bottom of it. All of it. I mean, not doing this lead to the Iraq Invasion in 2003 which started all of this in the first place.

Here is where we find that gap in the memory tape, our convenient amnesia that eclipses what should be the lessons of history whenever we’re frightened and insecure. We’re scared for the continuance of our privileged way of life, our dominance, and our sense of superiority and exceptionalism in the world. That is a lot of baggage to unload.

Are you the political black sheep in your family? Welcome to the most sane forum for discussing politics on the Internet. You can now get access to articles posted on this website through Planet Waves’ new reader-level membership? So if you have friends who’ve reached their click-limit, pass it along. Our Core Community membership still gets you email delivery, plus other perks.

But, this is unfinished business looking us in the face, and we’re grasping for answers that we already know exist but are afraid to admit. This is where our failure to remember always gets us in trouble.

Fifteen years after 9-11, if we haven’t been paying attention, is plenty of time for cells and insurgencies to be reborn, die off, reconstitute and carry on. We’ve known that. That is why we’ve had the acronym GWOT (Global War on Terror) tattooed on our psyches. The issues created by a country we destroyed, namely Iraq, remain — from Al-Qaida to the Islamic State and whoever comes next.

Because we are in a race for a White House that climate change deniers and neocons are spending billions to claim (and who stand to gain from the chaos of war in the Middle East), the general atmosphere in the country is volatile. And the current political dialogue is a lit match. Are we forgetting that, with all the scapegoating and demonization of immigrants from wars we caused, we are still sitting in that room loaded full with powder kegs and playing with fire?

With this in mind, I’m posting this reminder from On The Media.org for our readers, which I found through Daily Kos over a week ago:

BREAKING NEWS CONSUMER’S HANDBOOK — Terrorism Edition

1. Remember, in the immediate aftermath almost everyone will get it wrong.
2. As always, local, non-anonymous, and verified sources offer better info.
3. Amid all the contradictory statements,focus on consistent reports.
4. The more emotional the commentary, the less reliable the information.
5. Really don’t pay attention to politicians.
6. In fact, examine the credentials of all putative “experts.”
7. Pay attention to the language the media uses:
—“Mastermind” — endows terrorists with more power than they have
—“Sophisticated” — overestimates crudely planned mayhem.
—“Unprecedented” — there is little “new” in terrorist methods.
8. Inevitably, whole populations and religions are scapegoated. Ignore this.
9. Resist reflexive retweeting. Number of shares belies accuracy.
10. Be patient.

This list is relevant today and will be in the tomorrows to come. Please cut it out and paste it by your keyboard, television or on your refrigerator for reference. Just in case we forget.