For a mind bending, and thoroughly challenging experience, take in Frontline’s “Top Secret America” documentary. After this, take in Frontline’s (very long) “God In America.”
Admitting my current state of personal oxidation, I do remember the 1970s hick hit, “Hee Haw.” Every week, the Nashville based comedy show would commence… and one of the regular bits was a weekly re-engineered joke sequence with a musical refrain: “Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me.”
- Gloom, despair and agony on me-e!
- Deep dark depression, excessive misery-y!
- If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all!
- Gloom, despair and agony on me-e-e!”
An extremely powerful article, by former G.O.P House Staffer Mike Lofgren, was the last straw for me. At least temporarily.
What happened to us?
At this tenth anniversary of the epoch changing events of September 11th, 2001, I reflect that it actually wasn’t that horrific event that began my 15 year and growing disillusionment with “the way things are.” It was actually 1.) when Bill Clinton couldn’t muster the personal integrity to tell the truth about his wayward libido and then tell everyone else to butt out, it was a personal matter and 2.) the licentious manner in which the G.O.P. pushed everything out of proportion, taking the collective eye OFF the important affairs of government, mainly, what the hell was Greenspan doing by experimenting with “exotic” financial instruments that ultimately contributed to the worldwide financial meltdown we’re still swimming in right now.
The end of the 1990′s parade of turpitude… from the celebration of misogynist, gun-toting, drug dealing rap artists and pro athletes to the questionable election of George Bush as President set me up on a quest to emigrate…but Canada and Iceland (and many other desirable nations) require a small, quarter million USD investment to show good faith in why you wish to be there. It’s apparently difficult to prove asylum if you are from the largest purported bastion of freedom and democracy on the planet.
My spouse called me away from my development work to look at the unfolding unreality of September 11th. The famous balk by President Bush during his press-event reading lesson to children was carried nearly live. Actually, I don’t know that many other U.S. Presidents would have done any differently. How could anyone parse such an event? There was no basis. Unlike many more nasty parts of the planet, the Balkans, Georgia, Israel and Palestine, the U.S. simply is not experienced when violence, on such a massive scale, is brought into our own sense of self security. Like so many other citizens, not just U.S., but worldwide, the planet seemed to shift on its axis, and the surrealism described very well in Mike Lofgren’s article (above) started to unfold.
Personally, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit being swept up in a “crush ‘em” type of fervor, the same way a sport team player would likely feel if the opposing team took a cheap, unwarranted shot at an important player on my team. My friend Sandy chastised me, and rightly so, for this position. She said that the nation would not recover from an ill-informed, extended war in Iraq. Prescient indeed. I remember so clearly the genuine look of concern on her face… she was visible upset, and I…along with the vast majority of our fellow citizens should also have been.
And so, in we go, just like the highly romanticized Disney film “Pocahontas”.
Dwight D. Eisenhower would be crying until he was dry, if alive today:
“We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts, America is today the strongest, the most influential, and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this preeminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches, and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.” – Dwight Eisenhower, farewell address to the nation.
Are we so devoid of imagination, so devoid of creativity, so devoid of CULTURE that our simple response to anything is to lock it up and beat or bomb the crap out of it? When did we lose such complete touch with the living, breathing, life on earth? Really? Is there really no way to make things better without force?
The major culprits, I believe are 1.) interpretation and 2.) manipulation. These two seemingly innocent words are responsible for allowing sad, insecure, ignorant, and subsequently shallow individuals to rise to terrific public prominence and stay there as long as they breath.
And once dangling from those lofty perches, information is again “interpreted” after which another round of “manipulation” begins. There are lots of players involved, most self-serving, and apathetic to the bigger picture.
And, admittedly, how different am I? My pal Kip has been volunteering (a lot) to assist the clean up of flood damaged homes and businesses from the torrential Vermont flooding from hurricane/tropical storm Irene. Kip is walking the walk, and actually not much talk about it. It is an opportunity to serve, which I am guiltily not taking advantage of.
In Lofgren’s article, he mentions the thread of Ayn Rand within a certain aspect of G.O.P. fanaticism. I have read “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” a few times, as well as a couple of books of essays. It’s hard not to be attracted, if one has any sense of rugged individualism, to Rand’s concept of “objectivism“. However, Lofgren points out with accuracy, that you can’t follow Rand and follow Evangelical Fundamentalism at the same time… Rand was a fervent atheist!
Back to the topic of a need to serve, what put the holes in my objectivism sail, is that you simply can’t roll with “survival of the fittest” in any concept of modern society. All parts of any society need to be working, and happy to be working, in order for new ideas to develop, be vetted and if worthy, adopted…for PROGRESS to occur. And, like my previous blog entry, if only 1% of the population can afford to purchase the output of society, there won’t be any growth, period.
And this is where service comes in. At some point, service becomes a component of “enlightened self interest” a key component to contributing to a greater, wider good, that will in turn, be of value to the participating individual.
Alexis de Tocqueville toured early America, way before the Civil War, and wrote about it in his voluminous “Democracy in America”. Here’s a great excerpt:
“Moreover, almost all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same. In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.
There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled by their ignorance and their debasement, while in America one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world fulfills all the outward duties of religion with fervor.
Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country.”
So, two hundred years ago, the “unity” was the fact that the majority of what was perceived as “the nation” was white, and Christian. Again, Lofgren, touches on this in his explanation for his leaving nearly thirty years as a G.O.P. staffer in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The reality IS: we are not all white, and we’re not all Christian. And for the record, we never were, at least by census. The number of native people living in North America at the time of European colonization, and subsequent importation of slaves is hard to pin down, but commonly held scholarly opinion suggests there were millions. Millions!
And so, my optimism of late has suffered a few body blows. It gets resuscitated from time to time by unexpected acts of kindness and selflessness, little events that renew my faith in the species, but I can’t help feeling that ol’ Henry Kissinger is right. And Mike Lofgren is right. We’re at a point where we, as a species, have to remove the thumb from our lower exit point, and say “enough”. And vote. And vote not from political ads, but after diligent research and discussion. And, go visit a neighbor. Listen a lot. Find commonality. Find community.
One of the aspects of humanity that I still cling to, is that most individuals really want to do the right thing, they really do. And this is still something to be optimistic about.
