Giant sucking sound of loss of potential in headwinds: An open road or wind gone out of sails
(An alternative 3rd and final "clip show" retrospective to the one planned. I hope to finally move on to only covering new ground here or on my other blog soon.)
Countries that don't value individuals rights as much as others may see little wrong with killing all those who threaten it from within or to "poison" its culture with foreign ideals. Humanity itself can act this way. If evidence appeared which clearly indicated the actions or intentions of one smaller manageable country negatively affected the prospects of survival of the species at large, nations would rise up and either forcibly reverse that nations action, modify its culture or political system which fostered such actions or attempts, or failing those modifications would, as it were, attempt to take out such a subversive, in this case anti-human, element.
This may sound unrealistic but what if one country’s culture or political system was a sort of suicide cult pledged to take out all of another culture through uncontainable biological weaponry as an eventual end? Humanity as a whole would try to contain it, keep it from advancing scientifically, but in the end it would either risk being destroyed by it or would decide that such a culture would be too dangerous to let exist if it could not be contained, and would declare war on and / or seek to destroy such a culture. I don’t endorse this, but as one with imagination, I can envision humanity one day forced to confront such a scenario since such groups exist today but do not dominate cultures or governments, hopefully.
We teach by saying, and we learn by thinking, but what we see around us is what we know is real, at least at this level of understanding. Teaching high ideals means nothing if they are not visibly into practice daily, repetitiously, and are ingrained into society in a way that never falters however hard times get, and treacherous the road may seem. What kind of world we make for ourselves now is our achievement. And if it is strong and just it will speak more than volumes to those yet to come. Great countries or civilizations did not become great scheming on how best to be around hundreds of years later in their present forms, they sought to be the best they could of their own time, to meet the needs of those people of those times, and that is why they survived and prospered. It is said examples speak louder than words, but in the end we can use words to prevent us from seeing the reality instead of what we wish to see, and obscure how little our worlds or our lives reflect our values.
On occasion we will set aside our words, our beliefs, our truths and suppositions, and look with a clear eye to the world around us with the simplicity of a child just learning of the world, of the problems within it we use lots of words to explain, or think we explain, as if by using words to define them, to understand them, they will just fade away once explained or understood. In the end we are just another species hiding behind words using them to explain why what is is not really what it seems to be, not what one looking at it without words, without knowledge of history or theories, or prejudices, or conjectures of any sort, would see. Words give us the means to vastly alter our realities but too often we stop at using them merely to alter our perceptions of reality, and let all the mistakes we think we correct remain untouched and unnoticed.
Many still believe in a two tracked world. It is O.K. for others to be enslaved if some will live free. It is fine for some populaces to be manipulated so long as others have free will. Once applying that standard to other nations and regions invariably it is applied within. Treachery done for the sake of honor, injustice done when the cause is just, lying to preserve a greater truth. Of these inconsistencies no nation or people are blameless, no hands are clean. The more we try to have it both ways, the more the truth will escape unseen, unnoticed and will become despised by all who think the truth of what we are and what we do matters not to how we see ourselves.
History can be our judge only if in the end the truths come out and one day are known. A factual record of what we did and said, on so many levels too much to hope for and have done without biases, will matter more than what we thought we were doing or what we believed we were achieving. Those who keep the future in mind, those who believe future generations will one day see through our lies and misrepresentations, our manipulations of others opinions to validate what we should not be doing, what could never withstand open and universal scrutiny, who will have only what we have done to speak for who we were. How then would we look to them, how much could we account for ourselves and for our actions, and how often did we convince ourselves we did not do what we did, did not say what we meant, and could not see ourselves for what we were? Whether God, Santa Claus, or future generations, it is always helpful to think that someone or something can see through you so that you might gain such insight as well. No words, no explanations, no bullshit. Just what was, unabridged, unabbreviated, and uncensored. There may not be much absolute reality in this reality, but what little of it there is we ought do our best never to run away from.
It is easy to see that knowledge, fire, power, are not exactly in safe hands at the moment. With that turn of events, fire and knowledge passing into human hands, we separated ourselves from other species in our environment. We cannot turn back the clock, and though some think it possible, we cannot control what everyone will know, nor keep fire from spreading around the world. We need to remember what can quell it. Hope. Fire is change. That fire, the fire of change, cannot be put out. It can be harnessed, used to make our lives better, make us better people and stronger when we know how to guide and direct it to find its highest purpose with hope. Regulated and used properly, we saw fire as our friend, but we forget easily now how awesome its power is, and how easily it spins out of control. Right now people in power mistakenly think fire can be used to contain fire, and that is a gravely mistaken assumption. Hope is all that can manage to bring fire under control and make it serve all of us equally, providing fire does not kill it first.Polsci.com - Spring 2005
My fascination with words has framed much of my life. In my teens I started writing poetry seriously and was taken in with the concept of using multiple levels of meaning with the fewest words possible, the swordplay of wordplay, the essence of communication. That is what religions teach as well from the earliest of recorded histories, using stories or parables to convey deeper meanings you cannot either say outright because of the unquestioning times you live in, or that they need to be embodied in people, real or imagined, to become relevant, fleshed out, comprehensible. And that is the essence of deeper levels of meaning to what is written, how different others might see it, for it is the diversity of perception and what different life experiences possible readers bring to bear which gives poetry and other types of attempted 'positive' double-speech, their supposed deeper levels. Saying two things at once, or more, or far more with the same words, requires these other minds and mindsets to speak to to give them these multiple meanings at once.
And you cannot speak to them without knowledge of them. The tragedy of America in these days is the 'writing off' of other culture's views, especially upon our own actions, as irrelevant and uninformed. To not want to see and know yourself from other culture's points of views, I have said before, not only makes you something ugly, something deformed in the light of general human development, it is to write off their perspectives as meaningless. They might as well not exist. And in that light as in so many other nations in the past, we are doing 'good' to 'remove' them. ...
I began my own philosophical search as a cultural relativist, have moved beyond it, yet am astounded and disheartened beyond measure to see my own culture, America, slam cultural relativism, as something trite, irrelevant, even a fashion without substance. It has become a victim of its own hyped up self-importance, a media preaching that ignorance is better than knowledge. There has been so much of a backlog of falsehood, misrepresentation, propaganda, and outright self- destructive lying to the American people by the Bush Administration of the 21st century that as it begins to get exposed, has the potential to point us, and because of our possibly undue influence or control over the rest of the world, to point the world on a new and better path as we begin once more to speak what we believe to be the truth. We need to try to know what is outside of ourselves, what lies outside of our bodies, minds, beliefs, mindsets and national borders, that is not irrelevant, not without truths of their own which we do not destroy without destroying our own ability to grow.
The truth will begin to be let out more and more. We in the West, we need to demand a media that shows us to us as the rest of the world knows us, so we may see what they do and we do not. To see ourselves from the most points of view. To see ourselves from the most points of approximations or representations of truth that may not be true in individuality, but in sum, in total, in the view we are purposely now kept from seeing, comes as close to the truth as we will ever get without retreating into our own unquestioning assumptions, dogma, propaganda, hubris, and self-delusions. We have become and have been led by the embodiment of such a dark path of willful ignorance. Yet a new path has already begun. It is young yet, this truth telling, and its fate depends upon the actions of millions of others to survive against the legacy we have spun, yet I have faith in it. I have faith that it will grow, that it will survive, and it will dominate the lies, at least in the short term, and at least of the recent past.
...What I can't say, perhaps should not be said. But there are always other things which can. Just because the environment is not the same as I expected, in many ways much more receptive to change and much less need for confrontation as before, that does not mean that all is settled. This is one of the greatest periods of change in American and world history, and now the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction. Not because the hapless Democrats have taken over a corrupted system, but because people are beginning to realize the need to be told the truth, and hopefully in government, they recognize the need to tell them.
Democracy requires stewardship not by the legislators but ultimately by the public informed about what is really going on. Right now, not even the legislators are being told what is going on and they have made it quite clear they prefer to be out of the loop. The lies must end. The free ride is over.
Without the public demanding both political parties in the US to actually represent their interests over corporate interests, other countries interests, the defense and oil companies interests in ways to the detriment and endangerment of it citizens, then it would be time to admit, the grand experiment in democracy, at least in the United States, is over and exists only in rhetoric and lies, about as factual as the disinformation and propaganda being served to them nightly by faux news broadcasts and talking point op-eds.
So where is the good in all of this? In the reaction. Where there is an overwhelming degree of criminality and injustice, where lies and disinformation have displaced truth and legitimate information, there is a strength that arises in us all to stand up to it. Repression and suppression are untenable in the long run. They overreach, and by overreaching create opportunities for advancements which cannot be done when times are good and people are content.
Probably the most victimized nations on this planet, other than in Africa, are found in Latin America. They have suffered death squads, ethnic cleansing, political repression, and all with the approval of “the world's greatest superpower,” (now a junkie on Red Kryptonite) and have bred a people unafraid to stand up against overwhelming odds, pervasive fears and threats, and have a strength which Americans sorely to say do not. (If you think this an exaggeration, compare Mexico's and other southern nations' reaction to potential rigged elections to the near complete non-reaction within the US to the election in 2000. How many in the US are cowered away from protesting because of fear of retribution, surveillance, and loss of jobs?)
People forget the things they celebrate most are those who stood up against the wrongs of their times, or the ones crushed by heartless and oppressive empires who thought they could write their own rules, and previous laws or the rights of others did not matter as much, and could be subverted or gotten around. As much as the US and others have looked for a magic bullet to break cultures, make them loyal to leaders who do not represent the interests of their peoples, they have not yet succeeded in total and hopefully never will.TruthRevival.org - 5/6/07
I don't claim the US has been necessarily an effective champion of such values so much outside of its own mind, nor that it necessarily deserves to be called the best or most effective proponent of them even before this century's astonishing abandonment of them, but that those values integration into a global structure would have been to most of our past generations of Americans a measure of our greatest success and worthy of our most heaviest of losses, as well as a vindication or lessening of our greatest mistakes. We have lost that initiative. We have lost that right to claim that as our signature, and we are losing fast that ability to direct such a spin. Worst than anything, we have lost any leadership that would warrant linking such a progression to be traceable back to us. We have become the obstacle, not the cure.
To this America must rededicate itself to, to creating such a future democratic order that codifies the values in practice that we still mouth in rote, yet have been as of late abandoning in droves. We must reaffirm that freedom of thought, of expression without fear of being labeled a terrorist or of recrimination, the rights of citizens to oppose governments, even our own, when they think they have erred, and one that curtails any rights only when in the most extreme cases imaginable, and never without debate and consent of those who lose or are asked to give up such rights. Such orders and world governments will come about one day, and if this dark present is any guide, they will come about over our objections and not by our examples, or with our aid.
America has become like an old king, unwilling to pass on the kingdom to our heirs, forgetting that it was only given to us as a loan, was not and never to be ours to own. "They are not ready yet, too reckless to get any of our power, to yet take the throne." Yet if that is so, it is because we have shown no magnanimity toward ever giving any of it up, have not used that power to create enlightenment in those who will ultimately have to succeed us, but have spent it recklessly upon ourselves without watching the clock on how long that could last or go on.
When we claimed we were giving some of our power up, portioning it out, it usually was really as a rich old man tries to manipulate those around them seeking to get what they prize, to use that to degrade them and make them subservient. We cannot fathom those who do not want what we have to offer and seek only to find their own way through life if it is contrary to our ways.
We have lost the war of ideas and now use the most debase forms of control, money and weapons, to limit and close the debates early, but there was time when we valued the ideas more than the power. And there was a time when the love of liberty and justice in ourselves would have prevented us from taking it and denying it so readily and so constantly from others. And valuing the truth more than allowing and permitting the lies of telling ourselves that we are not doing so to them while we know, and it is so obvious to others, that we are robbing them of those freedoms and self-determination and self-rule free from our influence or control.
We will inevitably lose the head of the table, the control of the debate, the hypothetical throne, if not to our ideological heirs of liberty and justice, then to the heirs we are begetting now of treachery, lies, deceit of the publics, making ignorant misinformed subjects cowering in fear to make ourselves seem larger or omnipotent, and who would torture innocents to get to the guilty, no matter how many to find how few.
We have not done a good job, not done any job, to prepare the world for being one where we are not in control of whatever we wish to be in control of, yet if we were while we still have some degree of power, we might be able to justify what we have inherited, as all kings have, something won through previous generations manipulations, conquests, and unspeakable acts, yet trying to turn it into something noble and something worthy of being passed on, which those whom it touches would be held up by it, and not made to bow, to cower, nor to be afraid, but far more than we, and more even than we can realize, to be freer men and women.
Though many have rightly claimed that this destruction is not limited to this present Bush Administration, that it is merely continuing policies begun by both Democratic and Republican Presidents and Congresses, the idea of democracy, what vestige of it still remains at home, is that a change of administration can herald a change of direction. “That is not us anymore,” a new President is thought to be able to proclaim upon taking office. “I will undo these mistakes or at least try to make them right,” one can hope a new President will promise. The bad Superman has been vanquished. The good Superman has returned and we must look to the future and give back the trust.
But the trust will not return. There was no bad Superman from an alternate Universe to blame our mistakes on. No Democratic candidate currently running is advocating anything drastic enough or different enough to justify belief in any significant course change to how the US has conducted itself these last 6 years. The lies will continue, either from a different Republican or Democratic white man or woman, or from a Black man or Hispanic President. Pre-emptive war will not be “off-the-table”, threats of regime change of countries that displease us will continue, arms races desired by the corporations which control both parties will increase for the state subsidized guaranteed profits they will generate, and the world will not have much more reason to trust us later than now.
But they will have to, we think. Our musical chairs, feigned course changes or slight alternations deemed to give to our home population that hope that the future will get better, we think will still spill over to the rest of the world. We do spend countless billions to plant positive stories in foreign press about ourselves, and they get to watch our own propagandized channels and “entertainment” shows (which praise our armed services / CIA / Presidency, etc.) without cost to our government. It is inherent in people to want to hope though. They want to give us the benefit of the doubt that we will not be overthrown completely and plunge the world into a hellish power vacuum, though every day we are inching toward making more and more of the world think, “how could that possibly be worse that what we are offered now?”
To much of the rest of the world though, they have it bad enough that that end, the end of American hedgmony, cannot come soon enough. Among the richest countries, though our image is tarnished, they remember how we took the heat and did the dirty deeds during the Cold War to keep their economies safe. They may not be grateful and they may realize more than our own citizens how we were getting rich off of that conflict through raping most of the developing world through puppet governments terrorizing their own publics, but they have much stake in keeping the US-based economic system healthy. They want to believe the myth if not the reality of the good Superman is not dead, or at least that a less psychotic one is on the way. Their continued positions as higher than the rest of the world in comforts and economic advantages depend on it. But to more and more of the rest of the world every year, they see only the benefits of our continued implosion.
The problem is, and I have tried to emphasize this as much as the dangers of attacking Iran, the unpredictability of weapons development. New types of weapons are evolving in ways that will not only put current ones to shame, but will be cheaper and more widely available. Every system of government may soon come apart at the seams. Russia has recognized one avenue pending with trying to limit the availability of its major ethnicity's DNA, but that is simply impossible and even laughable with so many diasporate Russians. America, other than sort of having a “ruling class” of whites which its government might seek to protect, is less at risk, but China has both the greatest vulnerability and is the greatest threat for developing such ethnicity based DNA biological weapons, and also was the first to unlock the code of human DNA as well. Yet biologicals and other types of weapons we can name today are merely the tip of the iceberg of what is in the works for the next 50, 20, or even 10 years.
Neo-Cons and generals unfortunately have deluded themselves enough to think that having enough weapons pointed at every corner of the earth, even from space can protect American hegemony but that is beyond even the most wishful thinking. Other than mass liquidation of populations so massive that a word stronger than genocide will have to be formulated, in the end it will as now only create more hatred and more unacceptable risks to all but those profiting from making the weapons systems. Armistice, the most hated and feared word of those running America today, at the tops of BOTH political parties, is the ONLY course of survival that has even a negligible chance of long term success. The only question is how many will have to die before the real discussions begin.
It has been over two years now that I have been concerned and written about what was conveyed to me as the very real possibility of a massive, deadly, and mortally self-inflicted wound not only upon Iran but on the US as well, by our own leadership purposely endangering ourselves exponentially in a suicidal overreach. On this and my previous blog, I have wasted many words on the subject. Now that that moment is soon approaching and the rest of the world is finally catching on, it seems more and more unlikely.
I am neither giving in to making predictions nor odds-making (and certainly not with something now considered the safest of bets). I have problems with both. Most predictions are self-fulfilling and odds in hindsight are nothing more than attempted fortune telling. Things either happen or they don't, or if you view time the way I do, they do and they don't happen. The question is which you will get to see played out.
This is not the general view of time at this time, but quantum physicists are working on changing that, and if you doubt their influence, remember they are of the profession which brought us to the brink of the precipice of the dangers that this speculated confrontation will unleash. Slowly at first, but without breaks if that particular genie is let out of the bottle. That is not a prediction, that is an inevitably if that route is chosen.
I am not pointing fingers at anyone. It is a dangerous world we live in. Torture being done, scientists perfecting it. People have been promoting it here on TV or making it palatable to the general public and are getting multi-million dollar salaries in return. But others have silently, and some not so silently, rebelled against this. It is in them and in their lives the hope of any bright future is to be found. Some when asked to torture, to murder unjustly, to go on TV and say how it is debatably reasonable to do such things to people who quite possibly are completely innocent to "possibly" "save" others, namely yourselves from some threat, real or imagined, they quit.
Others, they do something else. If they are not brave or secure enough to quit, they do what they are asked, but they do it badly. They, though purposeful ineptitude, choose to leave behind a record for the day when a new leadership is in charge who would wish to right the wrongs (or at least recognize them) of the past. It is apparent to all the world now and to themselves, the Democrats in America are no such people. They, in the equivalent of terms of the USSR, would shoot those who would come forward just as much as the previous dictatorship would, they would build towering structures over the mass unmarked graves, and they would bury the past crimes completely and forever.
Where others saw the "most incompetent administration ever," I saw a group of people seeing the atrocities going on all around them and did the best they could to try to walk the middle ground, those who did not quit outright and those unlike those without consciences, they did what they were asked as badly as believably possible, but so far, to no avail.
It probably does not matter if Rudy "if we do it, it is not torture" Giuliani becomes the next President, or Hillary Clinton, or Dick Cheney. The mantra is the same. The bodies will stay buried. Torture will become more mainstream. Trials, when allowed at all will become more farcical to the greater ratings and laugh tracks of the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Those who did the unconscionable will watch their superiors who ordered it all go not only unpunished, but becoming more wealthy and respected than ever because of it all, and they will only have what remains of their own consciences to be propped up by the fact that they, at least, did not do it well, and that if anyone of power ever had cared worth damn, it all could have been exposed and stopped.
I do not necessarily believe what we believe philosophically or religiously will or ought to be believed ten thousand years from now just as no religions from ten thousand years ago are dominant today. Whatever new belief systems emerge will have a part of our beliefs in them or will in some way have grown out of them (and away from them), just as they who will hold and believe them will have grown out of us and our lives. I do not claim to know what those beliefs systems will be like, nor would I necessarily hold them to be more true, but I hope they are tried and true battle tested through rigorous comparisons against contentious contenders without appearing to corner the market or have a trademark on any particular value or belief over any others, and that they will be what we all are, stronger for coming from many different sources into one being. ...
...and hopefully this has attested to why one ought to step outside what one ought to think once in awhile, challenge everything that is known or believed on occasion, to attempt to glimpse the Universe beyond our own minds, beliefs, and mindsets. It is ALWAYS heretical, and depending on your society, sometimes (such questioning is) illegal, but always can lead to something more, something valuable, something which now only exists as potential, good or bad, which like us will be judged for its value only once it has been attained, realized, and known. And in the end, not realizing it, not conceiving of it as an option, letting some truths go unknown until the end of time, it is not even a possible viable option. Truth will seek us out to become known, even and most often when, we spurn it.
Question everything. It is more than an old expression or a bumper sticker slogan. I hold to no belief systems, theories, or dogma longer than to simply understand them, though even then I do not necessarily adopt or adhere to them, just to know or see from that point of view. Beliefs or belief systems are merely descriptions of reality. They are not reality. They may not be descriptive or accurate from another or another's point of view. The more factors they cover without exceptions to their rules, the more symmetry they possess and the more true they seem to be. The more they seem to possess this symmetry from the most angles or from more divergent points of view, the more whole, substantive, or relevant they may seem to others, and again, may seem to possess more truth. People like the symmetry so much they stop looking for the data that does not conform to the symmetry which would lead to new and better models. People like models which do not have to appear symmetric or relevant to others' points of view, lives, or experiences far divergent from their own. Few beliefs people possess strive for this symmetry relevant to all others' points of view.
Out of the impasses: Those power now who profit from war, lack of discussion or compromise, put on a facade of negotiations which are doomed to fail because their sole purpose is to obtrusify, stall, and provoke more anger at drawing out the conflicts to the last possible second to guarantee the maximum possible profit. Those who would replace these basically, to be fair to those whom their policies kill and maim, these murders, their replacements when compassion outweighs greed once again, if ever, will most likely be weak. Others will sense they can be walked over, made to compromise, agree to things to end the conflicts which should never be even discussed.
Those running the show know this and use this as a shield. “See, we may get many people, thousands if not millions of people killed for no good reason, but we will save face, stand firm, and give not an inch to appease these “other” murderers who would try to take over as we are trying to expand our influence and control, or at least they would inconvenience this.”
To quote that infamous political two-timer, Bill Clinton, there needs to be a true third way, not his misnomer for compromise of selling out those who you negotiate for as something it is not, as something other than a sell-out. What is needed is to put things on the table neither side would ever agree to or expect, not to slow, stall, or cripple the negotiations but to begin to reframe the debate beyond the polarity of either sides interests which both sides inevitably only seek to represent.
The third party which should be included (in the settlements) is generations hence, ones who ascribe to neithers' borders alone but will traverse both, belong to neither culture alone but whose culture includes tenets of both, one who will not see either side as a victor no matter how one-sided or grand a victory against the odds, but will be smart enough to feel only compassion for the dead (and those whose lives were ruined by the conflicts) and pity those who needlessly prolonged it for their own profits and political reputations. These potential peoples' views ought not only to frame the debates but ought to be the guidepost.
It requires looking above the interests of present institutions, (present) countries and their corporate masters, to what will benefit those who are neither one of your side nor one of the other side, who will most probably despise both your sides and positions equally, but as a son or daughter despises the mistakes of the parents without despising the parents. For if these conflicts are settled now, others will be able to come to be, will be beholden and born out of that merging of beliefs and cultures into a common understanding, conflict and opposites (yielding) to cooperation and rebirth into new offspring. They will owe their lives to coming together or not know life by the present flying further apart. Either sides views and interests are always a zero-sum game, no matter the rhetoric, and never believe otherwise. Each side wants what is best for their own, and that is always less (control) for the other. But in the future, the children of both will literally be the progeny of both at the same time, and their aims are the only ones to lead forever away from an abyss in the present.
I'm tired of spinning my wheels
I need to find a place where my heart can go to heal
I need to get there pretty quick
Hey mister, what you got out on that lot you can sell me in a pinch
Maybe one of them souped-up muscle cars,
the kind that makes you think you're stronger than you are
Color don't matter, no, I don't need leather seats,
all that really concerns me is...
SPEED
How fast will it go
Can it get me over her quickly
zero to sixty
Can it outrun her memory
Yeah, what I really need is an open road
and a whole lot of speed
Lyrics to Speed (Montgomery / Gentry)
(The following was written on or around 1/22/09...)
The period of time of the transition from the Bush presidency to the Obama presidency is much like the fall of Communism was for their dissidents, to those here who worked for change and against the worst abuses of the Bush years grabs of power and subversion of the Constitution. Now what? That is something a lot of people have had to deal with by once defining themselves in oppostition to something which is no longer there to define themselves against or in opposition to... a loss of their identity in so many ways. Being aware of this consciously and hopefully as much as possible, continually, I try to see beyond it.
The timing and effects of the invasion of Iraq coincided with a change of direction of my own life, getting back to basics more than a new direction, and constant attempting at outgrowing how I saw things before. So much time did I spend writing and thinking in opposition to what I thought was going wrong, it was impossible not to let it redefine me, for better or worse, in opposition to what I saw as negatives, and pushed me more than I thought wise or prudent, or ever would have wanted without such goings on in the world damaging what I saw as the best potentials the future could have. And an Iranian War of 2006, 2007, or 2008 was just beyond belief in arrogance and stupidity. When I got wind or believed it was not going to happen, I decided to wind down my writing as that potential conflict was a huge part of the reason for my writing, not that I think my writing would, could, or did have much impact, but it was a reflection of events going on in the world on why I felt the need or desire to write. Everyone is created and defined by external events to react to, with, or against.
That potential bad course was such a defining aspect of my desire to write that the 3rd retrospection mentioned here (in "The Lion, the Serpent and the Phoenix" post (the 1st "clip show" retrospective), and "Alcyone over Cristo Redentor" (2nd "clip show")) was to have been called "Searching for Langston's America with the "Ghosts" of the LOC (Library of Congress); Lines on Maps, Lines in the Sand, and Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bombing Iran". That third "clip show" was to have had a collection of quotes from many of my previous posts comments made about a possible war with Iran, things spinning out of control that that would cause, and the background into what made me think to, want, or need to write of such things. Lack of need or desire to seeing (or thinking) that the world was not going to go that way, a little over a year ago (and it seemingly did not go that way thankfully), I began to rethink wanting to write at all. If not feeling it necessary in me to have to write by feeling I ought to, nor thinking events were going in that particular bad direction where such things might occur, there seemed no point to it anymore.
It would be easy for me, like many other writers who were opposed to many of Bush's policies, to now rant instead about thinking or predicting what Obama's mistakes in similar veins will be. That "Change we can believe in" will not occur is too safe a bet to make, not to mention pessimism, and that makes it not of interest to me. Though I agree that Obama's supporters should not support him blindly and should hold him accountable to actually following through on his spoken or believed positions on promises of a different world, pressuring which is necessary to make or even to enable him to follow through on that promise or those promises. I simply refute the idea of complaining about mistakes he has not made yet, but most likely will. Plus, he seems more adaptable than most are to changes which will (okay, I will predict that much) be required, even to a surprising degree. And I would not think that he will not be better or smarter next year than he is now, or was last year. Anyone can grow or change, even within the pressure cooker and bubble of the presidency of the US, and even potentially for the better.
The needed changes go beyond even a (US) president's ability to institute them, but not necessarily beyond a movement like the one which got him the job. With growing movements (plural) for political change, if allowed by my country to flourish (a very big "if" as they may actually threaten real and genuine change which even if for the better, the system would not think to allow to occur or be discussed without a verbal war and political persecustion like blowback to whistle-blowers), then nothing that needs to be done cannot be achieved. Democracy is based upon and requires cooperation of the general public protesting and/or demanding things to succeed or even to function as a democracy at all, and greater political action and participation of a majority of our citizens is increasingly required in the absence of any counter-weight to the dominating politicized and myopic beltway mentality of the US mainstream press. And that is an engagement which is long, long overdue.
Where things stand today hopefully at best is to begin that necessary broad or broadest possible dialog for change which is more important or as important as any implemented or chosen changes. The dialog will need to be far more inclusive that what is or can be done, or even should be. All things and roads ought to be considered someday and in due time. And for a greater range than ever before, that time is increasingly right now.
As much as consensus is a good thing and necessary, I prefer to embrace also the right of people saying things I disagree with, even despise, than to simply safely swim in a stream of a world finally coming to it senses, hopefully. Both things are necessary to me. What people deride as political correctness is far more dangerous than either side, left or right, anarchist or neo-con, or those of most any political or philosophical stripes realize. Even good ideas and platforms I agree with get carried to extremes in the absence of any countervailing opposition, even wrongly-founded opposition, which prevents totalitarian-like nanny or police states replacing true freedom. What is beyond question to be thought to be right, without proper checks (and the best, most eloquent arguments possible in opposition to it) from those opinions that are greatly (even universally) thought to be wrong, devolves without being checked into a forced compliance and well-intended insanity, and complete devolution of freedom and an open society.
So neither will I try to overly praise what I think is good about the way the world is moving now nor simply knee-jerk take a devils advocate point of view (because of being used to being dissatisfied after many years of the trying and torturing hope), which is necessary to keep things moving at all or on course to a better future. Every step forward to be forward at all not only needs to be second guessed, but third, and fourth guessed, and more. The point above all is knowing that at the same time, steps MUST be undertaken and even seemingly trying to stand still means drifting toward some unknown or unintended direction. And such inertia will quickly lead toward multiple cliffs which will undermine or destroy the ability to take any necessary changes of direction at all.
posted by Jared DuBois | 12:38 AM
