Let me state up front here what I am talking about when I talk about lying. I believe to lie is to be human. I'm not talking about being political. In the case of the latter, I think the case has already been made by far more clever and intellectual thinkers than I. Given the prospect of the next ballot, politicians look no further. They lie because their purpose is to be reelected and getting voted in means accommodating the majority. The cleverest thing successful politicians do is hold a wet thumb to the prevailing winds. I'm not talking about them. I don't feel them worth it.
I'm more concerned with us--the overpopulated population where every person is narcissitic enough to beleive their casual inattention to politics entitles them to an equal vote in its administration, These are the people who hear the slogans, the appeals to prejudice, and the attempts to convince them of their (vastly overblown) superiority. These are the ignorant who flaunt their lack of knowledge as a virtue and claim that obvious disparities in education and understanding are mere intellectual prejudice. Unfortunately, these people, lulled into compacency by the rhetoric of those in power, are the least likley to accept the need for humility. My own bias, which I freely admit, is against these people, many of whom thunp the bible as the answer to all things and --worse, much worse-- preserve their own importance by trying to force others to follow the prescriptive paths they themselves do not follow.
These are the people who, when caught out (as in indiscretions with multiple women), delight in providing a moral twist to their selfish agendas. "I'm only human," they usually bleat, begging for the understanding and forgiveness they deny to others. Their hypocrisy plays as dismally on the national scene. Please, they say, let's not end billions in public subsidies to the oil companies, they're looking for oil for us, they're keeping the prices down at the fuel pumps, they are serving us all. Except, they fail to talk about the corporate self interest: the millions in corporate bonuses that might be threatened by a decrease in public support and the potential drop in the stock value, not to mention the commensurate decrease in fund flowing to the politicians tasked with maintaining all of the above. If they're not directly benefiting from corporate lobbying, they are enthralled with an idea of--you name it--some drummed up idea of America's past, over which they can't or won't exercise the skepticism that is as part of America as apple pie.
I lament the loss of native cynicsim regarding human behavior, greed, and complete selfishness that has marked most of the history of this country. The Founding Fathers got it. Go read Tom Payne on the abuses of power and see how carefully Jefferson and Hamilton balanced competing interests. Give me a break, I want to yell at these people (and maybe some of you say I already do). Instead of looking at these so-called ideals (which never existed), do a group examination of people's motives. See all the rhetoric and see all the backpedaling. We are a bunch of people who lie for our own advantage. Hell, we're not even the only species who does it. We learned at one of my university conferences that even apes will lie to get out of trouble.
Now let me address a miconception here. Some of you may say I am a Democrat because I have opposed so much of the Republical agenda. I did so because it is illogical, uneducated, and stupid. But that does NOT mean I am a Democrat. I am a common-senser. It's just that the Republicans have given me so much more to write about. For example, the world will not end on May 21. Take it from here. Those who spent their savings in anticipation of the world ending are not wise--just broke. The self-deluded Rapturists will still be among us on the 22nd, annoying those of us who see beyond their millennial delusions, paricularly when they try to reset the date by arguing their calculations must have been incorrect.
I have news for rapturists. No one could be so lucky to have things end like that--tied up in a bow by some deity stepping out of the sky. Not a chance. chums.
No, it's just business as usual down here on earth. We will still be the same grubby, selfish little creatures we always have been, trying to put up with the craziness of those who believe they have the answers when most of the rest of us are still trying to find the questions.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Bin Laden--The Fall Out
Judging from the reactions starting to come in from around the world, I was not the only one with questions about the recent death of Osma bin Laden. Some European nations question the legality of the operation that finally found him, others point to what they see as U.S. violation of its own claim to be a nation of laws--unless inconvenient they are saying--in not bringing the man back for trial. Justice is justice, they say, until the U.S. wants revenge.
But the point for me is not whether there was confusion and wild shots, or whether the U.S. was justified in executing what was obviously a long-planned operation (CIA agents had the house under observation), or whether Pakistan "knew" about what was going to happen (if they didn't "know" bin Laden was there, I suppose they might not "know" about the U.S.) although they certainly know about the billions they are taking from us in aid and for this reason alone their efforts to have it both ways are at best disingenuous.
The point for me is what it means about the U.S. as a nation and as a people.
I was disturbed when I saw the celebrations reported in the media: open-mouthed roars of approval and chants of USA, as if we had just won a medal at the Olympics. We killed a man in his home--and now we celebrate in a surge of mob chanting? It's not whether he was evil--he was. It's about who have we become?
In a way, I understand why the young people chanted. There is so little in our lives where we can feel part of someting larger than we are, something of which we can be proud. The elite branches of our military have some of that pride. Some may still linger with the Space Program. But that's about all I can think of. Sports and athletes used to be a source before all the strikes and lockouts and suspensions tarnished the image. Only sports writers can generate any enthusiasm for athletes paid in the millions and even then it's mostly about the charities that some of them support outside of their day jobs. Religion has become just one more thing to justify killing others, and mega-churches just convince us that it was all about money after all. Capitalism--while still the best system in theory--has devolved into greed and cheating: who can be proud of corporations who illegally foreclosed on active-duty military thus saving billions and are now offering only millions in restitution, all the while offering bonuses to the executives responsible? Even the Olympics has become merely a medal chase. And our media and literature seldom call us to become our better selves.
So I get it: for one brief moment, capturing bin Laden appeared to be something that could give young people the feeling of being part of something beautiful and something meaningful. The last times we had that feeling was when WWII was over and when we landed on the Moon. Those were jubilant moments of which to be proud.
But where is the pride now? My Tea Party acquaintance has found some in the bin Laden raid. "See," he says, "torture works." Is that really the message he wishes to draw from this? I find it very difficult to be proud to be part of a nation that promotes torture. I don't wake in the morning feeling good about human beings being water boarded. I was raised to believe that the US represented good things and that it was enemy who did things like that. I also don't feel good about being part of a country that values and rewards selfishness and cheating.
I had hoped that President Obama might build on the swell of community that got him elected because it was a mighty gathering of young people who opened the office to him, united to defeat the status quo and the ugly posturing of many politicians. But it was only a dream. No one person could stand against so many entrenched interests although he has tried his best.
So where do I end up? I feel strongly that we as a nation must decide what we want to be known for. Are we a people who cheat, let our elderly freeze to the floor in their unheated apartments, let children starve because we don't like their parents, deny education to the next generation because we want to go on our cruises, destroy the planet because it's there to make us money, and loot from one another after a disaster because we can? Will we go into the history books as a nation of dog-eat-dog?
I'm sorry. But it will take a lot more than assassinating a man to get me feeling proud of being alive.
But the point for me is not whether there was confusion and wild shots, or whether the U.S. was justified in executing what was obviously a long-planned operation (CIA agents had the house under observation), or whether Pakistan "knew" about what was going to happen (if they didn't "know" bin Laden was there, I suppose they might not "know" about the U.S.) although they certainly know about the billions they are taking from us in aid and for this reason alone their efforts to have it both ways are at best disingenuous.
The point for me is what it means about the U.S. as a nation and as a people.
I was disturbed when I saw the celebrations reported in the media: open-mouthed roars of approval and chants of USA, as if we had just won a medal at the Olympics. We killed a man in his home--and now we celebrate in a surge of mob chanting? It's not whether he was evil--he was. It's about who have we become?
In a way, I understand why the young people chanted. There is so little in our lives where we can feel part of someting larger than we are, something of which we can be proud. The elite branches of our military have some of that pride. Some may still linger with the Space Program. But that's about all I can think of. Sports and athletes used to be a source before all the strikes and lockouts and suspensions tarnished the image. Only sports writers can generate any enthusiasm for athletes paid in the millions and even then it's mostly about the charities that some of them support outside of their day jobs. Religion has become just one more thing to justify killing others, and mega-churches just convince us that it was all about money after all. Capitalism--while still the best system in theory--has devolved into greed and cheating: who can be proud of corporations who illegally foreclosed on active-duty military thus saving billions and are now offering only millions in restitution, all the while offering bonuses to the executives responsible? Even the Olympics has become merely a medal chase. And our media and literature seldom call us to become our better selves.
So I get it: for one brief moment, capturing bin Laden appeared to be something that could give young people the feeling of being part of something beautiful and something meaningful. The last times we had that feeling was when WWII was over and when we landed on the Moon. Those were jubilant moments of which to be proud.
But where is the pride now? My Tea Party acquaintance has found some in the bin Laden raid. "See," he says, "torture works." Is that really the message he wishes to draw from this? I find it very difficult to be proud to be part of a nation that promotes torture. I don't wake in the morning feeling good about human beings being water boarded. I was raised to believe that the US represented good things and that it was enemy who did things like that. I also don't feel good about being part of a country that values and rewards selfishness and cheating.
I had hoped that President Obama might build on the swell of community that got him elected because it was a mighty gathering of young people who opened the office to him, united to defeat the status quo and the ugly posturing of many politicians. But it was only a dream. No one person could stand against so many entrenched interests although he has tried his best.
So where do I end up? I feel strongly that we as a nation must decide what we want to be known for. Are we a people who cheat, let our elderly freeze to the floor in their unheated apartments, let children starve because we don't like their parents, deny education to the next generation because we want to go on our cruises, destroy the planet because it's there to make us money, and loot from one another after a disaster because we can? Will we go into the history books as a nation of dog-eat-dog?
I'm sorry. But it will take a lot more than assassinating a man to get me feeling proud of being alive.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Bin Laden
Am I the only one disturbed by the open-mouthed glee shown in the media at the news of Osama bin Laden's death? Is no one else reminded of the tasteless rubbing of the US flag in the face of the statue of Saddam during the Iraq war? Am I alone in the finding the display almost adolescent and lacking in good manners? Surely we are more mature than this as a country?
No one denies the horror of 9/11 nor the provocations provided by bin Laden's terror group. But he'd been silent of late, showing up in videotape every once in a while like Marley's ghost to shake his chains and threaten death and damnation. I considered the Taliban, with its murderous treatment of women, its diffused terror cells, and its appeal to religious fanaticism to be far more relevant. In this new world of horror, bin Laden had become a side issue, a non sequitur, at best a mere symbol while the real damage was being done elsewhere.
My reaction to his death? No jubilance, I assure you. My thoughts go to the 6000 lives, the billions of dollars, and the political posturing we had to endure to catch this one man. I also think about how little this is going to mean in terms of the terror. The killing won't stop. The flow of our national resources out of the country won't stop. Our armies will not come home any sooner. Other, smaller terror units will take up the slack of violence, like the Greek myth of the multi-headed hydra: you cut off one head and two more grow. So we caught and killed Osama bin Laden--so what is different today than it was yesterday?
Instead of such jubilance and glee, surely we would have been better off bowing our heads for the lives lost on 9/11 and the thousands since. What we see in the media is mere revenge. I would like to think we were more thoughtful and self-aware than that.
No one denies the horror of 9/11 nor the provocations provided by bin Laden's terror group. But he'd been silent of late, showing up in videotape every once in a while like Marley's ghost to shake his chains and threaten death and damnation. I considered the Taliban, with its murderous treatment of women, its diffused terror cells, and its appeal to religious fanaticism to be far more relevant. In this new world of horror, bin Laden had become a side issue, a non sequitur, at best a mere symbol while the real damage was being done elsewhere.
My reaction to his death? No jubilance, I assure you. My thoughts go to the 6000 lives, the billions of dollars, and the political posturing we had to endure to catch this one man. I also think about how little this is going to mean in terms of the terror. The killing won't stop. The flow of our national resources out of the country won't stop. Our armies will not come home any sooner. Other, smaller terror units will take up the slack of violence, like the Greek myth of the multi-headed hydra: you cut off one head and two more grow. So we caught and killed Osama bin Laden--so what is different today than it was yesterday?
Instead of such jubilance and glee, surely we would have been better off bowing our heads for the lives lost on 9/11 and the thousands since. What we see in the media is mere revenge. I would like to think we were more thoughtful and self-aware than that.
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