Sunday, February 14, 2010
LIVING IN FEAR – 2010-STYLE:
I've been reading a lot of Live Journal posts and Facebook posts recently that just exude fear and uncertainty. There are also people causing more fear in those they love, not out of meanness or evil intent, but simply out of human nature.
I've also been hearing a lot of self-deprecating and even people putting themselves down.
I understand. As a former drug and alcohol abuser who got into recovery in 1990, I understand low self-esteem, low self-worth, and beating yourself up over every mistake and bad judgment call you have ever made. Been there, done that, hated myself. I blamed myself for being a poor son to my parents. (I wasn't.) I blamed myself for not meeting the expectations of others. (A trap.) I even blamed myself for getting infected with HIV. (Another, more vicious trap.)
On my birthday we watched the Opening Ceremony for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. As they showed a montage of Canada, I thought about our trip to Whistler; how Vancouver is one of the great water cities, how beautiful the drive from Vancouver to Whistler was, passing by Horseshoe Bay and numerous waterfalls, and the grandeur of the mountains of Whistler were from our top-floor hotel room at the (then newly opened) Four Seasons.
The montage also showed footage of places only a train or helicopter sees, as well as the small communities in the terribly cold north of the Providences. I was surprised to learn that 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the Canada-U.S. border.
But here's the point of this Olympic digression: When the athletes started their march into the stadium, the first country, by tradition, was Greece. Someone commented on how terrible the economic situation was in Greece, and as country after country came in, we commented on their sagging economies, (Ireland, Norway, Sweden and England – among others.) I jokingly mentioned there was no delegation from Haiti, and that led to a discussion of what countries even have enough wealth for their citizens to enjoy winter sports, which are expensive. (If you don't believe me, go downhill skiing. I recommend Lake Tahoe or the Alps.) The skiers from tropical places live and train in places like Tahoe or Aspen.
Even the ceremony itself, while understandably could not compete with China two years ago, seemed pathetic, anemic, and downbeat. And I'm not discounting the death of an athlete earlier that day. No matter how hard they tried to be joyous and celebratory, it seemed like an effort. Each country was a reminder of the world's problems, and those were only the countries that had qualified for the Olympics in the first place.
I just turned 46. I have seen a lot in my lifetime. But in honesty, I've never seen things this bad. And it didn't start in September of 2008, when the "Sub-Prime Economic Crime Wave" hit us. It didn't even start in 2000 when Bush, Cheney and the "Republicans" destroyed what little credibility was left of our political system. I was on a cruise ship shortly after September 2008, and I was sitting next to a man I'd call a "traditional" Republican. He was a nice guy and I liked him. We found that we had a lot of common ground, and that both of us were disgusted with the politics of our country. The very words "Republican" and "Democrat" have become worthless, merely another insult the pundits in our diseased mass media can throw at each other.
Things have been dark in this country, and in this world, before. WWI and WWII were both terrible and preventable, as were the invasions of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. But the poisoned fruits we are gathering now, I believe, grew from a seed planted in 1980. I'm not saying the 1970s were perfect, but things were much different then. Corporations were not as big or powerful as they are now, in some ways, and the media was not as massively consolidated as it is now. There were journalists we trusted, and they did their best to expose corruption and bring us the news, like Woodward and Bernstein, or Walter Cronkite.
But the "Reagan Revolution" started a downhill trend that continued through every administration that followed, regardless of party. Real wages have never kept pace with the rest of the economy, and that just got dangerously worse, but Reagan helped push the Middle Class down and the ranks of the Impoverished grow larger. Public discourse turned into "repeating the lie until it becomes the truth," (not my quote,) hurling insults and degrading the person you disagreed with. "Civil Discourse" became a thing of the past. The ill-named and ill-conceived "War On Drugs" accelerated, and our national and state-run Prison-Industrial Complex grew into a juggernaut that has bankrupted our state economies. We filled our violent prisons with non-violent "drug offenders," permanently ruining millions of lives. (Try getting a job with a prison record.)
I wonder how many people would feel a little less comfortable in those designer jeans if they knew they were made by prisoners earning less than $1 an hour. In 1975 I know people who would throw them away and protest. Today I believe most people would deny the cruelty involved in the production of those jeans, justify their apathy and lack of compassion, and likely make some joke that puts down the very people who suffered for those clothes. (Just do a web search on American companies who use prison labor. You'll be surprised at the list, if you can find a complete one.)
Today we are the world's number one jailor, competing with China for that dubious honor. Prisons are places of terrible sorrow and suffering. We used to reserve those dark places for dangerous, violent people who were a direct physical threat to others – or those who so betrayed the trust we placed in them, that prison was the only place to put such a person. Now these charnel-houses are bursting with people whose only crime was being a poor person who used drugs. How many of us have used street and/or pharmaceutical drugs for "recreational" purposes? How many of us have been drunk at least once in our lives? (Alcohol is a drug.)
Do you deserve to be in prison because you smoked a joint in college or snorted a line of Cocaine in the 1980s?
One thing my parents taught me, above all else, was Compassion. My mother has been dead for over 20 years, and to this day there is one saying that stays with me: "There, but for the grace of god, go I." I learned early on the joy of volunteerism, the pride of being a contributing member of my society. Some of us have more money than time, and without the wealthy of this country we would be a much darker place. People donate way more money than they can remove from their income tax burden. There are also good companies out there that give back generously to the community. Some of us have more time than money, and we are generous with that. Many people don't know that the volunteer community relies upon the disabled, those of us who can no longer work, but still wish to make a difference.
Generalizations are dangerous things, and they are one of the enemies of Compassion. We cannot know what is in the mind and heart of another, or why people do what they do, even when we have "walked a mile in the other guy's shoes," (as the old saying goes.) When it comes down to it, we all want the same things; Shelter, Warmth, Love, Friendship, Joy and Hope. And although we may not know it, Hope is what we need more than anything. Without Hope one cannot truly love, or experience the majesty and joy this world has to offer.
Erik and I have been all over the world. We have seen and done amazing things. We have met people from many places, and we have seen how beautiful this world can be. We have also seen how poor and ugly this world can be, especially to those born without our uniquely American advantages.
The other day I read an article in the New York Times about how the "Republicans" in Washington want to destroy MediCare. There's no talk of destroying our bloated Military-Industrial Complex, or the billions spent on pet projects of politicians who want to "bring home the bacon" to their constituents.
(Please forgive my use of quotes and sayings, but men wiser than I have said some of these things. "If I see far, it is because I stand on the backs of giants." I'll leave it to you to figure out who said that.)
We are fighting two wars that could have been prevented. 9-11 did not happen in a vacuum. The people who committed that awful crime did not simply wake up one morning and decide to hate us. As Noam Chomsky put it, we have become "the United States of Amnesia." The people in the Middle East (and elsewhere) who hate us have good reason. This is not to excuse what they have done. But we need to remember what we have done, and there are things our country needs to stop doing.
I always say our mass media is a large part of the problem, but our media is a reflection of us. We are merely getting what most of us are asking for. Journalism has become a joke because we chose to devalue it, to turn it into a dark and twisted form of entertainment. TV viewership has been declining for years, as more and more of us see that ugly reflection and turn away.
But that does not solve the myriad of problems facing us. Heterosexual obsession with the sex life of gay people does not serve any purpose, other than to promote Hate. And there is far too much promotion of Hate in our society today.
I'm not saying the answers are easy. We have brought ourselves to a very dark place. We are polarized and distanced from each other, even as technology gives us the illusion of Connection. In large part I am "preaching to the choir." It will take a long time and a lot of work to bring us back together, and back to the Light. But there are a few things to keep in mind as we start:
1. Everyone matters, and everyone deserves dignity, respect and the right to live free of fear and oppression.
2. Everyone has the right to their beliefs, and we should respect each other's differences, because those differences are what makes this world a wonderful place. (And despite our problems, this world is still a wondrous place.
3. There is no place for Hate. We lead by example, not reaction.
4. Your vote does count! And your participation in our Representative Democracy is crucial. Our elected representatives don't lead, they follow. Right now they are following the dollar instead of the voter, and we see the effects of that clearly enough.
5. Your dollar has power! Every time we mindlessly spend our increasingly hard-earned dollar, we give away tremendous power. And the corporations and banks and investment houses causing the most trouble depend upon your continued mindless spending. We should be demanding that our corporations and stores be good citizens, since our joke of a Supreme Court has given them the same rights as we have, without the responsibilities. As of now they (mostly) take and give nothing back. Do you like paying $125 for a pair of jeans that took maybe $5 to make in total, on the back of some poor (and often abused) factory worker in another land, or on the back of a suffering prisoner?
6. Our mass media is toxic, because we have made it so. Technology is fast giving us the power over that media, but like so many of our rights, that can be taken away too.
7. Torturing people, often innocent people, is never right. It makes us no more than dumb animals, because dumb animals know only violence and fear.
8. The Constitution and Bill Of Rights are not some bad joke on Fox News. They are the founding documents of this nation. What has been taken should be restored, and what has been polluted by power and influence, should be deleted.
9. America is not "a Christian nation." This country was founded upon the right to believe in 100 gods, or believe in none. There are over a million American Muslims, and I have no idea how many Jewish Americans there are. This is a country based upon freedom, not religion. A Wiccan American has the same rights and freedoms as an Atheist American.
10. We spend more on prisons than we do on education. This is untenable. We must end the failed and disastrous "War On Drugs." We must release and make amends to all those we imprisoned who did no violence or harm to anyone. Don't buy the hype and fear-mongering any longer. Aren't you tired of living in fear?
The life of a Sheep is not very satisfying, and often ends badly.
