(Obviously, this post was meant to be up yesterday.)
The obligation to deliver an uplifting message of hope about the real meaning of Independence Day hovers. But I just don't have it in me.
I said last Thanksgiving, "I am acutely conscious of the blessings I enjoy, my privileged place in a shrinking world." Every holiday my awareness grows more acute, as those blessings stand in starker and starker contrast to the disaster taking place on the world stage.
Two situations are reaching a crisis point.
The first is climate change. If you believe James Hansen, we have ten years before positive feedback loops like the albedo effect and methane leaking from melting permafrost accelerate beyond our ability to rein them in. Of course we aren't certain what the effects will be, but they are likely to be unpleasant for a large number of earth's inhabitants, particularly the global poor. It would not, as some descriptions might lead you to believe, involve merely a shift to a new, stable, slightly warmer climate. We're closing off the climate system and packing more thermal energy into it. That means not just a new climate but a newly volatile climate -- wider swings and faster changes, with no end. Weirding.
Ten years. That is less than a heartbeat. Less than the blink of an eye in historical time. If Hansen is right, we're almost certainly screwed. If we're not to be screwed it means acting: with international unity and cooperation, quickly, decisively, and pragmatically. That is a considerable challenge at present, to put it charitably.
The other situation that approaches crisis -- one that ought to be in our thoughts on Independence Day -- is the systematic assault on the U.S. Constitution: Bush's bid for virtually unlimited executive power. Secret military tribunals, warrantless searches, torture, rendition, legislation-defying signing statements, and imprisonment without trial are unwise and immoral as government policy, but especially ominous when undertaken in the complete absence of congressional or judicial oversight.
It's not a partisan issue. Right now, Bush is basically saying "trust me," and playing nice with his new toys. But these are extraordinary powers he is claiming. As conservative jurist Bruce Fein says, "Bush's precedents are dangerous, and will lie around like loaded weapons readily unleashed by any incumbent in times of strife or conflict, e.g., a second edition of 9/11." No leader, Republican or Democrat, ought to be tempted with the tools of authoritarianism. Bush partisans don't seem to understand that U.S. procedural limitations on executive power are not some sort of luxury to be tossed overboard the minute security demands it. They are the source of our security. They've proven remarkably adaptable and successful, both in their own right and as a source of moral authority in the international arena. They disperse and limit power, because power corrupts. Rule of laws, not men: that above all was what the founding fathers sought.
This nascent authoritarianism is even more ominous for rising alongside an army of aspiring Stasi and devoted apparatchiks. The emergence of every authoritarian movement in the last century has crucially involved two things: loyal thugs competing to see who will go farthest in defense of the homeland, and a credulous public that fails to see the status quo shifting under its feet.
If this description strikes you as overwrought, read this and project forward about a decade. You may be thinking it is just an easy piece of mockery, dredged up from the partisan internet swamps. But to think so is to severely underestimate the situation. The people who are most vociferous about jailing and executing journalists who publish news the Bush administration doesn't want published are the very people on cable tv every night, on the op-ed pages every day. They reach millions of people. They are granted respect. They mix in Beltway circles. And they are joined and legitimized by establishment figures like Bill Bennett. Anchors on FOX News openly advocate for a "Department of Censorship."
This is not a fringe phenomenon: the Bush administration has put together a full apparat, and part of its charge is to stoke murderous rage toward its enemies, including the independent media. The eliminationist rhetoric is nothing new. It is the very template for authoritarian movements.
The combination of these -- the 10-year window we have to act on global warming, and a paranoid, secretive, power-hungry administration in the midst of visiting permanent damage on our system of government -- suppresses my normally buoyant holiday spirit.
Independence Day celebrates the citizens of this country who rose up to throw off the yolk of British rule. But I fear our populace is anesthetized and benumbed by the white noise of today's media culture. There is no visceral recoiling at the casual rollback of our liberties. There is no will to revolt, not even to protest. We march as though hypnotized toward a doom we foresee but do not bother to avoid.
Comments
View as Flat
sunflower Posted 6:39 am
05 Jul 2006
If I did not have a dog in this fight (I'm that dog dudette) then I could stand back and predict disaster, world wide suicide. But my survival and all I care about is in this fight.
I am a fireman, a journalist, and I have seen hot action with the Empire (a lot of action).
A credulous public would not believe what my eyes have seen. But this is not about me or any person, it is about the future or not.
Corporate political activity (fascism) should be a crime punishable by the death of the corporation.
Now is not then, except for the notion that we do not need a new king, we need a new form of government removed from the corruption of money.
Declaring independence from a fascist government is a source of happiness.
Declaring independence from fossil fuels is a source of happiness.
Happy Independence Day!
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bookerly Posted 7:05 am
05 Jul 2006
I was thinking about the Iraq war. How few protests (relatively speaking) there really are. How small and disorganized the anti-war movement is.
(It feels like, well, we went to one demostration, our conscience is clear, time to do something else.)
It's not only that all of these bad things are happening, but that the American public either accepts them with faint protests (hey, shouldn't do that) or buys in (great! kill the spotted owls).
There is something happening there....
And independence means being entertained and stuffing oneself with hotdogs....
Of course, there were new polls from England saying that the British find Americans to be "cruel and vulgar", and those are our friends!
patrick
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ffletcher Posted 10:44 am
05 Jul 2006
This is probably a time of change as great or greater than what I sense many of us have experienced forty years ago when the Vietnam war and its favor began to come into question when enough to make a difference began to ask why are we there?
Kevin Phillips back in 1966 spoke of the changes that were coming based on his studies of the cycles of change in the United States. He is saying that changes are due once more. William Strauss and Neil Howe speak today of trends that reach back to 1584 also target the next ten to 14 years as times of great change, on par with WWII. On top of that I hear more talk today of the second coming of Christ, the end of Mayan calendar, and something called "the quickening" that all have an end of the world theme. And on top of it all, I got at work today "Pocket Guide for Preparing for Pandemic Flu"
Mr. Roberts you are not the only one that is seeing less than happy times ahead, and probably not a lot of independence for a while as well. I suspect there are dangerous times ahead.
I acknowledge your mood and share it. Well the holiday is over and it is time to get back to the day to day work of keeping this planet together. I suspect the Internet will be an important media instrument of this era, as TV was in 1966.
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caniscandida Posted 7:51 pm
05 Jul 2006
Thanks for the Morrison lyric, Ffletcher. I feel the sentiment. But frankly, respectfully, the Doors are probably the most over-rated group of all time.
Patrick, you are so right. Little disappoints me more than the weakness of interest in activism, including demonstrations. I hate looking like a bedentured, cranky old white-beard, shaking my feeble fist at the Disgraceful Youths of Today, and so I hope there is lots more going on in those pretty little heads of theirs than what Common Opinion might suggest: that all they are interested in, really, is getting good grades in their business majors, and pumping up their re'sume's, on the one hand, and doing as much partying and hooking-up, from Thursday to Monday morning, on the other.
(On hot-dog-eating, which I do maybe once a year, at most twice, when I am visiting my parents when they are having one of their notorious cook-outs: there was a cute article in the NYTimes yesterday on "organic" hot dogs, and other allegedly healthful possibilities, including hot dogs from pasture-fed cattle in Uruguay, and a San Francisco-based company called Let's Be Frank.)
(I rather like hot dogs, actually. But I like striving towards veganism more.)
As for Mr. Roberts, he is entirely right to point to creeping authoritarianism -- nay, leaping and bounding and tugging at the lead -- as one of our most significant reasons for fear as we go ahead. What he has to say about the fate of journalism is especially valuable. The idea of a "Department of Censorship" is crazy, no? And yet, we must understand, there are lots and lots of Americans, who believe that they are the best kind of American, and who believe that the defense of America is in their hands, who have no appreciation for investigative journalism, and who would probably cotton on to such an abominable idea as censoring the media.
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caniscandida Posted 8:00 pm
05 Jul 2006
In fact, you capture the gist of the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence very nicely, that Enlightenment masterpiece.
When the people running our lives are clearly doing so in an abusive manner, with countless abuses against our well-being to be counted against them, has the time not come for us to rise up, and throw off their shackles?
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amazingdrx Posted 10:32 pm
05 Jul 2006
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/07/altair_batterie.html
Phoenix Motorcars will save the planet. Just go down to your local Phoenix Motorcars dealer and get one of these EVs.
Sorry bad joke. On all of US.
The boardroomies who pull the strings have another scam to shelve the latest battery technology.
Can Subaru save the planet? Let's hope so, because the men who reap the BIG bucks off the freedom dream of our founders have decided to let things heat up.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 10:43 pm
05 Jul 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/06/business/06legal.html?ei=5094&en=12e4c2e105c3adef&hp=&
ex=1152244800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1152189234-e1wm6q0sSbW4iSESdx/izA
Those who learn from history are doomed to watch others repeat it.
So watch our fledgling democratic republic turn to corporate feudal empire. The divine right of capital rules.
The national debt is passed on from this generation to the next, and so on. Debts like Kennyboy's debts, well they're forgiven.
Can't confiscate that loot now, it belongs to Kennyboy's heirs now.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 4:08 am
06 Jul 2006
I was wondering about the matter of justice for those whom he shafted. I think it was the ABC News reporter last night who said that his estate can indeed be sued, on the one hand; but on the other, that is not where the real money is.
Is it known yet if W will be sending a flower to the funeral?
Amazing, I love this:
<<Those who learn from history are doomed to watch others repeat it.>>
On another matter of justice ill-carried: The New York State Supreme Court this morning disappointed those of us who think our families are no less deserving of legal recognition and protections than are the families next door. At least the Chief Justice, in the minority, wrote a powerful dissent. Still, I cannot be optimistic. Same-sex marriage will never get off the ground if it depends on the will of a majority of voters, or of legislators. Our best hope at this point, I guess, is Eliot Spitzer, who will probably be the next governor: Will he be as good as his word, and continue to support same-sex marriage once he is in Albany?
Meanwhile, there are promising sounds from Washington State (!), as well as from dysfunctional New Jersey.
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sunflower Posted 4:43 am
06 Jul 2006
I expect another court ruling that journalists should not be married to themselves.
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caniscandida Posted 7:49 am
06 Jul 2006
It is indeed disconcerting that journalists pop up in distant places (e.g. ABC's Dan Harris last night, that hot dog/cutey pie, in Seoul!) after lengthy plane rides, contributing to global warming and global dimming and the depletion of the petroleum supply. But the solution is not that they should be censored. The solution is that they should be leashed, and kept at home; and that a strong corps of local or regional reporters should be cultivated in many countries around the world.
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sunflower Posted 8:37 am
06 Jul 2006
I am contributing to global warming with this computer. But I did not create global warming awareness.
From a political perspective journalists create global warming by making us aware of it.
That makes them the Enemy of the State (on a very short leash from corporate assignment editors).
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bookerly Posted 10:45 am
06 Jul 2006
Too late for the fourth, but there are veggie hot dogs, and you can slather them with mustard, ketchup, onions, pickles, sauerkraut and veggie chili to your hearts delight!
(For future summer holidays. I haven't had one in a number of years, but I recall that they were pretty good.)
Same Sex marriage will come about slowly, as the older generation dies off, the younger is not as opposed to it, and it will become just another flavor of life....
(not soon enough, of course, but it is still a sea level change that once won, will never be rolled back).
The MSM generally does not deserve to be called journalists. They are an insult to society and to all of us. They should be ashamed of themselves.
patrick
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amazingdrx Posted 5:42 pm
06 Jul 2006
Now that's a compliment! Coming from my very favorite modern day classical philosopher.
Condolences on the recent court decision. Trogloditic and tragic. Fight the power!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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