Hiding in Plain Sight

                Sometimes the truth hides in plain sight. Sometimes it is as hard to find as a needle in a haystack.  For the last several days I have searched for the truth behind the signing into law of the NDAA – The National Defense Authorization Act - and the language it contains.

                Here is a quick review in case you missed out on the story during the holiday season.  The main purpose of the NDAA is to pay for the military for another year.  We could argue for the rest of the year about what that money actually buys, but the current controversy is about language in the bill which allows the state to detain American citizens and hold them without a trial. After threatening to veto the bill, Obama signed it into law on the last day of 2011.

                Opponents of the law point out the obvious threat to our civil liberties inherent in any legislation which validates the ability of the government to sidestep the Constitution.  Nine states have already begun recall procedures to punish those representatives who voted for the bill. Outrage is growing as more people begin to realize the implications of this latest move towards totalitarianism.

                The march towards totalitarianism is something that we have chronicled here for many years.  There appears to be an unbroken chain of intent from at least the Clinton years, when plans were discussed for using United Nations troops on American soil in the event of a national emergency, as declared by the president, through the Bush years and the “patriot” laws. The capitulation of Obama to the fascist trend is only the latest in a long series of movements by the state to increase its power.  Shortly after September 11^th, 2001, the Bush administration began detaining terrorism suspects without a trial at Guantanamo. When those detentions were challenged in the courts, the government argued that the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed by the Congress on Sep. 18, 2001, allowed those detentions, and in 2004, the Supreme Court agreed in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. The NDAA of 2011-2012 is therefore nothing new.

                Fear has long been a tool used by the state to maintain and to increase power.  The decision by the Congress to declare the United States as part of the battleground in the war on terror is a good indicator of the level of fear which must now prevail in Washington.  One has to wonder; just what is in those security briefings that members of Congress receive which destroys the high minded rhetoric of the campaign?

                There are several possibilities. One possibility is that some members of the government live in fear of another devastating attack on American soil. We certainly have enemies who would stage such an attack if they could, but the trend towards totalitarianism predates the destruction of the Twin Towers. I think it is more likely that the state fears for its own survival in the face of several trends that combine to indicate volatility and unrest in the future.  The world economy is a house of paper. The climate is changing. Overpopulation is beginning to strain infrastructure and resources.  This is not the first time these factors have converged, and every time they have, unrest has occurred.  Change has occurred.  Whenever civilization has faced fundamental change, the mechanisms of the state have acted to ensure their own survival, at all costs.

                Nevertheless, I remain optimistic for the United States of America. We still possess the tools to endure the coming changes with our ideals intact – if we do not succumb to fear – and if we stay informed and involved as citizens and as voters.  I have often wondered at what point along the road from private citizen to elected official, idealism dies.  The disparity between speech and action implies that something changes between Main Street and Capitol Hill, unless you choose to believe that the motives of anyone seeking office are corrupt from the beginning.  I think it is more likely that there are those who seek to serve and those who seek power. The difficulty for us as voters is that both use the same language.

The End of the World, Again

                It is an odd and arbitrary quirk of history that most of the world celebrates the beginning of a new year on the first day of January. The name “January” derives from the Roman god, Janus, depicted with two faces, one looking forward into the future and one facing behind, into the past. It was Julius Caesar who, in 46 AD while reorganizing the calendar, decreed that the year would begin on the first day of January. By the 18^th century most of the Christian western world had also adopted this date.

                Reflecting on the year just gone by is customary for many of us in January, and media rides this wave of cogitation and sentiment with presentations and opinions on the events of the past year which were “significant,” though a quick read of opinions from years gone by reveals a difficulty in assigning significance to the historical perspective from such close proximity, like declaring how a cake will taste right after closing the oven door. Yet the challenge of understanding even the events which have  come to pass does not seem to deter many from peering into the future and passing judgment there as well.

                The Year 2012 has been a target of speculation for decades and it joins a host of other dates given the dubious honor of hosting the end of the world. This year the apocalypse is tied to a controversial interpretation of  a few stone fragments from the Mayan civilization inscribed with a calendar which apparently ends on the 21^st of December.  Adding fuel to the speculation is the astronomical  myth, debunked by NASA, that the earth will somehow align with the center of the galaxy on that date and the resulting gravitational tides will create destruction through earthquakes, volcanic activity, the violent shift of the earth’s poles or a host of other disasters. The fact is, the earth and the sun align with the approximate center of the Galaxy every December.

                The desire for apocalypse may be an archetype of the human condition. Almost every religion and culture on earth has spawned, at one time or another, a belief in some kind of doomsday scenario. Often in the religious scenarios a just and vengeful god destroys the earth while preserving a chosen few to carry on. Most Americans are familiar with the Christian view of Armageddon. Many in the Muslim world hold similar beliefs and the Quran describes the splitting of the moon, falling stars and the heavens being rolled up. Many Hindus believe that we are living in the fourth and final period of the earth’s current age and that sweeping change will occur with the advent of a new age. Many Buddhists believe in a future war that will end as a golden age begins. Some Native Americans, notably the Hopi, believe that it is they who are the chosen ones who will survive the coming apocalypse.

                Apocalypse is a fascinating topic, and a profitable one. Thousands of books have been written and movies made dealing with the subject, but it is the age of Information which has created the latest confluence of belief focusing on 2012. Before we start digging our underground bunkers and duct taping our windows this year, it might behoove us to take a look at some of the other dates in history when the world was surely to end.

                In 1000 AD, Catholic Church authorities believed that Jesus would return. When this did not happen, the birth of Jesus was recalibrated and a new date set for 1033. In 1843 William Miller convinced his followers that the world would end between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. The date was moved to October 22^nd and when the world still failed to end, some members split from the group to form the Seventh Day Adventists. In 1876 Charles Russell, founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, predicted that Christ would return in 1914. The group has predicted at least seven other dates for Armageddon since then.  For a more modern, “scientific” prediction, astrophysicists Stephen Plagemann and John Gribbin claimed in 1974 that an alignment of Jupiter on March 10, 1982 would cause devastating earthquakes. Let’s not forget Y2K and the run on canned goods and dried beans at Sam’s Club. Finally we have the prediction by evangelist Harold Camping that the Rapture would occur on May 21^st and, again, on October 21^st of last year.

                The world will undoubtedly end at some point; civilization even sooner. Barring manmade disaster, a direct hit by an asteroid, the eruption of a super-volcano or a coronal mass ejection from the sun, in a few billion years the sun will grow into a red giant and completely engulf earth’s orbit.  If we are still here, perhaps we will have found a new home by then, but in the meantime, no one can say for certain when Jesus will return or when the next mass extinction event will occur. No one can say for certain whether any of the predicted events for 2012 will occur or whether any of us will be among the chosen few to survive them. Personally, I am not about to make a prediction for the world’s end, but I do predict that I will need a new truck sometime in 2012. If you are among those convinced that the world will end this year – and if you have a serviceable truck that you aren’t planning to use after the apocalypse, please remember to sign the title and drop it off at the newspaper sometime next December. 

Christmas Memories

     Who remembers what they got for Christmas last year? I spent a few minutes this morning trying to remember, but my recollection of whatever was wrapped under the Christmas tree in December of 2010 has faded into the ghosts of Christmas past like a pinch of sugar in a cup of coffee, improving the general flavor but no longer distinguishable as a separate entity.

     What I do remember about last Christmas is the reflection of Christmas lights on new fallen snow. I remember being stranded at my dad’s house with all the dogs sequestered in his basement, the failing washing machine jury-rigged with a garden hose draining under the garage door, my dad just home from the hospital and his healthcare worker trapped by the ice with all the rest of us in our tightly packed, snowed in, close encounter Christmas refuge. I remember how full of life and warmth the house was while the snow fell outside. It was one of the best Christmas seasons ever, but for the life of me I can’t remember what was under the tree.

     There are a few Christmas gifts that I do remember. I remember my first shotgun when I was about 12 or 13 years old, but that gift is more of an accessory to other holiday memories from that year. I remember that my father got out of bed about 5 AM on Christmas morning and tossed a handful of pebbles onto the tin roof of my grandparents’ house – just about the same time that we heard the reindeer taking off. I remember the voices of my grandparents, singing in the kitchen while they made breakfast and the heat from the pot-bellied stove penetrating thick layers of quilts on that snowy morning. The shotgun gathers dust now in a gun safe, but the memories are as bright as a Christmas ornament.

      I do remember a gift given one year. It was the first Christmas after my grandfather died and my mother was struggling to come to terms with the loss. I remember how she cried when she opened one of her gifts, a family photo album with pictures of her father and her life growing up in rural Georgia.  I remember how her tears turned to laughter and back again as we looked at the old pictures. I remember the empty seat at the table that year.

     Christmas has changed in some ways since I was a child. Our culture has changed with our economy. We borrow. We spend. We consume like no other people in the history of humanity. The forces that tie us together are less our common goals and beliefs and more a popular culture driven by marketing and manipulation. Witness the high speed traffic and the crowds of consumers intent on capturing those great deals to fill the boxes under the tree. Christmas begins now in September and we accept the mandate, the duty, the obligation to shop, almost without question, and if we are unable to spend for the holidays we feel the burden of guilt implied in the flood of images of happy people pushing overflowing shopping carts.

     Yet for all the hype, the stress, the intensively researched methods of attaching our wallets to our primal impulses in our quest to fulfill our holiday “obligations,” the memories of what we buy and what we receive will be torn away and cast aside like the brightly colored wrapping paper that covers the sum of all our efforts. In the end, it is the time we spend with those we love that we will remember and cherish. In that spirit, let me wish all of you a very merry Christmas and a joyful holiday season. May the time you spend with your loved ones this year be a brightly lit ornament that you will cherish for many long years. 

Go Team!

                There are moments when the curious fact that the human race has survived this long seems an unlikely fluke, an accident, an aberration. Such moments can occur on the Interstate when the speed of the traffic exceeds the IQ of most of the drivers. They can occur when a cross section of popular culture is taken on any given night from a random sampling of what is broadcast on our airwaves. Such a moment occurred for me recently when I decided, after a brief hiatus from mainstream news, to get up to date on the tragedy and the controversy of Penn State. How could a species which continues to produce individuals that abuse children have survived so long? What possible positive spin can be taken on a culture which riots when a football coach is fired?

                The issue of child abuse by Penn State officials is beyond the scope of this article. The proper place for this issue to be resolved is in the courtroom, not in the feeding frenzy of speculation and hype which now accompanies every newsworthy event. There is no middle path for child abuse. In this author’s opinion, an individual who abuses children is broken and should be thrown away, period. But it is the court which will discover guilt and the law which will determine punishment, not the networks, not the talk shows and not the small talk around the water cooler.

                As for the rioting, there is, at least from a scientific perspective, an explanation. We are genetically programmed to identify with groups and we have a predilection towards worship.  Humans lived as small groups of hunter-gatherers, clans, tribes and villages for much, much longer than we have lived as nations. Allegiance to a group was a trait necessary for our survival, and when our group was threatened, we defended it.  Concurrent with the development of civilization, religion, with its focus on deities and myths,  has accompanied us on our long journey and is likely embedded in our genetic code as well.  The firing of Penn State’s head coach was, in psychological terms, a threat to a group as well as the mythos which surrounded it. The rioters were responding to impulses as old as humanity itself.

                Traits which are advantageous in small groups do not always provide the same benefit for modern civilizations. Our need to attach our social consciousness to something outside our selves can provide support and comradeship, but it can also separate us in ways that lead to conflict. Anyone who has spent an afternoon in Sanford Stadium can understand the powerful emotions and sense of tribal allegiance that such an event can foster. These same traits, however, can also contribute to prejudice, racism and hatred of “the other.”  Our propensity for worship can enrich our spiritual lives and provide lasting moments of devotion, but worship of human deities, at its best, wastes hours of life in front of the television following celebrity and at worst, allows tyrants to assume power.  

                One of the most frustrating examples of in-group blindness can be found in the political arena. In America we are divided and conquered by a two party political system.  We are divided by a  perception that the differences between what pundits call “liberal” and “conservative” are irreconcilable. We overlook those differences when our allegiance to country is invoked. Defense of that group membership can produce great heroism and sacrifice, but we often forget that nationalism is a trait essential to leading a people to war.  In the long history of warfare and despotism, this fact has never been forgotten by those whose only allegiance has been power and profit.

                Race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, political party,  income, team affiliation, and favorite soft drink are a few examples of the myriad ways we have of separating ourselves from each other. There is nothing “wrong” with allegiance to a group. We are born with that behavioral predisposition. The harm occurs when we lack a self-awareness of  what motivates us and when those motivations, necessary for the survival of small groups of people struggling in a challenging environment, are forced into the ill-fitting molds of modern life. 

Out of Time

The history of humankind is a story of scientific discovery and technological innovation. We strive to make manifest what we create in our imagination, and since our imagination travels faster than the speed of light, much of what we have achieved in technology has been in pursuit of speed. Faster cars on bigger roads speed us to our destinations. We communicate and we are informed  instantly (and constantly.) Speed and efficiency has made our work more productive. With all of this innovation, one would think that we would have more time to enjoy the pleasures of  life, time for family and friends, time for recreation and relaxation. It hasn’t worked out that way for most of us. Instead of being freed by the technology which brings us all things faster and faster, we have become addicted to that technology. Instead of having more time, we are pursued by time.

                Yesterday I witnessed a sad example of a family pursued by time. Driving over the mountain from Helen to Hiawassee, I saw a vehicle with a Towns County license plate repeatedly crossing the center line as it “rode the bumper” of the vehicle in front of it.  The lead vehicle had an out of state license tag and it was being driven by an older couple obviously in vacation mode. They were traveling the posted speed limit and judging by the camera held by the passenger, they were enjoying the fall colors. The driver of the chase car repeatedly “charged” the vehicle in front, running dangerously close to its bumper while he gestured rudely at the other driver. In the back seat of the chase car you could see the top of two small heads. The children were not enjoying the fall foliage. They were watching a video on one of those pull down screens designed to pacify passengers on those unbearably slow journeys we must often take in our world of technological wonder.

                The vacationing couple eventually pulled over onto the side of the road as our modern family sped off in pursuit of their urgent needs. Many of us who have lived here long enough to collect a few fairs, festivals and fall color seasons under our belts might sympathize with the impatient family. It can be a challenge to navigate our roads in pursuit of anything when our progress is blocked at every turn by someone with more time than we have. A friend who worked in Helen had a bumper sticker which read, “I am NOT on vacation,” which unfortunately mirrors the attitude which many of us have towards the people who support what is left of our local economy. 

                Granted, this was a mild case of “road rage” compared to some of the incidents which frequently occur in large cities. It is sad that these incidents occur anywhere. However, in an area such as ours, where we have made a conscious choice to live here specifically because of the more relaxed lifestyle and slower pace, such an incident is almost tragic. The implication is that the gestalt of the age of instant (and again we emphasize constant ) information is now ubiquitous. It has reached into every corner of American life. There is no escape.

                We sympathize with the couple trying to enjoy a relaxing drive through the mountains. We pity the family in pursuit of their urgent needs. It is not difficult to imagine the factors pressing down on the accelerator. Consider this likely scenario:  Both parents work. With two children to be supported by the small selection of jobs in our area, they work more than forty hours each during the week. After work they have to pick up the kids at soccer practice or any of a number of other activities in which our children must participate in order to become what we consider to be “well rounded” and able to compete. On the way home with the kids they must “run by” the grocery store and rush home to make dinner while the kids are doing homework. On the weekend there is a game to attend and more shopping for necessities – and more driving. By Sunday the parents are wondering why we call Saturday and Sunday “the weekend.” The week, in fact, never ends, but they feel an obligation on Sunday to do “something fun,” which in our culture usually involves more driving. If that “something fun” is in any of the metropolitan areas which surround us, that activity requires at least five more hours on the road. By Sunday afternoon the parents are exhausted, but the sun is going down and they still have to cross the mountain to get home, make dinner, finish the laundry and get themselves ready for work and the kids ready for school the next day. Unfortunately for all, their way is blocked by Ted and Alice, retired, visiting from Orlando and driving 30 mph to better enjoy the fall colors.

                Recently a tribe was discovered living in a remote area of the Amazon. The people of the tribe have no language for time. They have no concept of hours, minutes and seconds, much less the increasingly small units of time which dissect modern existence. They do not count days, weeks, months and years. Their names are related to their appearance, and as that appearance changes over “time,” they give away their old names and take on new ones. Their lives are not without struggle – they must gather food and build shelter. They must experience sickness and death. However, these simple people appear to be extraordinarily healthy and happy and free from much of the stress which accompanies modern life.

                We often consider ourselves, by virtue of our advanced technology and sophistication, to be superior to simpler people; superior to our ancestors who lived without our modern conveniences.  Science tells us, however, that though our knowledge has increased, our intelligence has not. And what of wisdom? One could make a strong argument that this elusive quality has actually diminished. What have we gained in our pursuit of speed and convenience? We work far more hours than our ancestors who hunted and gathered. The quality of our living is polluted by, not only the exhaust from our passing, but the chemicals of fight and flight coursing through our bodies under stress. We medicate ourselves and we medicate our children just to be able to cling to the fingertip ledge of mental health on the steep ascent of our progress.

                There is an ancient symbol of a serpent swallowing its own tail. It is a symbol of the cyclic nature of existence, of creation out of destruction, of life growing out of death. I think it is also a fitting symbol of our relationship with time. We have embarked on a journey of pursuit:  Pursuit of speed, pursuit of instant information and instantaneous gratification. We pursue time, but in doing so, we are pursued  by it. It is sad that, for too many of us, we only begin to question that pursuit as we near the end of life. Only then, with less time before us than behind, do we choose to slow down and enjoy the fall foliage, and wonder why we didn’t make the choice years ago. 

October

“Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” -Steve Jobs

                Perhaps all of us who live in an area blessed by seasons experience a heightened awareness in the month when the last traces of summer green transform into a panoply of fall color. The mists of spring and the haze of summer are long gone and the crystalline quality of the air invites us to look, to notice, to see farther. October brings the first hints of winter, and Nature, acutely aware of the inevitable, busies herself in preparation. Bees work harder to bring in the last vestiges of sustenance to see them through the gray months. Birds, squirrels and chipmunks gather with intensity and purpose. Snakes are on the move; sluggish on cooler days, cranky and dangerous in the heat, they seek that buried place that will shelter them from the winter chill.

                It may be that the approach of Halloween and All Saint’s Day inspires during this month an enhanced appreciation for the past, for the departed, for that which is mysterious and ghostly and unknowable. The changing seasons are a powerful metaphor for the passage of time in our own lives, and the awareness of our own passing will influence us whether we are conscious of it or not. The ant in us will work harder; the grasshopper will sing louder. Those of us approaching the October of our own calendar will sip the last of the summer wine with more care and appreciation than we did when we devoured the intoxicating days of spring. We mirror Nature as we harvest the efforts of summer and try to preserve the seeds of the future, and like the colors of autumn, we can demonstrate the most extraordinary beauty in the fall of our lives, just before the cycle of life turns toward the chill of winter. 

Common Threads

No matter how far back we turn the pages of history, we find that human beings have remained essentially the same over the centuries. Though each generation has felt itself to be unique in some way, the sum of all these differences has not changed or evolved us as individuals any more than putting on a new shirt changes our blood type. Throughout the centuries we have loved and hated for the same reasons, been driven by the same lusts, feared the same unknowns and aspired to the same truths.

There have been a few in every generation who have recognized the common threads of humanity that run through the historical tapestry; fewer who recognized that these commonalities not only bridge the centuries, but they bind us together in the present as well. Today we have a clearer view of more history than any generation before us, but we still suffer the same prejudices, still fear what we do not understand and often hate what we fear.

The Anasazi cliff dweller of 500 AD and the urban cliff dweller in today’s megalopolis both share the same range of human possibilities. Both love their children and wish for them a better future. Both see themselves as part of something larger than the individual. Both attempt to peer across the gulf between life and afterlife for some sign of God, some promise of hope. 

Across the years we all share the same strengths and weaknesses of character that allow the wide range of human conditions between sheep and goats, grasshoppers and ants, saints and sinners. Whether we prefer Shakespeare or Sun Tzu, study the Hindu, the Hopi or the Hapsburgs, we hear the same stories and see the same archetypes. Some generations learn from the past and build on what has gone before, while some, through circumstance or bad judgment, become rubble for the building blocks of future construction. Civilizations rise and civilizations fall in patterns that, if they do not exactly repeat, very often rhyme.

I often look to the ancient Romans for lessons of history. For good or for ill, we resemble them in many ways. Rome began humbly and grew into a great republic. The reins of the republic were seized by greedy hands grasping for empire and the seeds of Rome’s destruction were planted along the imperial road to world power. As Roman military and political power concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, Rome prospered or declined according to the vagaries of personality bound to a long succession of despots. As it is with our own dear nation, Rome was cursed with some of the most corrupt, and incompetent leadership of all time.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born in 3 BC and lived during a time when Rome was greatly debased by a succession of bad emperors. Roman culture was not so much different than our own. The Romans were economically, technologically and socially advanced and prosperity gave them a wide range of choices for education, career and leisure as well as a wide range of possibilities for dissolution and decay. As a tutor to the mad emperor, Nero, Seneca was able to hold Nero’s madness in check for a time, but a solitary voice willing to speak truth to power is not enough to keep a nation from decline when good people, out of distraction or despair, fail to act.

Seneca the playwright touched on themes that are as alive today as they were 2000 years ago.  Seneca the philosopher wrote extensively on a wide range of topics, but the power of his intellect shines brightly on his discourses on the intents and purposes of life itself. The success of his efforts to illuminate life can perhaps best be judged by the bravery and sobriety with which he faced his own imminent demise when his life, like so many others, was also made forfeit by the madness of Nero.

I leave you this week with an excerpt from Seneca’s “On the Shortness of Life.” Though it was written 2000 years ago, it mirrors our own lives as clearly as if it had been written this morning.

“Why do we complain of Nature? She has shown herself kindly; life, if you know how to use it, is long. But one man is possessed by an avarice that is insatiable, another by a toilsome devotion to tasks that are useless; one man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always hangs upon the decision of others, another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all seas by the hope of gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting danger upon others or concerned about their own; some there are who are worn out by voluntary servitude in a thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men's fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course, but Fate takes them unawares while they loll and yawn—so surely does it happen that I cannot doubt the truth of that utterance which the greatest of poets delivered with all the seeming of an oracle: ‘The part of life we really live is small.’ For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.”