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Michael Parker's Journal
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Thursday, August 28, 2003 |
To What End?
Edward O. Wilson closes his widely praised book, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, published by Knopf in 1998, answering this very question–to what end will the knowledge of our past and the historical past lead us? To what end will come upon us if we forsake our intellectual and scientific knowledge, the ability to be united by it?
Wilson was writing in a quiet time, when the world seemed to be progressing toward a commonality that was enlightening, that seemed to harvest good-will. His vision seemed nearly in reach.
Consider this paragraph:
Thanks to science and technology, access to factual knowledge of all kinds is rising exponentially while dropping in unit cost. It is destined to become global and democratic. Soon it will be available everywhere on television and computer screens. What then? The answer is clear: synthesis. We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.
On the contrary, however, we have learned that information can be manipulated to make society believe something utterly false (i.e. many of the claims presented to both the citizens of the United States and Britain by their governments to gain support for a war in Iraq).
Consider this paragraph:
And this much about wisdom: In the long haul, civilized nations have come to judge one culture against another by a moral sense of the needs and aspirations of humanity as a whole. In thus globalizing the tribe, they attempt to formulate humankind’s noblest and most enduring goals.
On the contrary, however, what we have seen is a return to imperialism or a warfare that benefits the corporate infrastructure, even though the warfare is payed for by the blood and funds of the plebs. What globalization is occurring seems to be theological in nature, Judeo-Christian fundamentalism to be exact.
Wilson is continually wise in his thoughts, especially in this statement-- "Our hereditary human nature," writes WIlson, "which evolved during hundreds of millenia before and afterward, still profoundly affects the evolution of culture. These considerations do not devalue the determining role of chance in history. Small accidents can have big consequences. The character of individual leaders can mean the difference between war and peace; one technological invention can change an economy.(page 267)"
Have we not seen the truth of this statement in the presidency of Bush 2?
Yes. These are different times. We see so much of war and bloodshed; we hear too much of war-mongering in the name of security and freedom; we see our benefits shrinking, friends losing jobs, yet see the wealthy getting wealthier. We sense that we are drowning in a sea of lies and manipulated information. Nevertheless, the hope that Wilson paints in this final chapter is still prescient now. It is something we can cling to; a belief we can use as our democratic dictum.
In closing, consider these statements from Consilience–
The legacy of the Enlightenment is the belief that entirely on our own we can know, and in knowing, understand, and in understanding, choose wisely....A great deal of serious thinking is needed to navigate the decades immediately ahead....We are entering a new era of existentialism, not the old absurdist existentialism of Kierkegaard and Sartre, giving complete autonomy to the individual, but the concept that only unified learning, universally shared, makes accurate foresight and wise choice possible.
In the course of all of it we are learning the fundamental principle that ethics is everything. Human social existence, unlike animal sociality, is based on the genetic propensity to form long-term contracts that evolve by culture into moral precepts and law....
The search for consilience might seem at first to imprison creativity. The opposite is true. A united system of knowledge is the surest means of identifying the still unexplored domains of reality. It provides a clear map of what is known, and it frames the most productive questions for future inquiry. Historians of science often observe that asking the right question is more important than producing the right answer. The right answer to a trivial question is also trivial, but the right question, even when insoluble in exact form, is a guide to major discovery. (page 298)
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Wednesday, August 27, 2003 |
Running for a Good Cause
I’ve been away from my blog for a week. I’ve been preparing for, running, and recovering from participating in the Hood to Coast Relay race. It is the largest relay race in the world. One thousand teams from around the world, made up of 12 runners each, converge on Northern Oregon ro run this 198 mile race from the majestic Mt. Hood to the coastal city of Seaside and its beautiful beach. The proceeds for the race benefit the American Cancer Society.
While listening to a retro-radio station on Friday evening, in which a lady was complaining about how runners were being inconsiderate and causing an unbearable traffic jam, the DJ explained that the relay had raised over 3 million dollars. His reply to the lady-caller was simply to be patient and more considerate because this was a good cause. Our reply to the lady-caller would have been: "Pay 3 million dollars and I’m sure someone would let you stop traffic, too."
It took my team--the Leather Lungs and Jog Bras-- 28 hours and 12 minutes to finish the course. The winning team, the NCIC Allstars, finished in 18 hours and 48 minutes.
Despite having to deal with traffic on small roads; standing in long lines at the portable toilets and exchange points; running in the middle of the night on a gravel road amidst dust-filled air; running the longest leg of the course in the afternoon heat; and sleeping only two-and-a-half hours before having to get back on the course again; this is one of the best running events I’ve ever been apart of. Crossing my fingers I can do this again.
Lying for a Bad Cause
Last week, The Guardian printed an excellent article by the musician Brian Eno titled "Lessons on How to Lie About Iraq." It was then re-printed on TomPaine.com. Eno pens a valid new name for the propaganda of this age-- prop-agenda.
He defines it in this terms:
It's not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about. When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it's the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone's talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false 'intelligence' and selected 'leaks'.
He uses an example prior to the first Gulf War in which a fifteen year-old nurse, named Nayirah, revealed on national news that Iraqi soldiers storming into Kuwaiti hospitals, ripping babies out of incubators, and stealing the incubators. Eno writes: "[I]t turned out later [that Nayirah] was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States and a member of the Kuwaiti royal family. Nayirah had been tutored and rehearsed by the Hill & Knowlton PR agency (which in turn received $14 million from the American government for their work in promoting the war). Her story was entirely discredited within weeks but by then its purpose had been served: it had created an outraged and emotional mindset within America which overwhelmed rational discussion."
Eno goes on to say that we were witnesses of similar deceits in the build-up of Iraq. "...[F]alse linkages made between Saddam, Al Qaeda and 9/11, stories of ready-to-launch weapons that didn't exist, of nuclear programs never embarked upon....many of these allegations were discredited as they were being made, but nevertheless were retold."
Eno also discusses that PR companies are used to create catch-phrases that appeal to our emotions, because, he writes, that "emotion creates reality" and "reality demands action."
[T]he PR companies helped finesse the language to create an atmosphere of simmering panic where American imperialism would come to seem not only acceptable but right, obvious, inevitable and even somehow kind.
Aside from the incessant 'weapons of mass destruction', there were 'regime change' (military invasion), 'pre-emptive defense' (attacking a country that is not attacking you), 'critical regions' (countries we want to control), the 'axis of evil' (countries we want to attack), 'shock and awe' (massive obliteration) and 'the war on terror' (a hold-all excuse for projecting American military force anywhere).
Meanwhile, U.S. federal employees and military personnel were told to refer to the invasion as 'a war of liberation' and to the Iraqi paramilitaries as 'death squads', while the reliably sycophantic American TV networks spoke of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' -- just as the Pentagon asked them to -- thus consolidating the supposition that Iraqi freedom was the point of the war. Anybody questioning the invasion was 'soft on terror' (liberal) or, in the case of the United Nations, 'in danger of losing its relevance'.
I thought Eno’s closing remarks were especially poignant. He relates how is eccentric uncle pulled him aside one day and told him that he was going to teach him how to lie. Not because his uncle wanted him to lie, but because his uncle wanted him to know when he was being lied to.
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Wednesday, August 20, 2003 |
Finding the Edge
It has been the talk of many liberals and conservatives since, well, Al Gore lost the edge in the Florida recount debacle. Many felt that he gave up during the last seconds of the game. And then came September 11th. The liberals haven’t been able to find their unified voice, if success requires that, their platform to stand on, that edge to strike back at the very unified neo-conservative administration and media. August 20th. One year, two months, and two weeks, America heads to the polls to what is bound to be a repeat of the 2000 election. What will the Democrat platform be? What will be their vision for America? Are we going to resurrect some of our own religious platitudes to show the moderate conservatives that we aren’t about getting rid of God? For Isn’t our beliefs in religion and relationship with God, like our patriotism to and for America, something we live and worship within our hearts?
Regarding our vision of the future, do we have an agenda for rebuilding Iraq? How about a plan for negotiations with North Korea? Do we have an alternate plan for homeland security?
These questions and more must be addressed now rather than later. Sure, we can harp on what Bush has done wrong or is doing wrong; we can cry foul in regards to how we were lead into the Iraq war and the continuing secrets his administration holds in regards to that and September 11th. But if the Democrats don’t find their edge, they are going off the edge.
From The Guardian came an intense analysis of the Democrats missing agenda and voice. Hugo Young also discusses how the Democrats can approach this dillema.
Unlike Bush, many Democrats are sticking to the conventional wisdom. They grope for some kind of centre ground. But so far has the territory shifted, thanks to the Republicans' shameless stakeout on the hard right, that their quest continues to drain their party of most of its meaning and any of its capacity to inspire.
The rules are being observed, but we find that in some circumstances these rules are a fallacy. They draw a party so far into the orbit of its rival as to render itself meaningless as anything except a political machine of variable potency around the country. Yet the dominant mode of most presidential candidates is still to cling to the kind of centrism that defines them at best as Bush-lite, at worst as people who have nothing to say that could send the smallest shiver up the spine of afloating voter....
[M]any Democrats seem to have forgotten that they did win the election last time. For four years it has been idle to challenge the Florida vote and the bizarre workings of the electoral college, but now is the time to recall that in 2000 half a million more Americans voted for Al Gore's progressive version of the future than Bush's more conservative one. Bush was still posing as a bit centrist then, and Gore was scarcely a raving liberal. Gore mostly stuck to the Clinton third way doctrine that had taken the Democrats away from the narrowest version of their past. But there was a left-right choice, and more Americans voted left than right....
For any Democrat to take advantage of Bush's waning popularity and overcome his vast campaign finances, however, he must have something to say. There needs to be some clarity, on all fronts. The other day, the same edition of the New York Times carried stories saying that neither young African-Americans nor the Boston Irish could any longer be counted on as part of the core vote. Is this heresy surprising when nobody knows with any certainty what Democrats stand for? If a party can't fire up its core vote, it will be deader quicker than if it can't draw in people who've never voted for it before. Watching what Bush has done to both the economy and the constitution, it should be easy for a Democrat to come up with soundbites and articles of simple faith to inspire a few more than the millions of Americans who voted for Gore last time....
What their opponents need is a leader whose voice rings more eloquently than Bush's - surely not the hardest contest to win. That won't happen until they abandon their backing and filling, and their belief that being a Democrat no longer adds up to anything more than a milder version of their enemies.
"Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice ... Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." Barry Goldwater said that 40 years ago. It was the start of the recovery of the right. The words now belong rather exactly in the other side's mouth. If they came out of Senator Kerry's this autumn, they'd make him sound less like a calculating wimp.
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Tuesday, August 19, 2003 |
The Lord of the Rings
The Fellowship of the Rings
In anticipation of the DVD release of The Two Towers quickly coming upon us on August 26th, I decided I better post my movie review for the first installment of the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Rings. This review was written 12 January 2002. I dubbed it the best movie of 2001. (I will weave my top ten lists and other reviews throughout my other blogs.) This is also a good time to plug the blog Return of the King. The creator lists facts, trivia, and literature of and from Tolkein's trilogy, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion.
Peter Jackson’s idyllic story of good and evil reigns supreme over any film I’ve seen this year, and perhaps, rivals the best of film from any other year. I was overwhelmed time and again with the vast landscapes, incredibly inspiring script, and impressive performances from some of the best that Hollywood has to offer¾especially Wood, McKellen, Blanchett, and Tyler but not to leave out Holms, Astin, Lee, Bean, and Mortensen.
Jackson’s Middle Earth is breathtaking; it’s landscapes are rich, beautiful, and majestic and are as enchanting as Tolkien would expect them to be. In fact, Jackson uses the landscapes of this Middle Earth as a tool, as if it were a primary character.
The vastness of most every landscape rightly depicts humanity’s smallness. We are overwhelmed with how small the Fellowship of men are against these vast and monstrous valleys and mountainous terrains. Figuratively, these landscapes symbolize the very obstacles that the Fellowship face, especially in the scenes where they attempt to climb the rugged snowy peaks of the South Pass; traverse through the Mines of Morea; or even flee the seemingly ever-present Ringwraiths and Orcs.
The obstacles never diminish in this film. When one obstacle is conquered, another one rears its ugly head. These obstacles either come as a consequence of a decision or act, or by the enemy. These obstacles and hardships echo the inner struggle of the main character, Frodo. He wrestles with an ever-present and overwhelming doubt that he is not capable of his mission¾to take the ring back to the fiery pit of Mt. Doom. Even the epic-proportions of the Enchanted Forrest of the Elf Queen and the gates of the Kings bring to mind a sense of how overwhelming life and the expectations we place on ourselves are.
Maybe Jackson intended this. Maybe this is what Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is all about¾ small people, insignificant people, stepping up, facing their obstacles, and doing extraordinary things for the good of humanity.
If so, then Rings is also about big people, people with enough courage and perseverance to tackle the hardest of obstacles; but somewhere in their journey of conquering the adversary, become imprisoned by their greatness, and or lust for power. These are the men who become subject to evil, if not becoming the very personification of evil, as is the case with Sarumon (played by Christopher Lee).
We like to pretend that we are big and all-powerful, that our race is better than any other race existing in our world. This perception is dangerous. It inevitably leads to one’s undoing, as depicted by many sub-plots running throughout this film. Rings is a perfect epic tale for our time.
This notion is made most clear when the representatives of Middle Earth meet in Rivendale to discuss what should be done with the ring. Ego’s flare, unchecked accusations fly, and the representatives lose control of their reason and turn to those tribal intuitions that have divided them for centuries. At this time, the ring looks as if it is on fire, as if the verbal attacks and fighting fuels its very existence.
Frodo is the only one to see this, and hear the words coming from it. It is at this time that he knows that he alone can take this ring to where it needs to go, not because he is the smallest but because he is not tainted with his own grandeur or importance. Frodo’s intentions are true to all the inhabitants of Middle Earth, just not to the survival of his own, the Hobbits.
Rings is also about people buoying one another’s spirit to continue forging ahead, to never give up. "Even the smallest of people can accomplish great things," said Galadriel to Frodo, after Frodo reveals to her his doubt about being able to continue on with his mission.
Gandolf echoes these words in the Mines of MoreaS (not verbatim) Each of us play a significant role in the outcome of life, whether that is for good or evil. You were meant to have this ring, Frodo. It is important that you continue this path and complete the mission intended for you. His wise and inspiring words have kept this film in the back of my mind; I’ve longed to return to the film time and again just to hear them.
Jackson’s script, adapted from Tolkien’s "The Fellowship of the Rings" is one of the best of the year. The wisdom and poetry of the lines are like a fire that one can warm their cold hands and feet by. Memorable. Remarkable.
When the Elf Queen Galadriel (played by Cate Blanchett) gives Frodo the Morning Star as a guide for him on his journey to Mordor, she says that it will be a light in times when there is no light. Similarly, Jackson’s script is this Morning Star.
The acting in Rings is nothing more than perfect. Each actor/actress delivered whole-hearted and memorable performances that equaled the beauty and significance of the script.
Ian McKellen’s Gandolf was especially memorable, exhibiting wisdom, physical strength, cosmic awareness, and humor without needing props that represent him, e.g."Look, I’m a wizard because I’m wearing a pointy hat." My wife even had to ask me, about half-way through the film, if Gandolf was indeed a wizard. To me, this is evidence of the depth McKellen gave Gandolf. McKellen’s Gandolf may be one of the most noticeable and memorable film personas since Darth Vador.
Liv Tyler’s Arwen is strong, sensitive, wise, brave, and beautiful. I read that the actors learned to speak Elvish. Tyler seems a natural at it. Her lines flowed beautifully. The language, created by Tolkien himself, sound like water flowing over smooth pepples in a brook. If angels speak, I’m sure they sound like this.
Likewise, Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel is memorable. Blanchett’s presence was as royal as her performance in Elizabeth, which she won the Academy Award for.
Elijah Wood, as Frodo, is incredible. His eyes alone expressed so much emotion that it was hard not to get caught up in his emotions with him. This works only because Wood’s performance and emotions are genuine.
Sean Astin, as Frodo’s friend Sam, also makes an impressive performance as the kind and innocent and oftentimes naïve and shy Hobbit. His lines are believable; his expressions, also, apt to tell us thousands of words about how he feels.
Christopher Lee’s character is one of the more stock characters of the film but Lee treats us with a performance (when we first encounter him on the steps of his tower) that lends depth to Saruman’s turning to the dark side—we at least question his allegiances right away. It’s not a performance in which the evil is suddenly turned on like a light switch.
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings is grand! It’s a classic. It is a masterful epic tale that surpasses anything I have seen before of its kind. To me, Star Wars looks like a High School film project compared to this, mainly because of the depth and strength of Jackson’s script and the solid and believable performances from every character.
Moreover, Rings inspired me, leaving impressions of small Hobbits, of a fellowship of men working together for the common good of all, and of wise words spoken by a wizard and an Elf Queen that are more timeless than Jackson himself could ever have hoped to imagine.
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Monday, August 18, 2003 |
On Big Lies, by John Conason
This week, Salon is publishing parts of Joe Conason’s new book "Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propoganda Machine and How it Distorts the Truth." This first article, titled Big Lies, is a basic introduction--his reason for writing the book. One just has to read Conason to know that 1) he knows his stuff; 2) he has an engrossing writing style; and 3) he's fair and balanced. No, truthfully, Conason comes across here as very thoughtful, not like Coulter with her ire and hatred.
I greatly appreciated the focus of Conason's article. Not only does he have a fair definition of liberalism and conservatism, but his list of accomplishments that can be attributed to liberalism is enlightening. Boy, does this need to be spelled out at this dire time.
Conason, as I said before, shows a remarkable sense of depth of knowledge in his insights. He should be thought of as one of the Left's most esteemed voices. He successfully pitched this sale.
The following quote lists all of the achievements attributed to liberal causes:
If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals. If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family -- you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green -- you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society -- you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those advances. The country we know and love today was built by those victories for liberalism -- with the support of the American people.
The following quote is also a noteworthy question/answer explanation of the liberal mindset:
Are liberals unpatriotic, a favorite conservative canard? No. The record of loyalty (and military service) among liberals equals that of conservatives. Do liberals despise the work ethic? No. Liberals defend the interests of working Americans against the fake populism of corporate conservatism. Don't liberals always tax and spend the economy into ruin? No. The numbers prove that liberal Democrats have been the most competent, fiscally trustworthy stewards of the economy for the past seven decades. Aren't liberals determined to restrict freedom in the name of political correctness? No. In fact, liberals have been the most consistent defenders of the Bill of Rights for the past century. Is "liberal" a synonym for "immoral"? No. Liberals do preach less about "family values," but they're just as likely as conservatives to honor those values
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Sunday, August 17, 2003 |
Is the Religious Awakening in America Mystical or Fundamentalism?
In my first blog, Battle Lines, I ascertain that the Christian Right, the force behind this Administration, have "drawn the battle lines against secularism in America." Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times published an interesting article that shows evidence that America is on the verge of a Great Awakening, that it is increasingly more religious in their thinking than they are intellectual.
The most unsettling poll Kristoff lists is that "Americans believe, 58 percent to 40 percent, that it is necessary to believe in God to be moral." In other words, it is solely a belief in God, rather than an individual’s self-control and self-mastery, that keeps one moral. Isn’t this like saying that a belief in Santa Claus keeps kids ethical– adhering.to the Golden Rule?
I mean, religion may teach morals; but living them is a matter of personal choice and responsibility, which is separate from one’s belief in God. And, if we are referring to morals strictly in the no-sexual-relations-before-marriage aspect of the definition, well, once again, is it a belief in God that stops immorality or someone teaching themselves to curb their sexual appetites and instincts?
When I was growing up, a sole belief in God surely did not stop a few God-fearing young men and women (who attended church regularly because they were expected to) from being promiscuous and getting "laid." More specifically, years ago, I worked as a convenient store clerk. One of the young women that was hired, a good Christian girl, had just had a baby out of wed-lock and had given it up for adoption. How did she get pregnant? It's a disturbing story. She broke it off with her boyfriend of six months. He was supposedly a good Christian--he told her numerous times he was going to go be a missionary. One night, only days after she had broken their relationship off, she was nabbed while walking down her driveway, taken into the bushes, and held while her boyfriend raped her.
The point of this is that morals don't simply just exist because of beliefs; they have to be realized and applied.
My second concern regarding Kristoff’s article is his use of the word "mystical." Maybe it is to point out that common sense is sloughing away; that this American Christianity is dumbing down–"[it] is becoming less intellectual and more mystical..."
A more mystical America is not a bad thing if these Christians follow the attributes of mysticism. What is mysticism? The mystic, according to Perle Epstein, in her book Kabbalah: The Way of the Jewish Mystic, is someone who is "emptied of their ego;" whose soul is "sufficiently cleansed by the ethical and spiritual practices centered on awe;" who believes that "all things are interrelated;" and who believes that their purpose of existence is to elevate other human beings to the divine.
To be more descriptive, Epstein includes the attributes that the mystic and Jewish scholar/teacher Moses Cordovero adhered to and taught:
1. Forbearance in the face of insult.
2. Patience in enduring evil.
3. Pardon, to the point of erasing the evil suffered.
4. Total identification with his neighbor.
5. Complete absence of anger, combined with appropriate action.
6. Mercy, to the point of recalling only the good qualities of his tormentor.
7. Eliminating all traces of vengefulness.
8. Forgetting suffering inflicted on himself by others and remembering the good.
9. Compassion for the suffering without judging them.
10. Truthfulness.
11. Mercy beyond the letter of the Law with the good.
12. Assisting the wicked to improve without judging them.
13. Remembering all human beings always in the innocence of their infancy.
In light of the above definition of mysticism, and after reviewing these attributes, you simply have to listen to the talk coming from the Christian Right and members of the Administration to know that they are not mystical in any form. In fact, I think the behavior and talk we see and hear more fits in line with Karen Armstrong's description of fundamentalism.
To explain, Armstrong defines that fundamentalism is a sacrifice of the intellect, or, as she calls it, the Logos.
What are the characteristics of the fundamentalist?
Consider these quotes from Armstrong’s masterful work The Battle for God:
Fundamentalists–
- "...seem so adamantly opposed to many of the most positive values of modern society" (page xi)
- "...have no time for democracy, pluralism, religious toleration, peacekeeping, free speech, or the separation of church and state"(page xi)
- "...are engaged in a conflict with enemies whose secularist policies and beliefs seem inimical to religion itself. Fundamentalists do not regard this battle as a conventional political struggle, but experience it as a cosmic war between the force of good and evil"(pagexiii).
- "...fear annihilation, and try to fortify their beleagured identity by means of a selective retrieval of certain doctrines and practices of the past. To avoid contamination, they often withdraw from mainstream society to create a counterculture"(page xiii).
- "...have absorbed the pragmatic rationalism of modernity, and under the guidance of their charismatic leaders, they refine these ‘fundamentals’ so as to create an ideology that provides the faithful with a plan of action. Eventually they fight back and attempt to resacralize an increasingly skeptical world" (page xiii).
With this in mind, I would have you read Michelle Groberg’s Salon article titled "Beautiful young shock troops for Bush." Pay attention to quotes that Michelle captured from the opening night's speakers. Rhetoric such as this is not mystical; it's fundamentalist in the most extreme. I dare say that it is not much different than rhetoric used by any group of people trying to take over the world, no matter if that group be Nazi or Bolshevik.
Consider the quote she captured by Jack Abramoff, who is a right-wing lobbyist and former College Republican chairman. She writes that Abramoff "exhorted the next generation to fight hard, lest ‘the ascension of evil, the bad guys, the Bolsheviks, the Democrats return.’"
Another point to discuss about this College Republican's Convention is how malleable and impressionable these young people's minds are. I've often wondered why is it that people can become so enamored by these aggressively pious types. I have been writing down thoughts for an upcoming blog tentatively titled On the Level of Gods.
In correlation with Kristoff's article is a valid opinion piece out of Britain, by George Monbiot of The Guardian. In his article "America is a Religion," he writes:
The United States of America no longer needs to call upon God; it is God, and those who go abroad to spread the light do so in the name of a celestial domain. The flag has become as sacred as the Bible; the name of the nation as holy as the name of God. The presidency is turning into a priesthood.
So those who question George Bush's foreign policy are no longer merely critics; they are blasphemers, or "anti-Americans". Those foreign states which seek to change this policy are wasting their time: you can negotiate with politicians; you cannot negotiate with priests. The US has a divine mission, as Bush suggested in January: "to defend ... the hopes of all mankind", and woe betide those who hope for something other than the American way of life.
The dangers of national divinity scarcely require explanation. Japan went to war in the 1930s convinced, like George Bush, that it possessed a heaven-sent mission to "liberate" Asia and extend the realm of its divine imperium. It would, the fascist theoretician Kita Ikki predicted: "light the darkness of the entire world". Those who seek to drag heaven down to earth are destined only to engineer a hell.
In facing this Great Awakening, then, I found a noteworthy thought from Karen Armstrong:
The history of fundamentalism shows that this militant piety does not fade away if we ignore it. It is no good pretending that the fundamentalist threat does not exist, or dismissing fundamentalism with secularist disdain as the preoccupation of a few deluded crazy people. History also shows that attempts to suppress fundamentalism simply make it more extreme. (page ix)
And, this quote:
[W]hen people begin to use religion to justify hatred and killing, and thus abandon the compassionate ethic of all the great world religions, they have embarked on a course that represents a defeat for faith. This aggressive piety can tip some of its more extreme proponents into a moral darkness that endangers us all. (page x)
In closing, I want to approach the notion that fundamentalism is indeed an imbalanced religious phenomenon. Carl Jung, from his incredible phsychological work Symbols of Transformation. pointed out how religion causes neurosis to those who get caught up in an emphasis on the spirit. He writes:
[It] inevitably leads to an unbearable depreciation of man’s physical side, and thus produces a sort of optimistic caricature of human nature. He gets too good and too spiritual a picture of himself, and becomes too naive and optimistic. In two world wars the abyss has opened out again and taught us the most frightful lesson that can be imagined. We now know what human beings are capable of, and what lies in store for us if ever again the mass psyche gets the upper hand. Mass psychology is egoism raised to an inconceivable power, for its goal is immanent and not transcendent.
Transcendence brings us full cirlce to mysticism again. The mystic is also well-rounded. The Kabbalist believes that there are five worlds to consciousness--Physicality, Emotion, Spirit, Primordial Source, and Intellect. These five worlds must never be separated but remain "concentric, one within the other." This ensures a healthy consciousness.
Religion, moreover religious individuals, must not acquiesce the right and God-given ability to increase intellectually. It's nearly our birthright, if you consider that Eve partook of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge so that we would be able to know what the gods know.
If I may use the proverb written in the Torah, "Where there is no knowledge, there is no understanding; where there is no understanding, there is no knowledge."
Obviously, the key to curbing the effects of fundamentalism is getting the Logos back into religious practice, somehow removing the threat it poses in this unique age of information and technology. Jesus taught that fear was of the devil. If we can elevate people above their fears and insecurities, we will have proven ourselves the victor, crushing the serpent's head.
{Editor's Note: 8/18/2003: Yes, I came in and cleaned up the content today. The themes weren't coming across well and my wording was not representing my intent nor meaning. I apologize if I offended anyone.}
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Thursday, August 14, 2003 |
SOLARIS (2002)
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh; Starring: George Clooney, Ulrich Tukur, Jeremy Davis, Viola Davis, and Natascha McElhone; Rated PG-13. New on DVD
Steven Soderbergh’s film SOLARIS is an experience I fear only the sophisticated viewer would enjoy, even cherish; the viewer who enjoys reading the meaning between the lines or in facial expressions, or who appreciates thinking about the meaning of what is said or done. SOLARIS, written by Stanislaw Lem, is truly an exercise of personal introspection–how we get hung up on choices and wanting to solve every problem; and how we perceive others, to name a few.
Soderbergh’s vision of SOLARIS is very Kubrickian. I was reminded of Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, in which the plot developed slowly and existed on two or three convergent levels; and, in which there were long sequences of nothing more than images and music. In fact, SOLARIS plays like a dream–scenes are broken up into minute breaks, as if we are present and blinking our eye every few seconds. This method of editing puts us off center; it makes us fill in the void with our own imagination.
Also, Soderbergh placed dispersed conversations from the past in with the future; the effect allows us to be on the same page as the protagonist. We learn as he learns; we react and see if our reactions correlate with his.
Chris Kelvin is a Lonely Man
SOLARIS is about a lonely man, Chris Kelvin (George Clooney). He lives in a lonely apartment–the walls and furniture are devoid of decorations and colored in cold shades of white and metal; there are no pictures or paintings; there’s no color; there are no plants; there is no life. Kelvin also works a seemingly lonely job as a psychiatrist. His patients talk to him. He listens. But we only hear him speak when he is leaving a message on a patient’s answering machine.
As we see Chris going about his everyday activities, we sense that he is simply going through the motions, a shell of a man. He seems sad, as if he has lost someone close to him and has yet been able to fill that void. This void is manifested in the environments that surround him. He’s as empty as the large empty spaces hanging above the group therapy session, as empty as his apartment (lacking color, photographs, or warmth), or as empty as the empty windows that peer into his office from the high-rise across the way. Even the distance between he and his patients attending group therapy seem to accentuate this void and his loneliness.
Message from a Lost Friend
One day, Chris is visited by representatives of a private space program. They play the last communication they received from his best friend, Gibarian (Ulrich Tukur), who directs the exploration team around the planet Solaris.
Chris is confronted with a digital representation of Gibarian, larger-than-life, looking down on him from the monstrous LCD screen the size of his wall. (Remember the description of the walls in Fahrenheit 451.) Gibarian, who appears ragged, a bit wild-eyed and mysterious, tells Chris that he needs to come to Solaris right away. Some unexplainable and amazing events are occurring to them, things that Chris would only understand if he came. Chris would be the only person that could rescue his team, because of his experience. For the sake of his friend, Gibarian, Chris agrees to go.
What meets Chris when he arrives at the Solaris space station is disturbing, in more ways than one. Blood stained hand and foot prints lead to the station’s morgue. Two crew members have died; a third crew member vanished; and the security team that was sent to retrieve them was nowhere to be found. Chris found two survivors-- a seemingly deranged recluse by the name of Snow (Jeremy Davis) and the level-headed but mysterious Helen Gordon (Viola Davis). Chris quickly learns that things aren’t right. They are not alone. Snow warns him to lock himself in his room when he goes to sleep. He finds a young boy peering out at him from the main hallway; he chases the boy into Gibarian’s room, only to find that the boy is nowhere to be found. He just disappeared.
And when he attempts to talk to Gordon, she opens the door just wide enough to see him. We hear strange, disquieting sounds coming from within. When he asks if she would like to talk about what is going on, she cries in despair: "There’s no use discussing it with you until it starts happening to you."
What unfolds when Chris goes to bed and starts dreaming is nearly beyond belief and comprehension.
The Mystery of the Planet Solaris
The planet Solaris is masterfully created. It not only holds our interest but it demands it as well. We’re mystified, struck by its cool, luminescent blue glow and its surface that shifts around in crazy currents. Sometimes, it seems just like our basic weather patterns--clouds flow along the current of the jet stream, swirling in and about high and low air-pressure regions. Other times, however, the currents mimic that of a lava lamp, in which the viscous oil-like fluid collides with other oil-like fluid. Solaris is so unique and beautiful that it effects the characters in the film. Snow monitors its changes incessantly on a computer screen; he reacts to it as if it were a living being. And the character Rheya gazes at it, speaking of it as if it is a god–"Surely it must know how I feel."
Solaris is cognizant of the crew. More specifically, it knows the people they dream about, the people they miss, need, or have even been haunted by. It resurrects these people. For Snow, his brother suddenly showed up. For Gibarian, it was his child, Michael. For Chris, he dreams of his fiancé, Rheya, and suddenly she is there.
The notion of things being recreated or brought back to life is something that happens in Stephen King or in horror films. Stanislaw Lem uses these resurrections not to haunt but for philosophical, moral, and ethical purposes. Are these recreations/resurrections real flesh and blood? Are they the same people we knew them to be when they were alive? What is our responsibility towards them? Is their existence a problem or a blessing? Where do they come from? Why are they here?
Without revealing the ending, Chris, Gordon, and Snow are forced to ask these questions.
If our Perceptions of People Took Shape
The Rabbi David Cooper wrote about resurrection, saying that it "is the heralding of a new era, a transformation into a consciousness previously unknown in which reality undergoes a profound change" (page 294, God is a Verb).
Years ago, I lost a friend to leukemia. He was an active 27 year-old. He lifted weights and ate well. He survived through three bouts of the cancer, going in and out of remission twice, before it finally took him. When he went one Saturday morning, he was a skeleton of a man. About a year-and-a-half later, I found myself talking to him in a dream. Since we had attended the Sundance Film Festival, we were standing around in our black clothes. Our wives were sitting on the couch, also conversing. It was a wonderful experience. It was so very good to see him again. What I recall most about his visit was that he looked like he was before becoming ill. Also, we never spoke of his illness or how much his passing affected us. It was as though he was not dead, so why mourn.
That very next day, his wife called me at work. I hadn’t spoken to her since the funeral. As soon as I heard her voice, I replied how amazing it was that she called because I had just dreamt about her husband. She immediately asked: "How did he look?"
I feel that our perceptions of people become our reality of them–we can’t see them any other way even if they might have changed. We tend to judge people solely on what we see on the surface–what they say and how they say it; how they treat others; how they carry themselves; how they deal with situations; etc. But the key is this–we only know them as well as what we see. (Could this be a reason why holy writ encourages us not to judge?)
SOLARIS is an excellent study in what would happen if our perceptions of someone took shape. When Chris goes to sleep and dreams of his fiancee, Rheya, Solaris resurrects her. But this is not the same Rheya. This is Rheya as she existed in Chris’ consciousness; in his memories. There is a scene in which, shortly after he discovers her in his bed, Chris excuses himself to leave the room. Rheya becomes hysterical, begging him not to leave. Chris asks her why she is acting this way. She replies that she doesn’t know why. She just knows that she’s supposed to feel that way.
As we learn more about their past relationship, we see that because Chris perceived Rheya as suicidal, her resurrected self was suicidal. And even though Rheya longs to be her own person throughout the remainder of the movie, she can’t. She’s trapped with the qualities and psychological make-up Chris has granted her. The only memories she has of her life are his. The longer she lives, the more trapped she feels. Finally, she confides in him that she cannot live like this because it is not her; her life is not her choice.
There are only Choices
One of the scenes I love is when Gibarian appears to Chris late at night in his room. "Don't turn on the light," Gibarian commands him as he reaches for the light switch. I was reminded of the visitation of the ghost of King Hamlet, coming back to utter secrets. Though Gibarian was not there to reveal foul deeds, he did offer Chris incredible wisdom-- "There are no solutions; there are just choices."
The thoughtful Deepak Chopra, in his book titled How to Know God, he writes that "...one cannot be certain about...reality. There are no definite events, no river of time that flows from past to present to future. What exists in its place is a rich matrix of possible outcomes. There are infinite choices within every event, and we determine which select few are going to manifest. At the depths of the mind field. where all things exist in seed form as virtual events, it hardly matters which ones eventually sprout. They are no more real than the seeds that didn’t" (page 262).
When Rheya is resurrected, Chris wants to find the answers, even though that goes against the purpose of his mission, as laid down by his friend. Gibarian’s visitation, thus, is a wake up call and leaves Chris with another choice, whether or not he continues trying to solve Rheya’s existence. Maybe Gibarian was alluding to the fact that Rheya choice to exist was not her own but Chris’. And is that right?
What matters, according to Chopra, is that no matter the choice we select, we accept that decision and take responsibility for it. In SOLARIS, it’s interesting that each of the remaining characters are forced to make a final decision. And like human beings are, they act based on the situation at hand and for their own personal need or security–Gordon bases her final decision on the social mores of American culture; Snow bases his on the present–Solaris is all he knows (it is home); and Chris bases his last action on the hope that the journey into the future will forgive him of his past mistakes and heal his present hurt.
In and out of the cacophony of images and conversations of Soderbergh’s SOLARIS weaves a thoughtful and mesmerizing tale about life and death; redemption; the freedom of choice; and the implications of how we perceive one another.
10:14:48 PM | |
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Monday, August 11, 2003 |
Remembering the Past
Sorry for getting personal on this one.
My friend recently introduced me to Radiohead's Hail to the Thief, which is an extraordinary CD. I was hooked. He lent me their collection of CD's. While listening to the songs "High and Dry" and "Fake Plastic Trees," I recalled hearing them during those weeks prior to and after having a back operation to remove a herniated disk. I wrote the following:
High and Dry
Oh Yes. Now I remember
"high and dry" in the 90's
the time my back went out--
a lower disk had ruptured--
I could not stand straight
I could not bear the pain
I could not look people in the eyes
I was a freak out of the circus
I was sure of that--
Other people's amusement--
the entertainer singing
"there goes the broken man"
I grew old
My soul grew tired
My spirit was lost
I was split and conquered
wasted and worn
fallen between the cracks
waiting for that operation
that would make me
me again
10:56:43 PM | |
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Saturday, August 09, 2003 |
Nuclear Proliferation On the Anniversary of Hiroshima
We’ve all heard the adage that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Well, I’m starting to wonder if a tactic of the Bush Administration is to play the squeaky wheel in order to get the attention (whether that intention be good or bad) and to keep it focused on them. Well, this tactic worked this past week.
With the 58th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima (August 6th, 8:15 AM) and Nagasaki (August 9th), the Bush Administration released news that they would be holding a top secret meeting at US Strategic Command to discuss expanding the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
You know, if Japan held a similar meeting on the day of the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Bushies would take it more than personally; they’d be talking war. Nonetheless, this administration has dropped one tactless bombshell after another on our Allies, whether they be insults, name-calling, or dropping our responsibilities in world affairs promoting cleaner air, peace, economic stability, and basic human rights. In the case of nuclear weapons, this responsibility would be to honor the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In a Democracy Now interview with the head of the Los Alamos group protesting this top secret meeting, Greg Mello, Greg mentioned that this meeting would bring together "many senior decision makers in the executive branch and their contractors."
Greg learned that a few congressional staff members and committee staff members attempted to attend the meeting just as observers and were "barred from the meeting."
On the docket for the meeting, Greg said they would "how to frame the discussion in congress. What kind of authority do we need to begin small production runs of special weapons. Is the production complex agile enough to make these special weapons at short notice. What kind of nuclear testing do we need. And of course what are the weapons we want...most likely to be used."
More precisely, Greg cited that the weapons discussed will be "high yield weapons.... There are going to be earth penetrating weapons. So called agent defeat weapons which are optimized to attempt the crazy mission of trying to incinerate biological weapons or chemical weapons. They're going to be enhanced radiation weapons. You remember that neutron bombs, there may even be some microwave weapon ideas brought to the table."
The visionary behind this meeting, Greg surmised, is Keith Payne and his co-authors of a 1980 article titled "Why not victory."
[In the article, Payne] suggested that the United States might be able to absorb losses of 20 million dead in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Which as you may remember is not too different than what Buck Turgidson said in "Dr. Strangelove" he has been very active in think tank circles that are close to the Bush administration. The national institute for public policy(NIP), I think he is or was the president, I haven't kept up whether he is in government, in Mr. Rumsfeld's shop at this moment or gone back to NIP. In any case our best information is he is going to be there. Whether that's true or not, it's not too important because his coauthors of that 1980 article in are the Bush administration as well. People that were on the margins at one time are now very central in policy making.
Of course, the news of this meeting was not met kindly in Hiroshima. In an AFP news release on the 6th, the mayor, Tadatoshi Akiba commented that, "by openly declaring the possibility of a pre_emptive nuclear first strike and calling for resumed research into mini_nukes and other so_called 'useable nuclear weapons,' [the US nuclear policy] appears to worship nuclear weapons as God."
Akiba also mourned the fact that this policy does great danger to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: "The Nuclear Non_Proliferation Treaty, the central international agreement guiding the elimination of nuclear weapons, is on the verge of collapse."
During a 45-minute ceremony honoring the victims of the bombing at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told the 40,000 plus attendees that "Japan would stick by its pacifist constitution and its non-nuclear principles because the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ‘can never be repeated.’"
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based non-governmental research organization, commented in an article by Katrin Dauenhauer of IPS on the 7th that this meeting could result in another arms race:
In my view, proposals for new nuclear weapons provide no military value for the United States and would result in enormous political, diplomatic and proliferation costs....To pursue the development of new types of nuclear weapons would make the task of banning the spread of nuclear weapons even more difficult. There is a 'do as I say, not as I do' philosophy implied. In order to develop and produce them, testing would be required that by itself could trigger a global reaction cycle that would harm international security. China might resume testing, or Russia.
Also on the 7th, Powell made a statement to the press (reported by AP Diplomatic Writer, Barry Schweid) that the US would not resume nuclear testing.
In response to this, Daryl Kimball stated: "It's useful that the secretary is reinforcing the current commitment to the test ban. [However,] that commitment is not solid, given the view of others in the administration that nuclear testing might be needed to develop and produce new types of nuclear weapons."
Meanwhile, the Guardian published an incredible article about scientists attempts to reconstruct the events in Hiroshima that fateful day in order to determine the safe limits of exposure to radiation. Titled "The Day the Sky Exploded," by David Adam, he reveals that a Japanese census in 1950 reports that "some 280,000 people said they had been exposed to radiation from one of the two atomic bombs."
The crucial question was: how much? Human exposure to dangerous levels of radiation is extremely rare, so the atomic bomb survivors provide the best evidence of what the effects are. By comparing the radiation doses the survivors received with the illnesses they later developed, scientists try to work out how lower exposures to radiation may trigger cancer. Every time you have an x-ray, for example, the safety data used to set your dose of radiation can be directly traced back to the events at Hiroshima. Likewise for patients receiving radiotherapy and for those people working in nuclear power stations.
The importance of this article, I feel, is that because of this reconstruction effort, these scientists have been able to better formulate what occurred at ground zero that morning in Hiroshima.
Adam writes that "The scientists developing the new reconstruction have also been able to follow the angle and direction of the radiation striking buildings and the ground back to their point of origin: the bomb. In this way they have worked out that the Hiroshima device was more powerful than believed: 16 rather than 15 kilotons (a 1kt blast is equivalent to 1,000 tons of conventional TNT exploding). They have also revised the exact point of the explosion over the area of the city where a memorial park now stands _ saying it was 15m further west and 20m higher at 600m. Such details may seem irrelevant next to the human tragedy that unfolded below, but the researchers say it is important that all uncertainties are ironed out."
The account of that morning in Hiroshima, in Adam’s words:
Hiroshima, August 6 1945: They sounded the all clear. What harm could three planes do?
It should have been a beautiful day in Hiroshima. There was hardly a cloud in the sky when the American planes appeared high overhead; they were clearly visible to those watching from the ground.
The attack sirens had sounded at around 7am when the planes were first spotted approaching the Japanese coast, but at around 8am the all-clear had been given. The Hiroshima radar operator had said there were no more than three in coming planes. What damage could three planes do? It was probably a reconnaissance mission. Many of the victims were still emerging from air raid shelters when the bomb was released.
The bomb doors of the Enola Gay overhead opened at 8.15am and about 40 seconds later the bomb exploded, around 600m above the city. The Americans knew this was the way to cause the most devastation. If the bomb exploded any lower then energy from the blast would be wasted, merely gouging a crater into the ground.
Not that there was a shortage of energy. This was E=mc2 in all its terrible simplicity -- where the energy released is equal to the mass of material multiplied by the speed of light squared (a very, very big number). As the nuclear chain reaction quickly ran out of control, uranium packed into the bomb was converted in a split second into a destructive holy trinity of heat, light and sound.
The explosion in the sky was as hot and bright as the sun, and to those on the ground it will have appeared hundreds of times bigger in the sky. It flung its energy out in all directions, instantly killing those at close range and severely burning people further away. Within a minute the city was engulfed in a fireball several hundred metres wide and as much as a mile high. This wall of flame would have quickly burned out into a gigantic pall of dense smoke, already beginning to form the characteristic mushroom shape that is the signature of an atomic explosion. The incredible heat caused fires to break out spontaneously across Hiroshima. Whipped by winds, the city quickly became engulfed in a devastating firestorm. Again, this was part of the American plan. Hiroshima's flat, ordered geography had been specifically targeted as it would allow fire to spread rapidly.
The city was helpless to respond. Firefighting and rescue units were fatally short of men and equipment. Only a handful of out-of-date fire engines were available, and no rescue parties could be mobilised until well into the following afternoon.
Most of the initial damage was caused by a crushing shock wave that rushed away from the atomic explosion, flattening almost everything in its path. Windows as far as nine miles away were broken, while closer to the centre of the blast, concrete buildings had their ceilings crushed and doors and windows blown off. The force uprooted trees and many people were trapped and burned beneath fallen structures. Most of the radiation released during the blast was made up of gamma rays, which came directly from the heart of the uranium as it split open during the chain reaction.
Japan could not understand what had happened. Following confused reports of a massive explosion, believed to be exaggerated, the military sent a single aircraft to survey the situation. Still a hundred miles from Hiroshima, the crew reported a great cloud of smoke where the city had been. But how? There had been no major enemy raid, and there was no sizable store of explosives there. The answer came 16 hours after the explosion, when the White House announced that Hiroshima had been hit by an atomic bomb.
8:32:28 PM | |
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Thursday, August 07, 2003 |
What I know, Part 1
The following is a list of things I have come to know over the years. Many of them have become the tenets I adhere to:
I KNOW that I don’t know everything. The more I study and learn, the more I realize I have more to study and learn. We never cease from learning. If we think we know everything, we can’t see past the nose on the end of our face; we lack vision; we lack maturity.
I KNOW that what I put forth in regards to relationships, I’ll receive the same in return. Human behavior lives by the simple law of cause and effect.
I KNOW that when I make the attempt to be aware of the people around me, the more able I am to help them if they need it.
I KNOW that I am happier and healthier when I get plenty of sleep and consistent exercise.
I KNOW that other people don’t know my expectations of them. So I’ve learned not to expect things I’ve not made them aware of.
I KNOW to not feel entitled to things. Feeling entitled creates a false impression that I am better than someone else. Feeling entitled draws my focus back onto myself; I’m more prone to be disrespectful, condescending, controlling, manipulative, and self-righteous.
I KNOW that rules, laws, and commandments are relative to the situation and the time. Their importance and/or observance changes like the landscape of the beach.
I KNOW that change is inevitable. We move forward down the freeway of life; we modify ourselves based on what life deals us. Moving in reverse causes accidents. Trying to recreate the "golden" past pushes current problems under the rug.
I KNOW that finishing the race is more important than giving up because you didn’t win or perform to your standards or expectations. Understanding comes through the experience. Perseverance and determination are learned in conquering your obstacles.
I KNOW that I can only control the things I have control over. I cannot worry about things I don’t control. You cannot stop the rushing wind.
I KNOW that communication is a key to success in any situation.
I KNOW not to blame someone else for my mistakes. Responsibility is taking ownership in what we say and do. We are the caretakers of the responsibilities we've accepted. The ability to become a better person comes from owning up to mistakes and correcting them.
I KNOW not to talk ill of or to spread rumors about someone else. Discrediting someone else for your own gain and pleasure shows a lack of maturity and self-worth.
I KNOW not to tease. When people say seemingly rude comments, and then tell you they are just teasing, they aren’t. They had intentions for saying or doing what they did. It’s best to never tease those who you do not have a close relationship with, who do not know and appreciate your humor.
8:57:53 PM | |
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Friday, August 01, 2003 |
The President’s New Dilemma
Does it seem like things are falling faster now, like those last autumn leaves unable to cling any longer to their mother source? The fast-paced flurry of news these days is enough to make one dizzy, confused, or transfixed like a zombie who goes about with no thought to think for himself.
Yet, it is summer. The last week of July; the first day of August. The heat of these summer days has made itself manifest, like it always does. For the president, he seems to be treading from one hot landscape to the next.
The 9/11 report was released last week, minus twenty-eight pages that seemed to suggest that the White House was covering up evidence against Saudi Arabia, the homeland of fifteen of the nineteen hijackers.
Suddenly, without an official invite, the Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia flew in on Monday under the guise that he was in Washington to discuss Mideast peace prospects. But with the heat increasing over the undisclosed sections of the report, he was more likely in town to say Saudi Arabia has "nothing to hide." But do they?
Suddenly, President Bush, in his smug, trying not to appear non-committal way, says he takes responsibility for the false Niger uranium claim in his State of the Union Address– "I take personal responsibility for everything I say, absolutely."
We should be writing about that; we should be scrutinizing his moral character; after all, thousands have died over those sixteen words. But the release of the 9/11 report opens another hot issue that needs analyzing, demands answers. And Bush, again, is not budging. He has refused to disclose the content of the 28 pages.
Some say that he is with-holding the information so as not to "disturb the relationship between the United States and some foreign countries." But knowing that Saudi Arabia (SA) has funded terrorist groups in the past, knowing that the majority of the hijackers were from SA, knowing that SA is named in the report, and knowing the relationship the Bush family has with the Royal family of SA, one cannot help but wonder what "some foreign countries" actually means.
Robert Scheer, a syndicated columnist, wrote on July 30th, in The Classified Truth, that "the bipartisan report, long delayed by an embarrassed White House, makes clear that the U.S. should have focused on Saudi Arabia, and not Iraq, in the aftermath of 9/11."
Leaks from the censored portions of the report indicate that at least some of those Saudi terrorists were in close contact with --- and financed by---members of the Saudi elite, extending into the ranks of the royal family.
The report finds no such connections between Iraq and al-Qaida terrorists. It is now quite clear that the president --- unwilling to deal with the ties between Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden --- pursued Saddam as a politically convenient scapegoat. By drawing attention away from the Muslim fanatic networks centered in Saudi Arabia, Bush diverted the war against terror. That seems to be the implication of the 28 pages, which the White House demanded be kept from the American people when the full report was released....
Newsweek, relying on anonymous government sources, reported Monday that the "connections between high-level Saudi princes and associates of the hijackers" included helping al-Qaida operatives enter the U.S. and financing their residence in San Diego, where they plotted their infamous attacks.
Remember too that it was well known that Saudi charities with ties to the royal House of Saud were bankrolling the al-Qaida operation in Afghanistan---even as George H.W. Bush visited the kingdom shortly after his son was elected, eager to secure contracts for his then-employer, the Carlyle Group....
Even after Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration immediately protected Saudis in the United States, including allowing members of the large bin Laden family who were in this country to be spirited home on their government's aircraft before they could be questioned. This at a time when many immigrants from all over the world were being detained arbitrarily.
And then, as if by cue, on the evening of the 31st, John S. Pistole, deputy assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, declares that investigators have "traced the origin of the funding of 9/11 back to financial accounts in Pakistan, where high-major role in moving the money forward, eventually into the hands of the hijackers located in the U.S." Pistole did not specify who was funding the accounts.
There’s something behind all the activity going on in the periphery of the mysterious core. The truth needs to be found. Scheer states why it is important to know the truth:
Bush has used 9/11 as an excuse to turn this country upside down, making a hash of civil liberties and bankrupting our federal government with unprecedented deficit spending on war and its materiel. Before we do any more irrevocable damage in the name of an open-ended "war against evil," we have a right and a responsibility to confront the uncensored truth of what happened that black day --- no matter what powerful people are brought to account .
The summer heat has the strangest effects on things left out too long in the elements. Hamlet referred to one such effect best when he exclaimed to those wanting to retrieve the body of the Polonius: "But indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby."
9:11:05 PM | |
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