(no subject)

[kuangning]

dewhitton made a post awhile back about a wounded pigeon. The image has been lodged firmly in my mind ever since. But this is not about a pigeon, it's about an eagle. The symbol for majestic, powerful, beautiful America and all the ideals that were wrapped up in her.

The lifeblood of America, through all her history, has been her people. The ones who were here when the settlers arrived, the ones who crossed oceans to find their new futures bound up in her own, the ones who walked or drove or rode over those imaginary lines other men drew to cast their lot with the upstart nation and her people.

The heart of the eagle, the driving force of the populace, is a knot of dreams and beliefs and ideals that begins to be laid out with we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. The fathers of the nation would go on to follow that sweeping statement with equally forceful and adamant ones that laid out how men shall be treated. But before they did that, they made that statement; the statement which told us why.

Those statements that followed, and the laws which have followed them throughout the nation's history, are the eagle's immune system, almost inseparable from the men and women who make them and carry them out. They were put in place to protect the rights of and provide for the safety of the people from their government, leaving largely to the states and the people themselves the protection of the people from external threats, except that they provided for the separate militias, when actually called into the service of the government, and the Army and Navy, to be under Presidential command.

I believe that the next truly important system in the body was one of which the fathers had not conceived. If the people are the lifeblood, they are also liver and kidneys, brain and spleen... and information has become the hormones of the body, secreted here, released there, passive in itself but sparking every action to some extent.

The eagle, like Den's pigeon, is dying. I believe that history will record September 11th, 2001 as the beginning of the fall of the United States of America -- not alone through an act of terrorism, but through the self-parasitic actions which followed, carried out by a government which failed to understand the importance of those ideals to the nation, and which stripped and circumvented those laws and, in effect, turned the body's immune system against the body itself. The paralysis we can observe in ourselves and each other now will be, and indeed must be followed by numbness as the flow of information becomes stunted and less reliable, as the flow of misinformation increases in volume and virulence, as the government becomes less and less responsive to the will of the people it is supposed to represent.

The government now seems to interpret verbal criticism as being almost the same as armed opposition, as if you or I were to be hurt as badly by the stab of the doctor's needle as the stab of a knife wielded by a thug. It is responding by releasing more information to justify its actions to us by causing us to fear the threat from which only it can protect us, if only we will give up more and more of our safeguards and our rights, to which we respond with criticism, to which it responds with more information to justify its actions... a positive feedback loop that may only end with regime change or with the remaking of the nation. I've come to believe that there is little chance of a regime change soon enough or complete enough to avoid the breaking and remaking of the nation. The colours will still fly. The old familiar phrases will still be voiced. But the heart of America will be broken and stilled, and faith, innocence, and ideals, once forfeited, are as hard to restore as virginity.

This, like so much said by so many other people, counts for very little. Like everyone else, I can see no effective course of action. So we sit, paralysed in spirit if not physically, and we record what we feel powerless to change, and we pour out eulogies for the nation and ourselves.

There are, perhaps, worse ways to spend a few years.

Comments

[i.livejournal.com]

the only slim hope is an ethical, honest, and charismatic candidate who can run bush out of office and bring congress on his or her coattails in 2004. i'm not holding my breath.

[kuangning]

My fear is another term for Bush. I'm expecting rumours of war that continue until six months or so before the scheduled election, and then a plunge into war, followed by either an election in which the people re-elect him to finish what he started, or a postponement of the election on some pretense ... after all, the last election was made to drag out forever, and was uncertain and untrustworthy even then. What prevents the next one from being the same?

[dabroots.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent piece of writing, and some good thinking. Thank youl

[powerpynt.livejournal.com]

There will always be mistakes made Cair, we are just as fallable as anyone. Were it not for our reluctance to be non isolationist in the 1940's, perhaps another million jews would be alive. Every generation has a "vietnam" to deal with. This is yours. But as with the last, it is up to you to keep the faith, to keep pushing those that represent us to change what you don't like and to do the right thing.

The constitution is stronger than you think and will prevail if you and I and the 270 million others that believe in it don't lose hope over a few incidents of apperant madness. One man and his enterage has no power to remake a nation in spite of how it may seem. Power shifts daily and change for the better is inevitable because within our populace is a goodness that will not be denied and a taste of freedom that will never be sated.

Well over a million sons and daughters died over preserving our freedoms and in defense of that piece of paper. Don't throw in the towel now. You are blessed with the skill to make yourself heard and perhaps, just maybe, to change a few minds and hearts. Use it love. What's the downside

[kuangning]

The downside to speaking optimistically when I believe something entirely different is that I forfeit credibility. I won't say I don't have a choice; there's always a choice. But -- this is the one I make. When I'm angry, I say that. When I'm sad, I say that also, trusting in the fact that there are others unaffected by my mood to speak on what they feel and believe. Like you. :)

As for not throwing in the towel -- what I believe is that the Bill of Rights is our first and strongest protection against a government misguided or bent on extracting complete obedience from us, without first making sure its actions have our assent. Once that is weakened and eroded, there is very little else we can use. We've watched, this past year or so, while our government told us that Homeland Defense took priority over our rights, our liberties, and even that the liberties actually granted by that Bill were not what we thought they were. Like the Animal Farm animals, most of us haven't bothered to read or could not read that piece of paper ourselves, so they've taken the liberty of telling us what it says, and never mind that in the process they've added laws which hedge in that all-important Bill.

I'm preaching to the choir, mostly, in this post. The people who read it already agree with me. That provides for some measure of safety, but, well, it's frustrating, too. I'm not changing minds, and didn't set out to do so. I'm just saying what I feel and think, because the one advantage America does get is that its fall will probably be more copiously and more completely chronicled than any other nation's. It's a bittersweet thing, neh? But it's the only course of action open to me. I'm not cut out for violence, no matter how much I believe in "the cause." I'm not going to be the one joining a militia or plotting overthrows, and the prospect of organised protests mildly horrifies me. What I can do is write. and so that's what I do.

[powerpynt.livejournal.com]

What I'm suggesting is use that skill and prowess with words on those who matter, one of which is certainly not me:) Find a congessman or even the white house addy and send this post, and every other you choose to pen. No doubt it's hard to buy the idea that someone will read it, but you'd be wrong. Whether they do something in your favor is another thing alltogether, but without your voice, who will they hear?

Re:

[kuangning]

Whether they do something in my favour is very much in doubt. I'm an immigrant and the daughter of immigrants. I married a citizen and gave birth to three others, but this administration doesn't seem to have any problem setting aside small details like that when it comes to silencing those whom it can paint as "threats to the nation's security." And it most definitely does view words as threats to itself, as indeed it should; it will be words, before and beyond anything else, that causes a change, if change will happen at all.

[powerpynt.livejournal.com]

If you are not yet a citizen in your own right, which I assume you are, you are the mother of three citizens. The reason that those such as Falwell and Robertson could claim a "silent majority" is that they knew that no one would speak out in defiance of their claim. Silence is their gold. Write Bill Clinton if you choose as he still has the ear of many, or some other personal hero; but let yourself be another that stands by the wayside and watches while you perceive Rome is burning, and you follow in the footsteps of that vast "majority" who will never be heard.

The country has been here over 200 years and an election is less than two years away. Don't give up just yet:) 50% of the population is counting on you to speak your piece. Maybe you're right and we all are doomed to duck and cover. But the bill of rights hasn't been modified to date and I see no hue and cry to change the constitution. Calmer heads will prevail hon, they always do once spurred on by people that encourage them to stand and face the wind.

This country has never seen the likes of 9-11 and everyone is scrambling to find an answer that will work. If you're suprised that some of those answers are thick headed you shouldn't be. But if you're willing to say the end is near because of a few men and their grand plans, I disagree. We've overcome many a challenge to our freedoms, and we will overcome this one. It's only been one year in a country who fought a civil war just over 100 years ago. Have patience and faith Cair, it's not over yet

[kuangning]

You have a point there. Writing to the opposition, such as it is, is something that I can do, and am willing to do. I think the chances of it changing anything are slim to none, but I can try, and I will.

[kuangning]

Heh. I glanced away from this to another window, and this is what I saw:


Perhaps you have forgotten the promises you made for yourself so long ago – the things you swore you would change as soon as you could. They, though, have not forgotten you. You are being granted an exceptional opportunity to start doing things differently. You really can now clear the decks and begin afresh. Don’t fear or resent any of the change that seems to be making its way into your world. Already, you have come a long way. Soon, you will travel even further. Just trust that somehow, this is all part of a process designed to bring out the very best in you.

I'm going to take that as assurance that as long as I'm being true to what I believe, it will all come out right in the end. If you know differently, I trust you won't disillusion me. ;)

[powerpynt.livejournal.com]

Not a chance love, you're back on track:)

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

guh. =(

[heronblue.livejournal.com]

I recently heard someone say "well, I was scared to fly for a while but then I decided that if we all stay scared, the terrorists will have won."

People were saying that all the time a year ago, but I hadn't heard it recently. And I had to bit back the impulse to blurt out "Sweetie, they've already won. They've given our own fanatics an excuse to destroy all the fundamental freedoms America is supposed to stand for."

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: This must be what it feels like to be in an empire poised on the edge of collapse.

I only hope we can implode quietly, instead of becoming an expansionistic empire that will try to take the rest of the world down with us when we fall.

I don't think I've ever been quite this pessimistic about the political future. And I'm from Washington, cynicism is my birthright.