El Castillo
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Complete contact information at end of letter
Year-End Letter December 2011
Dear Friend,
While my rundown of the year that is passing behind us is longer than ever, I hope it will provide a bit of entertainment for you.
READINGS
I started the year out by reading a very stimulating book that could serve as the basis for much food for thought. The book is When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World’s Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge, by K. David Harrison. The ostensible topic, the increasing pace at which many of the world’s 7,000 known languages are dying out is a fascinating one, in and of itself. Many of these languages are spoken by very small populations. In numerous instances the speakers were shamed as children by the national government, or neighbors of the predominant language, if not outright forbidden to speak. Additionally, these languages are tied to place and ways of life that are themselves disappearing.
But the book touched on much, much more. For one thing, there is the incredible creativity of human intelligence in developing languages that are very specific to the circumstances of the people who speak them. For another, few of the “rules” thought to be universal regarding language structure, are, in fact, universal. But with languages disappearing at an accelerating pace, much of what we could learn about the human mind in general, and language specifically, will be lost forever.
I came away with several lessons that I think are most important. First, the terrible history of majority peoples considering minority groups as inferior. Certainly Western powers that colonized Asia, Africa, and Micronesia, were convinced of the superiority of Europeans, and yet, as one comes to understand a bit about the richness of human diversity, one realizes that concepts of superior and inferior are meaningless and exceedingly cruel. I am also convinced that to the extent that organized religion believes its role is to convert benighted peoples, and have them abandon their culture, their beliefs, their ways of life, it has been a force for diminishing what is to me the true spiritual wonder of our lives as human beings: to marvel at whatever great Power, however conceived, has bestowed on us such variety and such beautiful richness. Increasingly, I find these are the realizations I come to appreciate with greater and greater force the older I become.
A further paradox I am coming to realize, through this book (and other mind-opening experiences) is that the richness of human diversity thrived best when various groups were relatively unknown by the rest of the human race. Each group largely was able to thrive by its isolation. But then we knew very little about them. In coming to learn much more about human responses to the world around us, in all its incredible diversity, through accelerating globalization, the forces have been set in motion to wipe out much of that very richness and diversity! Very few of us, with perhaps the exception of a handful of scientists (linguists, anthropologists), knew about most of these tiny ethnic groups, until recent decades. The changes in the modern world that brought us increasing awareness of these peoples are the very changes that are destroying these groups – their environments, their cultures, their religions, their languages. A kind of Heisenberg Principle of anthropology, I suppose.
Perhaps the deepest, most probing book I read the whole year was The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, by Lewis Hyde. This book has been something of a classic since appearing in 1983. It focuses on the meaning of “the gift exchange” versus “commodity exchange.” This all sounds very abstract, but it is not. Using folk tales, religious philosophy, customs and traditions from many different societies, Hyde gives us – who live in such a highly commercialized and monetized society - a whole different vision of what communities and cultures have been and can be like. I found almost every sentence raised incredibly important, very deep fundamental issues about how we live in society and relate to each other. In many ways the artist in our society is one of the few only representatives of the gift society we have (to some extent, the research science community has been another exemplar). Hyde concentrates on two recent artists to explore, in depth, the role of the artist in society – Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound, who were certainly very contrasting individuals. This was for me one of the most intellectually challenging and stimulating books I have read in many, many years.
Other impressive books read this past year, all relating to the wars of the 20th century and their consequences:
· Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (Tony Judt)
Easily the best book on Europe since the end of World War II. With magisterial sweep, keen understanding and analysis, it covers the years of my childhood into full maturity, and helped me make great sense of what has been happening all around me these past six or seven decades. It was as if I had a chance to replay all the great movements of the European and North American spheres that permeated our lives, but this time to see the underlying currents, the ones that really helped make sense of what often seemed so incomprehensible.
· The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 (Alistair Horne)
This book was written in the early 1960’s, and perhaps was one of the first to bring out the utter ghastliness of war with no attempt to soften it. Verdun was the battle in World War I with perhaps the greatest losses and the greatest utter pointlessness. Though a brilliant account of the single worst year at the single worst battlefield, what it brought home to me is the fact that we enter into wars so easily, with so little appreciation of how truly, truly awful they are. Hundreds of thousands of men died horrible deaths for absolutely no rational purpose. Perhaps most stupefying was the total thoughtlessness of the generals who commanded these men – they were impervious to the hecatomb of losses; most of them never reconsidered their knuckleheaded strategies that condemned so many men to miserable suffering and awful deaths. Though World War II rightfully is known for its widespread brutality in both the civilian and military realm, in Western Europe, the loss of young men in World War I appears to have been even greater. This was confirmed on a recent trip to France, where every village has a list of men who died in both wars. The ratio of losses in World War I to World War II were never less than 2:1 and often as high as 4:1!
· No Easy Victory (Norman Davies)
I actually did not “read” this book but heard most of it as an audiobook on a long drive (my hope is to hear the rest on another trip). This book has been one of the most noteworthy of a recent crop of books relating to World War II that have revised many received ideas, most importantly, the focus on the war in Western Europe and the critical role of the U.S. Instead, this book emphasizes, in countless ways, that the critical fight was in the east (eastern Europe and most particularly, the Soviet Union) – this is where the greatest losses were suffered by all sides, and where the outcome of the war was truly determined. The Soviet Union was the country that really won the war – at horrendous cost – and this book makes its case overwhelmingly. The scale of human loss and suffering, the scale of destruction, is beyond anything we can comprehend. Both David and I came away realizing more than ever that few Americans have a good understanding of what was really going on in World War II. This book is an absolute revelation. We have been brought up all our lives with the idea of the superiority of “Western Civilization.” If any notion can disabuse that lofty shibboleth, it is a European war in our lifetime that for sheer ferocity and barbarism must come close to the worst thing of its kind in the long sad tale of human history!
Other highlights of the year’s reading were Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman (considered the finest Russian novel of the 20th century, set in the Soviet Union of World War II, particularly the battle of Stalingrad), On the Road by Jack Kerouac (hard to believe I had never read this classic up to now – you can appreciate what a fresh face it must have presented in the 1950’s), and Survival at Auschwitz by Primo Levi (it offers an amazingly calm perspective on human fragility and the fine line between, as he termed it, “the saved and the damned.”) Also highly recommended and very timely, as well as beautifully written, is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963), which can be found at:
http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/annotated_letter_from_birmingham/
Much of my reading of the past year has clearly been related to the great wars of the 20th century. I have thought about why this is. Firstly, as already mentioned, one of these wars occurred when I was alive. But more importantly, I think, they shed light on the modern human condition and do great violence to our notion – prevalent since the 1700’s of the perpetual improvement of the human race. Overall, this may be true, but lest we ever become complacent, a true appreciation of the depths to which we have sunk is a helpful corrective, and one that should never be far out of mind. There is a third factor – since most of these events happened in my lifetime, to people recognizably like myself, one has to keep thinking about how I would have reacted, survived, behaved, under these unbelievable conditions. And there is even a fourth factor – I believe Americans, more than most peoples, are extraordinarily naïve about what has gone on in most of the world for most of recorded time, and I for one want to have a more honest and realistic picture of the true state of the world. These books assist me in that goal.
Another memorable cultural experience (a bit delayed admittedly) has been our renting of the HBO series, The Wire, which ran from 2002 until early 2008, with 60 episodes. We had read, repeatedly, that it represented the best writing and acting ever experienced on TV, and some even said it was superior to any American movie ever made. So, we started watching it, episode by episode, beginning in mid-2010 and continuing into this year, and without question, it is an extraordinary piece of work. We still have several seasons to go.
If you are not familiar with it, it is a gritty serial drama about crime, corruption, really, contemporary American urban life, in all its unvarnished intensity, set in Baltimore. The strands are numerous, the acting as good as I have ever seen, and the script-writing beyond incredible. The language is the filthiest (just not in words, but in thoughts) I have ever been confronted with, and goes beyond any film I have ever seen. It is, really, a contemporary epic, on the scale of The Iliad, bringing together seemingly the whole broad spectrum of American life. If you can handle the rough language (we needed to turn on the English subtitles, particularly helpful for the numerous drug-dealing scenes in the low income “projects.”), I strongly recommend it. If the delusional speech of our politicians is the alpha of the spectrum, The Wire is, without a doubt, the omega. Listening to a Shakespeare plot explained by a low-level projects drug dealer is as brilliant exposition as anything I have ever heard.
PERSONAL GAINS & LOSSES
We have now lived at our downtown Santa Fe lifetime care retirement community, El Castillo, long enough to realize that it provides about as “real” an experience of growing old, with its occasional triumphs and many defeats, as one is likely to have. Numerous people we got to know and enjoy when we first moved in in 2007 we have now watched go through decline – physical, mental – many of them transferred to assisted living or nursing care, many others dead. What you cannot escape, living here, is the appreciation of what growing old means, and that virtually no one escapes its ravages. It is true we have a few folks who are now in the late 90’s and remain amazingly sharp and vibrant, even if physically they have slowed down a bit. But they are extreme exceptions to the general rule we increasingly bear witness to. I suppose it is a healthy thing for us, in our “early” old age, to see this happening and to live our lives with the acceptance that this is the way it unfolds. It’s a strange feeling, because inside, I still feel just a few years away from the boy I was in high school and the slowly maturing adult in college!
On the personal front, it has been a pretty good year for David and me, but in some other ways, a bit painful. To wit: I don’t know if 2011 represented a “spike” for us, but this year, more than any other recent one, was a year of losses, of friends and acquaintances who left us for good as well as an aunt I was close to and who was the last living relative of the previous generation. It was an intense year in that regard, and perhaps this simply is what happens as you get older – at this point, I am not sure. A number of the losses were of friends younger than myself!
The loss of people in my life has several impacts that I have been mindful of. First, there is the realization that as we get older, there is a kind of fixed “pool” of people associated with our lives and it gradually shrinks. And while we have our memories, those memories seem to me to lose a certain amount of their force as people closely linked to them fade out of the picture. It is a subtle sensibility, but one I feel – the loss of my aunt hits me particularly hard in this sense. I am developing a keener sense of what it must be like for a person to reach an old, old age – late 90’s, let’s say, and live in a world where everyone he or she has known is gone. There is another element in all this – as a youngster, I did not understand why older adults turned to the obituaries right away. And while they are not what I go to first, I do look at them and I am struck at how many people – locals in Santa Fe, those written up in the New York Times – are my age or younger and are still considered to have lived to “old age.” In a sense, it makes me realize I am living on “borrowed time” and I should really intensely value each day, however ordinary it may seem. Of course, I do not think about this every moment, but thoughts of mortality are certainly far more frequent now than they used to be, even 10 years ago.
But speaking of losses, I do think the passing of Steve Jobs was a major watershed event this year. While I am impressed with all his brilliant ideas, what most impresses me about him is that he followed his own vision, without focus groups, customer surveys, or timidity. He was everything the modern CEO and the midgets who pass for politicians are not – a big thinker, a risk taker, and someone who pursued quality and integrated design until he felt it was gotten right. He was a giant amongst little people and I have found his story very inspiring, even if it ended sadly with a premature death. His qualities come through very nicely in his down-to-earth but forceful 2005 Stanford University commencement address. His final words, taken from the back cover of the last issue of The Whole Earth Catalog are not bad ones to live by: Stay hungry, stay foolish. We’ve had great American visionaries throughout our history, but they now seem to be an extinct species.
Knock on wood, our health has been good – if anything, my weight is at a new low, and through an active fitness program, I am pretty sure I am in better physical shape than I was when I moved into El Castillo four years ago. I keep my fingers crossed that I can maintain good health for a while, since it enables so many activities. I continue to bicycle around town and take short bike rides to keep my muscles going, as atrophy is one of the real problems of the aging body. And then of course there is all the camping and hiking I love to do.
TRAVELS
This continued to be a year of travel, and David calculates we have been away at least 30% of the time, and I should add that I have done a number of trips that he has not joined me for. The year began with a wonderful trip to Nicaragua (you can read all about it on my Web site. It is the safest country in Central America, hard as that is to believe, the people are very friendly, and it has the wealth of natural features (volcanoes, beaches, birds, plant life) for which Costa Rica has been so famous – we heard from many travelers that Costa Rica has become somewhat overrun with visitors and that crime and money grubbing have become real problems. In fact, our January trip to Nicaragua is the start of what we are hoping will be a getaway to somewhere interesting and warm each mid-winter.
In March, I went camping with a friend to Joshua Tree National Park and Anza-Borrego State Park (the largest state park in the U.S.). Both are in the southern California desert, and we hit it – especially Anza-Borrego – at the height of the spring wildflower bloom, and indeed, it was a fabulous experience. Coastal California had heavy rains all winter, and to a degree they penetrated inland, leading to excellent spring blooms.
In April I visited relatives in Virginia and North Carolina. A highlight was finally getting to attend the FullFrame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, N.C., probably the most important documentary film festival in the U.S. – and this didn’t disappoint. All the logistics were handled with consummate professionalism, and the wealth of first-rate films to view was overwhelming. What makes this festival so special is that it not only pulls in directors and producers, but the people featured in the films for after-viewing panel discussions that provide in-depth insight into the entire film experience.
The “big” trip took place over 5 weeks in May and June, to southwestern France. The region explored was between Toulouse and Bordeaux, and included bits of the Cathar country in Languedoc and the very lovely Dordogne region of Perigeux. The focus was walking – single day walks as well as multi-day walks on France’s fabulous system of walking paths that take you through “La France profonde” – an almost timeless experience of a land settled but left unspoiled over the centuries. The long-distance paths are known as the Grandes Randonnées, or GRs for short – they criss-cross all of France. David carefully planned the trip, and you can read both my perspective and David’s on what it is like to explore this part of France by foot. David spent a lot of time working on his French, which is pretty good, but there were some surprises in trying to get along in French. His little report on that is quite interesting, and you might want to read that as well.
In the early summer, we rented a tiny cabin right in Crested Butte, Colorado – for us the most beautiful place in the Rockies, surrounded by spectacular scenery, a wealth of hiking trails, wilderness areas, and perhaps the most fantastic, abundant, and varied wildflower displays I have ever seen. By renting a cabin for two weeks, we had enough time to both relax and hike. We were there for the annual Wildflower Festival, which allowed me to book an event each of the 7 days of the festival (wildflower identification, bird watching, butterfly identification). This year was perhaps the most splendid for wildflowers of all the 15 years we’ve been going up there.
September saw a wonderful camping and hiking trip with a friend to Colorado National Monument, near Grand Junction, Colorado, and then on to Arches National Park and surrounding area, near Moab, Utah. Fall is a fabulous time to be in the canyon and red rock country – we did loads of hiking and found some utterly gorgeous camp sites.
A trip in October combined camping at Guadalupe National Park in West Texas and a visit to Ft. Worth for several first-class art exhibits (Ft. Worth has some amazingly fine museums) The Kimbell had just opened an exhibit on Caravaggio and painters of the same period in France and Italy. The Museum of Modern Art of Fort Worth had Richard Diebenkorn’s entire Ocean Park series (all 75 paintings), one of our favorite works of 20th century art, and the Amon Carter Museum was celebrating its 50th anniversary with a number of American photography shows. birthday).
To cap off the year, we did a month’s trip to Italy from mid-November to mid-December, concentrating this time on the far south (the regions of Basilicata and Puglia, the arch and the heel of “the boot” respectively), sandwiched between a few days at the beginning in Naples and a few days at the end in Rome. Overall, it was a lovely time to be in southern Italy – no tourists, mild weather, flowers blooming, olive and orange groves heavy with fruit, and lots of wonderful art and history off the beaten track. Puglia (also known as Apulia, the ancient name) is particularly fascinating, having experienced the Greeks, Romans, Normans, Swabians, and Turks. Our few days in Naples were reach indeed – perhaps the finest archeological museum in Italy is there, and its main art museum is first class, plus it is a fascinating, raffish port town. Rome is our favorite city in the world for art, history, and people knowing how to enjoy life. Our return there (the 4th in 6 years!) involved a mixture of new and a return to many old favorites. Our December days there were warm – people were even having dinner outdoors at the cafes and trattorias. Rome makes us feel totally in touch with the best of Western civilization. Special art shows – the drawings of Leonardo and Michelangelo, Fillipino Lippi & Botticelli, the Renaissance in Rome built around Raphael and Michelangelo – how does it get any better than this? Plus the food is always magnificent!
A busy travel schedule, and 2012 is shaping up to be as busy (Los Angeles, American Samoa, birding in Costa Rica, London for David’s 75th In between trips, this was a year of lots of friends visiting, which is always a pleasure. Many friends stayed for a healthy chunk of time, and that gave us a chance to do some long-needed catch-up.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
While home – that is, not traveling - I continued with volunteer activities, but with some changes. One major one, late in the year, was to discontinue two years of volunteering for The Food Depot, our major distribution center for food to northern New Mexico food banks. I’d been going in to unload food, usually baked goods and breads, but also dairy, fruit and vegetables (old produce can get quite yucky!), and canned and package goods. While it was a very worthwhile community service activity, it did not offer any intellectual stimulation (except to talk to some of my interesting co-workers). When another opportunity came along, I discontinued, and instead began tutoring and otherwise assisting people 50 and older who have lost their jobs, but still need to work. This is a program called the 50+ Employment Connection run by the New Mexico Department of Aging and Long-term Care. I am doing computer tutoring and assistance in updating resumes. Since many over-50 people have not had to apply for a job in many decades, they have often lost, or never developed, online computer skills or familiarity with what employers are looking for in a resume. This is a chance to really feel one is helping others.
Another volunteer activity I have begun is assisting the Santa Fe Watershed Association in taking elementary school classes into the Santa Fe watershed lands, which are on the slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. These lands, which contain two vital reservoirs that are part of Santa Fe’s vital water supply, are closed to the public, but escorted groups can be taken in. The children – generally 4th and 5th grade classes – get a chance to learn about the watershed and perform various tasks that help familiarize them with the outdoors in general and water issues specifically. As I age, it is really restorative to get back in touch with children’s enthusiasm.
I have continued with a number of my one-time or episodic activities such as volunteering for the International Folk Art Market and leading garden tours for the Santa Fe Botanical Garden. At El Castillo, I have agreed, under a little bit of duress, to become the “Building Representative” for the West Building (the building, one of four, where we live). Done right, this position can entail a fair amount of work. Plus I continue to expand and maintain the Resident Garden I began developing four years ago – it is really coming along, and now is a routine part of El Castillo’s Marketing Department’s tours of prospective residents, they consider it such a fine addition to the facility. (I also have continued with my community garden plot in one of the city’s parks, 3½ miles away, which this year yielded delicious Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, basil (I have a healthy supply of pesto base in the freezer), several kinds of melons, and arugula. The asparagus bed I put in two years ago still has another year to go before I can begin to harvest any spears.
I continue exploring new technologies and trying (rather hopelessly) to keep up with rapidly evolving changes. Late in the year, a friend made a long-term loan of an iPod Touch and after keeping it at arms length for a little while, I took the plunge and have been having a lot of fun learning to find and download Apps, transferring my personal music collection to it, and loading free audiobooks and podcasts on to it. I see it as very useful on our travels – it offers many useful and enjoyable functions (weather, maps, alarm clock, dictionary, e-mail, and full Internet access). What is particularly amazing to me is the wealth of music resources I have amassed through my computer. I listen to radio stations all over the country through Internet streaming. With the Web site DAR.fm, I can record programs for later playing from stations throughout the U.S. Some stations archive their programs, which allows me to play them when I want to (favorites are Millennium of Music and Thistle & Shamrock). The application Spotify allows me to create absolute incredible playlists of every imaginable artists – classical, popular, folk. My iPod Touch is now loaded with an extraordinary amount of varied music and it appears I haven’t come close to using up the available storage capacity. I hardly need an FM radio tuner any longer. The next step is to acquire Internet enabled speakers – part of my plan for next year I hope – to let me play anything available on my computer anywhere in our apartment!
STATE OF THE NATION AND THE WORLD
On the national and world scene, the picture, for me at least, continues to be depressing and discouraging. While the “Arab Spring” was indeed an exciting development, it is as yet unclear where precisely it is going, and where it is going will probably be different for each of the countries that has managed to overthrow a dictatorial government. Despite all the excitement, and despite what I believe is a universal desire for freedom and autonomy (be it as an individual, a family, a group, a tribe, or an ethnicity, or some combination of them), these are also countries that have never had a democratic tradition, and it is not at all certain if they can move to representative and tolerant forms of governance. So the verdict is wide open on where it is all going. Interestingly, I think the Occupy Wall Street movement in the U.S. took its cues from the protests of the Arab Spring and the street protests and camp-outs in Europe and Israel. In fact, we were in Madrid for two days on our way to southwestern France, and arrived at the precise moment when the tents went up in the Puerta del Sol, a few blocks from our hotel. Little did we realize it was the beginning of a worldwide phenomenon.
Domestically, the picture is as dispiriting as I can ever recall in my entire life. Our national government has reached virtually total dysfunctionality. There is no compromise because of various developments that have pushed the opposing sides further and further apart, though in my view, the Republicans are almost 100% dominated by an entirely ideological straitjacket that is extreme by any past positions in the last 50 years. While I have my share of disappointment with the Democrats and the President, I am utterly appalled at the anti-government, anti-science, anti-everything attitude of most Republicans, which makes governance close to impossible. I feel most of them in the Congress are the equivalent of the Jacobins of the French Revolution, with an ideological fervor that has no connection with reality; if they were able to execute their ideas – and they may yet, after the 2012 elections – the effects would be drastic by historical standards. Either they would be completely captured by big money interests, or they would have serious, unpredictable, and destabilizing impacts on our social and economic life.
Despite the Tea Party’s worries about big government, socialism, regulation, “activist” (i.e., liberal) judges, etc., they seem completely unmindful of where the real threats to our way of life come from. Those threats are already here and I feel we have lost a great deal of our American freedoms. Here is my list of where I believe we are in danger – many of these areas directly impact what I thought were the protections embodied in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence – we are already far-gone in some areas or under serious challenge:
· The right to privacy and the expansion of search, seizure, and intrusive monitoring of citizens;
· The obscene amounts of money used to wage election campaigns which has completely distorted the democratic process;
· Opinionated media doing the bidding of various groups with extreme agendas;
· The vast increase of poverty, income inequality, and permanent joblessness – all studies indicate that societies with great inequality do not make social and economic advances;
· Legislation at the state level regarding voting which is having the effect of disenfranchising millions of Americans, especially those who tend to vote for the Democrats, all for very spurious reasons;
· The popular election of judges and the ability of judges to take money from people and organizations who are likely to be affected by their rulings – another example of the perversion of our electoral system by the corrupting influence of unrestricted money;
· The increased power of prosecutors combined with mandatory minimum sentences, which is almost wiping out trial by jury in criminal cases;
· The implementation of the death penalty when the process is extremely flawed, whether you believe in the death penalty or not (I do not);
· Our huge prison population and the limitations on probation, voting rights of felons who have served their time, and almost all aspects of how we treat prisoners, including the extensive use of SuperMax prisons and solitary confinement;
· Anti-abortion laws that seriously infringe on free speech rights and represent massive government intrusion on doctor-patient relations – the latest example being defining “personhood” as beginning from the moment of fertilization;
· Gun laws that impact freedom of speech and place no limitation on who carries what under what circumstances, endangering community life;
· The extensive chipping away of basic civil liberties – e.g., indefinite detention, military trials, rendition, warrantless searches, broadbased tracking and wiretapping - the assault on fundamental Constitutional rights by Congressional fanatics and Supreme Court judges with their own agenda is, to my view, unprecedented and the scariest of developments.
I truly believe as a country we have seriously lost our way. Our educational system is failing in many places, our infrastructure is crumbling, we are not supporting research and new technologies, our health system is a mess. Various indices of economic and social development put us well behind many other countries, and yet the more the gap grows, the more our politicians insist on American “exceptionalism.” We are a country in time and space like countless others that had their moment in the sun – Greece, Rome, Spain, France, Britain all come to mind – and to get sidetracked with the belief that the laws of history don’t apply to us is just one more indication of how divorced from reality we are becoming.
It sounds like an extreme statement, but I would have to say that from what I have observed of the House Republicans, their behavior resembles that of people who are certifiably insane. I am watching them try to wreck almost every good thing that has been developed in this country for the last 75 years – health care, environmental protections, protection of ordinary citizens against the rapaciousness of large corporations, unions and worker safety, and on and on. Not to try to make adjustments and modify the good things government, in principle, can do, but rather to completely wipe these protections out is the equivalent of a gang of vandals entering a shop of delicate watches and systematically smash everything. I cannot even figure out where they are coming from or what is motivating them. It is clear that hard facts have nothing to do with their positions – for me it is almost like a home-grown version of old-style Soviet ideological fanaticism. Sometimes I think it is simply a matter of time until they try to pass legislation re-instating child labor (and for 16 hour work days!) The scariest aspect is they are unleashing the whirlwind and have not idea of its destructive capabilities and that they may be destroyed in the process.
Our politicians have moved to permanent campaigning and electioneering, and almost no governance. As soon as one election ends, the preparation for the next begins, and what happens in the legislature is more based on what might win the next election than what we need to be doing for the good of the country. Major matters of national urgency now take a back seat to election posturing, and it goes on for a politician’s entire term.
In an area like economics, there appears to be a broad consensus (not necessarily perfect agreement) on the part of most economists as to what we need to be doing to right the economic ship of state. Thus, the discrepancy between what the professionals know needs to be done and what we are capable of accomplishing in the political realm grows ever wider, and we are unable to take any steps considered absolutely vital. I, for one, am not seeing any signs that we can avoid becoming second rate over time. Should the Tea Party take over in 2012, I don’t see much hope for us – but surprisingly, it could happen as the American public largely seems to have a case of amnesia, and has no memory of what happened in the years 2000 – 2008. They actually think the Republicans are more capable of restoring the economy, though they have not propounded any ideas, just slogans.
Immigration is another area that I find so depressing. All the anti-immigrant legislation at the state level that attempts to treat anyone different from the white majority as vermin that need to be eradicated – police checks, denial of educational opportunities, even elimination of health care, cannot help but remind me of what it must have been like to be a Jew in 1930’s Germany as the noosed tightened, step after relentless step. While I don’t in any way compare our current poisonous environment to the genocide that followed in Nazi Europe, fellow-feeling makes me very empathetic with these poor, hounded immigrants who put up with so much bad treatment to better their lives and those of their children, but increasingly live in unimaginable, constant fear.
As a great lover the natural world - the miracle of life and interconnection which is the basis for my own spiritual feelings - the growing danger we are in because humanity will not deal with the increasing pace of climate change and its impacts all across the spectrum, fills me with deep concern about the future of all life. The loss of biodiversity and the catastrophes which may let loose violent strife across human communities are my two biggest concerns emerging from the coming debacle. As Jared Diamond has written, earlier civilizations died out because they refused to change course from an unsustainable mode of existence, and they did go over the cliff. Now the consequences are even greater – the entire human race and many other forms of life are at stake. And yet, compared to what must be done, the world, at large, simply is not confronting this in a meaningful way, in fact we are ramping up the spewing of carbon into the atmosphere.
I am not prepared to give President Obama a free pass in much of what has happened. Not at all. Paul Volcker summed it up well – he is smart, but that isn’t the same as being a leader. In fact, I think between great leadership and great intelligence, if you can have only one, the former is more important for a President than the latter. I feel, like so many others, let down by Obama. Of course next to the Republican contenders, he is insightful, honest, deep in his thinking and connected to reality. But he has let so many of us down on so many fronts. While I appreciate his commitment to bipartisanship, once it was abundantly obvious that it would not go any where, it was time to exert leadership. Instead, he more than compromised in almost every area where he promised change. To me he has been as boringly mainstream on most issues as any President we have had. Once it was apparent he could not get most of his programs through, he didn’t have to be so timid, and fight for what was really needed. Either way, he is losing, so he might as well have lost fighting for the big, grand “vision” issues. What a departure from my high hopes on January 20, 2009, standing in the sub-freezing air on the Washington Mall!
I often think these days, as our dysfunctional national drama unfolds, of the line from Yeats’ The Second Coming: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity…" The Tea Party crew in Congress, and their friends and enablers, are savvy in their creative persistence and are willing to push us over the cliff. Those who are wiser and understand the complexity of 21st century society have neither the tactical skills nor the fire in their belly to stand up to the assault. It is all immensely discouraging! Combined with the inundation of obscene amounts of money, I do not see any way for our country to deal effectively with the very serious problems we face.
To the extent I see hope, it is in small pockets of fresh thinking, entrepreneurial zeal, social innovation that finds a way to move forward without government assistance, since government support seems, less and less, to go to the right priorities. This is an inventive, risk-taking country, and there are still many exciting things going on here, particularly in the cultural realm and in fresh thinking, new inventions.
But, sad to say, increasingly we are unable to confront and deal with our serious problems. We have an economy that cannot offer decent jobs to many Americans. We are unable to take on, in an intelligent way, the problems of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, which need reform. (To the extent there will be “reforms” when these programs’ deficits become untenable, they will be all the wrong things, because the economic forces opposing the changes we really need to make will consistently defeat them – just look at the unwillingness to act on the best medical advice regarding mammograms and PSA tests, as the two latest examples.) Banks and financial institutions have economically ruined this country and despite their crimes, there has been, in essence, no accountability. Climate change is clearly pointing to worldwide catastrophes that will only get more and more extreme. At the rate we are going, none of this can end well.
But that is the national and international scene. Things don’t look too promising. Fortunately, at a much more personal level, it is still a beautiful rich world. There are good, caring friends near and far, and I can still experience a gorgeous, perfect day, a delicious meal interspersed with lively conversation, the beauty of a flower opening, and most of all, the love and companionship of the man I have spent a significant portion of my life with. I am, indeed, lucky beyond all measure!
Be well, have a good 2012, and love,
Ken
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