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Walking back through the various
rooms of her once spacious apartments, one is haunted by what remains of
her earliest beginnings. The building so simply grand, was built by slaves
over the blood of a native population that had known her for millennia-only
to be exterminated for their intimate knowledge of this place. The rooms
are all empty now, especially those where Freedom or even Justice once
resided. Amid the dust of decades it seems that all is lost, and yet,
something's still there in that gossamer illusion of a dream that seems to
breathe new life into history's contributions to her legacy.
Who is she now? Who was she all
those years ago when this nation used her for its bed? She has been called "America
the Beautiful," and she was the envy of many in the wider world. Her
promise was unparalleled and her gifts to those who lived on her seemed
endless. She became a symbol for many, an ideal that had a very brief
existence on what became the blood-soaked shores of a new and frequently
conflicted nation.
Some say she gave birth to the
ideal of Liberty but that term implies responsibility so this concept as a
gift, was shortened to the much more enchanting idea of pure Freedom: a "freedom"
that rapidly became the "freedom-to" rather than the more cumbersome "freedom-from"
things like intolerance and tyranny. The seasons passed and she remained,
diminished in so many ways, yet the idea of America continued to spread
visions far and wide. But natural endurance was no match for this "progress"
that has been paving her for decades now, ever since the motor-car took
over as the motivating symbol for the steel and glass and mechanistic
grandeur that allowed Americans to become perhaps the most mobile people
anywhere. That was when she began to die.
The French observed the wonders of
America and her fledgling nation states and sent a gift to the young
country. It was finished in 1886 and it stands in New York Harbor, as the
embodiment of the American Promise; that statue is Lady Liberty, but she is
frequently confused with America, which was just fine with most of those
who noticed. It's very interesting that one can trace the lives of these
metaphorical concepts almost as one; yet they are very different. America
is the place; the actual land that's part of two continents but it's also
the vision which that land inspired. Freedom for its part is the embodiment
of an ancient ideal that was meant to hint at what was possible for the new
nation to obtain. Together these two metaphors share a third concept that
has also been fighting for survival for as long as people have tired to
live together - that would be Justice and the laws that flow from her.
Together these three make a powerful argument for a way of life
unparalleled, but only for those who are awake and involved in what is
needed for all of this to remain viable.
America still breathes, but her
highways are heavily constricted, just as her waters have been poisoned by
industrial-grade toxics, and her air has been polluted by a thousand
thoughtless acts all the way from corporate crimes against the land to
thoughtless individuals who have taken her for granted. There is beauty
still in the remoteness of her vastness, but even these are being targeted
for timber mining or all that drilling that has begun to kill what still
remains of her, beneath the sagging weight of so many self-absorbed and
ultra-hurried people and their oh-so-necessary enterprises that seem to
fail to notice what they choose to kill, just to make their way into the
crush of what we call "the country."
Freedom is another matter all
together and one that has eluded so many societies of the human race, since
before the beginnings of recorded time: Ironically the native populations
that were slaughtered here; had far more freedom than did those who killed
them with such ignorance, in arrogance and rage. Freedom's favors can not
be given, they must be earned-and there is a huge price to be paid by those
who say they want to know her qualities. Yet too many still forget that
Freedom is not an academic concept; she's a bloody part of the entire
history of human beings and one that has changed very little since she was
first understood. Many nations celebrate her gifts, but very few attain
even a small portion of what she offers-because she is no idle concept-her
very life depends on the shedding of blood just to attract her attention,
and even more blood is needed just to retain what was earned by those
strong enough to seek her out. Consequently Freedom's just a statue now in
New York Harbor ~ part of the rest of our moldering past that is rotting in
these twilight years of corruption and national decay. Like the American "Liberty
Bell" with its famous crack; Liberty's years, and Freedom's "Moment in the
Sun" are definitely coming to a close. (1)
When "Closing Time" arrives the
survivors will find Justice on that floor where millions will have died.
Raped so often and beaten beyond all possibility of recognition - she will
be just one more casualty in the on-going wars against humanity ~ but she
will definitely be missed for the clarity that she once brought to those
struggling peoples of many lands and places. (2)
Leaving the deserted rooms where
Americans once thought she lived, it can be clarifying to take a flight
above this ancient continent, to see what so many have so blithely assumed
for all these all-too-busy years. The nation was begun by family farms and
millions of smaller businesses that thrived in the warrens that became the
cities and that brought the hustle and the life to inner cities that once
teemed with basic commerce. Between the necessities and the living and the
dying, there was much to recommend that way of life. Then as de-segregation
began to enter city life, many of the too-well-off along with the deeply
disenchanted began to leave the cities to create their own little bubbles
that are still called "burbs." This changed the country-side, and
began to fill the empty lands with concrete and slapped-together housing
for the would-be-rich, and the "me-first-me-only" crowds. This in turn
created the demand for ever-greater ease in transportation, so more and
more highways were carved into the earth to augment the vast trans-national
system of Interstate Freeways. The system has now begun to seriously decay.
The hubs that were the cities that once control so much were largely been
left to rot, when the slavishly employed moved out to the burbs, leaving
the cities to the poor and to the angry and to the corporate backwaters
where their toxic wastes could simply disappear.
The family farms began to
disappear, either bought out by developers or agri-business, either way,
the way of life continued to go the way of the horse and buggy.: Small
business, of the kind that built this nation was quietly absorbed into
ever-larger corporate constructs who took it all, then chopped things up;
swallowing the good stuff and dumping what was left. That's all down there
on the ground, for all to see from "up above." The waste and the arrogance
of building out, instead of up - and just leaving whatever can't be sold or
used to rot wherever it might fall - as the people began to shed their
stewardship of what they used to call their land.
Another thing that rivets one from
35,000 feet is the architecture of the Freeways that crisscross and divides
the nation: Freeways that are desperately in need of major reconstruction.
That project could reemploy the entire nation for at least ten years, and
give the country back some of what makes mobility so attractive to so many.
Instead Cheney-Bush are leasing the highway system in increments to other
nations, to those who are in the business of turning them into toll roads -
so much for the investments that taxpayers put into the highway system -
that's a CRIME (but only if you care)!
From the vastness of the skies,
looking down, one might swear that this is a place created just for
vehicles-a place where peoples only purpose seems to be to service their
machines. In the inner-cities it's no different; traffic is nothing but a
gigantic parking lot while people scramble from the moving streams into
those vertical mine shafts above ground that house their menial "jobs."
There is little time that is not spent either going to or from the
drudgery, and virtually no time at all to go on foot - in most locations. If
you do not touch the earth from time to time, it's easy to forget the
scent of freshly cut grass; and when one goes too long without those
changes in the air that do not come from air-conditioning - then we can too
easily forget the wonders of this land that has made so much possible for
so many successive generations.
So many lives, so much to do and
yet so little contact with the actual world that holds us in its grasp, and
enables every dream to bring the promise of a possibility. That cannot be
done from inside a vehicle, or by walking on the concrete (that's why they
call them "side" walks) after all. The life that once roamed the
continent is no longer here, replaced by pets, in a volume that no one
could have expected. "That's progress" they say, but it also
means the death of many different kinds of dreams, because progress always
takes its toll from whatever went before.
Finally there are the people
themselves that inhabit this continent in all their marvelous profusion:
Except that if you look closely so many seem overstuffed, under-inspired,
and definitely far too preoccupied to spare a moment for anyone besides
themselves. This too is called progress! So why has the population in the
richest country in the world become so very, very violent? Video games
contribute-but that's hardly the whole story. NO, it has to be about the
disconnections between life in these United States and what we no longer
teach or care about. Our laws, our way of life, even our place within the
world is no longer understood by those who say they are Americans.
Far too many of the young know
nothing now--nothing at all about things as simple as where their food
comes from, or how to feed themselves. Manners, decency, ethics or even
self-responsibility are as unfamiliar as a foreign language, for too many
in this country now. American is not alone in falling victim to all this "progress"
in the world today: but because of the natural wealth that this land once
had, we have an even greater responsibility to more than do our share- when
it comes to leaving something of the wonder and beauty in the land -
because money fluctuates, and can never come to be the ONLY thing that
matters to any truly vibrant way of life.
Which brings us to that national
birthday that has become routine: Just another chance to steal some leisure
in a nation that works 26 hours a day - just to stay alive? So what have we
learned in the 230 years of our existence? Not much I fear, in fact it
seems that we are going backward at light-speed in answer to some huge and
loathsome sloth of caring, without even a semblance of regret! History
tells us that those who fail to notice what is absolutely critical, for too
long, shall not have to worry about the future because for them-there will
not be one. What America is doing is to replicate the mistakes of all
previous empires - only faster, and with much less to gain from our excess.
People can make a difference, even
at this late date - but only if they CARE! For instance, there's a small
story that came out of the dust around 911 that might interest anyone still
skeptical about the real reason for those "attacks" It's critical and
pivotal, and speaks directly to how few Americans have even tried to "connect-the-dots."
What's a story worth - against the horror of 911? You'll need to decide
that one for yourself - because the price tag on this piece of information
was $7 trillion dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds that was misappropriated by
Pentagon accountants and "lost". (3)
Jim Kirwan
NOTES:
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