Am I confused? Mixing up Afghanistan with the oil spill (actually gush)? Well, in fact, in a way I am confused. Too much of what I read in the news today sounds very discouraging especially because it makes me remember so many parallels with the past. Actually, all kinds of folks are comparing the conflict between our President and his General with Truman and MacArthur. I am a great believer in the principle that the meaning of events is context dependent. That's a hard concept for many, especially our "friends" on the right because they have a very simplistic world model. They like absolutes. The context for evaluating today's civilian vs military encounter is the same context for evaluating the meaning of what is going on with the gusher in the Gulf. They both are part of today's' administration and build on the events of the past one. They both have a lot to do with how Obama will be seen years down the road. They both have to do with our situation as a Nation in a world that has deep pressing problems and needs desperately to deal with them. Read on below and I'll explain what I mean.
History has revealed itself to us in the past few decades in a way that deals with certain things we questioned, exposing their answers all too plainly. Anyone who can assign a cyclic theory to this is missing what we are all about. Global warming is real. The growing number of foods and water sources that are being poisoned as we try to feed still more people is another thing that is evolving. It is not part of some mysterious cycle. Even the "war" in Afghanistan has a clearer and clearer context as part of an evolving circumstance not to be dismissed as just another war.
When we went into Korea we were a different nation in a different world. We were newly arrogant about our nuclear weapons and MacArthur thought we should use them. Thankfully, President Truman disagreed. We all know that story. The real question is what did we learn from that? We watched the French fail in Indochina and then went right in after them and we failed. Now we have the luxury of repeating what the late USSR learned in Afghanistan. But this time it is different. We were attacked on 9/11. The culprits are there. Somehow that makes things different. Real or not there are those differences.
Meanwhile the oil keeps gushing and there is setback after setback in the attempts to stop it. Why compare these two situations? They have some things in common. Some of us believe that there are ways of "winning" in Afghanistan. Some of us believe that technology is able to do that for us. Some of us believe that we can stop the flow of oil. Some of us believe that technology can do that for us.
I believe something very different. There is no way of "winning" this war because there is nothing to win. We are fighting because we are driven to do that by some collective mentality that we can not really control.
There may be a way of stopping the oil flow but I believe that if there were we would have done it by now. Again we are victim of some collective mentality that denies the inevitable running out of oil and the suicidal nature of our consumption of the stuff.
Addicts understand what I am analogizing here. They know that they can look at all the facts, see the futility of their actions and then go right on doing them. they might even sit down and write about the mess they are in. The problem is that they can not break out of the pattern.
I have asked us here to look at ourselves as a Nation. We are worse than addicted to war. We refuse to put even a tiny fraction of our resources into finding peaceful alternatives to solving our problems with others. We consume at a rate that is gluttony at its worst. We do this day by day while doing this "political" stuff as if it were the cure. No it is not. Politics is only going to drag us in deeper. We need to change, not have a leader who brings us change. That failure to change is happening because we want it forced on us not to do the hard work it requires for it to really happen. We need to change. During the Vietnam War a lesson was learned by some. The only power you really have is to say loud and clear "no!". Why is it so hard? Have we really evolved into what we appear to be at this moment? People who have lost the ability to say "no!". Then we are truly no longer free people. We are slaves to a thing we have created.