| 29 April 2006 National Anthem It is Saturday in Washington. I had more than the usual few minutes to read the Times and look through the Post. Things are grinding along with the slow-motion action of a system that is impervious to urgency, implacable in its inertia. Apparently the next big thing here is going to be a debate in the Senate about whether we should permit the singing of the national anthem in Spanish. I sighed, close to despair. The depth of our self-delusion about what is important is almost overwhelming. With real problems and real consequences confronting us, we are going to waste time talking about cartoon issues. If the Congress in session in 1941 was as filled with idiots as this one, we would be singing the Star Spangled Banner in German, or Japanese. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy cartoons. I even wrote one yesterday, about an epiphany I had on what is coming if we don't do something about it. A pal wrote me in response, gently telling me I had successfully received a message that has been out there for nearly thirty years. There is not enough petroleum to burn the way we do, and the way we are burning it is changing the planet. “Congratulations,” it said. “Welcome aboard! Now what is exactly you propose to do about it?” That is the problem with epiphanies. The people who have known this all along must be pretty miffed. Most of us knew, on some level, that this could not go on, but we have been too busy with other things and are only now beginning to wake from the long slumber. What is unforgivable is that even the oil industry has been telling us that the party is almost over. They are no fools, even if we are, and they are busily investing in other things. They know the oil in the ground is a finite commodity, and for their corporate survival they have to do something different. Painfully awake, we now have to convert the same realization. We chumps at the carnival are usually the last to know the games are fixed, but there is no further excuse for denial. Our democracy is not structured to permit radical change. It is our blessing and our curse. We only can only order from “Column A,” or “Column B.” No substitutions. At the moment, both choices are bankrupt. Periodically a “Column C” option appears, like Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose, or Ross Perot's Reform party, or Ralph Nader's Coalition, whatever that was. The practical effect of each of the third parties was to deliver the election to whoever was going to finish in second place. In practical politics, that meant the election of Woodrow Wilson, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The whole thing makes you cringe. So the answer is either to go back to bed and hope for the best, or hold your nose and do the best you can. I'll address that strategy this week, since the prospect of what political beds we will have to sleep will doubtless our reputations and wonder if anyone will respect us again. But who cares. The earth is in the balance, or I think I remember someone saying something like that. One of the great captains of industry I worked for as a kid had a big sign on the wall at the plant: "Attack the Top Ten first!" It was his way of saying that we had to take on the most immediate problems immediately. I won't give you the full list of the problems that need to be taken today, since you already know them. I do not think the National Anthem is one of them. I have discovered I like the Jimi Hendrix version he played at Woodstock. Jimi was a veteran, incidentally, and I think that gave him the right to play the song how he wanted. . If I can belabor the obvious, here is the three-fold problem: "Our profligate use of oil could very well be the causal factor of the end of comfortable human life on earth. We are not only stressing the environment, we are making the terror states wealthy beyond belief and bankrupting ourselves. We are facing the end of our way of life, either from nature, from our enemies or our creditors." Or all three, simultaneously. We seem to be vaguely aware of this, even as we prepare to debate the lyrics to our national song. Time to get serious, and time to send an electric shock to the body politic. We may still have time for an alternative future. If John Kennedy could sell the Man on the Moon, we ought to be able to sell a concept like Save Life on Earth. Part Two Tomorrow Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |