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The quiet American Gary Simon reflects on the current state of the US, its relationship to the environment and the use of power and propaganda together with their effects on people During these past 42 months I have been made to endure the most outrageous comments without losing my own sense of reality. With an administration, and its white collar zanies, whose knack for deceit and cunning trump the past 100 years of White House scandals combined, I have to question whether I am part of a human race that can, or even wishes to think. I will be the first to concede that Man Thinking is still in a very formidable stage. He has ingenuously, and interminably, tolerated wars, injustice, crime and the most heinous acts for centuries. He has offered excuses, reasons, apologies, essays, treatises and theories why Man Thinking beats a wife, abandons a child, cheats a friend, burns a house, commits a murder and pledges his loyalty to regimes intent on world ruination. In a nutshell, whatever advancing civilization we once boasted about is a minor image of its former self. In its place is the newest breed of anti-Kyoto champions who employ old and new-time hacks to frighten nervous masses while dismantling an already shaky democracy. It has been so long since I last saw a genuine hippie, dressed in beads, sandals and peace chains. There was a message to his agenda and it spoke of peace. But the Ronald Reagans, George Bushes and Dick Cheneys cropped up in his place and much too fast. So quick in fact that they never shared our sentiments or listened to our words. Instead, this emerging crop of surly aggrandizers lowered the intelligence barrier and shuffled and re-shuffled the rules within and without our borders. They traveled the Earth undetected and unmolested and absconded with goods and property by deleting human rights and cancelling legal precedents. These Modern Marauders who leveled our “thinking” plane also opened the henhouse to every polluter, plunderer and shooter set on burying the environment. They considered anything not supported by two feet steady fodder for stomping, mauling, slaughtering, torturing and maiming. Today with an endangered wildlife, an out-of-control attack on anything that moves and flies, and the month-to-month withering of our precious vegetation and critters, I am stunned by the mounting silence of the great majority over our diminished natural resources. There are rumblings beginning to emerge against an already all-controlling government which thrives on deficit and intimidation. It is the segment of hushed Americans who tolerate carcinogens and industrial pollution and permit the selling off of public lands and the leveling of wildlife with whom I have the most grievance. Despite our supposed understanding of man's connectivity to the outside world, we have forgotten that the life that flows through nature flows through us as well; that the dispensing of one world is the loss of another. In throwing ourselves ahead of one universe we sacrifice a greater part of that which is us. Easterners call this ying and yang. Here at home we refer to it as “either” “or.” Day after day, year after year, our slaughter upon the elements that proliferated thousands of years before us, defies the imagination. What angst, what promptings, what commotion runs through the blood that stampedes wild horses over mountaintops, employs helicopters to run helpless wolves to exhaustion before putting bullets to their heads, and sets fires to dens of newly born fox? That same carnival "thinking" which uproots rain forests is the very illogical logic which also pollutes ocean floors – our two natural sources for possible cures to debilitating diseases. Our greed is so perfectly placed and settled within our political and common households that, even though we might glean the forest from the trees, we sit with our mouths gagged and our hands tied. That way there is no mess. Leading industries like oil, gas, coal and timber can remain safe. The same goes for our captains, still at the helm, guiding us over dirty waters at the expense of expendable, common lives. The loss of a mountain, the death of a river will never make the national news. Equally significant is the fact that the decisions of government to intrude upon and violate nature, rarely attract our attention. It is only when those activities directly affect our health or property that we dash off a “Letter to the Editor”. Other than that, a governing body intent on destroying buffalo and coyotes or maiming wolves, beaver, raccoon and bear with outmoded steel leg traps rarely stirs us to action. What does catch our eye, however, is not when the Common Man, but the Uncommon Man, the individual of wealth and means, wields his influence over our environment for the specific intent of self-enrichment. Regrettably, violations committed by our favored “aristocrats” are acts we are accustomed to view silently and for which we permit the broadest leniency. When we are informed, point-blank, of a person's or company's intent to disrupt sensitive lands with rigs, cranes and pipelines, we are already prepared beforehand to tune out the consequences. If others should prosper so that I, Man-Not-Thinking, can have an insulated, uninterrupted existence, full consent will be granted. The Average Man earning an average living amidst average comforts will concede the widest latitude to the largest offenses. The more gristly the impropriety, the further away the mass will distant itself. All of this leads back to our Willing Concessions to Unethical Behavior in Higher Places. Generally speaking, the human constitution is a relatively malleable one. To follow popular trends is certainly easier than taking “the less traveled road.” While a very small fraction of the young generation is sensitive to pertinent issues, it is their parents who are generally the less outspoken and more likely to go the way of the world. As much as Washington and our networks want us to believe, the habits of Wheelers and the poundings of Dealers are not for common interrogation. Elected officials, while they sometimes cast a Machiavellian shadow, are themselves our Trailblazers who open new frontiers, energize the world's capital and steer the planet's affairs. Far be it for the quiet American to second guess the cloistered decisions of others, especially those who power the world and whose only pawn in the game of Take & Steal is not just man, but Man-Not-Thinking. For the majority there is a certain steadiness in complacency. Venturing too far from the home base can breed ill-will and contempt among one's friends and associates. Particularly in times of national crisis, one will be warned, do not speak of Truth, for there is a right time and wrong time to exercise one's conscience. We know how manipulative power can be but still we excuse it. Reality can strike hard but it should not separate the individual from his own moral base. There is a path to follow and the sign does not read, “In case of emergency take an alternate route.” Fortunately for the protected state, we are not all men of Higher Laws. We are creatures of habit, even with a gifted Reasoning faculty. It is the rare case where Judgment will win out over Obedience. Unity and Cohesiveness are what brought us together at our country's birth. Any abandonment from the center would now be a betrayal of one's neighbors and friends. Any change of ship would be paramount to desertion. Patriotism, regardless of how it rears its terrifying head, is the only acceptable form of action, even though our forefathers commented against excessive power and allowed for the individual's rebellion against an immoral state. When Jefferson warned against the abuses of the landed gentry (today's equivalent of industrial barons or current members of the Bush Cabinet), he did not add, “In case we attack a sovereign country, without the consent of the world, stand behind your country”. Yet this is the excuse we hear for hoisting the flag and emptying our minds. To believe that those holding the reins do not understand the power of this lethal weapon is to miss the underlying workings of government. Our politicians are fully aware of the mindset of their devoted constituents. They similarly recognize that the general populace is not quite as ingenious as his governing body. So goes history. So goes its people. This was probably true, even 200 years ago, when our country was visited by a host of European writers whose observations concerning the American character were generally complimentary. We were described as “genial,” “humorous” and frankly, decent, friendly folks. Over the past century, however, and in particular the last 25 years, there has been a shifting of this original portrait. The genuine warmth and hospitality associated with the rural countryside have eroded into a nationwide rudeness and triumphs have turned into scandals. Our early landscape, guided by the likes of Jefferson, Adams and Company, has likewise been tarnished by a mounting class of elitists whose sentiments closer mimic brimstone preachers than college-bred citizens. The true character of a country will evidence itself during times of crisis. During these past few years we have lost touch with a nation already out of touch with itself. From environmental violations to the widespread tinkering of constitutional law and the churning of democracy into political theocracy, this administration has so entrenched us in fear that we have forgotten what it means to be American. Yet, what is it about a suffocating environment that closes down a mind? One can argue that the 2001 election was handled with a belligerence and knavery that should have cracked the liberty bell twice over. There we did nothing. It is almost four years later and our silence has grown louder. It was once assumed that Americans cherished their health as they did their freedoms. However, the reality is so contradictory, so out of character with whom we once werefrontiersmen, seekers, explorers, individualists, fighters – that we have allowed these noble attributes to fade and disappear. It is a giant's leap to imagine our forefathers turning a cheek to global warming or the deforestation of national lands. It is equally trying to envision a Franklin or Madison withholding his participation from a global warming treaty or permitting the suspension of an Endangered Species Act. Nonetheless, today's genial, industrious people find no problem with power plants setting environmental guidelines, or private citizens and vice presidents secretly carving out closed-door national energy policies. Might this not be a slight backsliding in our democratic scales? Who does not love mountains and oceans? Where we once could see 100 miles out from the edge of the Rocky Mountains, the best visibility is only 15 miles. Tops of ash and mountainous vegetation lay wasted in our Smokies. Our rivers and lakes from the east coast to Tennessee are mercilessly strip-mined while western acres lay scarred and torched – again the victims of human negligence and global warming. It is much too easy to blame this human debacle on greed and insensitivity. Corporations' mishandling of our natural resources comes as no surprise. It is that missing element within each of us that keeps me wondering. For with every animal that is lost, something is taken from us. With every disappearing herd or hampered pack something kindred is eliminated from the human soul. What powers we were endowed with for wonder and beauty have been curtailed by an irrational sense of our own security. In the end, we, the people,
are the victims. While power packs and super élitists may stumble over their
own drum beat, don't we owe it to ourselves and to the land that was once ours,
to reclaim our heritage? It should stagger the mind to
think otherwise.
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