Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Is This the Beginning of the End?

The Roman Republic rose to greatness, dominating the world as they knew it.  They lost their commitment to personal freedom, were transformed into an empire, and slowly faded away. 

The British Empire rose slowly for nearly three centuries, then faded over another century.

Nations and empires rise and fall.  We hope that the world gets a little better with the passing of each era.  And that may be so, to some extent.  Human history spirals upward, repeating itself over and over, but not in exactly the same ways…

So where are we on that spiraling path of human history today?  Well, we are at a time of transition.  Unless something drastic changes, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of America as we have know her.

This is not merely because of the passing of time.  Both of the empires mentioned at the beginning of this post lasted longer than our America has so far endured.  America is a young nation, in a sense, but aging quickly. 

America is coming to the time of her decrescendo partly due to global influences bigger than any individual or small group, forces sometimes called the “Tides of History.”  America is also beginning her decline because of specific actions by specific persons and groups.  Who can say whether one force is greater than another?  In truth, they create one another.

 I would like to share a few thoughts about specific influences that are becoming our undoing.  These comments are about the political realm.  There are social and sociological ways of looking at the situation that are quite valid, but to keep these comments short and focused I will write about them at another time and focus on government and politics today.

Three deadly blows have been instrumental in bringing America to the brink of catastrophic decline.  First is the loss of confidence in and respect for our government due to ongoing dishonesty, immorality, and corruption in high places.  Second was the administration that reacted to aggression by lashing out to impose imperialistic solutions.  Third is the administration that loathes traditional American values, and actively seeks to undermine them.  This one is also (is it coincidence?) demonstrably incompetent.  Strike three.

It would be wrong to blame just the ones at the top for our situation today.  We have not had a true leader for America in a generation, but there is more to it than that.  Perhaps even more so than our chief executives, our Congress has failed.  Congress has become even less competent than three misguided administrations, abdicating its responsibilities, inciting partisanship, finding ways to redirect wealth from the treasury to their accounts, concerned only with keeping power.  The economic leaders on Wall Street have been their coconspirators, cooperating in an unholy alliance.  They have put personal wealth and power ahead of their company , their country, their fellow citizens, and ethics, leading to scandals and business failures and raids on the public treasury.

Democracy has been usurped.  The free market has been usurped.  Palace intrigue is the rule. 

This has been allowed to happen because we have been too busy recriminating each other to manage our affairs in a responsible way.  Partisans from both sides of the political aisle talk trash.  Respect is a vanishing quality.  We are a nation divided. 

Political right and political left blast each other.  Religious forces and secularists damn each other.  Fascists who call themselves by a less offensive name meet socialists who  call themselves by a less offensive name to do deadly battle for the future of America.  Meanwhile, the ‘middle,’ that large silent group of non-extremists who are the heart and soul of America, find themselves increasingly under assault.  They are recruited to one extreme faction or another, scolded for their failure to participate in the mud-slinging.  They are reluctant to raise their voice in a call for moderation because they rightly understand that they then would be attacked by all the partisans at once.

We have lost our way, but all is not lost. 

The Roman Republic and Empire fell, but the city of Rome still stands.  The British Empire has lost its might, but the nation of the United Kingdom is still an important factor on the international stage.  America will likely suffer a loss of power and prestige, but we will endure in some form.  We can determine what that future America will look like by what we do today.  It is even conceivable that we might retain most of our power and prestige, but only if we drastically alter the course of our public behavior, and soon.

We have been here in this situation before, on earlier historical spirals.  Our nation was founded in a similar political environment as people who had considered themselves British fought a war to become separate from Britain.  Our ragtag forebearers had no realistic chance against the mightiest nation on Earth... but we did prevail.  We endured a deadly civil war among ourselves, killing each other by the hundreds of thousands.  Our nation survived and actually became stronger over time.  We muddled through the Klan rallies of the 1920s, the McCarthyist witch-hunts of the 1950s, the riots of the 1960s.  We do have experience in this sort of thing.

We might yet endure.  To quote an astute observer of the situation, Dr. Birinder S. Ahluwalia (a Canadian), “Greatness is… yours to build, to maintain, to sustain… Greatness is also… yours to lose, to let… slip away, to not tend and mend when necessary… It is all in your hands.”

Dr. Ahluwalia is right.  The future really does remain in our hands. It resides within us, and finds expression in the way we work with one another.

If we are to redeem our future, the first change we have to make is to stop hating and speaking of one another in spite and sarcasm.  Then we can undertake to stop working at odds and begin to forge a plan for the future of our America that is true to our heritage of freedom, natural law, and human rights.  Then we can begin to build an America that remembers with appreciation how much good America has done, while also acknowledging our need to improve in some ways.   Then we can start the creative process of making our America a place where all of us are safe, welcome, and respected.

Do we have the wisdom to do this? 
Are there leaders out there who can help us reject the hate and begin to focus on brotherhood and a positive future together?

Can each one of us stop acting like those who disagree with us are evil, or at least ignorant?  Can we then stop shouting, stop accusing, and listen to each other? 

Can we take a new look at our selfish pride, and perhaps rediscover pride in our America, the first nation in the world founded upon principles of human rights and dignity?

Can we let go of our grievances about the past, imagined or real, in favor of building a more just, free, and prosperous world for tomorrow?

Can we reaffirm our commitment to equal rights for all, and relearn how to work together in an atmosphere of mutual respect?

Yes, it IS possible.  But time is short. 

Is This the Beginning of the End?  Only if we decide it’s more important to win the shouting match than to build a better nation and world for those who will come after us.  It is all in our hands.

Gryphem

1 comment:

  1. Great information. Need to follow-up with a second posting to dive into the subject more.

    ReplyDelete

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