{"id":2059,"date":"2008-04-13T22:35:41","date_gmt":"2008-04-14T03:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/04\/13\/tomorrow\/"},"modified":"2008-04-14T03:31:50","modified_gmt":"2008-04-14T08:31:50","slug":"tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/04\/13\/tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"tomorrow…"},"content":{"rendered":"
I guess that anyone who allows himself to think about contemporary politics has days like I’ve had today. I know the indifference shown to things in the news that ought to have people marching in the streets is part of it. We’ve read Memos written by a crackpot lawyer that invalidate our Constitution and our adherence to International Law. We’ve heard our Vice President actively fear-mongering for war citing the ghost of some 12th Imam. Our President has glibly announced his complicity to torture, which he previously denied even happened. Our Chief General went to Congress to lobby for an endless war that we cannot afford with unclear goals. Our economy is sliding into a dark hole with no forseeable bottom. The candidate for President that I think may offer us a way out, or at least point us in a different direction, is under strong attack as an elitist. On top of that, I watched the t.v. series about one of our founders that made all those heros of another time look like their bickering and selfish biases were as ingrained as today’s versions. And I read this<\/strong><\/a>:<\/div>\n
\n
The old adage: we can learn from history or we can repeat it. For the last seven years, we’ve been repeating the worst of history. The upcoming election will be an opportunity to rewrite our own future history in one of two ways – either as an inspiration for generations to come or a continuation of our own indifference to history that has resulted in the outcome we see today.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
To my absolute horror, I miss the "Cold War." The nuclear standoff with the Russians felt like such an absurd thing to me, even as a child living in an era when we had drills to stave off thermonuclear holocaust by hiding under our desks. It seemed like madness. When the Berlin Wall came down collapsing under its own weight, I looked naively to living out my life free from the weight of the projected apocolypse. But I miss it now. I never remotely dreamed that without that ultimate threat present for most of my life, one of the problems to emerge would be my own country.<\/div>\n

During the Viet Nam War, all of us were in two camps, Hawks and Doves. There really wasn’t much of a choice. The Hawks claimed that we Doves were naive, that peace was a utopian fantasy unconnected with the realities of global politics. They were partially right. We Doves said that the Hawks were preaching National Defense, but they were power mongers at the core – hiding greed for conquest behind those claims. We were also right. And the fall of the Berlin Wall and Global Communism has released them. I knew there was a Pandora’s Box that might be opened, but I never realized that we<\/u> were part of what was inside<\/u> that box. And it has also released the Middle East, driven by the sleeping fervor held in check since the fall of their Islamic Empire in ancient history.<\/p>\n

So, in the post-Cold War period, we are engulfed in a resurgence of religious wars, racial bigotry, wars of conquest, and my country is in the thick of it – a leading player. I  take as my paradign the death of Tito in Yugoslavia. His iron rule died with him and an insane religious ethnic war raged – checked only by their resources to fight it and outside intervention. In our case, there is no outside intervention and our resources are unfortunately deep. We are the "big guys" so the world just sits and watches us self destruct. I think I see a way back to sanity for us, but I also see a machine working against that – a strong, well oiled machine.<\/p>\n

I have taken the philosopher, Hegel’s, concept that we are at the end of history as a comfort. As I understoond him, we know where man is headed, though we’re not yet there – some balance between personal freedom and social order. On this day, that doesn’t seem to me to be where we’re headed at all. In fact, it doesn’t feel like we’re headed anywhere – just a ship following a gusty, unpredictable wind on a rough sea. Fortunately, I will feel something else tomorrow. I’m counting on it…<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I guess that anyone who allows himself to think about contemporary politics has days like I’ve had today. I know the indifference shown to things in the news that ought to have people marching in the streets is part of it. We’ve read Memos written by a crackpot lawyer that invalidate our Constitution and our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}