THE LONG
VIEW, THE BIG PICTURE
A
pernicious corollary to our denigration of Eldership, is our myopic,
almost infantile inability to delay gratification, take the long
view, to see the big picture.
China-demonizers
for example, who have been itching for a showdown with Beijing,
their latest nominee for the role of Son of Evil Empire now that
the Soviet Union is no more, have been grumbling loudly that "Constructive
engagement with China has failed! We tried it for seven years
under Clinton and what does Beijing do? Round up a few more dissidents!"
Contrast
this with an amusing real life anecdote, now a little shopworn
from repetition, about the late Chinese Premier Chou Enlai. Chou
was asked by a western journalist what he thought of the French
Revolution. Chou paused, then remarked "It's too early to
say."
Republican
government, like Rome, wasn't built in a day.
THESE
UNITED STATES?
OR THE UNITED STATES?
The
United States of America used to be referred to, correctly, as
These United States of America. Rare today is the American
who refers to our great nation as These United States.
This distinction may seem trivial, but it is not.
These United States of America came into being in 1776.
By 1876 America was 100 years old. By 1976 she was 200 years old,
and These United States, along with our Founding Fathers'
prescient insights about human nature and human institutions,
were a distant memory. America alas, is no longer a federation
of sovereign states, but a federal Leviathan, with immense unchecked
power concentrated perilously in our national capitol.
Millennial,
century, even decade transitions have traditionally been occasions
for human societies to reflect on the past, and having done so,
resolve to do better. What does the New Millennium hold for America?
A restoration of our great Republic, or further calamitous descent
into decadent and arrogant global Empire?
BE THE
CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE
America's
Founding Fathers, contrary to the smug assumptions of modern day
global interventionists, were way ahead of the curve.
Our
Founding Fathers understood, as our post- Woodrow Wilsonian, post-Teddy
Rooseveltian Beltway Bombardiers do not, that no good can come
of a global Jihad waged in the name of "American values,"
"human rights," and "democracy."
Our Founding Fathers understood, as the late Mahatma Gandhi understood,
but as China-demonizers Gary Bauer, Steve Forbes, and John McCain
do not, that "You must be the change you wish to see in the
world," that "You cannot shake hands with a clenched
fist."
Our
Founding Fathers understood, as Henry Clay understood, but as
Taiwan and Tibetan "independence" mouthpieces Jesse
Helms, Frank Wolf, and Nancy Pelosi do not, that:
"By
the policy to which we have adhered since the days of Washington...
we have done more for the cause of liberty in the world than arms
could effect; we have shown to other nations the way to greatness
and happiness... Far better is it for ourselves... and the cause
of liberty, that, adhering to our pacific system and avoiding...
distant wars... we should keep our lamp burning on this western
shore amid the ruins of a fallen and falling republics... "
Our
Founding Fathers understood, as our interventionist nomenklatura
does not, that expanding the power of ones' own government so
that it might diminish the power of tyrannical governments abroad,
is like attempting to extinguish a fire by dousing it with gasoline.
Government,
lest we forget, IS the problem. Government is not the solution.
Never has been, never will be. Not in mainland China under Mao
Zedong. Not in Taiwan under Lee Teng-hui. Not in America under
almost any Twentieth Century president one cares to name.
Refraining from sanctimonious moralizing, refraining from foreign
economic intervention, refraining from foreign political intervention,
and above all, refraining from foreign military intervention,
is NOT an sign of American decline, is NOT a disownment of moral
responsibility, is NOT indifference to "American values,"
but the exact opposite.
A
refusal to disown ones' own inner demons by conveniently projecting
them onto alien "evildoers," is infinitely more responsible,
ethically and morally, than pointing one's finger at distant foreign
regimes in lieu of painful national soul-searching regarding our
own transgressions. Political reform, like charity, begins at
home. As Brugh Joy reminds us, when we point the finger at someone
"out there," THREE fingers point back at ourselves.
THE GOVERNMENT
THEY DESERVE
"People
usually get the government they deserve."
Perhaps
the only exception to this harsh assessment is non-mainstream
radicals, including but not limited to classical liberals and
libertarians who have explicitly rejected the status quo.
Under
so-called "democratic" systems at least, one need not
search high and low for those responsible for bad government,
i.e., Big Government. If you voted for the leeches taking up space
in Washington, D.C., if you voted for free lunches, if you voted
to rob Peter to pay Paul, if you wrote indignant letters to your
congressman demanding that we dispatch B-2 bombers or the Seventh
Fleet "to teach THEM a lesson," you already know who's
responsible for the tyranny Americans must endure at home, from
our own federal Leviathan. Simply look in the mirror while you're
shaving tomorrow if you want to see what he looks like.
THE
UNLEARNED LESSON OF 1989
In
1989 the Berlin Wall fell, without a shot being fired. Why?
Because
the consciousness of a critical mass of the people of the Warsaw
Pact nations transformed, apparently overnight. It was as if the
populace of the Eastern Bloc woke up one morning, in unison, and
said to themselves, "Hey! Socialism doesn't work! I changed
my mind."
We
know of course it didn't really happen that way. When Marxism-Leninism
finally collapsed under its own weight, it only looked as if it
happened overnight. In fact it took four decades for the realization
that socialism is economically impracticable not to mention morally
wrong, to penetrate the minds of enough people to bring the Berlin
Wall crashing down.
DREAM
A LITTLE DREAM
Have
you ever wondered why the movies Hollywood makes resonate not
only with Americans, but with the rest of the world? It's because
commercially successful popular movies originate in what the late
psychoanalyst Carl Jung called the Collective Unconscious.
Hollywood has been dubbed the Dream Factory. Those who conferred
this appellation on La La Land are more insightful than even they
themselves realize.
Just
as an individual's dreams reflect the state of consciousness of
the individual, so collective dreams reflect the state of consciousness
of larger society. Motion pictures are modern society's collective
dreams. Popular films, especially Hollywood blockbusters with
global appeal, constitute windows into the modern world's Collective
Unconscious.
Like
it or not, Hollywood, kneejerk liberal warts and all, is the modern
world's Dream Factory.
THE DREAMER
WAKES
During
1998 and 1999, the final years of the final decade of the Second
Millennium, a series of highly revealing "collective dreams"
manifested themselves in the form of popular movies.
They
include but are not limited to:
Those who have seen all, or even some of these remarkable films
probably know where I'm headed.
All
these films deal with a common theme: collective awakening from
mass delusion. All these films portray individuals rudely awakened
from a collective spell, awakened to the fact that the existence
they took to be objective reality, was transparent illusion, thinner
than gossamer.
In
short, these films are modern renditions of Hindu, Buddhist, and
Taoist parables of transformation and transcendence, of awakening
from "maya," or "illusion."
That
such a string of unprecedented films could be penned and produced
at this moment in time, is no accident. Movies such as these would
not have erupted into the Collective Conscious from the Collective
Unconscious, unless a significant segment of our Information Age
society had not attained a level of awareness where these films'
underlying premise could be greeted without either blank incomprehension
or undisguised hostility.
A BRAVE
NEW ERA?
Does
the appearance of such films herald a New Era of raised collective
consciousness? Is the internet a real-life version of The Matrix,
which will empower the public to see past the Big Lies of our
state-managed media's own Truman Show?
I
do not delude myself about the formidable obstacles looming before
us. Social and political evolution is a painfully slow process
which cannot be rushed, which of course is why relentlessly hectoring
nations like Chile, Myanmar and China about "human rights"
are counterproductive exercises in futility.
I
am however, a perennial optimist. I am bullish on the future,
and suspect that just maybe an "upside surprise," as
they are known on Wall Street, awaits those of us privileged to
live through this once in a lifetime transition to a New Millennium.
