- Walking back through the various rooms
of her once spacious apartments, one is haunted by what remains of her
earliest beginnings. The building so simply grand, was built by slaves
over the blood of a native population that had known her for millennia-only
to be exterminated for their intimate knowledge of this place. The rooms
are all empty now, especially those where Freedom or even Justice once
resided. Amid the dust of decades it seems that all is lost, and yet, something's
still there in that gossamer illusion of a dream that seems to breathe
new life into history's contributions to her legacy.
-
- Who is she now? Who was she all those
years ago when this nation used her for its bed? She has been called 'America
the Beautiful,' and she was the envy of many in the wider world. Her promise
was unparalleled and her gifts to those who lived on her seemed endless.
She became a symbol for many, an ideal that had a very brief existence
on what became the blood-soaked shores of a new and frequently conflicted
nation.
-
- Some say she gave birth to the ideal
of Liberty but that term implies responsibility so this concept as a gift,
was shortened to the much more enchanting idea of pure Freedom: a 'freedom'
that rapidly became the 'freedom-to' rather than the more cumbersome 'freedomfrom'
things like intolerance and tyranny. The seasons passed and she remained,
diminished in so many ways, yet the idea of America continued to spread
visions far and wide. But natural endurance was no match for this 'progress'
that has been paving her for decades now, ever since the motor-car took
over as the motivating symbol for the steel and glass and mechanistic grandeur
that allowed Americans to become perhaps the most mobile people anywhere.
That was when she began to die.
-
- The French observed the wonders of America
and her fledgling nation states and sent a gift to the young country. It
was finished in 1886 and it stands in New York Harbor, as the embodiment
of the American Promise; that statue is Lady Liberty, but she is frequently
confused with America, which was just fine with most of those who noticed.
It's very interesting that one can trace the lives of these metaphorical
concepts almost as one; yet they are very different. America is the place;
the actual land that's part of two continents but it's also the vision
which that land inspired. Freedom for its part is the embodiment of an
ancient ideal that was meant to hint at what was possible for the new nation
to obtain. Together these two metaphors share a third concept that has
also been fighting for survival for as long as people have tired to live
together that would be Justice and the laws that flow from her. Together
these three make a powerful argument for a way of life unparalleled, but
only for those who are awake and involved in what is needed for all of
this to remain viable.
-
- America still breathes, but her highways
are heavily constricted, just as her waters have been poisoned by industrial-grade
toxics, and her air has been polluted by a thousand thoughtless acts all
the way from corporate crimes against the land to thoughtless individuals
who have taken her for granted. There is beauty still in the remoteness
of her vastness, but even these are being targeted for timber mining or
all that drilling that has begun to kill what still remains of her, beneath
the sagging weight of so many self-absorbed and ultra-hurried people and
their oh-so-necessary enterprises that seem to fail to notice what they
choose to kill, just to make their way into the crush of what we call 'the
country.'
-
- Freedom is another matter all together
and one that has eluded so many societies of the human race, since before
the beginnings of recorded time: Ironically the native populations that
were slaughtered here; had far more freedom than did those who killed them
with such ignorance, in arrogance and rage. Freedom's favors can not be
given, they must be earned-and there is a huge price to be paid by those
who say they want to know her qualities. Yet too many still forget that
Freedom is not an academic concept; she's a bloody part of the entire history
of human beings and one that has changed very little since she was first
understood. Many nations celebrate her gifts, but very few attain even
a small portion of what she offers-because she is no idle concept-her very
life depends on the shedding of blood just to attract her attention, and
even more blood is needed just to retain what was earned by those strong
enough to seek her out. Consequently Freedom's just a statue now in New
York Harbor ~ part of the rest of our moldering past that is rotting in
these twilight years of corruption and national decay. Like the American
'Liberty Bell' with its famous crack; Liberty's years, and Freedom's 'Moment
in the Sun' are definitely coming to a close. (3)
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-
When 'Closing Time' arrives the survivors will find Justice on that floor
where millions will have died. Raped so often and beaten beyond all possibility
of recognition she will be just one more casualty in the on-going
wars against humanity ~ but she will definitely be missed for the clarity
that she once brought to those struggling peoples of many lands and places.(2)
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-
Leaving the deserted rooms where Americans once thought she lived, it can
be clarifying to take a flight above this ancient continent, to see what
so many have so blithely assumed for all these all-too-busy years. The
nation was begun by family farms and millions of smaller businesses that
thrived in the warrens that became the cities and that brought the hustle
and the life to inner cities that once teemed with basic commerce. Between
the necessities and the living and the dying, there was much to recommend
that way of life. Then as de-segregation began to enter city life, many
of the too-well-off along with the deeply disenchanted began to leave the
cities to create their own little bubbles that are still called "burbs."
This changed the country-side, and began to fill the empty lands with concrete
and slapped-together housing for the would-be-rich, and the 'me-first-me-only'
crowds. This in turn created the demand for ever-greater ease in transportation,
so more and more highways were carved into the earth to augment the vast
trans-national system of Interstate Freeways. The system has now begun
to seriously decay. The hubs that were the cities that once controls so
much were largely been left to rot, when the slavishly employed moved out
to the burbs, leaving the city's to the poor and to the angry and to the
corporate backwater's where their toxic wastes could simply disappear.
-
- The family farms began to disappear,
either bought out by developers or agri-business, either way, the way of
life continued to go the way of the horse and buggy.: Small business, of
the kind that built this nation was quietly absorbed into ever-larger corporate
constructs who took it all, then chopped things up; swallowing the good
stuff and dumping what was left. That's all down there on the ground, for
all to see from 'up above.' The waste and the arrogance of building out,
instead of up and just leaving whatever can't be sold or used to
rot wherever it might fall as the people began to shed their stewardship
of what they used to call their land.
-
- Another thing that rivets one from 35,000
feet is the architecture of the Freeways that crisscross and divides the
nation: Freeways that are desperately in need of major reconstruction.
That project could reemploy the entire nation for at least ten years, and
give the country back some of what makes mobility so attractive to so many.
Instead Cheney-Bush are leasing the highway system in increments to other
nations, to those who are in the business of turning them into toll roads
so much for the investments that taxpayers put into the highway system
that's a CRIME (but only if you care)!
-
- From the vastness of the skies,
looking down, one might swear that this is a place created just for vehicles-a
place where peoples only purpose seems to be to service their machines.
In the inner-cities it's no different; traffic is nothing but a gigantic
parking lot while people scramble from the moving streams into those vertical
mine shafts above ground that house their menial 'jobs.' There is little
time that is not spent either going to or from the drudgery, and virtually
no time at all to go on foot in most locations. If you do not
touch the earth from time to time, it's easy to forget the scent of freshly
cut grass; and when one goes too long without those changes in the air
that do not come from air-conditioning then we can too easily forget
the wonders of this land that has made so much possible for so many successive
generations.
-
- So many lives, so much to do and yet
so little contact with the actual world that holds us in its grasp, and
enables every dream to bring the promise of a possibility. That cannot
be done from inside a vehicle, or by walking on the concrete (that's why
they call them "side" walks) after all. The life that once roamed
the continent is no longer here, replaced by pets, in a volume that no
one could have expected. "That's progress" they say, but it also
means the death of many different kinds of dreams, because progress always
takes its toll from whatever went before.
-
- Finally there are the people themselves
that inhabit this continent in all their marvelous profusion: Except that
if you look closely so many seem overstuffed, under-inspired, and definitely
far too preoccupied to spare a moment for anyone besides themselves. This
too is called progress! So why has the population in the richest country
in the world become so very, very violent? Video games contribute-but that's
hardly the whole story. NO, it has to be about the disconnections between
life in these United States and what we no longer teach or care about.
Our laws, our way of life, even our place within the world is no longer
understood by those who say they are Americans.
-
- Far too many of the young know nothing
now--nothing at all about things as simple as where their food comes from,
or how to feed themselves. Manners, decency, ethics or even self-responsibility
are as unfamiliar as a foreign language, for too many in this country now.
American is not alone in falling victim to all this 'progress' in the world
today: but because of the natural wealth that this land once had, we have
an even greater responsibility to more than do our share- when it comes
to leaving something of the wonder and beauty in the land because
money fluctuates, and can never come to be the ONLY thing that matters
to any truly vibrant way of life.
-
- Which brings us to that national birthday
that has become routine: Just another chance to steal some leisure in a
nation that works 26 hours a day just to stay alive? So what have
we learned in the 230 years of our existence? Not much I fear, in fact
it seems that we are going backward at light-speed in answer to some huge
and loathsome sloth of caring, without even a semblance of regret! History
tells us that those who fail to notice what is absolutely critical, for
too long, shall not have to worry about the future because for them-there
will not be one. What America is doing is to replicate the mistakes of
all previous empires only faster, and with much less to gain from
our excess.
-
- People can make a difference, even at
this late date but only if they CARE! For instance, there's
a small story that came out of the dust around 911 that might interest
anyone still skeptical about the real reason for those 'attacks' It's critical
and pivotal, and speaks directly to how few Americans have even tried to
'connect-the-dots.' What's a story worth against the horror of 911?
You'll need to decide that one for yourself because the price tag
on this piece of information was $7 trillion dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds
that was misappropriated by Pentagon accountants and "lost".
(1)
-
- kirwan
- kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net
-
- 1) Richard Andrew Grove and 9/11
- http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/06/340627.shtml
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- 2) Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
- http://www.kirwanesque.com/politics/2005/p3.htm
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- 3) Freedom Captured
- http://www.kirwanesque.com/politics/2005/p11.htm
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