AWOL

First of all, I must apologize.  Almost two months into 2012, and this is my first post of the year.  It's not like there has been a lack of subject matter.  Quite the opposite.  Therein lies my problem.  As hard as it was to keep up with the hatefulness, the insanity, the religious fanaticism, the racism, and the criminal lack of foresight that is displayed by conservatives on a daily basis, I still felt it necessary to call them on all of it.  Keeping silent felt too much like complicity.  Then one day, shortly after Christmas, the enormity of what we're facing as a nation and a people became clear.  It scared the hell out of me.  It was a personal fear, because I realized that the world that those like Santorum, Romney, Palin, Bachmann, and Limbaugh are trying to make will target me, and those like me, and, for that matter, many who aren't remotely like me.  (They also hate diversity).

I became, for lack of a better word, soulsick.  It's a word that, as an atheist, I'm not particularly comfortable using, but it's a little more poetic than depression.

So, I took a break, and tried to regain some perspective (and maybe some hope).  I hope I succeed.  On to the subject at hand:

In the beginning, one of the things that made the U.S. different from other nations - what made us exceptional - was a relatively mild social stigma attached to failure. Perhaps because it happened so often.  Marching off into the wilderness, into the unknown, often took a curious combination of courage and desperation.  Americans became famous for taking risks.  The inherent danger of taking a risk, is failure.  It was worth doing, not only because of the great rewards for success, but because the very act of taking a risk symbolized many things that we as a people venerated.  Faith in ourselves.  Faith in each other. Hope.

One could start a business, and have it fail, and still be free to try again.  In most other countries, the same failure would have meant years in a debtors prison.  For that matter, if one made a mistake and committed a crime, he would have gone to prison, just like anywhere else.  But afterward, provided he learned from his failure, he would have been free to choose another path.  To re-invent himself.

Those days are long over.  For a number of reasons.  One is simple supply and demand.

In the days of sailing ships, if one of the crew were found guilty of some transgression, the punishment was usually swift and severe.  But it rarely resulted in death.  Once his forty lashes were done with, he was once again a part of the crew.  Why?  A ship required men to sail it, and killing an able bodied seaman put everyone else at risk.  There are more of us now.  So many, in fact, that even the best and brightest of us are considered by the public and private sector to be inherently expendable.

Another reason is a lack of anonymity, or even basic privacy. Years ago, before the internet, I read that every every person in this country had an average of 15 other people in both the public and private sector who, for whatever reason, had access to information considered private.  Since the internet, we've lost the ability to even measure how many people have access to information not only considered private, but to the smallest aspects of a person's life.  It's hard to re-invent oneself when the details of their life are open to quite literally everyone.  Especially when a significant percentage of those people are all too willing to use that information for reasons one can't even imagine.

Which brings me to the last reason.  As a people, we've become less patient,  less tolerant.  We live in a society where almost every human endeavor carries with it some sort of zero-tolerance policy.  Where stepping out of line, even a little, can mean sanctions that last a lifetime.  Nothing is forgotten. Nothing is forgiven.  And your debt to society never gets paid.  A country where the loss of liberty for one, means financial gain for another, is destined to be a place where even the concept of freedom itself is somehow cheapened.  Just another commodity someone would buy at Wal-Mart.

Someday, the consequences of failure - any failure at all - will be so great, that people will cease taking risks altogether.  If you look, you can already see the initial signs of our slide into mediocrity and irrelevance.  And if left unchecked, it could eventually even mean our extinction.

There Ain't No Justice

Fifty million dollars, and counting.  That what Joe Arpaio has cost the taxpayers of Maricopa County so far. Personally, I think it is no more than they deserve for continually re-electing this corrupt, sadistic, racist to office.

Sheriff Arpaio will be 80 years old next year.  Long past the age when most men retire.  The real tragedy is that he will probably be allowed to do so, rather than end up in prison where he belongs.

Don't expect any objectivity from me on this issue.  I admit it.  I hate the man.  I hate him with a passion.  I hate his arrogance, his sadism, his racism, his pettiness, his blatant self-promotion, all of it at the expense of those least able to protect themselves.  He is a mean-spirited bully, totally devoid of anything resembling compassion or empathy.  To me, he represents everything that is wrong, not only with this state, but with this country.  His efforts at voter suppression are the very definition of what is un-American.

Now, finally, things are beginning to unravel for him. He's run out of subordinates to throw under the bus, so there is little left between him and the consequences of his actions.  Though I fear those consequences will end up being little more than an inconvenience for him.  He had to know this day was coming, and I have no doubt he planned for it accordingly. Like any other unethical person with too much power, he probably has a number of things squirreled away somewhere, meant to ease his fall.

Pity.  

The lesson?  Sometimes evil wins.  And there's not a goddamned thing we can do about it.  At least, not without succumbing to that same evil.  In the end, that's what separates us.  I'd rather see him go free, than to become him.

Still, if there were true justice, he would spend the rest of his wretched existence wearing pink underwear, and eating green bologna.

Politics & Boredom

I've been watching with interest the incidents of unprovoked police brutality against the Occupy protesters. Most people can't figure out why the police would do harm to people who obviously pose no threat to them.  But I've seen it before.  It's a trick prison guards have been using for years.

If a person feels a sharp, unexpected pain - say, a jab in the ribs with a billy club - their first instinct is to lash out at whatever is causing that pain.  Being a prison guard isn't exactly the greatest job in the world.  They're overworked, underpaid, and generally treated like crap by their employers.  There were times I actually felt sorry for them.  My sympathy usually evaporated fairly quickly, as the guards' working conditions tended to make them surly, and mean-spirited.  They would invariably take out those frustrations on us.

They were trying to provoke us into doing or saying something stupid, which would then give them an excuse to beat us down, and toss us in the hole.  I caught on pretty quickly.  Some guys never did get it.

They did this, essentially out of boredom.  It was a little excitement to break up their day.  I suspect the actions of the police are a little more politically motivated.  I think the police are actually trying to incite a riot, thereby discrediting the movement.  It is my hope the the protesters see this tactic for what it is.

There is an upside. A sort of conditioning takes effect. Consequently, I can now take a fair amount of pain, and still retain my reason and restraint.

We could always tell if an inmate was new, because whenever a guard did something senseless and mean, the new guy would always ask why.

The guard's answer was so consistent, that I actually think it's a part of their training.

When asked, "Why?"  The response was always, "Because we can."

Early morning weirdness

I came across this, and while watching, something odd happened.

People often make fun of the way Carl Sagan spoke (billions and billions).  For me, it's easy to overlook, because what I hear -- what comes through the loudest,  is his genuine love of science and nature.

Like my father, I'm not exactly what one would call emotionally demonstrative.  Unless one counts being perpetually glib as an emotion.

So, I was surprised when tears began to well up while watching this.  For a number of reasons, I suppose.  Pride in what we've accomplished.  Grief for what we've lost.  For an instant, I was 9 years old again, and all that hope and wonder came rushing back.  But only for an instant.

Then the memories of all that has happened since intruded.  All of the imagination and vision that put us on the moon has somehow turned into pettiness and cruelty.  Once we had leaders who imagined the world a better place.  Now we have those who can't imagine anything more that their own immediate self-interest.  We have others who believe this world is destined to be destroyed by some mythical deity, and are scrambling to get what they can from it before the end.  They're blind to the inherent conflict between their supposed beliefs, and their actions.

It took a relatively short time for humanity to somehow become less human.  To become a people who cheer the death of one of our own who can't afford to stay alive.  People who consider compassion and empathy to be character flaws.

There is a difference between being pragmatic, and giving up.

I admit, my ignorance on a wide variety of subjects could fill volumes...or, actually, not.  But I do know one thing with a certainty I've never felt before.

The past should never hold more hope than the future.