Will American Ideals Go The Way of the Dinosaur?

Wednesday, May 21 2008 @ 03:29 PM EDT

Can things be worse than they are?

BBSNews 2008-05-21 -- By Naman Crowe. Humanity, as a life form, appears to be evolving just as surely now as it was even before it evolved into humanity. But it is a very slow process. So slow that it is hard to see any evolvement at all. Sure we kill in much larger numbers than the ancients, but it's still killing just the same.

Humanity, being the most intelligent life form, has, with all its intelligence, evolved to the point of being able to destroy itself entirely, along with all the other life forms, because of its amazing thinking ability and understanding of science and technology, and how it has been able to transform all that energy into making wondrous weapons of mass destruction.

It might be said that our scientific and technological skills evolved much quicker than our character. Fighting and killing through war and terrorism is not only still with us, it has become more a characteristic of our normal behavior than it has ever been.

When it's all over, said and done, it might be said that it was war and killing that defined us, and all that's left are the "lone and level sands," that "stretch far away," as the poet put it.

Unless our character education can catch up to our war-making skills, our evolvement, compared to the dinosaurs, will be short lived and appear as a tiny blip in the Age of Insects. There may be some rats and other rat-like creatures that will carry on and continue to evolve as life forms after humanity has destroyed itself by nuclear war, but there won't be any humans left to either know about it or care.

Is it possible for our character evolvement to catch up in time to avoid nuclear war and allow humanity to continue evolving for thousands of years, even tens of thousands, before it kicks the can due to time and universal forces beyond itself?

It is very possible, despite all the odds, to avoid nuclear war. I'm sure that Albert Einstein and all those other wonderful scientists responsible for pushing us further ahead scientifically than our character development was ready for, would like to hear those words, if they were still living. I wouldn't be surprised if several of them died with that hope on their minds.

One of the many benefits that come with being an American is the fact that we really are the most powerful nation in the entire history of man, and therefore have an opportunity above all other nations to lead humanity in the direction of peace, prosperity and longevity, instead of war, starvation and sudden death by nuclear holocaust.

It is ironic how Biblical prophesy, if held up to the right light, can sometimes match up so closely to current events and serious actions that appear to be on the immediate horizon (such as the Battle of Armageddon), as to seem like a combination of a self-fulfilling prophesy and good logic, based simply on the ways of man and his belief in the importance of war and killing as the only way to bring peace and safety to the world.

Tragically ironic, I suppose, would be a better description when revealed religion and reality get to a point of fitting together like a hand in a glove. We may be able to make it appear that it doesn't fit by first putting on an examination glove and spreading our hand and fingers as wide as we can, but it still fits.

The ancient scholars, scribes and wise men knew how to add one and one and come up with two. One was the history of man, whether recorded or handed down by word of mouth; that showed that all civilizations evolved out of war, were maintained by war and eventually destroyed by war. One more is the real, here and now history that we live in the moment, the reality of the times, whether it be the ancients or the moderns. Back then was not that much different from today and today is not much different from the beginning of civilization, man and war are one and the same, and together they create, maintain, conquer and pull their civilizations by the hair of the head from one war to another.

It wouldn't have taken much intelligence to add those two dead serious facts together to come up with the prophesy that mankind would eventually destroy itself through war. As the great Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest said, "War means fighting and fighting means killing." And as even a simpleminded man should know, killing means hate and revenge and more killing, in a cycle of war and rumors of war that never ends until everyone is dead.

When you add to that solid logic, the Christian belief that the sooner you have the Battle of Armageddon, the sooner Jesus will come down and clean up the mess and you can enjoy the wonderful pleasures of heaven for ever and ever, you get a pretty good idea of how tragically ironic the whole situation is and how it is almost like self-fulfilling prophesy in the most tragic story ever told.

And yet I say it is very possible for humanity to avoid nuclear war and continue to exist for thousands of more years. The reason that is very possible is because it is very possible that the evolvement of the human character has been on time all along and is about to kick in and change the course of civilization.

History can only be repeated so many times before the lessons are actually learned. For instance, it may take a few cycles before the lessons of Watergate are truly realized and corrective measures are put in place to finally put a stop to it and keep it from ever happening again.

The lesson of Watergate was that President Richard M. Nixon truly believed that when a president did it, it was legal. The lesson also showed that all the president's men will always go along with him out of a sense of loyalty and fear that they would lose their positions for not appearing loyal enough.

Nixon didn't start it. The idea of an Imperial Presidency has roots that go all the way back to the beginning. That's why the Revolutionary War leaders insisted on checking and balancing those powers by way of a legislative branch and a judicial branch. They didn't just fall off the watermelon wagon.

Talking about tragic irony, not only did the American people fail to learn the lessons of Watergate, they voted twice for George W. Bush to be their president, a man that has proved by his actions to be in total agreement with Nixon, that when the president does it, it's legal.

That's why it didn't bother him to pull an illegal, preemptive war on Iraq. The fact that he was the president made it legal in his mind. That's what made it all legal, from the torture and imprisonment of alleged illegal combatants without charge or due process, to the illegal tapping of telephones without warrants, to fixing the faulty intelligence to fit the policy of attacking and conquering Iraq despite International Law and the United Nations Charter which America had given its oath to obey and follow.

Bush, Cheney, Rice and their co-conspirators would have been impeached and imprisoned by now if the majority of Americans had learned the lessons of Watergate. On the contrary, the voting majority proved by their actions in the last election that they agreed with Bush and Nixon's belief that when a president did it, it was legal.

All Bush had to say was that it was a matter of national security, and it was done, in any way he wanted it done. All the president's men were there to make sure that he could do whatever he wanted. That was their jobs. Even if they had to cross the line and lie and go against their better conscience, that bond of loyalty and fear of losing their jobs kept pressing them onwards.

Although Bush and Cheney never had to serve in combat themselves, they were very good at making war and causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands, when you include all the innocent Iraqi civilian dead, but they don't have to worry about it because they believe they did the right thing.

The most important duty of the president is to protect the country, Bush has often said. By his actions, it is not too difficult to look up in under his hat and realize that he honestly believes that he can do whatever he wants, regardless of the morality of it or the legality of it, as long as he considers it to be protecting the country and the right thing.

History will have to give the Bush and Cheney regime credit for coming up with the bogus, all encompassing War on Terror and getting it agreed to by Congress and the American people. A war on terror is a never-ending war that allows the president to take it wherever he or she wants, while adding the heavy power of commander-in-chief during a time of war to the already powerful Imperial Presidency, especially during a time of war.

When have we seen such a Caesar? Or rather, when have we seen such a powerful throne as the presidency of the United States at this point in our history? This Caesar, our Caesar, was just in the Middle East instructing them on the way that things are going to be.

It almost made me smile when I heard him tell the world that America would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. It was such a repeat of history for him to be spreading the same manure that he spread during his buildup to the Iraq War. I guess what made me almost smile was the fact that the great American majority was still eating it up.

I also heard him say that talking to Iran or any nation that we considered our enemy, especially any nation that had any connection to terrorists (according to our intelligence, I guess), was nothing more than appeasement, which history has proved time and again never works.

And so, carrying the fluttering banner of "There's no substitute for victory," rides out into the arena, the Republican contender for the most powerful throne in the history of the world at the most dangerous time in the history of the world.

No worries, claim the Republican thinkers. The idea of talking at all to one's enemies, much less talking peace, is a sign of naivety and dangerous.

Taking the opposite stance that there is no substitute for peace and that it can only be achieved through talking and understanding, the Democratic contender, enters the field.

When these two clash, it will be like the clash of two mighty armies, made up entirely of Americans, with the only difference being that one side still believes in the sound wisdom of solving our problems through war, while the other -- having learned through the repetition of history -- believes that war has run its course as a legitimate answer to the problems of the world.

It's going to be quite a contest. But when the dust clears, there is a very real possibility that the one that gets elected and the cause that gets him elected will be a clear indication of whether or not we're moving faster and closer to nuclear war or whether our character as a nation has finally evolved to the point that we can avoid nuclear war by changing direction and taking the path of peace.

Of course it could go either way. We are so sharply divided in this country that it's hard to say. But my bet is that the majority now will be the minority come election day, simply because the Doomsday Clock is on the verge of striking midnight and the upcoming election seems so obviously our last chance to correct our direction and show that talking, understanding and respecting is a better way of achieving peace than war, conflict, punishment and instruction.

The American way was never to have our way in the world, but to show ourselves as a beacon to the world, leading the way to peace and freedom, not spreading Democracy through conquering and punishing and making people suffer; but to light the way by our example of liberty and justice for all.

Too many people fail to realize that history is an evolving thing and that every person is a part of that evolvement. The way that Bush and his kind understand the Constitution has evolved in a way that would have made James Madison and the rest scratch their heads in amazement.

It's the same Constitution but understood by Bush and Cheney in a way that the founding fathers would never have imagined. That's history, evolving history, according to the way the future generations understand it, even as they are making it. It is up to the living and the willing to make sure that the most important principles and rights outlined in the Constitution are preserved and practiced and mean something.

The great problem is that not only do we have a land full of Bushites, we have many hordes of everyday twit heads in the millions that don't know the first thing about the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution and couldn't care less about their guarantied individual rights because they have nothing to hide. They don't realize that they have something to protect. It is their right, under the Constitution to be free of unreasonable search and seizer. Not that they have anything to hide, but a right to protect their rights, as provided to all Americans for a reason.

On the other hand, there's been a stirring among the college students and young people. Not so much a stirring as occurred during the Vietnam War, but a stirring nevertheless. If this enthusiasm turns out to be real and comes into actual play it could offset the twit head vote, making it a tighter race than it would have been.

It could be, as my former city editor, Harry Young, used to say, that "things are worse than they are." Even now, 35 years later, I can't argue that, but I'm still keeping to my bet that come Election Day, America's character will have evolved enough to make the right choice in the nick of time and changed the course of civilization forever.

While it might be argued that that is just the romantic in me, I honestly believe, after putting my full mind on it and reasoning my way through it these past few months, that's the way it will probably pan out come election time. If I'm wrong, Harry Young was right.

Naman Crowe, a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, is an award winning journalist who has been practicing his craft since 1971, working first with The Chattanooga Times and later with various North Georgia newspapers including The Summerville News, The Dalton Daily Citizen and The Catoosa County News, as well as numerous other publications.

A poor boy, born in Atlanta and raised and educated in the Chattanooga area where he still resides, Naman Crowe is - in the words of the late, great John Popham, the legendary Southern correspondent for The New York Times - "a delight in today's world. His background is something you can't get every time you study the masses."

Naman Crowe, continues Popham in his tribute, "Is an excellent writer and thinker and is committed to the best world he can help create on his own terms."

What you will find within the columns and writings of Naman Crowe is just that, a commitment to the best world possible, on his own terms, which is the right to stand up and talk back. The tools of his craft are the thinking mind and the written word.

We are in agreement with Popham's conclusion. "You will like him."

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