Waiting to Die: My Life as a Crash
Test DummyWaiting to Die: My Life as a Crash
Test Dummy
The process of growing older would be absolutely fascinating, if only it could be safely viewed in perfect scholarly isolation from direct contact with the contamination of life's inevitable biologic degradations. For most of my own life, I have been saddled with a very acute (and usually uncomfortable) awareness of the fleeting and extremely fragile nature of sentient human experience, as we pass from one stage of life to another. Relectively seen from the midst of my 5th decade, this passage increasingly bears a resemblence to the sort of lab history that one would expect to associate with a crash test dummy (a representational facsimilie of biological life used in trauma research to measure and record the effects of extreme inertial and gravitational force on the body).
Among the many things that become clearer with the passage of time, is the fact that the longer one lives, the more one understands how truly little one understands about anything. This awareness was recorded by Socrates thousands of years ago, of course, who observed (freely rephrased) "The only thing I know for certain is that I know nothing", and a similar sentiment has doubtless been echoed by every single rational, contemplative soul who ever breathed the (formerly) sweet air of Earthly life. When we are young, full of health, physical and mental vigor, we are generally all in one of two states: 1) we are oblivious of the hopeless, confused, and chaotic pathos of human life and simply live life with blind gusto, as we are prompted to live it (by our social, cultural, and educational support systems), without much attendent expenditure of thoughtful contemplation ; or 2) we believe that there are discrete and specific absolute answers to all of humanity's problems that may be achieved, isolated, and applied through intense exercise in rational thought and analysis.
Imagine, if you can (as enabled by your own present chronological milstone in life's journey), the dismay and horror that dawns upon one when, after decades of life, one finally realises in awful fullness that human life (with all its erstwhile splendid ideas, institutions, outlooks, intellectual regards, sentimentally altruistic biases, and assorted related optimisms) is at best a barely controlled or even minimally modulated sort of abject chaos. That is the state of awareness I seem to have reached at this point in my life and it is more than a bit depressing. After spending 50+ years believing in some form of higher ideal, some sort of higher, more ethically enlightened state of being for humanity, I am forced to finally accept the fact that life as we know it is actually little more than a frightfully dynamic process of complete uncertainty, replete with daily hazards, threats, disasters, catastrophes, and insecurities. (The 1970s mind-art group FIRESIGN THEATRE expressed this beautifully in the title of one of their LP albums: "We're ALL Bozos on THIS bus...").
Recent events that have served only to confirm this
awareness include the current madness that US president George W. Bush's rush to
engage in a state of war with Iraq constitutes. At a time when he has
all but committed the entire US military to a hostile action in that
part of the world, still further evidence of the stark and scarcely concealed
insanity afflicting the present administration lies in the 'wait-an-see'
attitude Bush and the Republican Party have adopted towards the much more dire
threat of armed instability that North Korea poses to world peace. Anyone who
has done any wide-ranging reading in general history (especially economic and
political history) can all too clearly see through the simple smoke and mirrors
rhetoric coming from the White House and understand perfectly well how the
American people are being led like so many rats down the path to oblivion by an
insane Pied Piper at the present time. Aside from scaring me
personally to death, it demonstrates for the umteenth trillion time 1) how
stupid the vast majority of people are in any given population; 2) how easy it
is to delude and fool any national body of human beings for protracted periods;
and 3) how eternally duplicitous and unendingly hypocritical our 'so-called'
leaders are, as they shape world events exclusively by virtue of the power and
might they have at their disposal. Aside from the fact that the threat posed by
North Korea is FAR in excess of anything presently posed by Iraq, the recently
declared and explicitly delineated American policy of advocating "any and
all means, incuding the use of nuclear weapons and first-strike pre-emptive
attacks", to respond to "any act deemed and determined to constitute a
terrorist threat" cannot help but terrify anyone with a vestige of reason
left untainted by lifelong exposure to the ravages of American commercial
advertising lies and deceit.
In this vein, I most recently reread one of the most important books available on the chemical and biological weapons threat that remains a palpable, tangible cloud of potential doom hanging over the heads of every living creature on the planet. This book, originally authored by Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxton in 1982 and titled A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Chemical and Biological Warfare (ISBN 0-8090-5471-X, recently reprinted with the most recent developments included in a new final chapter ISBN: 0-8129-6653-8, 2002, Random House Trade Paperback), should be read by everyone--even those who have no particular interest in this rather exotic area of defense technology. Among the terribly depressing facts that stem from it are the fact that: 1) none other than erstwhile British champion of democratic freedom Winston Churchill favored pre-emptive chemical weapons attacks against the German civilian population (as retribution for the V-weapons attacks on London); 2) the British actually engaged in covert use of Anthrax attacks on the German people and were actively engaged in production of biological weapons till war's end (Anthrax); 3) America supplied Britain with stocks of chemical and biological weapons throughout the WWII period; 4) American military planners favored using chemical and biological weapons preemptively against Germany and Japan in late 1943, but were forbidden in this only through strong intervention by FDR (at the time, President of the USA). Of course, these are merely a few of the more startling revelations that these authors brought to light in their early 80s study. Other, later outrages committed by the US military forces against American civilians ("test biological attacks" against San Francisco and New York) in the 50s & 60s, nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons testing on human beings (especially on military personnel, both voluntary and involuntary), and especially the blanket immunity to war crimes prosecution granted to the top Japanese chemical & biological weapons researchers (who committed unimaginable atrocities and barbarities against western POWs and Chinese nationals in Manchuria) so as to gain the cooperative benefit of all of their masses of research data on human experimentation, are all carefully and painstakingly documented in this chilling assessment of past and present national weapons policies (as related to CBW).
Seen against the backlight of the immensely sad
revelations of this book, even the most heinous depredations by Saddam Hussein
against his own people pale by comparison. By contrast to the present Bush rush
to war with Iraq, they also highlight the unbelievable degree of hypocrisy,
deceit, dishonesty, and flagrant dishonesty that characterises America's
military, political, and industrial power elite toward the American people (who
still believe in such apparently outmoded ideals as simple honesty, truth, equal
justice, protection of freedoms, and the basic integrity and sanctity of all
human life).
Regrettably, returning to one of my earlier and most dearly held assumptions, the average individual is either too stupid to regard these matters with any decisive clarity (let alone do anything about it, either legally or illegally), or is too preoccupied in the process of endless obsessive consumption of material superfluities that the American way of life life has morphed into, to pay much attention to these higher issues. This last point is perhaps the greatest tragedy of contemporary America: that most citizens are more concerned with the cost of gasoline for the SUVs than with the (truly frightening) fact that George W. Bush wants to commit American to an immediate expenditure of at least 30O BILLION DOLLARS in his Iraq crusade, willingly sustain untold American war casualties in association with this hair-brained scheme, and perpetuate all of the myriad other starkly loony inconsistencies that characterise his administration's present economic and foreign policies.
Perhaps the most shocking and disturbing awareness that settles in on one as one ages is the fact that you cannot trust anyone who claims to represent the average American citizen as an elected official. There is no such thing, after all, as a uniform standard of public trust to which elected officials must comply--despite the common assumption. This indictment certainly applies to the private commerce sector of American society--witness an endless trail of deceits and deceptions manifested by corporate entities in the past 50 years--but it is especially sad to realise that lies and deliberate misrepresentations are the accepted status quo for our elected statesmen and representatives, also. The fact that this is so is undoubtedly predicated directly on an assumption of gross and widespread public ignorance, and a belief that the 'public' essentially exists for no other reason than to spend income to internally prop up the flagging American economy as needed.
No wonder then, that as one becomes 'middle-aged' in one's
outlook on life, the reflective individual who began life harboring a strongly
passionate belief in the basic goodness of mankind ultimately accepts the truth:
that humanity, for all its potential as the ascendant sentient life form on this
planet, matters little in the final count and certainly has no higher
possibility for ennobling greatness. When you take this awareness out of its
immediate context and consider such things on a solar, cosmic, or Universal
scale, all of the savagery, brutality, deceptiveness, deceits, distortions,
struggles for power by one partisan (read: religious, political, economic,
ethnic, social, or cultural) group against another matter less than a mild case
of indigestion by Saddam Hussein after a dinner of roasted goat. [All of
this argues strongly for becoming an alcoholic, a drug user, or a suicide, of
course, so let's hope that all of you reach this stage of permanent sadness at
the end of an otherwise long and interesting life, full of sensations,
experiences, and otherwise pleasant stimulations.]
A number of interesting books have come to my attention recently. Among them are the following:
1) The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Al Saud, from Tradition to Terror, by Stephan Schwartz, Doubleday 2002, 288 pages, ISBN: 0-3855-0692-9, hardbound. An important book that reveals the immense yet carefully hidden internal pressures that the Saudi Arabian government (read: the 'Royal Family') finds itself under, from two extremely divergent interests: the ultra-conservative far-right forces of traditional Arab Wahabism, and the far left forces of enlightened social liberation (read 'democracy and social/sexual equality'). Most individuals have no awareness of these extremely polar forces within Saudi Arabia, nor of the effects on fostering world-wide terrorism that they have greatly brought into being.
2) Uniforms: Why We Are What We Wear, by Paul Fussell, Houghton Mifflin, 192 pages, ISBN: 0-6180-6746-9, hardbound. One of those fascinating books that occasionally come along which examine a very integral, but completely overlooked and largely unconsidered fact of daily life: the wearing of a visual specific set of clothes that displays, signifies, and instantly communicates social and group status at a glance. Fussell examines the palpable effect that the wearing and display of 'uniforms' has on our most basic cultural perceptions, socio-economic understandings, and status assumptions. A book that draws you right in from the onset and a delightful read, as well.
3) Masterpieces: The Architecture of Chess, by Gareth Williams, Viking Press, 160 pages, 2000, ISBN: 0-6708-9381-1, hardbound. For anyone who enjoys chess, this book is a visual masterpiece of analysis of the art form that chess playing pieces have become, over past centuries. Taking the essential visual aesthetics directly from various beautiful chess sets and depicting them as carved and embellished masterpieces, this is a book that entertains, as well as delights the eyes.
4) War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges, 192 pages, PublicAffairs (Publisher), 2002, ISBN: 1-5864-8049-9, hardbound. A paradoxical examination of war and the positive effects war has on humanity, the author highlights the many 'positive' considerations that manifest themselves through the waging of war, leaving no aspect of the process from patriotism to economic productivity unexamined. The irony of this book is that while the author draws our attention to all of the 'positive' nuances of war, he simultaneously recognises and clearly admits that war is a terrible and completely unacceptable dynamic. The author has himself great personal experience in war and global conflict as a front-line media person, and has seen it from up close, personal, and its very nasty, bloody bowels. He both admits he is addicted to it and is repelled by it. An important book for widening basic understanding of our own nation's motivations, as we lurch from conflict to conflict under the blanket sanction of being the 'protector of the free world', and a unique outlook on why we have war at all..
5) The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy, by Noreena Hertz, PhD, 247 pages, Free Press, 2002, ISBN 0-7432-3478-2, hardbound. An economist at Cambridge University, Dr. Hertz explores the consequences of the expansion of free-market capitalism throughout the world as it overcomes and supplants national political systems (especially those that are democratic, as in the USA and UK). One would never guess at the onset that Dr. Hertz actually believes that capitalism is yet the most favored system for ultimately dealing with the problems of an increasingly complex and ever denser world community, but she deftly and clearly paints a vivid picture of the implicit dangers involved in the process as corporations steadily ascend above and beyond the controlling and moderating influence of national governments and political systems. An excellent book, although a bit of a complex read in parts.
[OK, folks. Go have a glass of White Merlot, kick back, and forget all of the verbal anguishing expressed above. Life is short, so have a ball and forget about all that 'goody-good morality' that seems to be vanishing these days. Kick ass, take names, boogie down, and hopefully the new year of 2003 will be a bit kinder and more merciful to our sensitivities than this past one has been (but don't hold your breath just yet...).] It would be vulgar and probably hypocritical to wish anyone a "Happy New Year" after all of the above, but I think you get the idea.....
January 2003------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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