A Reason to Hope, I Hope.
I have been an optimist all my life. I had an unrelenting belief that good would always prevail. I devoted my life as a husband, father, son, engineer, manager, and volunteer to do what I could to make a better world. But for the last 5 years, I have had a growing sense of pessimism because everywhere I looked all I've seen is dispair, greed, and misguided leadership. In 2000, there was peace, prosperity, and even a budget surplus that was forecasted to dissolve the national debt within the then foreseeable future. But since then, almost nothing has gone right.
George W. Bush, who from the beginning failed to impress me as an intelligent, informed, inspirational leader, took the presidency in a very questionable election with suggestions of voting irregularities. And less than 8 months after his inaugeration, an unbelievable crisis occurred. On 9/11/ 2001, the world suddenly changed in an ominous way. Never before had any enemy struck the U.S. mainland with such incredible devastation. I stared in disbelief while the World Trade Center dual towers collapsed on live TV while I sat at the kitchen table still in my pajamas. I sat glued in front of that television for the next 30 days while reports of anthrax attacks occurred in Florida, post offices, and even the Senate Office Building. Since that day I get chocked up every time I see a police officer, a fireman, or a military man or woman in uniform -- they are the defenders of our security and safety that put their lives on the line for us every day.
I had to cancel the long planned trip to China in October 2001 because I couldn't separate myself from my children, grandchildren, mother, and in-laws while concerned that another bombing or biological attack could occur anytime anywhere. After about a month of intense fear (I never before felt so frightened) and unbelievable sadness (that the innocent optimistic world I had always known suddenly disappeared as I worried about an uncertain and frightening future), I had to get away from the city, from the highly developed world. So I encouraged my wife to take a motor trip with me to the beautiful fall foliage of North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, Kentucky and Tennessee.
On October 14th, I called my mother from Banner Elk, NC to wish her a happy 85th birthday. The next night when we returned to the B&B from dinner, there was a message waiting that Mom had called and I should call her right away. The news was very bad: she was preliminarily diagnosed with mesothelioma - asbestos-related lung cancer - an untreatable terminal disease. The next day while we were visiting the Cumberland Gap National Monument on a spectacularly clear autumn day surrounded by forests of red, orange, and gold emblazened trees, I called her to hear that laboratory tests had confirmed the diagnosis. We pointed the car south and returned home to be with her as soon as possible. I spent most of my time for the next 5 months by her side, caring for her, comforting her, while she slipped away, painlessly thanks to Hospice, thank goodness.
Obsessed by world affairs, I clung to every news report from Afganistan while a once in a lifetime opportunity to capture the villain behind 9/11 at Tora Bora and decapitate Al Qaeda was bungled because our leadership was unwilling to put enough American boots on the ground and risk the loss of what in retrospect would have been a relatively few lives. Two years later I watched and listened while Bush and his lieutenants, unchallenged by a bobble-headed Republican dominated, ultra-conservative Senate and House, dogmatically lied to the world about Iraqi WMDs. Even Colin Powell's (he was the one member of the administration I admired) UN presentation of inconclusive evidence and suppositions failed to convince me or any other thinking person. I felt close to tears while Bush and Blair, who followed him like a faithful puppy, unilaterally waged war on Iraq, and I knew that the twisted bodies, blood and lives of thousands of young Americans, Brits, and Iraqis would be squandered on what I knew was an unjust war. I never before felt that I couldn't trust the word of My President; never before had My Country unilaterally (I gag every time I hear the word "coalition") attack another sovereign nation that presented no real threat to our security. His lack of diplomacy ("Axis of Evil") motivated North Korea and Iran self-defensively into their nuclear ("nucular" - gag) adventures knowing that the U.S. military stretched thin by its involvement in Iraq could do nothing about it. Bush in his wisdom "punished" them by refusing to sit at the table of dipomacy. And Osama is still free.
Perhaps most discouraging of all was the dismantling of the American democratic human rights principles I believed in since I was a child almost like a religion. The American rights to privacy, the right to an attorney, the
writ of habeus corpus, the separation of church and state, freedom of speech without fear of denegration by political leaders or worse, etc. were all being undermined. What are the principles we are fighting this war on terror for anyway?
I watched while the stock market collapsed, significantly devaluing the hard-earned small fortune that I've been counting on to support my early retirement from business. For the first time in my life, I felt financialy insecure and unable to earn significant income. I was forced to sell the magnificent home I decided to build in the optimistic days of 2000. I saw unprecedented fiscal surpluses turn into unprecedented deficits. What had been unprecedented optimism about the economy at the millenium became unprecedented pessimism with unprecedented trade deficits as manufacturing jobs, customer service jobs, software engineering jobs, etc. (under the sugar-coated policy of "outsourcing") declined in America as greedy CEO's rewarded themselves with unbelievable compensation and stock option grants enriched themselves at the expense of laid-off skilled American workers. (I hate to hear those Indian accents when I call Microsoft for technical support, Bellsouth for customer support, or Delta Airlines for airplane reservations. I experienced all three in one day a couple of years ago.)
I became increasing aware of the decline of the natural world while the beautiful South Florida I moved to 30 years ago is becoming a densely populated urban area more and more like the New York City I left behind. I became more aware and more concerned about the environment, especially global warming, and I began to understand better that unrestrained growth in population, economic development and energy usage was putting intense stress on biological systems worldwide. The warming climate causing glaciers and ice sheets to melt (I saw for myself how the Columbia glacier in Alaska had retreated by 16 miles and the glaciers of Glacier National Park were disappearing in just a few decades, and how bark beetles were annilating the spruce forests of Alaska's Kenai peninsula) threaten low-lying coastal areas worldwide with rising seas. Global warming is driving increasingly violent and distructive climatic changes (famine-causing droughts in the sub-Sahara, 60% lowering of Lake Powell on the Colorado River, wildfires consuming millions of acres of virgin forests, tornadoes devasting the plains and increasingly intense hurricanes devasting the coasts -- the unbelievable destruction of New Orleans) while Bush and his administration remain in denial about the reality of global warming and its root cause -- greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels.
This global catastrophe requires global action of unprecedented magnitude that will never succeed without the political, economic, and technical leadership of the United States, but our small-minded, visionless president refuses to join the Kyoto Agreement. Local leaders like Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger began to take matters in their own hands instituting carbon emission reduction programs and mayors and governors countrywide are following.
I decided to do what I could to promote these grass-roots efforts locally in South Florida. I want there to be a hospitable world to grow old in for the grandchildren I adore. Is that too much to ask? The truth is that I am skeptical that the global will can be mustered to prevent worldwide seas to rise 20 feet or more and global temperatures to increase by 10 deg F or more during their lifetime. Perhaps it is already too late to prevent calamity.
But something good finally happened on Election Day, November 7, 2006 and there will be a change in Congressional leadership. (Surprise!! Bush admitted he lied the week before when he told us Rumsfeld would continue to run Defense for the remainder of his term. On November 8th, Rummy was out, but the Dummy was still in. I thought Bush prided himself in "talking straight." Ha!!)
Today I feel the optimist in me beginning to stir again. Maybe there is hope, maybe there can be positive change. Maybe we will take a new direction that will bring an acceptable end to the Iraq War, maybe fiscal policy will change for the better, maybe we will find a path to better healthcare coverage for all Americans, maybe we will find a way to create rather than export middle-class jobs in America, maybe we will meaningfully address the threat of global warming and in the process generate yet again an innovation-driven prosperity in our country, maybe the democratic principles I always believed in would be restored, and maybe after 26 years, the days of evangelical, conservative Republicanism are over.
Maybe there is still Hope. I Hope.
This is just part of a flock of about 20 flamingos that were seen during the Tropical Audubon trip to Duda Farms sod fields this past August. This is always a terrific trip.
A Daunting Task Lies Ahead
