Let's not dramatize Daschle
The California Energy Crisis - WikipediaI don't want to dramatize the Daschle affair, it's just another drop in the boundless ocean of America's ongoing Satyricon.
The 2004 release of transcripts of taped conversations among Enron electricity traders in the summer of 2001 revealed that company insiders not only knew they were stealing from California and other states, but gloated about it. (...) At a time when streets in Northern California were lit only by head lights, factories shut down and families were trapped in elevators, Enron Energy traders laughed:"Just cut 'em off. They're so f----d. They should just bring back f-----g horses and carriages, f-----g lamps, f-----g kerosene lamps."
The decadence of a society is a very mysterious thing. Many people recognize it, denounce it, rail against it; finally even a majority of its members might acknowledge it, but somehow, seeing it, recognizing and denouncing it doesn't change it. Decadence doesn't come about overnight, it is chaotic in its complexity and may go on a long time and rarely ends painlessly.
I suddenly became very pessimistic about the direction the USA was taking way back in the California electricity crisis that lasted from May 2000 to September 2001. I intuitively felt/feel that everything followed out of that: Enron, Iraq and all the ensuing Katrina and financial drek.
The California energy crisis was soon forgotten in the drama of 9/11, but for me it was more significant then the attack on New York and Washington.
9/11 was basically imperial blow back as if Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse could have raided Wall Street with a Sioux war party in the 1870s.
However, the California energy crisis was about a group of highly trained and skilled, educated, pampered Americans, 'masters of the universe' who had banded together to cripple America's most important state. This was terrorism truly worthy of Guantánamo.
I suddenly had the feeling that America was an empty shell.
The only way I can describe the feeling I had/have was that the USA had/has lost its Dharma.
Bush was for me only a symptom, never a cause.
Trying to pin it all on Bush is to distract attention from the hollowing out of a society. Bush had the merit of his clumsy inarticulateness, a magic buffoon who let people get a glimpse, a whiff, of how things really were.
The American people have now pinned their hopes on Barack Obama, who is no buffoon, magic or otherwise.
Can the new president fix it?
In Hindu mythology Rama restored Dharma and initiated the golden age of "Ramaraj"
Here copied and pasted from Wikipedia is a wonderfully condensed resume of the monumental Ramayana:
Rama's life and journey is one of perfect adherence to dharma despite harsh tests of life and time. For the sake of his father's honour, Rama abandons his claim to Kosala's throne to serve an exile of fourteen years in the forest. His wife, Sita and brother, Lakshmana being unable to live without Rama decide to join him, and all three spend the fourteen years in exile together. This leads to the kidnapping of Sita by Ravana, the Rakshasa monarch of Lanka. After a long and arduous search that tests his personal strength and virtue, Rama fights a colossal war against Ravana's armies. In a war of powerful and magical beings, greatly destructive weaponry and battles, Rama slays Ravana in battle and liberates his wife. Having completed his exile, Rama returns to be crowned King in Ayodhya (the capital of his Kingdom) and eventually becomes Emperor of the World, after which he reigns for eleven thousand years - an era of perfect happiness, peace, prosperity and justice known as Rama Rajya.
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"However, the California energy crisis was about a group of highly trained and skilled, educated, pampered Americans, 'masters of the universe' who had banded together to cripple America's most important state. This was terrorism truly worthy of Guantánamo."
David, please don't perpetuate the misuse of the word 'terrorism'; I assume you were in Spain during the train station bombings - do you really think the manipulation of California's electricity grid compares?
"I suddenly had the feeling that America was an empty shell."
If nobody ever expressed concern over what was essentially a criminal conspiracy, then I'd think we had lost sight of the law. We still haven't attained the goal; the law is seen by elites like Daschle as something to work around. But an "empty shell"? No.
February 4, 2009 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
You say:
to which I reply:February 5, 2009 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have been living in a city that has been the steady victim of terrorism since the 1970s and I use the word with full knowledge of its meaning.
February 5, 2009 12:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
All problems are mythical in the most real sense and one need not be a Hindu to learn from the Ramayana.
February 5, 2009 10:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fitting that an imperious blowhard describes 9/11 as merely "imperial blowback".
February 5, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed, Obama is no Rama. He has no magical beings at his disposal, as the Daschle fiasco illustrates. He is a regular guy -- albeit a smart and, I believe, principled one -- trying to do a job that no mortal can really do, trying to defeat immortal enemies using the resources at hand.
I may draw some heat for that last sentence, but I guess that is a good thing.
Thanks for your post. Recommended for, among other things, proving that a picture is indeed worth a thousand words.
February 5, 2009 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink