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CounterPunch
January
4, 2003
A Fresh World Vision
by JACK BICE
America owes the world more and has more to offer
than war and exploitation. I think awaiting the New Millennium
we Americans lived a mixed dream: Our destiny would be all humanity's,
a world of peace and prosperity--reward for being inventive,
generous, right-minded. Meanwhile, we overlooked greed and hubris
in our national psyche--and ominous, impending threats, even
beyond terrorism.
Remembering Thomas Jefferson, I suppose
we always have aspired to idealism, order and beauty; yet, presently
we heed no such grace, no dreams for humanity. America merely
reacts to encroaching reality crudely--visionless.
Combat, 1945: I drove a jeep through
the moonscape of bombed-out Germany. In 2001 our own people and
buildings were disintegrated. Now, in horrific, heartbreaking
images, we all ponder a surrealistic world. We know retribution
from afar because in the half-century since valiant battles we
have become the willing pawns of faceless corporations that usurp
governments to exploit the world. For oil they ravish the environment,
displace indigenous peoples and destroy cultures from the Arctic
and Middle East to Brazil to Indonesia. Currently, we brew the
enmity of millions of Arabs.
President Bush now claims the "vision-thing":
Does he envision Mid-East war, Armageddon, world domination,
forever-flowing oil? Or, does he see oil-greed and the first
Gulf War having spawned today's terrorists--that endless generations
will follow further American adventures? Does he comprehend oil's
Earth-ravaging filth? That oil-dependent, pollution-spewing power
plants, factories and autos ravage the Earth? That oil, gas,
coal and nuclear are world-threatening abominations curable with
clean, modern alternative energy sources? Mankind will not thrive
upon Bush/Cheney oil-obsession, preemptive wars, corrupt special
interests, environmental rape or eroding liberties.
In fact, all human life itself is now
at stake as our leaders remain blind to ever-gathering catastrophes:
Nuclear war. Devastated ecosystems. Pandemics. Global warming
with climate raging, continents devastated. These are super-terrors
which unattended will complete contemporary terrorists' aims
with immeasurable overkill--world annihilation. Obviously we
nurture no strategy for either saving Earth or rejuvenating humanity.
So, a truly revolutionary vision: Initiate
a brilliant future, a total renewal of civilization. What more
epic time of necessity and yearning?
Can we possibly turn nightmare into opportunity
for a transcendent, worldwide change? Energy is as basic to life
as material wealth. For people and for Earth itself, accessible
sources of clean, safe, abundant energy not owned by nations
or corporations--wind, solar, ocean wave--can, must, replace
the monopolized, the ravaging and polluting before we are consumed
by wars, oppression and global warming. Furthermore, vast categories
of our infrastructure are decaying. Catastrophe-prone, they must
be rebuilt or replaced before disaster. And terrorism demands
extreme solutions. Inevitably, raw, sustained vulnerability to
focused attack will require radical dispersal of whole systems,
institutions and populations. We will be shocked to this reality
if some state is rendered uninhabitable by nuclear meltdown:
"Homeland Security", while hiding a vice president,
cannot deal with deteriorating, impossible-to-protect mega-targets
such as nuclear plants, gas pipelines, harbors, oil fields, petrochemical
complexes, transportation systems or skyscrapers.
So, we face planning, redesign and reconstruction
of historic magnitude. Viewing the planet's present condition,
the physical and spiritual rebuilding of Europe after WWII will
seem a minor achievement. As we bring 21st Century technology
to all, the world must revive with its human diversity honored
and protected and exploitation finally a 20th Century anachronism.
Thus, America's great, sensitive task:
Rebuild. Disperse. Revitalize.
How? Re-engage legendary American prowess
universally--scientifically, commercially, diplomatically and
through the United Nations--to rebuild a new, dispersed, vibrant
infrastructure and economy worldwide. Massively create jobs and
stimulate world trade with empowering, life-enhancing ideas:
Safe, clean, home- neighborhood- and community-owned alternative
energy sources everywhere. Humanity blended into lushly rejuvenated
nature. Empowerment, livability, goodwill and democracy spread
abroad. Replace the morbid, bankrupting, backward idea of superpower
domination: Weapons dismantled. Global warming reversed. Perhaps,
in time, overpopulation, poverty, starvation, ignorance and disease
all resolved. Thus, moral determination combined with 21st Century
science, ecology and social initiatives will make possible a
resonant fulfillment of our American Revolution.
An epic challenge. The world now must
produce real visionaries: leaders with Einstein's imagination,
Gandhi's wisdom, Christ's compassion, Jefferson's, Lincoln's
and Eleanor Roosevelt's statesmanship.
Can we? If not, prepare for a post-modern,
end-of-time nightmare.
Jack Bice,
a veteran of World War II, is a painter and composer living
in Austin, Texas. Please visit his online
gallery where you can view some of his work, including
combat
photos, and read a
longer version of this essay. His wife Amy Middleton
Hamouda is also a well-known artist, visit
her work too. Jack can be reached at: jkbice@cybermesa.com.
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