RUBBLE:
Anna Quindlen used a term recently in one of her typically well thought through artlicles which I thought needed to be expanded: 'RUBBLE". Here were her words: "Once again we find ourselves planting our flag amid RUBBLE. Now it is the rubble of the American economy, with great financial institutions faltering and failing and the stock market every which way. RUBBLE has become the symbol of this country over the past eight years: the still unaddressed RUBBLE of a decimated New Orleans, the growing RUBBLE on the streets of Iraq".
Yes, I think RUBBLE is the right word for the past eight years. Admittedly, the years leading up to the past eight years weakened the support structures in so many areas, and Bush just used the weakened support structures to RUBBLE-IZE just about everything he tackled with his 'gut feeling' 'born again Christian' John Wayne mentality toward just about everybody and every issue he faced. It isn't just in New Orleans and Iraq that we see RUBBLE.
The dictionary defines rubble as "broken pieces and bits of anything, as that which has been demolished." It isn't just the RUBBLE of our military ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is RUBBLE in much of our school systems, there is RUBBLE everywhere from the 40 yr. useless police war on drugs, there is RUBBLE ever more frequently with loss of pension coverage, RUBBLE from inadequate health care for more and more people, RUBBLE from the lives of those earning non liveable wages, RUBBLE from environmental abuse, RUBBLE scattered in the atmosphere from pollution----RUBBLE RUBBLE everywhere left in the wake of trampling by the wealthiest amongst us on the backs of the non affluent.
It isn't hard to find the rubble----just follow Bush's footsteps, listen to the desolate silence of those living lives of desperate futility---our walking dead, those whose lives never get any priority. It is not just those suffering the brutality of invasions by Bush 'freedom fighters', but those suffering the brutality of genocide across the globe for lack of any Bush 'freedom fighters'---or even air cover from raids on villages by horseback and rickety old planes. The 100 million predicted to die from starvation across the globe in the next few years are but RUBBLE---bits and pieces of that which is being demolished pound by pound of flesh. There is RUBBLE from the widespread downsizing, there is the evolutionary final RUBBLE from vanishing species, there is water RUBBLE from once majestic icebergs, there is the dehumanized RUBBLE found in U.S. jails which house 23% of all the prisoners in the world---RUBBLE which after years in prison is pretty much permanent RUBBLE. There is the RUBBLE of endless lies, distortions, and Illusionary observations of the Bush/Cheney administration which has generated unprecedented anger towards America from so many countries across the globe, including most of our allies. There is the rubble of dead bodies of American soldiers, mostly from red state non urban areas who were lured into military services for lack of job opportunities and assimilated blind patriotism by those around them.
No species has ever generated more rubble than humans and our generation just set the record. I suppose Mother Nature, in evolutionary time units, will clean it all up, and let it serve as fodder for more advanced forms of life. I cannot hope to comprehend life on the grand scale of God's created evolutionary process. The most I can ever acheive are fleeting moments of mellow connectedness with a process, which for me, only exists in a 'little gleam of Time between two eternities'. Seems not a bad 'little gleam of time' for the spinning wheel of luck to have made me a participant. I guess soon enough will be enough for those my age. Funny thing, while so busy with all our gadgets, multitasking, family values, borrowing, polluting, abusing, 'freedom fighting' (if I can use the word sarcastically), profiteering, and babbling on cell phones, all this rubble just sort of 'happened'. Duh.
