Extreme, You Say? Stay Calm

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

The East Coast has had its share of bumps and frights this week. West-coasters snickered a bit at the wide eyes and trembling voices of East Coast newscasters reporting on their surprising 5.8 earthquake and the dreaded possibility of “expected aftershocks.” Most people in that portion of the nation were not only unprepared for such occurrence, they were as startled as deer in the headlights.

And while any seismic activity under 6 on the Richter is barely worth a mention where I’m from, I heard an interesting discussion indicating that the shifting plates that produced this phenomenon are much larger than those associated with quakes on the other side of the Rockies. Evidently the size of the plate amplifies the amount of territory such a rattle affects. Originating in Mineral, VA, this particular tremor shook millions as far away as Ohio, Georgia and Canada.

Unprepared for the most powerful quake on the Eastern seaboard in 67 years, buildings there are particularly vulnerable due to age and construction. The Washington National Cathedral lost three of its four Gothic spires and an angel carved from Indiana limestone that shattered on the pavement far below the celebrated roof line. The cathedral is a national treasure and the site of our most important state funerals, but the Episcopal church is in serious financial decline and may not be able to afford repairs. Even more dramatic, the Washington Monument has been closed because of newly revealed fractures in the marble. Predictably, from his compound in Virginia Beach, Pat Robertson rushed to suggest that God’s wrath had a hand in the fracture of the iconic monument.

And what to say about the two nuclear reactors taken off-line at Virginia’s North Anna Power Station, which used diesel generators to maintain cooling after the earthquake? As quake sensors were off due to budget cuts, we can take some comfort that the emergency operation was successful. On the other hand, the fact that North Anna was knowingly built over a seismic fault, very near the epicenter of the tremor, should make all of us a bit white-knuckled. In all, over a dozen nuclear plants were affected by the quake. Far from the Ring of Fire, we were spared. Fukushima, anyone? Anyone?

And then, as if that were not enough angst, along comes Irene. The long-awaited opening of the new memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. in the National Mall has been put off because of the hurricane. Cancellation of the proposed dedication, set for the 48th anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, forced as many as 250,000 people — including President Obama, speech in hand — to change plans. Up and down the East Coast, folks have scrambled to evacuate, board up windows and otherwise protect life and property from an ill wind that seems reminiscent of another called Katrina.

The Weather Channel has called this storm “rare,” “dangerous” and an “extraordinary threat,” explaining that while the coast has experienced weather of this sort in previous decades, it has not done so with its current level of population density and suburban sprawl. New York in particular, under a declared state of emergency, seems unprepared for this challenge. Farther down the coast, evacuation of coastal regions has been strongly recommended and some 200,000 folks have been ordered to leave targeted areas in North Carolina.

Hurricanes typically worsen when sea-surface temperatures warm. According to The National Hurricane Center, surface temperatures are currently the third warmest on record. Following months of record-breaking heat in the Midwest, it should be noted that August traditionally opens the hurricane season. Active through October, this season routinely produces an average of a dozen storms. As August closes, we’re already nine named storms in; Irene is the first to reach hurricane status. In this era of extremes, it seems likely we’ll all end up with weather PTSD.

Virginia Beach being squarely in the targeted area, it will be interesting to see if Pat Robertson has any further comment on God’s plans to punish America. Squashing him like a bug might be a sign from the Lord, too, but if that happens, Pat will not be able to depend on his state representative to lend a hand. Eric Cantor’s radical politics no doubt sit well with Robertson’s Christocrats, who compose much of the Republican base. And surely if God had a hand in elevating such a heartless creature to power as the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, He really must be pissed at humankind.

Grinch-like, Cantor insists that expected damage from Irene can only be compensated for if Congress offsets any additional funding with spending cuts. Same for the earthquake. Same for the EF-5 tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri, this spring. Just to the south of the Pea Patch, a good portion of Joplin now looks like the dark side of the moon, the landscape scoured and bare after tons of debris were removed. The town recently celebrated its children going back to school; many of its schools and some of its children were carried away in May of this year. Over a hundred of its citizens died. Cantor had the same thing to say to the devastated here in the Show Me state: cut something from services to the children or the needy or the old folks and we’ll help you out. Hell of a guy, Cantor.

The GOP is practicing extreme politics, and that kind of bargain, if it can be called one, hasn’t been offered to the American people by political leadership in modern times. Most citizens find such a stance shocking in a nation that has traditionally risen to any emergency without hesitation. One can only assume that the politics being practiced by the right is the antithesis of modernity, and I wish some pundit somewhere would hone in on that, because I don’t believe for an instant that the public “gets” it. They don’t understand that Perry and Bachmann are the American Taliban, determined to send civil rights back into oblivion. They don’t get that the privatization of everything will turn our standard of living back at least a century. They don’t understand that the average citizen has been conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs to become a long-suffering slave to corporate influence, held in place by the prideful mythology of American exceptionalism.

There are few things I want in life so much as I want that one light bulb — that brilliant illumination that leaves no shadow — to suddenly go on above America’s head! I get very testy when I hear someone proclaim that both sides of the political spectrum are too far out on the fringe, too polarized by fanatic ideologies, because it’s just not true. I haven’t moved left, haven’t changed my political stance since I was a kid, but — as many have complained over the years — the left with which I was most aligned has changed again and again to seek commonality with the political movement on the right.

I’m no more a bleeding heart than I was when my imagination soared at the possibilities of JFK’s Peace Corp, no more a socialist than when I took pride in my citizenship based on the egalitarian sensibilities of American policies. I’m no more cynical now than I was when I watched my generation march away to fight a corrupt and needless war, only to return emotionally buttoned-up, or psychically bottomed-out, or sewn in a body bag. And now, facing another big Uranus/Pluto smack down, I’m certainly no less dedicated to my nation’s transformation and healing.

Winston Churchill said, “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” Churchill faced down some fanatics in his day. Now it’s our turn. Until we can push back the anti-modernity fanatics and begin to deal with dire issues of climate change, we haven’t got a chance to protect ourselves from weather extremes. Perhaps it’s too late to stop radical change in our climate, but surely we can work to slow it. Working together across the globe, there must be a thousand and more ways we can manage such a challenge. The fanatics have made it impossible to do those things that might protect our very species from extinction. Isn’t that an incredible thing to have to admit in the 21st century?

It isn’t Armageddon we’re facing — it’s plutocracy. It isn’t God calling the tune — it’s greed. It isn’t the inevitable that challenges us so much as deliberate misinformation and ignorance. And although we have spent years being lectured about who and what an American actually is, I’m here to tell you that obstruction to common sense solutions is un-American. Failure to limit the power of corporatists and elitists everywhere is anti-American. Refusal to hold out our hand to our neighbors, blaming them for their frailty when they’re down and out, is about as un-American as I can imagine. And failure to address the earth changes that are driving us to the brink should be considered national, if not global, suicide: if I may be so bold, a — gasp — crime of treason.

As the best of my idealism showed its shining face long before I was of legal age, the best of it is shining still. No shake, rattle and roll — no ill wind out of the east or west, no blistering heat wave or passing tornado — has been able to rough me up enough to let go of what comes from light, from love, from vision. Surely it is the same with you. There is that very calm place within each of us that is our higher self, our unflappable, all-knowing center. That is the place to retreat to when trouble comes, when the earth is shaking, when the wind is blowing, when the water is rising. This is not a time to get hysterical over things that go bump in the night. After a decade of actual and manufactured bumps, we know how to navigate these waters.

If you’re on the East Coast, all eyes are turned on you as you ride out another extreme event. This is a time for pragmatics and for helping one another out, with no unnecessary heroism or risk, please. Stay calm, practice the Presence of your spiritual traditions if you have them and connect energetically to the larger body of humanity that is praying for you, affirming your safety and promoting your well-being. Who knows: facing down an actual physical threat might even be something of a relief compared to the existential threat that is constantly attempting to drown us in a bathtub of desperation and depression. This is just one more extreme circumstance to put behind us. Be well, be safe and most of all, be calm.