There has been a lot of discussion about glaciers lately.
On my first trip to Sweden from Florida, I watched as Swedes jumped off the boat to swim in the Baltic Sea. They swam and splashed in the clear water while trying to cajole me into doing the same. Peer pressure is a horrible thing so I took the plunge, literally. When I hit the water, the absolute fridigity took my breath away. My heart nearly stopped from the numbness and I made like a swimming rock back to the boat deck as fast as I could. Didn’t these people realize that just a few weeks ago that this water was a glacier?
My knowledge of glaciers is that they are huge sheets of ice that sit on top and underneath the planet. They move very slowly and exorable to their final destination where land and sea meet. Then gravity takes over, huge sheets of ice break off the mass, float out to sea to replenish the oceans. Or something like that. That one of them sunk a ship with a tragic loss of life that made stars of Leonardo DeCaprio and Celene Dion.
Now, there is a lot of debate about global warming and their effect on the glaciers. They are melting faster than ever we are told. But it’s that slow and relentless march to the sea that sparks my attention. Because it seems that the American populace works essentially the same way. When the glacier moves, it changes everything in its path. Rock is turned to powder. They change the course of rivers; make canyons and hills and meadows. They are Nature’s hammer and chisel in the sculpting of the planet. Nothing stands in the way of their onslaught.
It began with whispers about 2003. And then, slowly, like the glaciers, its voice was raised over the next three years to what it is now, the Bronx cheer of open disgust. The American public has put up with enough and now wants it over. We are patient with our leaders. We elect them as the representation of what we believe at the time. We send them off to the halls of laws hoping that they will deliver to us the promise of a better way than our perception of the alternative. We allow them the benefit of doubt. We think that this is what needs to be done to give us our dream. They have to know more than we do. That somehow they are privy to some unthought-of of equation that will give us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We believe them when they tell us that their opponents want to ruin our pursuits. That it is their fault things are so topsy-turvy. That they interfere with the execution of the Grand Scheme. And are not we willing to sacrifice a few Rights to reach the goal? Gee, I guess so. We’ll get them back, won’t we?
Thankfully, eventually, we do wake up to the fact that we’ve been had. That one and one doesn’t add up to three. The sun doesn’t rise in the West. And eventually, you have to pay the piper. We know that as much as we might want it, a deal that’s too good to be true is too good to be true. The Administration has been pedaling this for the last six years. We can cut taxes. We can get the government out of you life by privatizing all it’s functions. That we can force people to see it our way by having bigger guns and the attitude it’s our way or the highway. We have to stay the course.
Hurricane Katrina, job losses and rising poverty levels showed us. Higher prices at the pumps show us. Soaring health costs and an exploding National Debt show us. Death tolls and international disdain for a trumped up military experiment show us. Add an Enron and some indicted elected officials and Americans have eventually come to realize they are driving a lemon.
Remember, nothing, no matter how powerful, can halt the exorable march of a glacier. Not even arrogant politicians. America will stay the course, like a glacier. Like glaciers, we will change the landscape.
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