The Rambler Rides Again:
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"We have met the enemy, and he is us."
So goes a famous "Pogoism," an oft-repeated sage pronouncement of the cartoon character Pogo.
We are our own worst enemies is the underlying message, of course. And it is true locally and on a wider scale, anywhere the success of a community or a society depends on cooperation of all concerned.
In my early days in a virtually cloistered religious community, now long-forgotten, one pertinent statement bears remembering: "do it for the good of the order."
If we are not acting for the good of the order, then obviously we are working against that end.
If, as political and social observers have concluded, "everything is political and everything is personal," we are doomed.
The agonizing days of the Depression and World War II are recalled, the days of scrimping and financial scrabbling during the Depression, of saving tinfoil, grease, paper, rationing, sacrificing, donating towar bond drives during World War II. Cooperation was mandatory for survival. Starvation was a real peril in the Depression. The world was threatened by fascist powers in the war. The reality of death or slavery was virtually at our door. The choice was clear in both periods of crisis: cooperate or perish.
Now some half-century and multiplied Gross Domestic Product totals later we have the apparent luxury of indulging our personal hatreds, of descending nearly violent defense of our base personal whims. Money is flowing, affluence is apparently the standard, not the exception, all is well on the home front. We can indulge ourselves in the pursuit and exercise of power. We can tolerate personal greed and corporate corruption, political self-dealing and outright thievery. The easy path is to ignore the problems, avoid facing up to the obvious, don't risk the confrontation.
Ah, but there's the danger, isn't it? We have been lulled to sleep; we are entertaining ourselves almost to death. Sports, games, movies and music dominate our thoughts, even our existence.
The leaders of the 1930s and 1940s crisis periods would be aghast were they still alive. Indulging in political infighting and neglecting the good of the order, the needs of the community, are tantamount to social suicide. The richer we are, the sooner we may be poor again, they might caution. The more powerful we think we are, the sooner we may be threatened again by others in reality more powerful.
And so it is, from the national deficit to the United Way, from international trade to local tourism promotion. Without cooperation, without all pulling "for the good of the order," without the effort to shun the political and the personal for good of the community and the nation, we are doomed. The handwriting is on the wall, to repeat an old cliche. And the wall is in danger of collapse.
Sentimental moralizing apparent in these meanderings, perhaps. Or maybe economic and politicalrealism? The signs are unmistakeable, this observer believes. You be the judge. There is time to choose a course of action. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Are we the enemy. as Pogo identified? Are we acting for political and personal whim and gain? Or are we cooperating "for the good of the order." The consequences of our cooperation, or lack thereof, are substantial.
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Dave Rogers |
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