2012: Choices to be Made

Wouldn’t it be nice if…? I was musing over the potential of this seemingly quixotic phrase particularly as I was reviewing the events of this past year and I toyed with the idea: Wouldn’t it be nice if one were able to choose which events followed on to the New Year and by exclusion those which did not, along with their unresolved consequences, remain in the past; a sort of isolation ward. Wouldn’t it be nice?  

My Father passed-on in March of 2011 and I find myself thinking about him more and more; not so much from the perspective of having to reconcile with his physical absence but more so that I find he continues to be so very relevant particularly in the countless anecdotes and metaphors he would use to express a point or convey advise. As I was processing this effort on and into a composition my memory released one of my favorites:  

“A choice is always made one way or another; either by you or through the consequences you face by not having made one. Regardless of your choice, the outcome has already been determined. Try, always, to pick the outcome and that will guide you to the right choice.” 

A distinctly mercurial man of few words to be sure and not what one would think of as a doting father and yet he managed to shape a perspective in a way that captured the message he intended and this one, specifically, has been priceless though I must admit the first time I heard it I recall looking back at him with the same expression my dog gives me when I ask him to mow the lawn. Wouldn’t it be nice?   

Now then with my Father’s wisdom at hand, it wasn’t long before I found myself thinking that this isolation ward idea of mine wasn’t so novel or fanciful an idea after all this process happens moment by moment with each event as it occurs; the resolved and unresolved; choices made and Choices to be Made – sooner or later.  And so, there are many reasons to expect that 2012 will merely be an extension of 2011 and likewise a particularly contentious year; Election Cycle Politics, Economic Deprivation, various Global Threats (real, manufactured or imagined), Congressional Distemper and the Social Chaos that will likely follow. There is little doubt that each of these is a substantive component of our reality. 

True there were many remarkable events which occurred over the past year and I’ll leave each of them to your memory and preferential treatment as no one really wants yet another what’s-to-come prognostication for 2012 although I am personally teased by a just-below-the-surface promulgation which I find very engaging: Mayan Prophecy. Now I am considerate of the fact that one might think I’m an alien abduction survivor however I will ask that you hold your impulse-judgments for a moment longer as I find that, for the American People, there is both an extraordinary parallel and gateway of opportunity far too rich and promising to be ignored. The point I intend will be made more clear (below) but for now merely consider the following: 

“Are we witnessing representative government’s end-of-days or are we at the doorstep of an entirely new era of its perfecting?” 

In order to arrive at the intended outcome I am choosing to approach the scheme by using three questions relating to 2011. They are the very same asked of me by Carmen Mete, a research at The Imperfect Messenger Foundation. The questions, as you will see, are very rudimentary however the answers, I believe, will serve the purpose I intend quite well. They are as follows: 

  1. If you were to select a quote, attributed to a Politician, that encapsulates the Political year, who and what would it be?
  2. What is the single, defining, Political Event of the year and why?  And,
  3. As we look forward to the coming New Year, from your perspective, what the most critical issue or choice facing the American People? 

In order to contain the breadth of the responses I’ve elected to lean each of them up a bit while hopefully remaining faithful to the overall scope and body of the original transcripts. What follows is the product of that effort: 

Response #1: 

“…a single quote? There are so many examples and yet as I think about it one in particular appears prominent and is actually from mid-December. It’s from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: ‘We stayed in session to present some issues to the American Public that were extremely important.’ I admit on its own this quote may seem a bit benign however let me seed your thoughts with a simple question: What, of anything Congress managed to present to the American public might be deemed a direct response to the Ideals of the American form of government or the demands of the American People? This should also make one question: If the American People are not defining what is important and worthy of Congressional attention, then who is? By the way, Senator Reid doesn’t stand in the company of one as this approach to governance has become common place regardless of party or level of government. The regular, chronic and expansive manufacturing of superfluous needs that the Public is told they require is its own form of trauma. The result of which is that the role of government has become whatever government decides is in the best interests of government and we have now come to the point that few, any longer, know, understand or expect that there should be a distinction; this void, by the way, appears and applies to each of the three branches of government. This critique, I believe, fairly reflects the sentiments of most Americans.”   

Response #2: 

“On the issue of a defining political event, without question it would be the orchestration of the Debt Ceiling Increase and the predictable failure of the Debt Super Committee. I published an article, Rationing of Truth, which offers a terrific perspective as to the overall political climate of 2011 and one key point that I make in the piece is this: ‘The process is only an extension of a Systems desire to preserve its dysfunction.’ In the totality of what any sane individual would use to monument the supremacy of government-induced dysfunction, this single event captures both cause and effect in its self-defined state of perfection.” 

Response #3: 

“Now then, on to an issue or choice; I believe it to be a choice; a single choice. You see, for far too long the American Public has been cultured to think of the Office of the Presidency as a supreme bastion of authority and discipline; that Executive Authority is the equal of some form of Devine Right! It is not and moreover it was never intended to be that way. The design of the American System of Government is pure brilliance yet in our tolerance of two-party rule we’ve effectively licensed progressive decay both as to its form and its function. Unlike the Sovereign American People, the Government is neither Free or at Liberty to do as it pleases – it is inanimate, it is merely a bureaucracy and not capable of defining an act of discernment through a legislative act. The moment you license an inanimate entity to attempt an act of discernment you simultaneously license both chaos and corruption; conscience by committee. If we consider, if only in metaphorical terms, the timely convenience of 2012 Mayan Propheciesand associate the same with the word Apocalypse and its etymology, being of Greek origins and referring to ‘a revelation’, then perhaps what we should hope for is that the occurring tumult of political, economic, social and global conflicts creates a massive stress-fracture which yields to an entirely new revelation forcing the American People, once and for all, to make a choice between the continuation of the processes as they are which will only accelerate the destruction of the American Identity or move deliberately toward its refinement. There is no place for idiotic routines of political partisanship where the proper and faithful functions of government are concerned; this notion is one that has been completely manufactured as an arbiter of vice and it is nothing more than that. It is not or has it ever been the equivalent of what we think of as Impressionism; the Ideal is the ideal and that is the absolute of what one hopes for when they acquire the use of a compass. No one in their right mind interprets the Ideal of what is True North as indicated by the needle of a compass. Were this the case then imagine the effectiveness of a committee of navigators attempting to find their way in a snow storm or in the oblique and inhospitable terrain of a desert.  We must always be reminded that this Nation is built upon a Common Ideal that is as uncommon as it is uncompromising yet sadly we see it violated, daily. Yes indeed, it remains a choice that will need to be made. Believing that you can suspend consequence by not making a choice is still a choice made.”  

Mr. Mete was not quite prepared to let it end there; he asked one last question: “So, Curtis, are you saying that the 2012 Election will decide the fate of self-government?”  To which I replied, “Partly. It’s not going to be enough to make a choice; it will also be about what Americans are prepared to do once the choice has been made. What this Country is dealing with is not just a single event but cumulative decades of licensed abuse attenuating to a predictable result – no one needed a crystal ball to see this coming. Consider how prevalent short-term thinking has become – the entire process has become decidedly indecisive. There’s far more to all of this than folks are yet willing to consider. We’re merely at the beginning of an up-ending; how long the pain of indecision endures will be up to the voters. It’s going to be a very eventful decade, a very exciting time to be alive; one hundred years from now those who occupy this planet will live the outcome of our faithfulness to the Ideal; it’s unavoidable. I remain hopeful; there are signs of hope.” 

“A choice is always made one way or another; either by you or through the consequences you face by not having made one. Regardless of your choice, the outcome has already been determined. Try, always, to pick the outcome and that will guide you to the right choice.” 

Curtis C. Greco, Founder

This entry was posted in On Point and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *