Our first cold snap was followed by a warm front and they combined to bring a lot of rain to the area. Today it’s 53 degrees at noon and I’ve been out in the garden planting shallots and thinking about torture.
I’m reading a book by Charles McCarry called Christopher’s Ghosts. The book jacket advises that “During the Cold War he was an intelligence officer operating under deep cover in Europe, Africa, and Asia.” In this book which he published in 2007 he takes a character, Paul, he has developed before (his first book that he wrote in 1975) and places him in pre-war Nazi Germany. Paul’s young love, Rima, is taken by the Gestapo and placed “only” in “stress positions”. I don’t know whether McCarry is consciously making a comment about the U.S. government’s present day practices. In his first book The Tears of Autumn, which I just read, he has a bad character subjected to cold and loud noises in pursuit of good ends.
I grew up in the Cold War and came of age during the 60′s. I was an introverted radical who believed in the ideals of the counter-culture as proposed by groups like Students for a Democratic Society. It has been a life long learning experience to see my generation settle down and become part of the establishment that reassures us all that American exceptionalism means that we never have to say we’re sorry for invading other countries and grabbing the world’s resources so we can live in comfort. It’s one of my conceits to compare us to the slave holding aristocracy of the pre-Civil War Southern U.S.
I never felt that I had the intestinal fortitude to work within the system and speak truth to power. I felt I needed to find that spark of compassion and integrity within myself before I could propose changing other’s behavior. Tango has brought me that connection to myself and others.
That is why I’ve adopted the name RealityPivots for my web site. I don’t actually believe that we will free the slaves and adopt a sustainable life style but I think that we could. Power corrupts and lord knows the current administration of George Bush and Dick Cheney is an example.
But there is an alternative that is as powerful, as compelling, and more wonder-ful and it is embodied for me in tango.
I’m going to quote again from The Windhover by Gerard Manly Hopkins:
I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom
of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, — the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
In chess we use a phrase “going rogue” for a style of play that you adopt when you know that you are going to be defeated if you continue to play conventionally. You try any sacrifice in the hope that lightning will strike and you will find a way to checkmate your opponent.
I don’t believe that power will stop corrupting but I do feel that defeat is approaching and it is time to adopt a new style.