It was midnight on August 27th of 1987 that I found myself in Malibu on a meadow overlooking the Pacific Ocean along with several hundred other severely delusional people waiting the arrival of "the Harmonic Convergence," a "new age" term applied to a planetary alignment.
The timing of the Harmonic Convergence allegedly correlated with the Maya calendar, with some consideration also given to European and Asian astrological traditions. The chosen dates have the distinction of allegedly marking a planetary alignment with the Sun, Moon and six out of eight planets being "part of the grand trine" whatever that means. Notwithstanding the "mumbo jumbo" a nice time was had by all.
Why was I there you could ask? Because my then new age wife wanted to be there. Could there possibly be another reason?
I respect the rights of people (including my then wife) to believe in whatever they choose to believe in as long as it does not impact my life.
There was no "planetary alignment" when our nation fresh from victories over Germany, Italy, and Japan decided that we were "the biggest guys on the street" and the world needed to conform to the way we wanted it to be.
In the play Plaza Suite Maureen Stapleton tells her husband of 25 years Walter Matthau something like: "I know that you are having an affair with your secretary but I expected more of you, I expected you to have an affair with someone else."
I had expected more from President Obama as it pertains to Iraq and Afghanistan. He has certainly accomplished many things since his election, yet he continues in the tradition of Eisenhower, Nixon, Bush and Bush as it pertains to our being a warrior nation, and of course lying, or at least not telling the entire truth about it in the process.
While there is certainly nothing "harmonic" about the convergence of Presidential policies and the lies and misleads connected to them, they remain appalling. They represent an American hubris, "a pride and arrogance as well as an excess of ambition, ultimately causing the transgressor's ruin."
And now bit of history: Operation Menu was the codename of the covert bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia from early 1969 until early 1970 during the Vietnam War destroying of over 1,000 towns and villages, the displacement of 2,000,000, and the deaths of over 600,000 Cambodians. The supposed targets of these attacks were sanctuaries and Base Areas of the Viet Cong which utilized them for resupply, training, and resting between campaigns across the border in South Vietnam. However, in practice most of the bombing was indiscriminate.
The US bombed Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam from 1964 to 1973. The Air Force began bombing the rural regions of Cambodia along its South Vietnam border in 1965 under the Johnson administration. This was four years earlier than previously believed. It was reported that 2,756,941 tons of ordnance was dropped in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites (or well over 5 billion pounds of bombs.) This was a fourteen month phase in an extensive series of secret bombing raids that spanned a period of eleven years.
Now we should mention separately the secret bombing of Laos, the most heavily bombed country in history.
260 million cluster bombs were dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War (210 million more bombs than were dropped on Iraq in 1991, 1998 and 2006 combined); and, by the way, close to 78 million did not detonate.
During the bombing, the equivalent of a planeload of bombs was dropped every eight minutes, 24 hours a day for nine years.
More than half of all confirmed cluster munitions casualties in the world have occurred in Laos.
Does that not speak volumes about us?
Where have we gone wrong?
A National Security Report (NSR) issued in 1950 said that America not only had to be strong, but to look strong as well, because even the appearance of weakness in one part of the world would embolden communists elsewhere. This made any spot on the planet strategically important for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, from the Bay of Pigs to Vietnam.
There is a maxim in the "recovery community" that: "We're as sick as our secrets."
And now 60 years after the release of the NSR report we have the WikiLeaks!
We are a sick warrior nation and as "sick as our secrets."
Even before the Harmonic Convergence I wondered about "secrets" as it pertained to our propensity to go to war at least once in a while.
When President Nixon was confronted by the truth concerning our secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos, he hid behind "national security" requirements. I thought those being bombed knew that they were being bombed so who was it a secret from?
I wondered then as I wonder now about President Obama and his "WikiSecrets." Why does he continue to "cover up" the Bush transgressions that have led him down the path of his own violations? Why won't these guys EVER tell us the truth about these things?
Will this secret misleading stuff ever stop?
Will ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox EVER tell us when the government lies to us or misleads us?
Do these transgressions have anything to do with some sort of secret process? I would ask secret from whom?
Good Grief!