A lot has changed since 2001, and they were at least half right when the planes crashed into the World Trade Centre. Nothing would be the same again. Twelve years later this legacy of fear still clings to us like a viscous grey shadow. Two wars and a Great Recession later life is rather different now. U S Homeland Security and the Patriot Act have made travel to, through and from the United States a difficult and sometimes frightening experience. In the meantime everybody still lives in a state of fear. How does this fear manifest? In many ways, I would say some are afraid of terrorists, others of their government, others of the One Percent, the banks, the corporations, still others of global warming, or of GMO's and Monsanto and others that their children will be snatched by lurking perverts and others of criminals. I have never experienced so much palpable fear in our environment as in the past decade.
In September 11 2001 I awoke to the news on the radio of a second plane flying into one of the towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. Nearly three thousand died and despite the comeuppance that many of us felt that the Global Schoolyard Bully was getting the loss of innocent lives was something sudden, unanticipated and horrific. Then came the war in Afghanistan, then Guantanamo Bay and Iraq. Everyone it seems was traumatized and state sanctioned torture and renditions for torture became commonplace. Tighter border controls and a general militarization of our societies have since left us in both the U S and Canada inalterably changed. The beautiful change and promise I had before anticipated was now cruelly aborted and slaughtered.
This shadow of fear I believe also has impacted the way we respond to the growing and frightening evidence of climate change and global warming. As our federal government muzzles scientists still word is leaking out that we are already past the point of no return. It is no longer a matter of whether climate change affects and destroys the way of life to which we have become accustomed nor when, but that it is already happening. Recent violent storms in the Philippines and in the US among other places are more than clear indications that the horse is now out of the barn. The glaciers in the Arctic, the Antarctic and on mountain peaks are melting at an unprecedented rate and soon we will see sea levels rising and flooding coastal regions and increased drought. At least this is what is being forecast.
In the meantime Monsanto and Frankenseeds and Frankenfoods are holding hostage our global food supply as we battle lamely against the One Percent, the World Bank and the corporations to wrest from their hands our lives that we have silently ceded to them. Parents appear to be more fearful for the wellbeing and safety of their little ankle biters than ever and it has become common knowledge that there are perverts lurking on every corner and behind every bush and tree waiting to snatch, violate and kill their little darlings, so children are driven to and from school, forbidden from playing outside, must arrange play dates to see their friends and have anxious mommies and daddies hovering over them and controlling every micro detail of their little lives. Now that the Dragon of Global Capitalism has been unleashed upon the earth making every job so competitive that some cafes are only hiring baristas with university degrees, frantic parents are micromanaging their kids to an unprecedented degree, making sure they get into university, graduate with honours with business and marketing degrees and become competitive, ruthless and rich and hopefully famous. Understanding the consequences of failure one has to cut them a little bit of slack given that without an advanced degree one is going to be sentenced to eking out a miserable low-wage existence while never accessing the criminally overpriced housing market.
Seen in this context it is easy to understand that we are all damn right to be afraid. Or are we? I would like to propose an alternative suggestion. Mass media has become so rapid and so efficient at communicating news from one shore of the ocean to another in less than a nanosecond that we are now perpetually being bombarded with information. Our knowledge of what is going on all over the world is broader and more complex than ever before. Since the news media has a historical tendency towards the sensational and especially to glamorize disasters, wars, coups d'état and affairs of government and statecraft we are now perpetually oversaturated with information, much of it negative and alarming. Think if you will of how frequently the television stations played over and over images of the Twin Towers collapsing in smoke and flames thus establishing for the hapless viewers an entrenched state of trauma. This is not to say that I am a climate denier. I believe and am concerned that the uncontrolled emissions from fossil fuels into the atmosphere is warming the earth and changing the climate at an alarming speed and that some of the most influential nations, Canada among them, are being particularly delinquent at changing anything. Does this mean the end of the world, or even the end of the world as we know it? That will always remain to be seen. However we are paralyzed with fear or flailing about trying to slow the inevitable or try to change things. I think we will get through this. We are not going to have an easy time of it and there could be a huge number of species extinctions. We still have to do everything we can to work against this. But we will survive and perhaps we will even learn how to work together more cooperatively and less competitively in order to survive and eventually thrive again. This could come at tremendous cost.
I remember seeing a documentary film about an asteroid hitting the earth and the absolute destruction that ensued. Billions of people died and the earth became almost uninhabitable for several years but for a few isolated pockets of people who were only able to survive because they pulled and worked together. There is here for us a cautious note of optimism.
As for the other concerns surrounding the climate of fear that has enveloped us we have to start working harder at disengaging from this onslaught of too much information and overstimulation. I propose that we learn to unplug more, work less, lower our expectations and be content to do well with little. If the city you live in is too expensive, move, or pool together with others. There is strength in numbers. There needs to be a groundswell of resistance as well if we are going to see any serious and positive political change and this is going to mean more of us getting off our hinies and accepting that our comfort zones no longer exist. More than anything we need to rediscover hope and live in a spirit of hope. I am not suggesting that we indulge in magical thinking but that we alter our attitudes and perceptions just a little bit, and while doing this, work our butts off to achieve change
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