Fire and Ice: 2012

"2012" hit theatres a short time ago and as movies go the story is idiotic, but the movie was fun. The roller coaster ride begins just after the opening credits and doesn’t stop until the end. Unfortunately, the story is just the opposite – it stops after the opening credits and picks up at the very end. In the middle is Hollywood’s best CGI effort at creating an edge of the seat thrill ride.

The problems with the story are many. Suffice it to say John Cusack and crew should have had the Superman 'S' emblazoned upon everything they wore. There were so many close escapes – and impossible escapes – that even Roger Moore’s James Bond would have been embarrassed (a difficult feat, to say the least). Worse yet, the story gets a lot of the facts wrong.

The Mayan calendar doesn’t predict the end of the world or even tragedy. It simply ends. This, according to the doomsayers, indicates the end of man. That end, they say, will come by our own hand in the form of a nuclear holocaust. Or it will come in the form of a pandemic – bird flu, swine flu or a man-made virus. Take your choice. Others believe the world will succumb to the impact of an asteroid (which, by the way, would make sci-fi writers amongst the great prophets of all time). And others, still, believe a solar flare will extinguish all life in a ball of flame and destruction. Robert Frost* was ahead of the game here:

• Some say the world will end in fire,
  Some say in ice.
  From what I've tasted of desire
  I hold with those who favor fire.
  But if it had to perish twice,
  I think I know enough of hate
  To say that for destruction ice
  Is also great
  And would suffice.

The religious will believe that God is coming for them – Christianity's Second Coming. And they will be the most dangerous if history tells us anything about how they will act. Their conceit has never thwarted any qualms about seeing their own prophesy and working to make it real.

But the Mayans made no note of what would come or even why their calendar ends in 2012. There are those who believe there will be a big spiritual awakening, a growth in the human spirit. This is as difficult to believe as the second coming. Never in human history has an event caused this sort of massive spiritual growth. In fact, events that should have been transcendent more often than not leave us fractured and reeling back down the social evolutionary scale. Whenever we experience worldwide life-altering events fundamentalists too often seize on our fears and make us regress.

World War II was felt by every person on the planet. It changed an entire generation and forced them to look at the world on a more global level. Given Hitler's hatred and the abomination of his acts and their reach, this should have been a time for humanity to pull together, to reach out to all fellow humans and to bind our species into one coherent fellowship. Instead, we were left as fractured as ever.

In the United States blacks – who served the same flag and carried the same values into battle – were treated in the same inhumane ways after the war they always had been. It would be 20 years before Martin Luther King, Jr. would, through the force of his will and character, make us begin to think and act differently.

Women - who powered this country's war machine and made possible its victory – were pushed back into the kitchen and bedroom, unequal to the end. It would take another generation to stand up to fight against this wrong.

Our core national values, as laid out by our founding fathers, were pushed aside by the religious right. This secular nation that so many fought and died for was now to become a nation of God – the Christian God. The religious right forced congress to add "In God We Trust" to our money and "One nation under God" to the pledge of allegiance. At a time when events and circumstances should have encouraged us to become more open, more tolerant and forgiving we became more divisive, more hateful and far more insolent.

If there is any sort of event that takes place on 12|21|2012 you can be certain that the religious right will once again use it to build walls, to take away freedoms, and destroy the rights that were once the cornerstone of our democracy. We’ve seen this already in our time. 911 gave Jerry Falwell and others the chance to preach hatred toward homosexuals** and to strike out against anyone different than themselves. 911 gave us the Patriot Act and sanctioned torture.

What I find amazing is how easily we, as a people, fall prey to this mode of thinking. As a whole we will march in lock-step to their wishes. As in the aftermath of 911, we will forfeit our freedom and rights under false illusions.

I am no prophet. I wouldn’t hazard a guess at what events will actually transpire. I only observe the repetitive nature of history and humankind’s indifference towards learning from it. And here is what history teaches us: good people will stand by silently and allow bad things to happen, even though they are usually in the majority. They have always done this. In Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia, in Darfur and in the U.S. after 911, good people kept quiet and allowed a radical minority to lead them to dark places. Let us hope that 2012 passes quietly and that the Mayans knew nothing of end times and doom. Or maybe, just once, good people can find their voice and quell the lunacy.

*The Poem is Fire and Ice by Robert Frost, click his name to view the Wikipedia page about him.

**Learn more about what Jerry falwell said at Wikipedia.

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