End of An Era

For the last 50 years, one of the lifelong dreams for many, was to retire to Hawaii -- and blissfully live out the balance of one's life in carefree Paradise.

But that hasn't been the case for the last five years, after the resurgence to prosperity beginning with the War on Terror restoring safety to worldwide travel in the prior five years . The myth now, was that Hawaii was well on its way to recovery before 9/11/01 -- when the truth was, it was still bumping along at the bottom -- and when 9/11 hit, many felt that it was all over -- as the streets of Waikiki were deserted, and planes flew out of Japan bound for Hawaii, with only a dozen passengers -- while the planes going out, were overbooked.

But as the mythmakers would retell it -- the resurgence and blow-off top in 2008, was not because of President Bush's unexpected brilliant response to the plague that had been terrorism all over the world hiding in friendly regimes with the continued expectation that they would remain untouchable -- was no longer true. Terrorists would now be hunted down wherever they were. One of the first to see the handwriting on the wall, was Ghadaffi, who declared he was no longer a terrorist, or a friend of terrorists.

Fittingly that now, he should serve as the end of that chapter in which the rest of the world stood by helplessly, as the terrorists did what they wanted, with very little fear of reprisals. That was the world, pre-9/11, and the Bush Doctrine, of "Not in my backyard, not now, not ever."

And with that assurance of the new world order and reality, the world's economies took off -- even if it was to overheat and finally crash in 2008 -- which a few saw coming, even while most did not. That seemed to mark the peak and the end of
Western Civilization, and the beginning of the greater Global Civilization and consciousness -- in which the emerging nations like Brazil, Russia, India and China, play an increasingly larger part.

A large part is because of the increasing world view, and not just our provincial part of it, dominating the world consciousness -- which was especially true of such places as Hawaii, which thought of itself as the place everyone wanted to be. But because of that flush of success and prosperity that was not earned but given -- the people didn't know how to handle it, and manage it into a sustainable community and society -- but everybody grabbed for the whole pie, destroying it in the process, for everybody else, as well as themselves.

That would signal the end of that era -- and manner of thinking.