[NV Greens] Is America the SS Titanic?

Sat Apr 2 23:09:00 PST 2005

>
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>Is America the SS Titanic?
>
>History's Enduring Morality Tale
>
>by Douglas Herman
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>
>
>In 1912 the steamship Titanic was an enormous floating palace with
>many levels of society enclosed in a single vessel.  The upper
>levels of the ship housed the wealthy and powerful.  Below the
>richly furnished staterooms of the elite, the corresponding levels
>of society descended to the very bottom of the ship, where the
>lowest classes lived and worked.
>
>"At her launching in May 1911, the British press hailed the White
>Star Line's 46,000-ton superliner Titanic as `the Wonder Ship,' the
>most stupendous, the most luxurious, the safest ship afloat," wrote
>Sir James Bisset.
>
>Despite the media rapture that heralded the Titanic as the most
>marvelous ship afloat, several of her crew deserted. "The rumor had
>started several days before the Titanic left Southampton ," said
>then second mate Bisset. "Newspapers for months had been printing
>articles extolling her wonderful qualities, but on the morning when
>she was due to leave Southampton , twenty two men who had signed on
>in her crew were missing."
>
>
>
>Despite the media rapture that presently heralds America as the sole
>remaining superpower, an unsinkable republic and an unassailable
>democracy, the country appears to be cruising as comfortably into
>unsafe waters laced with icebergs. The warnings have been
>forthcoming for a long time now. Similar to the enduring morality
>tale of the Titanic, where "not one, but many errors brought her to
>disaster," little hints of disaster indicating a larger tragedy to
>come have been sent—and ignored—by friendly ships of state all
>around.
>
>
>
>Aboard the SS Titanic on her maiden voyage a helmsman firmly took
>the wheel. Behind him stood two powerful figures, the ship's
>Captain, Edward John Smith, and Bruce Ismay, the Chairman of the
>White Star Line.  Behind them stood the prestige and power of the
>owner of the White Star Line, Ismay's father. "There is testimony
>that Ismay urged the captain to maintain maximum speed,"  said
>Bisset, one of the first men on the rescue scene after the sinking.
>Thus the helmsman aboard the Titanic actually wielded little power,
>exercised little judgment, aside from spinning the wheel. Those who
>stood behind him in the shadows set the course and determined the
>speed (and were wholly responsible for the ship). A New Atlantic
>Speed Record for her maiden voyage became an enviable goal. All that
>was required was an increase in power, and thus, speed for the
>entire voyage.
>
>
>
>Aboard the SS America, nearly a hundred years later, the helmsman
>stands at the wheel, looking self-important, nominally in charge. 
>Although the hands of the helmsman certainly grasp the wheel, the
>course and speed of SS America have been set by others.  In the
>shadows, the power elite plot the new course, having increased power
>and speed, irregardless of the safety of the vessel.  To the
>privileged class striding the upper decks of the most powerful
>vessel afloat, there is little cause for alarm, however.  After all,
>capable men control this enormous ship of state and so the leisure
>class promenade proudly past the stout lifeboats of their
>diversified investment portfolios, and calmly tell themselves the
>vessel is unsinkable.
>
>
>
>Ice warnings arrived throughout the entire voyage, 21 warnings
>altogether, including seven that Sunday.  The Titanic continued
>steaming at top speed towards the pack ice—growlers and bergs--
>drifting down from Greenland .  The two radiomen aboard the Titanic,
>Harold McBride and Jack Phillips, passed the warnings to the
>officers on the bridge throughout the day, but were mostly kept busy
>sending stock market messages from the wealthy businessmen on board
>and relaying stock quotes from New York .
>
>
>
>Aboard the SS Carpathia, steaming east towards the Titanic, Captain
>Rostron remarked about the great ship on her maiden voyage. "She
>must be a wonderful ship, but all their newspaper bragging seems a
>kind of blasphemy, claiming that she's `unsinkable' and all that
>kind of thing." The Carpathia would be the first ship on the scene
>after the disaster. Ironically, Captain Smith of the Titanic had
>remarked, on an earlier occasion, "I cannot imagine any condition
>which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital
>disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone
>beyond that."
>
>
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>On Sunday evening aboard the Titanic, the upper classes continued to
>dine in opulent splendor before retiring. In the lower levels of the
>ship, particularly steerage, the common folk passed the time,
>reassured by the throb of the powerful engines and the stoutness of
>the steel hull, the swishing of seawater against the steel plates
>almost reassuring. The prospect of a bright new future, a new
>American century, appeared almost within their reach.
>
>
>
>Unknown to anyone aboard the Titanic, whether passenger or crew, a
>critical design flaw had been built into the construction of the
>vessel. Inexplicably, Titanic's bulkheads and watertight
>compartments, did not reach all the way to the top of the overhead
>ceiling. Should the ship ever be flooded suddenly, her pumps might
>not keep the seawater from topping the bulkheads. The "unsinkable"
>Titanic would then quickly sink.
>
>
>
>Aboard the SS America, the bulkheads and watertight doors likewise
>did not go all the way to the top. An intentional yet critical
>design flaw, ignored by passengers and crew alike, revealed that, in
>an emergency, nothing stood behind the US dollar but mere paper,
>empty promises, and the weight of massive debt.  Still the ship of
>state sped onward, into uncharted waters incurring mountainous debt
>while the helmsman swung the wheel according to the dictates of the
>rich and powerful men behind him.  Despite ample and repeated
>warnings of hazards ahead, from writers and radiomen with foresight,
>another foolhardy speed record beckoned those in control.  Called
>the Project for New American Century, all that was required was an
>irrational increase in power and speed to achieve their goal.  That
>and considerable luck.
>
>
>
>AT 11 PM, the Titanic steamed west at her maximum speed of 22.5
>knots, her radioman still sending and receiving stock market
>directives. A message arrived from the steamship Californian, ten
>miles to the northwest, that she was stopped for the night by ice
>blocking her way.  Aboard the Titanic, the harried radioman, Jack
>Phillips, cut him short with the terse reply in code,  "Shut up old
>man I'm busy."
>
>
>
>The SS Titanic, the largest ship afloat, where "not one but many
>errors brought her to disaster," was only minutes away from her
>doom.  Aboard the opulent luxury liner, however, neither the
>passengers nor the crew realized their immediate danger. Indeed,
>most slept soundly even when the Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40
>PM and had to be aroused thirty minutes later. By then, at 12:15 AM,
>the frantic radioman Phillips tapped out his first distress signal—
>CQD--to be followed ten minutes later by this desperate message to
>the reply of the Carpathia: "CQD CQD SOS SOS CQD SOS. Come at once.
>We have struck a berg
" The score of ice warning repeatedly ignored
>by those who set the speed and course aboard the Titanic had finally
>caught up to the "unsinkable" liner.
>
>
>
>"The fact that the Titanic had struck a berg in calm weather on a
>clear night meant one of three things," observed second mate, James
>Bisset of the Carpathia: "insufficient lookout; responses too slow
>from her bridge; or that the big vessel at her full speed had not
>quickly enough answered her helm to avoid collision."
>
>
>
>Within two hours the largest ship afloat would be foundering, her
>engine rooms flooded, her radios failing. Untrained crewmen
>struggled to launch lifeboats and board hundreds of stunned,
>reluctant or disbelieving passengers. If the ship was so unsinkable,
>they wondered, why were they being forced into lifeboats? Many
>wealthy passengers—and almost all of those in steerage—would drown
>when the ship sank; there simply were not enough lifeboats. By 1:45
>AM, when Phillips tapped his last message, "Come as quickly as
>possible. Engine room filling up to the boilers," the last lifeboat
>pulled away from the sinking ship.
>
>
>
>Bruce Ismay, however, would survive the sinking of the
>Titanic. "According to evidence," remarked Bisset, "he had jumped
>into a boat that was being lowered." Like many of those now in
>command of this ship of state, the SS America, the Ismays of the
>world always survive. Indeed they thrive, even prosper, whether in
>disaster or success.  Whether Neocon, Bilderberger, Wall Street
>insider or architect of the New World Order, they're the first ones
>into the lifeboats with a money belt firmly around their waist.
>
>
>
>When the collision of the SS America occurs, with a mountainous
>iceberg of foreign debt amid an ice pack of foolhardy foreign
>adventures, the ablest survivors will be those least clinging to the
>notion that the vessel is unsinkable. Indeed, many of the foremost
>survivors will resemble the 22 crewmen who abandoned the Titanic
>before she sailed, aware that those who command our beautiful vessel
>are woefully incompetent or criminally insane.
>
>
>
>Postscript:  Then as now, New York newspapers were pretty unreliable
>for accuracy: "ALL Saved From Titanic After Collision," blared the
>New York Evening Sun, of April 15, 1912.  The Carpathia arrived at 4
>AM, Monday, April 15, almost two hours after the Titanic had
>sunk.  "The increasing daylight revealed dozens of icebergs within
>our horizon," observed Bisset. "Among them were four or five big
>bergs, towering up to two hundred feet above water level. One of
>these was the one that the Titanic had struck."  The Carpathia's
>crew spent the morning rescuing 703 survivors and hoisted 13
>lifeboats aboard.  Neither the Titanic's captain or her first
>officer were among the survivors. Captain Smith, aware of the
>enormity of his error in judgment, had gone down with his ship. One
>final irony: sometime this spring the vessel USS America will be
>sunk, somewhere in the Atlantic.
>
>
>  March 28, 2005
>
>An Alaska fisherman with 20 years of experience on Kodiak Island,
>Douglas Herman writes regularly for STR.  Please contribute!
>
>Douglas Herman Archive
>
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand