Time of Our Lives

 

The times we live in seem to be dominated by confusion, hatred, and mayhem, while the world seems more than content to push things along rather than step back from the brink.  Three commercial airliners in five months will never see radar again (one still missing reasons unknown, one shot down by a civil war, one possibly a victim of weather). The Middle East has never been a more desperate region. Afghanis die as readily by the same hands that killed them before the US invaded and freed their land. In Iraq monsters that were held at bay by the monster the US removed are set free to wreak their own monstrosities. Gaza is once again a land of rubble and blood, and Egypt, Syria, and Lybia smolder and blaze and rot in varying degrees. Eastern Europe plays out in microcosm in the Russian sponsored breakdown of the Ukraine. And the US is not to be outdone as Republicans and Democrats argue about what is the best way to turn our backs on babies at the borders. Politicians corrupt the honored labels of liberal and conservative into the new "spic", "kike", and "nigger". Guns have become the default expression of the disenfranchised as school children in classrooms become the target of choice, and only a year ago a young African American high school student in Valdosta, Georgia, was beaten beyond recognition, stuffed dead in a hole, and the “incident” ruled a self-inflicted accident as if it were the punch line to the oldest of racist jokes.

In less than 120 years, the world has been mobilized in cars and then planes, moved from hand calculations to slide rule to tablet, carry voice and social connections in the palm of the hand, and enjoy never before available educational opportunities. Since the dawn of man, people have fought and struggled for the higher ground, for a better life. Shouldn’t the better life be here? Shouldn’t we be able to care for ourselves, to feed each other, to put a roof over everyone’s head?

Apparently not. We the sheep in order to form a more perfect union turn a deaf ear and a mute tongue to be blind followers of the purveyors of power who need only scream epithets and sling labels that stick all too easily with the paste of ignorance in order to get us to ignore the man behind the curtain in favor of the Great and Powerful Oz. The most action that we as a nation seem able to accomplish is to point fingers back and forth, to blame that person for our woes and that party for our discomforts, to fear beyond reason that we will only be allowed to fire one bullet at a time rather than the fifty rounds per second we deserve.  Meanwhile fear, starvation, and revolution are more alive than ever out our back door, in the third world, and beyond.

I have long since given up reading the newspapers. Since 9-11 I have stopped watching CNN and all cable news. I can no longer listen for any length of time to news on NPR. My hands are over my ears with my eyes shut. I have to cruise news stories on my own, melt them down using the alchemy of atomic and genetic similarity shared by mankind to distill the vapors for what might be the truth. But it is a world where people retain power by preaching hatred (a pastime older than Genesis and still we know no better, we eat it up, our piggy-persons belly up to the trough for our daily slop of lies because that is what works for us). What good is truth in small hands? How can I stand up and say to the Ukraine that ethnic Russians can still be Ukrainians? How can I turn to those same ethnic Russians and say that blood and country are interchangeable, if you can’t understand that then leave your home and go home? How can I stare down a nation and say, “They are just children. They are the future of the world. If we treat them as garbage, as undesirables, what position does that put the future in?” How can I stand on the mount and shout to the land of my father’s fathers and say, “Stop! For God’s sake Stop! You live in the cradle of religion, and you behave in the least God-like way imaginable!”

I am just one voice, and these times make me feel so small. I am infinitesimal next to powers I do not understand, in the face of atrocities that I understand all too well. There is no word, no spell, no magic phrase I can utter to get the world to stop spinning its wheels, to stop the engine of self-absorption and corruption from devouring humanity. I can only take a breath, focus, and try to believe that if enough small people can come together, a large difference can be made.

The Mob Rules

Life is sometimes violent and incomprehensible.  Such has been the case since September 11, 2001 stripped Americans of their innocence, opening eyes to global realities, and opening hearts to fear and paranoia.  Now eleven years to the day in the midst of our mourning and remembrance, the US Consulate in Libya has been attacked leaving three embassy staff dead including our Ambassador.

The inevitable result of such an action by Islamic extremist has been a measured reaction by the government and second guessing and knee jerk reaction from without the executive branch.  It is the second guessing and gut reactions that worry me more than the attack.  Of course I am outraged and angered by the murder of our representatives abroad.  I also believe that such actions by enemies are taken not to make a point, but to derive specific responses that broaden their base and weaken the already shaky perceptions of the United States.

The immediate criticisms of the Executive Branch’s handling of this current act of terror is more politically than practically motivated.  The degree to which Governor Romney has attacked the Obama administration already shows a lack of geo-political vision for the larger picture by putting crass nationalism ahead of any substantive thought on the issue.  Today one of Governor Romney’s sons was interviewed in regards to this on 850 KOA radio out of Denver.  He said that his Father was just expressing his outrage over what he believed to be a demonstration of an incoherent international policy.  Outrage can be understood, but instant criticism before all the facts are out and understood is not how a global leader should respond, and at its worst seems an action of opportunism rather than a demonstration of capabilities.

Meanwhile, the gut response of some of some of the populace has been a call for a more dogged effort to hunt down and kill all Islamic extremists (a very good friend of mine made such a comment recently).  Even on its face and in the simplest terms this does not seem possible or practical.  Throughout the history of the world, oppression has only resulted in revolt and violence, and a more sustainable peace has been best achieved by inclusion rather than destruction of enemies.

Simply setting the special forces at our command loose for wholesale slaughter of a gorilla foe may result in a momentary weakening of that foe, but more critically would draw even more people to their cause by the martyrdom it would create.  By reacting with unrestrained vengeance, we play into the hands of the extremist instead of effectively combatting and negating them.

Both sides of our predominantly bipartisan political system share blame in current affairs.  Too often we react with short term goals in mind and insufficient thought given to long term consequences.  Policies of both Democrats and Republicans have resulted in failed nation building, and worse the deaths of American soldiers and citizens spanning more than a decade since we first adopted those policies to make us safer.

Show anger and indignation, but also take time to think.  I don’t have answers, but I am also not running out to kill Islamic extremist with an AR-15 and thousands of rounds of ammunition so easily obtained from gun shows and the internet.  That such atrocities are still being dealt to us only shows us that our policies over the past decade or longer are seriously flawed in some fashion.  If we do not search out and address these flaws, anger and violence will still be our true masters, and the cycle of terror and fear will continue.