We Should Be More
September eleventh, two thousand and one.
Why does the idea of closing Gitmo look good on paper, but seems impossible in practice? We loved the idea when it was simply that ... yet what to do with the terrorists (we all know they are, deep down) when they might end up on our soil? God forbid. Not in my back yard. Just leave things the way they are, I'd really rather not think about it.
Torture? No, we don't do that unless we need to - and what, pray tell, if we didn't? It's a terrible thing that we're all naturally against as good and honest working folk, but we must be careful. If we don't force them to tell us things how else will we find out? After all, they are all out to kill us, and the professionals are protecting us. Just leave things the way they are, I'd really rather not think about it.
September eleventh, two thousand and one took something from us that can never - will never - be replaced. A piece of our humanity disappeared. Our country changed collectively, instinctively, without hesitation. How could it not? We can spend the next several decades blaming political parties and various individuals, claiming it's all the fault of another nation or religion. We can even blindly claim that we are above the very worst in the world. But nothing will change ....
September eleventh, two thousand and one. We resist our better nature because it shook us to our core. We hold onto what we deeply resent because we fear what will happen if we don't. Fear. Insidious, careful in its approach and completely binding upon its arrival. And it doesn't leave. Remember? Fear loves memories, it uses them to enrapture us, to hold us tightly within its grasp. Easy enough to do when our very souls are scared.
Until we can overcome the anguish that we will forever hold in our hearts, we will not move forward. We will allow ourselves to blame others for the backsliding of the United States. We will find excuses that will still not fill the holes. We will be less.
We should be more.
Group mentality with little understanding of the overall issues.
However, there is the same problem with present day issues: energy shortage, overpopulation, scarcity of clean, fresh water.
We knee jerk react to everything, just like children.
When the economy craters and our fiat money is hyperinflated, we will turn to strong leaders who will "fix" the problem...
...this is exactly the scenario in the 30's in Germany and you saw what that wrought.
All caused by lack of understand and the ability to see the large picture. 9/11 has nothing to do with it, really.
But I agree: we should grow up as a country.
June 19, 2009 5:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's the knee jerk reaction that created The Patriot Act.
June 19, 2009 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
What are you suggesting we do to move forward?
June 19, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I quite agree. My point is that this country is all about knee jerk reactions and they aren't confined to 9/11.
Why is this important? Because we are about to face some unprecedented crises: watch how food prices are creeping up as gas prices. And this time, we have already spent our last remaining "good" fiat money - not like last summer.
Watch how the UN is increasingly mentioning fresh water as a global concern.
These issues: feeding and drinking and keeping a population busy with jobs make our present situation look positively rosy. These are the good-old days, enjoy them.
If we knee jerk our ways with these even more difficult issues, we are damned for sure.
June 19, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
While the extremists may be in control of the action, we're in control of our reactions, or should be. A terror inspiring act? Just don't be terrorised, and it's a failure. I admire the Brits, lots. I was in the UK during some of "The troubles". I was there during the great explosion in the City, and there during smaller acts as well. A bomb goes of in the Tube? Remove all the trash cans, tell everyone to watch for suspicious objects, and go about your business.
Beyond the Fringe (I think) did a marvelous routine on the Blitz, where the tag line after every news of disaster was "put the kettle on and have a nice cup of tea"--except for the last one--"put the kettle on and nave a nice cup of hot water."
As FDR said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself... so you're right. It's time to do better--past time to do better, and time to say no to those who exploit and manipulate our fears. We have others to emulate...and unless we do we're going to have to turn the title "home of the brave" over to them.
June 19, 2009 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I go along with Amike here.
The sentiments in your writing are clear to me anyway.
Yeah, I hate people who attack me. I hate people who attack my country. The hate, the anger, the urge to seek revenge is palpable.
WE SHOULD BE MORE.
June 19, 2009 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Human nature being what it is, emotions will trump reason. And fear is "the big one" that trumps everything. Self-preservation is the strongest instinct out there, and rightly so. From it flows everything else.
We are not a world of Spocks.
And yet, we are also not a shoal of herring, turning in unison to avoid predation or find some tasty...whatever it is herring eat. We are more than our instincts. Just not yet quite "more" enough, apparently.
And the true tragedy here is this: Among our numbers are those who would exploit those instincts, those emotions, those fears.
Tragic - in the true classic sense, with this flaw leading inevitably to a fall.
Still, we strive. Some of us can break out from the script, through the fourth wall, and exit the stage. To the wings, backstage, the outside...
And when we do, it becomes an obligation to point out the conductor of the fear orchestra, and how, like the emperor of old, he's butt-nekkid, and this one needs a tomato flung at him. Or several.
Part of becoming more - and to digress briefly, it will always be "becoming", as we will never arrive at a fixed "more-point" - is that we must begin to see those who would thus exploit base human emotions and failings as the most contemptible of trash. Worse than the bad actors themselves, for while they cause immediate localized harm, the exploiters do wider-ranging and ultimately far more destructive damage. It's the small knocking off course that, uncorrected, leads to a wide divergence from a sound path.
And they do it for gain, and for power, and for the sheer, sick joy they drive from seeing fear in others.
A few better minds on aspects of this:
Walt Kelly: "We have met the enemy, and they is us."
Ludwig Wittgenstein: "If there were a verb meaning "to believe falsely" it would not have any significant first person, present indicative."
Charles Mackay: "Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
Reinhold Niebuhr: "We (Americans) have been so deluded by the concept of our innocence that we are ill prepared to deal with the temptations of power which now assail us."
Marcus Tullius Cicero: "The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious."
June 19, 2009 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
I rec this comment.
June 19, 2009 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for this. It's ultimately up to all of us to keep our hearts and minds open, intead of simply cowering from fear. If we don't, we're just making the job of those who wish to exploit our inner insecurities that much easier.
June 19, 2009 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very nice sentiment here. I have felt similarly about September 11.
It is good really just the fact that someone can still remember, and still recall the feelings we had then, when it happened to us.
I sometimes fear that the people like W and Guiliani have so overused and abused our collective memory of those hours and days for their greater glory, that it became somewhat out of fashion to bring it up, and fashionable to move on.
I can never move on from that experience--except that life goes on, and people have to rebuild and survive, and grow. And it is good this is so.
But I'll never forget.
June 19, 2009 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our fears were so used and abused that we gave Bush another term. Like children, even as we knew somewhere deep within that the administration (read: Cheney) was dangerous, we accepted its role as protector. Why? We knew better. Because it was easier to swallow the liquified Constitution than to risk another attack.
We allowed this country to become less than it should be - we all did. We sacrificed our own rights and the rights of others around the world for an invisible security blanket. A non-existant pacifier.
We can criticize President Obama for many things, but knee jerk reactions based on fear is not one of them. Hopefully, the country will follow his example, and not be lead further astray by Republicans still stoking the flames.
June 19, 2009 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes.
I remember that image of the plane hitting the tower, and of the towers collapsing... that image burned into my head. They didn't need to keep replaying it. We already were.
I am saddened when I think how when many of us felt true patriotism, and true love, and true solidarity--that there were people at the highest levels marketing images and rhetorical devices to us in a perverted agenda, sapping our communal need for making sense of it all.
It really makes me sick when I look back at the films and taped programs from that time, and think about how much it changed us, yet how good we all became to one another.
It shouldn't take something so wrong to bring us all together. I felt the oneness again last November, this time for a positive change.
June 20, 2009 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fearmongers suck.
June 19, 2009 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed, Bwak. And fishmongers stink (but they can't help it). I don't know that a majority of people completely fell for the fearmongering, and there were many who spoke out against it. But even the people who were terrorized towards the "Islamofascist" boogieman or ready to give up civil liberties ('if you got nothing to hide...') can hardly be blamed for falling for a relentless, omnipresent, well-organized propaganda campaign based on truths, half-truths and untruths told by our credible government and press. I think without doubt, as a country we have to be better, but all of the people cannot be blamed for the sins of the lying fearmongers.
June 20, 2009 1:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I totally agree with you Don Key.
I wonder what would happen if when asked to remove our shoes at the airport, we all collectively laughed out loud and said, "don't be absurd."
Keep your shoes on, people! (Barefoot, you are exempt, as you haz no shoes to take off)
June 20, 2009 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink