re: what do you suggest...rolling over....taking it.....
I hear you. You're scared. You've been scared, since 9/11. Everything the President says, everything you see on CNN, it feeds your fear. The President sees ghosts in the closet, monsters under the bed, WMD in Iraq, and so do you. Your fear makes you angry, and your anger makes you hate, and your hate makes you lash out. Hit something, anything. Just hit, and keep hitting, till the fear goes away.
You, personally, probably aren't doing any hitting. Others of your tribe will do it for you, and your grandchildren will pay the taxes that pay off the debts that pay for today's Hitting Back. No risk, no cost, for you personally. But it feels so good, vicariously. Like watching Arnold in Terminator.
Myth:
The War Party people are courageous; the Peace Party people are cowards. The followers of Gandhi, who took on the British Empire, they were cowards. The followers of ML King, who endured a campaign of hundreds of church-bombings and lynchings, whose marches were broken up with police dogs and water cannon and sometimes bullets, they were cowards. The millions of unarmed East Germans, who went into the streets of Leipzig and E. Berlin, and faced down the Communist's tanks, they were cowards. The American woman who stood in front of an Israeli armoured bulldozer, just like the Chinese man who stood in front of a line of tanks in Tienamin Square, she too was a coward.
Myth:
Only people who believe in solving problems by killing their fellow man, are courageous. Only they have the bravery to kill their enemies, and accept the "collateral damage" and "unfortunate accidents" that, in the typical guerrilla war, kill 10 times as many civilians as combatants. The techno-warrior, who sits in a bunker in a heavily protected base, watching a screen, and pushes a button, and a drone aircraft drops a bomb and kills some people (who were identified as the enemy, based on vague and uncertain Intelligence), this warrior (and the people who cheer him on), he has courage. Only him.
Myth:
Only the War Party loves their country; the Peace Party hates their country. Peace and Patriotism are opposites, mutually exclusive.
Myth:
The War Party has the only solutions. They are the only hard-headed Realists, the only ones who know how to GetThingsDone. There are only two solutions to any foreign policy problem: kill or submit. Escalate without limit, or appease. Be an alpha male wolf, snapping and snarling at the slightest hint of revolt in the pack. Or roll over and expose your belly. Those are always the only two choices.
Truth:
"All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time.... I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing." - President Eisenhower in 1953, after being shown plans for a preventive war against the Soviet Union.
Truth:
Tolerance, openness and understanding towards other peoples' cultures, social structures, values and faiths are now essential to the very survival of an interdependent world. Pluralism is no longer simply an asset or a prerequisite for progress and development, it is vital to our existence.- The Aga Khan (1936- ) Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims
Truth:
At one time all people were only one nation. - The Koran 2:213
I hear you. You're scared. I'm scared, too. Yes, I know, you can't admit you're scared, so I'll do it for both of us. What scares me the most, is that your fear causes you to do things that make more and more people hate you and me. Your methods, a near-random Hitting Back, this is losing the war. And you are so frozen in fear, you won't even consider alternative methods of fighting our war.
I'm scared, and I see your fear, and I'll keep holding up the mirror till you see it too. Then, maybe, we can change our methods, and win this war. |
