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BEING A RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN IN A COMPLEX WORLD
01/10/2010
Each decade, indeed each year, the world gets more complex. When I think of the world I was born into, over sixty years ago, and compare it to today’s world, I am blown away.
I was born in 1947, just as World War II ended. This was my world: no cell phones, no personal computers, no e-mail, no microwaves, no ATM’s, no digital cameras, no remote controls, no pocket calculators, no videocassette recorders, no compact disks, no wrinkle-free clothes, no birth control pills, no fast food restaurants, no big box stores, no GPS, and no color televisions. Cars had neither seatbelts nor airbags, and rockets had not yet launched man into space. My mother, like most mothers, hung our clothes to dry on an outside clothesline, and then ironed them. She cooked dinner for us each night and packed our lunches for school each morning. We had a party-line telephone, which meant we shared a number with a neighbor, and couldn’t use our phone if he was using his. And our phones had actual dials.
The world was finally at peace, though we were at the start of a fifty year Cold War with the Soviet Union, and North Korea was acting up. The economy was growing, sparked partly by the defense industry that, having been cranked up during World War II, was now responding to the Russian menace. The other stimulus to the economy was provided by the returning veterans who were marrying, having children, getting jobs, and demanding houses and new products. The Middle Class began its greatest growth in history, thanks to the banking and financial regulations that had been put in place after the Great Depression. If you ignored the threat of nuclear annihilation that hung over us, it was a great time to live. A classic television series even celebrated it.
But those “Happy Days” are gone. Life today moves at lightning speed, and the world is a complicated place, its technological sophistication, its complex economy, and the problems it spins out, beyond the understanding of most of us.
In our own country, where we are both privileged and obligated to elect our own leaders to address the nation’s and the world’s complexities, we have three choices: we can learn all we can in order to participate intelligently; we can refuse to participate; or we can fool ourselves into believing things are much simpler than they are.
Refusing to participate is not a responsible option, and educating ourselves takes a great deal of time and effort. So, though I do not believe it is the best choice, I can understand wanting to simplify the world. At times, I am frustrated and overwhelmed by modern technology, as well as the corporations and banks that control my life. Television programs attempt to influence my thinking both directly and indirectly, and health insurance companies decide what doctor I can see and what treatments I will be allowed to have. Oil monopolies determine the price of gasoline I put in my car, and automakers put a price on cars that I may or may not be able to afford. Wall Street gambles secretively with everyone’s money and causes a massive recession. The internet spreads lies that millions of people believe before anyone has a chance to refute them. Radical men overseas plot to kill me and my countrymen, while some of my own countrymen, also radical, most of whom claim to be Christian, want to torture anyone they deem suspicious. Large corporations control elected officials with campaign contributions and threats. And in every venue, people lie to gain the upper hand. These are all entities and developments that I must attempt to understand if I am to be a responsible citizen.
Unfortunately, the desire of many people to return to a simpler world is being capitalized on today by a few powerful groups of people. The most obvious group is that of the Islamic radicals, offended by the modern world, angry at the United States and the West for meddling in their lands and influencing their believers. They want to obliterate the United States and return to a medieval society when women were subservient to men and people were executed for minor transgressions. They are willing to use violence to turn back the clock to a time they think was better. They are, of course, insane. That isn’t to say they are stupid. In fact, they are incredibly bright. They know technology and psychology. They know how to use both computers and personal persuasion to recruit a small number of men and women to completely disrupt our society. If you doubt that, look at how the hapless underwear bomber has dominated our news, caused an overhaul of our security regulations, and stolen the attention of the president and other lawmakers.
This incident is also an example of how politicians capitalize on the desire to understand and simplify a complex world. People don’t understand how this man could have gotten on a plane. They can’t grasp why the system failed. They still want to be children, protected by mommy and daddy from the bogey man, so they have to find someone to blame, someone to fire, someone to fight, someone to torture. A survey taken after the incident, in fact, found that 58% of Americans wanted the underwear bomber waterboarded. That would be bad enough, signaling a willingness to abandon our core principles as Americans, but it was also an indication of complete and utter ignorance. According to authorities, the young man was already spilling information faster than it could be recorded.
But no one does the make-it-simple blame game better than conservative Republican officials and former officials. So, within hours of the news that a young man had tried to detonate his underwear while on a plane over Detroit, the moles popped out of the ground and began chanting the same talking points, words they hoped would be believed by the citizens of America who want a simple explanation for everything. The words were spoken by Dick Cheney, Peter Hoekstra, Pete King, and Rudy Giuliani, among others.
Cheney said President Obama was trying to “pretend we are not at war.” Hoekstra and King followed, along with assorted other bobble-heads who wanted T.V. time, saying Obama never used the words “terror” or “terrorism.” They said the president had waited three whole days before he responded in words, and he was allowing the would-be bomber to “lawyer up.” Instead, they said, the young man should be sent to Guantanamo and waterboarded. Just two weeks later Rudy Giuliani was on television, echoing what Mary Matalin had said a few weeks earlier, and claiming there was never a terrorist attack while George W. Bush was president.
So let’s start with the obvious. The accusation that Obama refuses to use the word “terror” is easily refuted with video-clips of Obama’s speeches, in which he uses the words “terror” and “terrorism” many times, and even talks about being at war. It should be said, however, that Obama usually says we are at war with “violent extremists” or with “al Qaeda,” which are more accurate statements. You cannot be at war with an idea or a tactic. You only go to war against people, or against countries and organizations, which are made up of people. But Cheney and his merry band of lunatics thinks the simpletons in this country will confuse Obama’s precise language with weakness or a refusal to take terrorism seriously. And, of course, some will, especially those who hate Obama and want to believe the worst about him.
Now to the second point – that Obama had waited three whole days to officially respond. Of course, they leave out the fact that GWB took six days to respond to Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. Three days is lightning speed compared to how long it took Bush to respond. And for Obama, one of those three days was Christmas, a day when no one was paying attention to news. Surely, Obama can be given a few days to learn the facts so he can try to reassure the American people, rather than shoot his mouth off like Cheney and try to frighten everyone.
As for providing a lawyer for a defendant, something we Americans used to think was a good thing, Cheney and Co. think it is a travesty. Though the Constitution says otherwise, Cheney thinks we need different rules of justice for different kinds of crimes. He doesn’t trust, and frankly never did trust or abide by, the Constitution. His actions, and those of his assistant Scooter Libby, show that he thinks he is above the law.
As for sending the underwear bomber to Guantanamo, this would be a first. Guantanamo is where we sent men we had rounded up in Afghanistan and Iraq, not those who had perpetrated or plotted acts of terror while on the mainland. Every other terrorist or wannabe terrorist who has acted in the continental United States has been arrested, tried, and sentenced here in our courts: Richard Reid, Ramzi Yousef, the blind Sheik, and Zacarias Moussaoui. All have been given life sentences, none have escaped from the maximum security prisons where they are being held, and none will ever be released. Likewise, Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, is in prison in the United States and will be tried here. And at least two of those terrorists, Reid and Moussaoui, were tried and convicted in American civilian courts while Bush was president.
Finally, Rudy Giuliani said the unbelievable – that there had never been a terrorist attack on George W. Bush’s watch. He conveniently forgot the worse terrorist attack ever on American soil. Though he ran around the city on September 11, 2001, hopping in front of the camera from time to time to document his travels, he now says it never happened. Nor, according to Rudy, did Richard Reid try to blow up an airplane in 2001, in a scenario very similar to the one that happened on Christmas Day.
I know there are people who despise Barack Obama, for any number of reasons – because Sara Palin’s facebook writers accuse him of wanting to "kill Grandma," because Glenn Beck accuses him of being a socialistcommunistfascist, because he’s a Democrat, because his speechwriter doesn’t feed him Biblical language to use as a dog whistle to evangelicals, because he was elected by the people, or because he is black.
And many of these people would like to return to a world where a simpleton like George W. Bush could actually run our country. But we see what Bush did to the country. He left it in a shambles on any number of fronts. He ignored the warnings he received prior to 9/11; he waged an unnecessary, costly, and irresponsible war; he wrecked the economy; and he nearly destroyed the Middle Class. But by God, he used the words “terror” and “terrorist” and “war on terror” and that makes him the tough guy that frightened people want to believe in.
But you can’t simplify the world with words, or with a re-writing of history. You can’t put out talking points that divide us into good and bad, right and wrong, black and white, and think that will keep us safe or solve our complex problems. We don’t need dunces in Congress attacking the president, or a cynical former Vice president who didn’t even believe in the law when he was in office, telling the current president how to prosecute terrorists. We don’t need hate and prejudice. We don’t need lies and liars. We don’t need uneducated ignoramuses like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck attacking a man merely for ratings and political gain, knowing they can appeal to those Americans who want to be fed pablum.
We need people in office who are intelligent and know what they are doing. We need people who, instead of calling their opponents names, want to get busy and solve the multitude of problems we have in this incredibly complex world.
It’s tempting to make the world simple enough to understand. It’s easier to hate all Muslims than figure out why some are turning to terrorism and root them out. It’s easier to scream “war on terror” than to actually fight flesh and blood terrorists. It’s simpler to believe Obama wants to “kill Grandma” than to understand what an advance directive is and why everyone should have one. It’s easier to hate Obama because someone you like calls him a Communist than it is to admit your discomfort with his skin color.
We can’t go back to those simple days in the 1940s when I was born. The world will only get more complex as time goes on, and I am thrilled that we have someone in the White House who is thoughtful and intelligent, who understands our laws and the Constitution, and who is trying to address the many problems we face as a country. I don’t expect him to solve everything, and I am sure he will make mistakes. I’m not even happy with everything he’s done while in office. I am confident, though, that he understands the complexity of this world in a way George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Peter Hoekstra and Rudy Giuliani never did and never will. If any of them and their associates cared at all about this country and its people, they would pitch in and help, rather than scream hateful lies from their mole holes.
All content © 2005 outragedcitizen.com
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