Particularly on a gorgeous day like today. Unfortunately, however, Lileks got
me thinking this morning and the lovely breeze floating in through the
window hasn't knocked the meanderings loose. And it was one freakin'
sentence that got me going, too. Could it be that all the glorious
psuedo-back-to-school mental activities will be back up and running
soon? I dunno. We'll have to see. As far as the sentence is concerned,
well, here it is:
There’s a scene towards the end in which Veronica Lake
prods Raven to consider that there are bigger dramas playing out in the
world. It’s everyone’s war, she says. Stop thinking about yourself.
“If I don’t, who will,†Raven replies.
What I got to wondering about is this
what our problem is nowadays? With the War on Terror. That we're too
bloody selfish to realize that even if we're not making the immediate,
front line sacrifices, that we pretend there aren't any to begin with?
That there isn't a war to begin with? Are we, here in the U.S. and
elsewhere, that spoiled?
I have to think we are. What other reason could there be for ignoring
the fact that almost three thousand people died on 9/11, that we were
forced to change our foriegn policy, and people are still harping on about how BUSHLIED! There weren't any WMD's in Iraq!
It's bothering, to say the least. I made the mistake of watching the
local news last night and they were running a story on the new overtime
rules that go into effect today. Who else would they go to for
reaction---here in the People's Republic of Minnesota---than the local
president of the AFL-CIO? Never mind the fact that this guy wasn't out
there pounding the pavement promoting bread lines for the impoverished
workers of the state. No bread lines are needed: chances are, if you're
a Teamster, you're making pretty good coin. Never mind that the footage
of the AFL-CIO building, which they showed him walking into, had a nice
fat (and oh so cheap vehicle of the people!) Harley-Davidson parked
right in front of it. Never mind the working people he claims to
represent, his main objection to these new overtime rules---which
Congress approved---are a bad idea because Bush proposed them. "There weren't any WMD's in Iraq."
That's what the guy said. He didn't bother to comment on the worthiness
of the new regulations. He said there weren't any WMD's in Iraq---and
that was it. Of course, it was said with a knowing smirk that
reportedly explained it all. I kept wondering what, precisely, to WMD's
have to do with overtime rules? Explain that one to me, O' Local Swami
of the Hoffas.
When I read Lileks it struck me that we are in a very different world
nowadays. Here you have a movie made in 1942, where a fedoraed, Lucky
Strike smoking writer inserted a line like, "It's everyone's war" into
a movie script and probably thought nothing of it. It's everyone's war. Stop thinking about yourself.
Back then a writer was probably encouraged to write that line to
perform a little morale building. To remind people of what their
sacrifices were for. Can you imagine a writer inserting a line like
that nowadays?
I can't. Nowadays we'd get a movie where the hero would be encouraged
to be selfish. That fighting for something greater than oneself is a bad
thing because the very concept of the "greater good" inherently ignores
the individual. It's hard to find the greater good when you have a
society filled with people who are encouraged at every turn to think of
nothing but "memememememegoddamnME!" I worry. Because people don't see
the big picture. That's the sacrifice our government has asked of us:
they asked us to see the big picture and some people are flat-out
refusing to gaze upon it. It's selfish. It takes for granted everything
the people who fought the last war, the last time people found the will
to fight for the greater good and succeeded, made possible. If someone
can't put down their cheez doodles for a long enough period of time to
understand that---ahem---these people want to kill us, that if we're
not vigiliant---ahem---they will,
then we're doomed. And they will deserve whatever befalls our great
country. Because they didn't bother to learn the lessons of the
Athenians, where the very idea of democracy sprang forth and, some time
later, inspired Jefferson. To skip through the history lesson quickly:
the Athenians got lazy and bickered their democracy to death. Sound
familiar? Of course, democracy is what makes all this lovely freedom of
speech possible. But people today, for some strange reason, don't think
that they could ever kill their democracy. They just don't think that's
a possibility, so they rally. They protest. They shoot their mouths
off. Then when the truth doesn't change minds, they start to lie, and
in those lies they breed mistrust. Then the other side gets involved
and the same thing happens all over again. Soon all you have are people
bickering at one another and nothing consequential and worthy happens.
I'll ask you again, does this sound familiar?
I worry. I worry that we'll be attacked again. I worry that the only
response the country will be able to muster is to bicker and wonder
what could be done to prevent such a thing. I worry that in the midst
of all this democracy
our freedom to live and do as we please, the best part of America, the
part all of our ancestors found so very appealing that they left
everything that they knew behind to come here and drink from the
fountain of liberty, will be gone. That hundreds of years from now
America will be a footnote in a history book and nothing more. I don't
know where I'm going with all of this. Like I said in the title,
thinking is bad for you, but man! When are people going to get it? Is
it going to take another series of attacks---God Forbid---before they
do, or will they only see what they want to see even then? When are we
all going to get on the same page?