Cowardice writ large

Why do we as a nation accept events like the Iraq war and possible conflict with Iran as necessary while sadly shaking our heads at events like the conflict in Darfur and other areas of Africa and accepting them as just the way life goes? Why do we shudder in horror at the prospect of paying $5 a gallon for gas while gladly paying $12 a gallon for water--a necessity of life that runs freely from our tap. Why are people so willing to believe any nonsense they hear about Obama and Muslims without finding out facts?

Fear.

Fear of what will happen when things change. Fear of the unknown. And I don't mean the good change; the change that is sold to us by professional marketers. Like the fact that all of our TVs are going to be obsolete in another 8 months. That kind of change is good--it's progress. It's something that will benefit powerful people and so they have a vested interest in making people excited for the change. But if you think that your life is going to be improved in any way because we all have to have a digital converter box for our TVs, well, enjoy your water.

Home of the Brave? Nope. We as a society have lost our collective faith in our ability to innovate, adapt, survive. And it is clear why. We are bombarded with messages everyday that tell us to be afraid of everything from the environment and our food, to lite-brite signs on the Boston highways and lipsticks on airline flights. We have become a nation of cowards, crippled at the prospect of having to face a life where our saftey is not guarenteed. And if our notion of security is not met 100%, then it cannot be the result of an accident--a series of events which result in an outcome beyond anyone's control--someone must be to blame.

We are afriad of changing the way we live to account for new information, new technologies, new paradigms.

If this fear only affected our personal lives that would merely be sad; it is unfortunate that the best of life is not yet to come but instead the future holds a fightening uncertainty. But this cowardice becomes sinful when it causes us to work and fight to preserve "foolish consistencies" at the expense of others.

Which is not to suggest that all change is good. Over the last 50 years we have exposed the world to a slew of manmade chemicals which are destroying us. We could not understand the consequences of our actions then, given the information we had. But at the same time, we need to stop living in fear. Ask yourself why you feel a thing is right or wrong and check to see that your reasons a grounded in fact, logic, reality.

And then, be brave.

When presented with a choice that may mean you will have to take a risk where the possible outcome might benefit a greater number of people, be brave. Be brave and make the right choice, whatever that is, because it is the right choice

When it comes time to vote for Universal Healthcare; be brave.
When it comes time to vote for energy policy that will mean smaller cars; be brave.
When it comes time to vote for tax policy that will ask those with more to do more (and don't bother with the beer analogy--it doesn't work); be brave.
And, when it comes time to vote for a person--man or woman--with different skin tone, who may have a unique name, who may have a different cultural background, who may even practice a different religion; be brave and make your choice the right one, not just the safe one.

What's our oil doing under their sand? Part 2--Ethics

James Cash, a retired general authored an opinion piece entitled "Middle East Imperative". In it he predicts the future of our energy supply:

Do you have any idea what will happen if the entire Middle East turns their support to Iran, which they will obviously do if we pull out? It is not the price of oil we will have to worry about. Oil WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE to this country at any price.
.....
The economy in this country will totally die if that Middle East supply is cut off right now. It will not be a recession. It will be a depression that will make 1929 look like the ‘good-old-days’.

He might very well be correct in this assertion, although it is quite a conclusion to jump to. He is assuming that the entire Middle East will turn its support to Iran, that the entire Middle East, including Iran, will completely cut off the oil supply to the single largest consumer of energy in the world (although we will be surpassed soon by China and/or India), and that because of these two occurrences our economy will come to a grinding halt. There can be no question about one thing, given our current dependence on Middle East oil, if all the nations in the Middle East decide to cut off supply to us, it will cripple our economy. However, it doesn't seem likely that the disparate nations will be able to coordinate their efforts to that end.

Cash's argument hinges on the above unlikely proposition because the solution he calls for needs a radical event to justify it:

The bottom line here is simple. If Iran is forced to fall in line, the fighting in Iraq will end over night, and the nightmare will be over.

One way or another, Iran must be forced to join modern times and the global community. It may mean a real war—if so, now is the time, before we face a nuclear Iran with the capacity to destroy Israel and begin a new ice age.

It may appear that Cash's radical event is the military threat posed to Israel and the resulting ice age (how he gets there is beyond me), but what he is really suggesting is that now is the time to force Iran to bend to our needs--including using a "real war" to force them(Seymour Hersh has reported the the U.S. military is conducting clandestine operations in Iran right now with the knowlege of the Democratic Leadership). "Our needs" in this case is our energy needs in order to avoid an economic depression.

Cash's bold assertion can be summed up in one sentence. People must die so we can continue to live according to the lifestyle we've become accustomed to.

Many times in our nation's history people have had to die to make way for the American way of life: whether it is the decimation of the indigenous tribes; the enslavement of African people; or just the incidental deaths on banana and sugar plantations as U.S. companies tried to maintain control over an unruly population who did not understand the niceties of capitalism and wished to maintain local control over local resources. But usually the majority agrees to a nice, antiseptic version of the real story, or will at least cling to that version until it is impossible to sustain (sometimes 200 years later). But Cash is willing to come right out and say it. Sure, like the Bush administration, he pays lip service to the notion that this is a moral imperative when invoking Israel, but it is only that. He stays focused on the true nature of our involvement in the Middle East.

It is unacceptable that in a nation that claims Christian morals and ethics, that claims the moral high ground when dealing with other nations, this would be considered acceptable. I can at least understand Cash's rationale for his statement: as a career military man whose first responsibility is to be victorious in the shortest amount of time, using the fewest resources, and at the least cost of U.S. life, I wouldn't blame Cash for advocating the most possible force in the shortest span of time. The postscript to Cash's piece reads:

‘I’ll tell you what war is all about; you’ve got to kill people, and when you’ve killed enough they stop fighting.’ Gen. Curtis LeMay

But the rest of us need to be sure we are a tempering force to that impulse. At the very least, we should not force people like LeMay and Cash into situations where they place people at the end of a barrel for $40 a barrel. At the very least, we should not be asking the men and women of the military to risk their lives, their psyche, and their soul, and sacrifice time with their families so we can continue to build and hear 4000 sq. ft. homes, drive military grade vehicles on U.S. highways, watch thousands of channels on 60 in. flatscreen TVs.

IT. IS. WRONG!

We are not talking about being in danger, defending our friends, family, and homes. We are talking about living a decadent lifestyle that we cannot afford--not as individuals and not as a society. This is not a partisan issue. We should all be on the same page on this issue regardless of whether we are a liberal pacifist, a radical anti-capitalist, a conservative who regards family values and right-to-life as paramount, or pro-military who no longer wish to be used in the service of enriching the pockets of the wealthy only to be underfunded and understaffed.

If we can no long sustain our way of life given current and future energy costs, then WE need to change, not force others to change--and especially not through war.