Post by nana on May 9, 2006 2:34:27 GMT -5
Where did America's conscience go?
I've been wondering since before America's Iraqi war-crime began, where the conscience of her people had gone. Why were we not seeing the massive and ongoing protests that we saw during Vietnam? Why did it seem that the average American didn't care what was being done to people half way around the world or even to other people inside the USA?
As often happens, truths can be found in works of fiction.
Mercedes Lackey is one of my favourite authors of fantasy and as I read Sanctuary, book three of The Dragon Jousters Trilogy, the parallels to the war mongering and lies of the current US administration became clearer and clearer until parts of two paragraphs leapt off the page at me:
...." for a place that was clean, where people did not put each other to the flame because they could not be controlled.
And where other people did not stand by and watch them do so. He had thought the Tians were cruel. What the Magi had turned his own people into was something far worse -- people who now were so afraid for themselves that they lost every vestige of morality. ...
And that was what haunted him, the entire flight back. The priestess had called it a "rot". If so, it was a rot that killed the conscience, and maybe the soul along with it."
.... from page 339, Sanctuary.
Fear.
Well planned, carefully nurtured and refueled repeatedly until it becomes the rot that destroys the conscience, morality and compassion of a nation's people.
Fear has so warped the psyche of the average American that the illusion of their own safety is all they care about.
Torture is okay, as long as I'm safe.
War crimes are okay as long as I'm safe.
Bombing civilians is okay as long as I'm safe.
Ignoring treaties and even the Geneva Conventions is okay, as long as I'm safe.
It's okay to do whatever you want as long as you keep me safe.
For at least 4 long years, (how much longer must it seem for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq) there has been one fear mongering pronouncement after another, one fear mongering movie or TV show after another, terrorists, plagues, flu, and those stupid colour coded Threat Conditions, everything that can be used to add fuel to the fire of fear is used by the propaganda machine of the US administration which includes all of the media, including TV and film.
And then finally fear takes off on its own like a fire storm it becomes self perpetuating. People start fueling the fire for themselves in their conversations with others and their actions and racism and scapegoating become the new norm.
During the Vietnam war people in America did not feel personally threatened either by the North Vietnamese nor to any great extent by their own government - Kent State and its aftermath stand out as what seemed to be an exception - so the conscience of America survived and even thrived enough to finally put an end to that war.
As Michael Moore pointed out in his Bowling For Columbine, America now lives embedded in fear.
And now America lashes out and does it to others just in case the others might be possibly thinking of doing it to America.
Fear is like a cancer, a rot, that destroys conscience and morality and human decency and compassion.
Fear, the driving force behind the bully has turned America into The Land of the Fear and The Home of the Bully.
I've been wondering since before America's Iraqi war-crime began, where the conscience of her people had gone. Why were we not seeing the massive and ongoing protests that we saw during Vietnam? Why did it seem that the average American didn't care what was being done to people half way around the world or even to other people inside the USA?
As often happens, truths can be found in works of fiction.
Mercedes Lackey is one of my favourite authors of fantasy and as I read Sanctuary, book three of The Dragon Jousters Trilogy, the parallels to the war mongering and lies of the current US administration became clearer and clearer until parts of two paragraphs leapt off the page at me:
...." for a place that was clean, where people did not put each other to the flame because they could not be controlled.
And where other people did not stand by and watch them do so. He had thought the Tians were cruel. What the Magi had turned his own people into was something far worse -- people who now were so afraid for themselves that they lost every vestige of morality. ...
And that was what haunted him, the entire flight back. The priestess had called it a "rot". If so, it was a rot that killed the conscience, and maybe the soul along with it."
.... from page 339, Sanctuary.
Fear.
Well planned, carefully nurtured and refueled repeatedly until it becomes the rot that destroys the conscience, morality and compassion of a nation's people.
Fear has so warped the psyche of the average American that the illusion of their own safety is all they care about.
Torture is okay, as long as I'm safe.
War crimes are okay as long as I'm safe.
Bombing civilians is okay as long as I'm safe.
Ignoring treaties and even the Geneva Conventions is okay, as long as I'm safe.
It's okay to do whatever you want as long as you keep me safe.
For at least 4 long years, (how much longer must it seem for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq) there has been one fear mongering pronouncement after another, one fear mongering movie or TV show after another, terrorists, plagues, flu, and those stupid colour coded Threat Conditions, everything that can be used to add fuel to the fire of fear is used by the propaganda machine of the US administration which includes all of the media, including TV and film.
And then finally fear takes off on its own like a fire storm it becomes self perpetuating. People start fueling the fire for themselves in their conversations with others and their actions and racism and scapegoating become the new norm.
During the Vietnam war people in America did not feel personally threatened either by the North Vietnamese nor to any great extent by their own government - Kent State and its aftermath stand out as what seemed to be an exception - so the conscience of America survived and even thrived enough to finally put an end to that war.
As Michael Moore pointed out in his Bowling For Columbine, America now lives embedded in fear.
And now America lashes out and does it to others just in case the others might be possibly thinking of doing it to America.
Fear is like a cancer, a rot, that destroys conscience and morality and human decency and compassion.
Fear, the driving force behind the bully has turned America into The Land of the Fear and The Home of the Bully.
